Did the finale ruin Lost for you?

TELEVISION Specific Shows
1

My plan once Lost was finished was to revisit the series from the beginning and see it as a completed piece. Now that I’ve seen the finale, I have second thoughts. The island stuff was, in my mind, satisfactory but the whole sideways world was in my mind a big cop out and sort of soured the whole Lost experience for me. I thought the series was going to go for the mother of all mind-fucks with the two universes merging or something more interesting than “they were dead and this is the afterlife”.

I’ll probably revisit the series later on but the way the Sideways world revealed itself to be the afterlife really dampens that enthusiasm. Anyone else discouraged to revisit the series as a piece after the finale?

2

No. For five seasons, I was seriously entertained. The show didn’t stick the landing for me and that does hurt it overall. But I still love it. There are elements about the ending that I love as well, just not nearly enough of them. I’ll still take it over the X-Files.

3

The finale did not ruin LOST for me.

But the entire last season might have.

I used to tell people that, as long as it sticks the landing, LOST would end up being my third favorite TV show of all time. Suffice to say, I wouldn’t put it anywhere near my top five at this point.

4

The entire last season was pretty awful but the first 5 seasons still hold up and the first season is probably my favorite television season of any show.

So, it wasn’t perfect but I still really appreciate the series.

5

Sadly, yeah. I was asked tonight at happy hour whether Lost was worth watching, and I couldn’t say yes.

6

Nope, it was four excellent seasons by two mediocre ones. I have already recommended newbies watch it.

As for the original post, I recommend you rewatch the series accompanied by reading Jesse’s rewatch column. Not only will it make you appreciate the previous seasons more, but the finale won’t look so far out of left field either. It still has problems, for sure, but on the whole I feel much better about the show, and more importantly the finale, having viewed it through Jesse’s perspective.

7

It didn’t ruin the series for me at all because I actually really liked the finale. And even if I didn’t I’d still wholeheartedly recommend the show to friends, since there have been way too many great moments and performances along the way.
I’m still planning on going through the entire series again.

8

It devalued the flashsideways for me. Robbed them of the juice. The rest of the series remains intact.

9

The only thing I wasn’t thrilled with was the last 15 minutes, so no, not ruined. And, as Diva said, after I read Jesse’s column, I even felt a tad bit better about that (but not much).

10

Not at all. It probably did ruin the Sideways scenes when I rewatch season 6, and it wasn’t my favorite finale (The Wire, The Shield, Angel and Farscape’s finales all felt like better cappers), but I enjoyed it and what came before was too damned good for anything short of two hours of colonoscopy footage to diminish.

11

No, it didn’t ruin it. It couldn’t. Even if the series didn’t finish as strongly as it started, it can’t take away my previous enjoyment of it. It’s not like “Well, the finale sucked, so that means ‘Walkabout’ and other great episodes are no longer great in hindsight”. I dig the series more than I didn’t.

12

Yes, to the original (titular) question. I have seasons 1-4 on DVD and had been planning on getting them all and re-watching at some point. But no longer.

I never believed I was going to get a satisfactory explanation for the island or the mysteries surrounding it after season 3, when the 4th season went far enough into wacky territory that it could never be anything other than a “magic island.”

What I wanted was a satisfying resolution for the characters. I didn’t get it. Let me put it in terms of who I saw as the 4 main characters over the course of most of the show:

I guess the whole point of Jack’s character was to have him accept his fate as savior of the island. But since the island’s relationship with the rest of the world is never fully revealed or verified, all we’re left with is, “OK, I guess he saved the world… I think.” Did Jack’s ultimate sacrifice really matter?

John Locke’s story came to a pathetically sad and quiet end at some point in season 5, but even though he was a favorite character among fans, we didn’t know for sure until the 6th season that the writers had him killed off as a confused failure of a man, but tricked us by re-casting the actor as a brand new villain created just for the last season, like General Grievous.

I thought Kate was supposed to end up with either Jack or Sawyer, but she ends up with no one and does nothing in the last season, and ultimately serves no purpose in the series. She escapes with Sawyer at the end, but whether or not they get together after that is pointless, because they don’t show it, and more importantly Sawyer’s true love is apparently Juliet anyway.

And finally, Sawyer. What should have been the joyous reunion of Sawyer and Juliet in the alternate time-line, when they remember their life on the island together-- it turns out that was just part of remembering that they were dead, and that it was time to “move on.” That was the most emotionally effective scene in the finale for me until the ending undercut it and robbed it of its power-- what I had previously seen as Sawyer and Juliet rediscovering each other, with the joy of realizing they could now spend their (real, or so I thought) lives together, was really just them remembering it was time to go to church. Forever.

13

I, too, bought all the boxed sets (just last month after a financial windfall of sorts) in anticipation of rewatching the series before the Season 6 boxed set came out, hoping for a changed perspective knowing where it was all leading. Now, I’ll probably sell them, still unopened. But it’s not that the finale ruined the show for me, it’s that the finale ruined Season 6 for me, and resultantly S6 ruined the show for me. But just because the sum doesn’t add up for me doesn’t mean I have lost my love for the parts.

I am left feeling miffed like I was by The Matrix trilogy:

S1-3 were like The Matrix, mind blowing and absolutely the shit. I couldn’t wait for what happened next.

S4-5 were like Matrix Reloaded, slipping in spots but thoroughly entertaining and foreshadowing the mind-blowing conclusion to come.

S6 was like Matrix Revolutions, compelling in and of itself but failing the mythos established by the previous entries. The explanations, and lack thereof, of what I had previously watched took the creative low road and failed to satisfy all the wonder and mystery alluded to earlier.

Still, I like Lost as a whole better than The Matrix trilogy inasmuch as I like a perfectly ripe Fuji apple better than an artificially-colored California navel orange. Ans strangely enough in retrospect I think my favorite episode of S6 was the finale.

14

Not ruined but certainly affected. I think a great feature on the DVD set of the last season would be where they edit out all of the afterlife storyline. I mean really you could actually have a strong last season with just the on island story although ya know shorter.

15

Not ruined. But the flash-sideways are definitely ruined.

16

No. I loved the series, overall. I hated the ending but for the most part I loved the ride.

17

No show has affected me the way Lost has. It had me leaping to my feet and shrieking with shock. But sadly yes, any plans I had to revisit it have been dulled to say the least. I will add that Jesse’s recap brought to the show an entirely new level which I am grateful for. Jesse you really are the man.

Funnily enough I remember about halfway through season 4 (which is probably the highpoint for me) discussing with my wife what we would do if the ending wasn’t up to scratch. If I’m honest the declining quality of season 6 softened the blow for me.

Having said that it remains one of my favourite shows of all time and I would have no problem recommending it.

18

As someone who likes the finale a lot, I suppose I should be irritated with all the people whining about it ruining the whole series for them. But all I can do now is laugh. But if you think the show was pulling a massive con, you were right. It wasn’t the show you thought it was if you think the finale ruined everything. The same goes for Battlestar Galactica. I feel a little sad that you’re depriving yourself of the future pleasure of revisiting these series five or ten years down the line and rediscovering all the wonders and insanity, but oh well.

19

Yeah, I’ll never watch LOST again. The pretense that it was all going somewhere, contrasted with the nothing that we ended up with, has soured me forever. I kinda knew it was going nowhere once time travel showed up, and I started hearing Daniel’s physics-babble, and when they spent an entire season ignoring the characters in favor of this go nowhere science fiction, I lost all hope. But it was fun to watch them crash and burn.

20

Yup. Lost is ruined.

As soon as the freighter storyline came up, the series dipped in quality. It went overboard.

I didn’t expect to get all the answers, as it’s Lost, but still, we barely got good character development, and as for the Island stuff, we got nothing.

All the intelligence of the first 4 seasons? Gone. I know the fans probably made a lot of stuff up (and let’s be honest, it was better than the finale), but still, anyone with a brain could have come up with something better than the purgatory. Now that the story ended, the amount of filler storylines and characters is quite staggering. I’m all for open ends and mysteries, but there has to be a good structure to support it, By the end, Lost was hollow. All flash, no substance. We got good moments, but when a show goes with building a mystery and avoid delivering on it, you got to have a good theme behind it. Having the “they were great friends” theme was pretty sappy, even for soap operas. None of the hinted intelligence behind the first seasons (all the literary references, the names of characters like famous philosophers, the Cassimir effect name dropped, etc…)

EDIT: And Shark, sorry, but in my mind, the BSG had a pretty good finale that tied the series back to it’s roots, not matter how flawed the last 2 seasons were. Lost’s finale was garbage that capped a season that shattered the illusion of intelligence the series held up.