I agree about the effects and production value. They've always been terrible, but given how much time was spent moving sacred corks around and what not, they were really problematic in the finale.

I think rather than religious afterlife, one reading of the ending is that it's sort of a Riverworld.

Another possible reading, which I prefer (right now) is that the whole sideways timeline was just Jack's pleasant dream at the end. The whole show wasn't a dream, just the alternate reality.

So you've got a faith vs. reason kind of breakdown at the end. I think I like that part of it. I'll be curious to see the 3 alternate endings that I missed. But, yeah, there were a lot of weak moments in the thing (just like the 6th season overall).

This is directed at Allen and not Charles who managed to sneak in there while I was writing my post. First off, the Island was not the afterlife. Tonight’s episode made it clear that events that happened on or off the Island happened and when a character died on or off the Island they went to the "sideways" universe which served as a sort of way station where characters gathered until they were ready to cross over to whatever existence waited for them behind the light. If you want to call that the afterlife then so be it but the island wasn't it. When Sawyer, Kate, Claire, Frank, Richard and Miles flew away in the Aljira plane they presumably went onto to live for a great many more years. That's probably why Kate told Jack that she had missed him so much. And from what Hurley and Ben said to each other outside of the church they probably wound up spending decades and decades protecting the island before they gave up the ghost.

As far as the music goes it’s obviously a matter of personal taste but I’ve always found the music on Lost to very evocative and perfectly suited to the series. And besides composer Michael Giacchino didn’t win all of those Oscar, Emmy and Grammy awards for nothing. And I’m sorry but it’s a little late to complain about the Prisoner reference since they’ve been inserting Prisoner references ever since the second season. I will agree with you about the length of the commercial breaks but to bust Lost and ABC’s chops about it when all of the other broadcast and cable networks are guilty of the same thing is a little silly. Have you tried to watch anything on AMC lately? You can practically go to McDonalds and back during one of their breaks.

Whether or not people will be debating Lost in the years to come is something that I’m willing to leave to the future where it belongs. As far as the ending goes I have to admit that I liked it with the exception of a couple of minor reservations that didn’t really mar the conclusion. I’m actually reminded of what Stephen king said to those fans who didn’t like the way he concluded his final “Dark Tower” book. He told them that they may not have liked the ending but it was only one that he had.

Heh!

I had never watched "Lost" before, but out of curiosity last night, I kept flipping to ABC to check out the final episode that everyone was yammering about.

In a 90-minute period, I flipped over a half-dozen times at random from public television.

Every single time, I got a commercial, and then another commercial, and then I shrugged and went back to public television.

If there was an actual program buried in the commercials, it was very well hidden!

I went to a friend's house and watched it on TiVo, so I didn't have to sit through the commercials. The show was around 1 hour and 45 minutes without them.

Also, I agree with Allen about the music. The bad knock-off of Morricone during the initial showdown between the 2 groups is a really bad instance. Generally, I like Giacchino's score, but it was too often used in the finale to drive the drama in with a hammer.


Yeah, that's one possibility, but everyone I can think of has a lot problems. For instance, in this scenario, why was Aaron still an infant? Why no Walt? (Michael is presumedly still on the island.) And why would they live out a seemingly ordinary life in that world, but have to get switched on if they collectively created it (as Christian said)?

The problem with my sideways timeline as a dying dream theory is that Desmond and Juliet clearly had visions of it.

Of course, the island is an agent in all this, which should be taken into account.

The alternate endings were a joke. Seriously. The first one, the guy from Survivor shows up and Sayid is voted off the island. The second was another plane crash, like Seinfeld. And lastly, it was all a dream in Bob Newhart's bedroom.

When Mark Evanier predicts your jokes, you know you're scraping.

And it was a two-and-a-half-hour extravaganza?

So 30 percent of the broadcast was commercials.

Man! Television really is the way to get the sheep willingly to sit through Burger King, Chrysler and Stayfree Maxi Pads advertisements.

Yep, I saw them online. I was confused, because there were 4 endings filmed for the finale, so that the actors and crew wouldn't know what the actual ending was going to be.

The final shot was the airplane still on the island, broken into a million pieces and grown over with vegetation. Not in one piece, and definitely not flyable.

Also, if they could have just backed out and flown away, why did this series last so long?



If it was always that bad... well, I don't like most Spielberg pictures for the same reason.

What are your reading from this? I thought it was just something to put the credits over, not part of the narrative. Jack saw a plane successfully flying overhead just before he died.