Lost Season 6 Thread - Series Finale: Sunday, May 23rd!

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I thought season 1 was garbage personally.  It was all a bunch of "Sawyer took my toothbrush!" followed by flashbacks of why Sawyer loved toothbrushes.  IMO the show didn't start to get interesting until they blew open the hatch but then that was all season 2 and 3 stuff which you can basically flush down the toilet now because none of that shit matters in the end.  Just a waste of time.

[fistfulofmetal]

The end of LOST is starting to remind me of the end of BSG. "OMG THEY PUT GOD IN MY BSG! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!"

I loved the BSG finale.

Hate this shit, tho.

[Mupepe]

I thought season 1 was garbage personally.  It was all a bunch of "Sawyer took my toothbrush!" followed by flashbacks of why Sawyer loved toothbrushes.  IMO the show didn't start to get interesting until they blew open the hatch but then that was all season 2 and 3 stuff which you can basically flush down the toilet now because none of that shit matters in the end.  Just a waste of time.

I loved Season 1 when I first saw it, but it's pretty unwatchable when you have already seen what the rest of the show is about.  Did you watch it all in order or start with something later?

Season 2 is my favorite followed by Season 3.  And yeah, both seasons pretty much mean nothing now.  the last two seasons have taken a big giant shit on everything the first 4 seasons built.

[Himu]

Season 1 is the best because the premise is so simple THAT should have been what the show is about. Brevity is the soul of wit.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I thought season 1 was garbage personally.  It was all a bunch of "Sawyer took my toothbrush!" followed by flashbacks of why Sawyer loved toothbrushes.  IMO the show didn't start to get interesting until they blew open the hatch but then that was all season 2 and 3 stuff which you can basically flush down the toilet now because none of that shit matters in the end.  Just a waste of time.

I loved Season 1 when I first saw it, but it's pretty unwatchable when you have already seen what the rest of the show is about.  Did you watch it all in order or start with something later?

Season 2 is my favorite followed by Season 3.  And yeah, both seasons pretty much mean nothing now.  the last two seasons have taken a big giant shit on everything the first 4 seasons built.

I didn't watch season 1 when it aired but bought the DVD box when it was released because of all the hype surrounding the show with the start of season 2.  I could barely make it through it though until it started to kick into gear towards the last couple of episodes.  But I did watch the series in order.

[Mupepe]

oh.  I dunno.  I was in love with Season 1 for so long... then after season 3 or so I went back and watched it and just thought "hurry the fuck up!"

[The Fake Shemp]

 I'm asking how people didn't see it coming.  

Because the show has never been this bad or disrespected its audience to this degree. That's how!

One post earlier

Well, I have been suspecting for quite some time that this was the logical outcome

oooookay Willco. 

Cajole nailed it. I had suspected this was coming, but I wildly underestimated how much the writers hate their audience. My major problem with the show's writing staff was the seemingly inability to answer any questions and drag out this whole ordeal, not that that the writers were incompetent.

That changed last night. It was horrific.

As for ManaByte, I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that the show has answered anything that hasn't been cobbled together by fan communities. Also, saying that spirituality was ingrained in its mythos is laughable. Spirituality was ingrained in Locke's character, who was looking for faith in the face of pseudo-science - not the show.

For much of its run, Lost was about people discovering how some crazy scientists were doing wacky experiments on an island with wacky scientific properties and polar bears and some kind of nano-machine swarm that made clicking sounds and killed people. The "smoke monster" was by its very nature established as some kind of pseudo-scientific entity considering that it was thwarted by - gasp! - science!

The show clearly established a set of ground rules for its universe, one where wacky science was okay. And it has abandoned that in favor of some really shitty, tropical version of Carnivale.

[Mupepe]

I thought the ground rules got thrown out the window when dudes started becoming psychic (Desmond), talking to dead people (Miles) and they started making time travel and parallel universes a regular thing.  It just didn't seem like the same show at all.

[The Fake Shemp]

All of that stuff falls under paranormal or pseudo-science. I don't really know why that would throw you for a loop, anymore than polar bears and nano-machine swarms. Time travel, paranormal phenomenon and/or the ability to teleport, was established pretty much from the get-go.

It seemed pretty obvious from the first season that we were heading towards Philadelphia Experiment territory, which is all fine and dandy, but then don't bust out some kind of spiritual good versus evil battle. The limited spirituality worked when it was Locke trying to explain the unexplainable in the only way he knew how, but it's like the writers decided to chuck everything else out the window.

[demi]

I dont think Desmond is actually psychic

[Saint Cornelius]

I could be wrong, but I think Willco is suffering from a bit of jealousy in regards to Lost's success.

[Mupepe]

Because even up until season 3 they had the bear cages implying that the bears weren't simply teleported but that they were simply brought there for some kind of research or some other shit.  Like you said, they had a pseudo science feel with ground rules set in the beginning and I just figured during Season 4 that they were going to go batshit insane and not stick to them.  

[Mupepe]

I dont think Desmond is actually psychic

well he had his future flashes or whatever.  i felt it was moving into the out there supernatural direction around there. 

[Barry Egan]

The point has always been that the pseudo-science and the mystical faith-based elements of the show are layered on top of one another.  What for Jack or Faraday has a scientific explanation for is for Locke a matter of faith.  A glowing cave of light is either some mystical source or electro-magnetic energy depending on who you ask.  Jacob has "faith" in his mothers explanation while Titus chills with the human researchers who offer technical explanations.  It's the same dynamic the shows been using since forever. It's just that the execution was super corny.

[The Fake Shemp]

Because even up until season 3 they had the bear cages implying that the bears weren't simply teleported but that they were simply brought there for some kind of research or some other shit.

I think the existence of a 19th century trading ship in the middle of the island, along with wacky science, "the numbers" and the "smoke monster", pretty much set the precedent that we were in Bermuda Triangle/Philadelphia Experiment territory early on. Desmond and the mythos surrounding The Hatch and its electromagnetic pseudo-science only solidified in later seasons.

The ground rules were set from the get-go.

[The Fake Shemp]

The point has always been that the pseudo-science and the mystical faith-based elements of the show are layered on top of one another.  What for Jack or Faraday has a scientific explanation for is for Locke a matter of faith.

Except that's not really accurate. The entire show was founded on pseudo-science; it was only Locke that had a vague notion of faith to explain what was being touted as pseudo-science by everyone else. That was more or less something specific to the character of Locke, not the show.

Again, early on, all of the mysteries in the show were pseudo-scientific, from DHARMA, to the smoke monster, to The Hatch, to the pregnancies, etc. There is no way that after the first three or four seasons that an audience could assume that the reason why all this stuff was happening is because of some underground watering hole filled with light and protected by deities.

[The Fake Shemp]

Why is this parody better than the show?

[youtube=560,345]9DcnB_WLXWo[/youtube]

EDIT: By the way, I'm down with a vague layer of spirituality being added to the show (to which it always has, courtesy of Locke and Eko), but when you decide that all of the lingering questions now hinge on that element - and you answer them with some horrible religions fan fiction - well, uh, this is the result.

[Barry Egan]

Except that's not really accurate. The entire show was founded on pseudo-science; it was only Locke that had a vague notion of faith to explain what was being touted as pseudo-science by everyone else.

If you say so.  I'm pretty sure the antagonism between Jack and Locke has been the centerpiece of literally every season though.  And yeah I'll be disappointed if the ending of the show merely reiterates that antagonism, as this episode did, instead of offering a resolution to it.  But it's hardly surprising to me that that's the direction things are heading.       

[Mupepe]

Except that's not really accurate. The entire show was founded on pseudo-science; it was only Locke that had a vague notion of faith to explain what was being touted as pseudo-science by everyone else.

If you say so.  I'm pretty sure the antagonism between Jack and Locke has been the centerpiece of literally every season though.  And yeah I'll be disappointed if the ending of the show merely reiterates that antagonism, as this episode did, instead of offering a resolution to it.  But it's hardly surprising to me that that's the direction things are heading.       

That's how I feel.  I just don't see how people are surprised.  What were you guys thinking when Jacob was really revealed and he was this semi christ dude?  You really thought you'd get your pseudo science answer after that?

[Eel O'Brian]

that's not the problem for me personally, once jack's dead dad started barefootin' in the woods i knew there was going to be a ghost story to go along with all the grainy cryptic videotapes about not letting the rabbits touch

the problem for me is that they're not really answering much of anything, and the questions/mysteries they do bother with all seem like throwaway answers

as i wrote earlier in this thread, seems like they're depending on the fanatics to fill in the plot holes while they concentrate on cramming as many "piano solo moments" into these last few hours, and that's just lazy writing

[Barry Egan]

I just read an interview where the writers state that they did have an explanation for the outrigger scene but they weren't able to fit it in to the season organically 

[BlueTsunami]

I wish DHARMA was more like Massive Dynamics in Fringe (first half of the first season) in that it was menacing an became what the show revolved around (and through that we find out the islands mysteries). But even in Fringe they played up Massive Dynamics that totally shit on it by shifting the focus completely to alternate dimensions.

[demi]

Well I cant defend much of this season, but I still think Lost is one of the best shows to come out in a long time. Suck on that, dinty moore

[Eel O'Brian]

and yet we got a whole episode of sideways kate on the run which was almost exactly like every other kate on the run episode

this season has been all stall, it was sort of obvious to me when they introduced caine from kung fu that they really only had about a half-season's worth of material and were just padding it out to 18 to fulfill contractual obligations

[The Fake Shemp]

Fringe had to shift away from Massive Dynamics, simply because the show was getting too formulaic five episodes in. It's overlapping parallel dimension storyline is much more compelling.

If you say so.  I'm pretty sure the antagonism between Jack and Locke has been the centerpiece of literally every season though.  And yeah I'll be disappointed if the ending of the show merely reiterates that antagonism, as this episode did, instead of offering a resolution to it.  But it's hardly surprising to me that that's the direction things are heading.

See: "By the way, I'm down with a vague layer of spirituality being added to the show (to which it always has had, courtesy of Locke and Eko), but when you decide that all of the lingering questions now hinge on that element - and you answer them with some horrible religious fan fiction - well, uh, this is the result."

The problem is, what you're talking about is not even what's on display. We're not getting vague faith versus pseudo-science, we're just getting distinguished mentally-challenged spiritual nonsense to poorly answer lingering questions - questions largely propped up by pseudo-science.

I'd have no qualms if Locke or a few characters were to continue to refer to the island in a spiritual way, but the show has always been ambiguous on that point. Not anymore!

I don't agree that expectations were out of line for that to continue.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I just read an interview where the writers state that they did have an explanation for the outrigger scene but they weren't able to fit it in to the season organically 

Remind me again, what outrigger scene?  I can't seem to remember that.

[Barry Egan]

The problem is, what you're talking about is not even what's on display.

Yes it is. 

A glowing cave of light is either some mystical source or electro-magnetic energy depending on who you ask.  Jacob has "faith" in his mothers explanation while Titus chills with the human researchers who offer technical explanations.  It's the same dynamic the shows been using since forever. It's just that the execution was super corny.

[Barry Egan]

I just read an interview where the writers state that they did have an explanation for the outrigger scene but they weren't able to fit it in to the season organically 

Remind me again, what outrigger scene?  I can't seem to remember that.

In season 5 a few cast members are skipping through time on the island.  They wind up on an outrigger and are eventually shot at by a few men on another outrigger.  Sawyer ends up popping one of them.  But we never find out who the men on the other outrigger actually are. 

[demi]

I think we all know its going to be phoned home in the next episode. It's Miles who gets capped.

[Barry Egan]

the interview that was just put out says that it's just not going to be resolved.

[The Fake Shemp]

The problem is, what you're talking about is not even what's on display.

Yes it is. 

A glowing cave of light is either some mystical source or electro-magnetic energy depending on who you ask.  Jacob has "faith" in his mothers explanation while Titus chills with the human researchers who offer technical explanations.  It's the same dynamic the shows been using since forever. It's just that the execution was super corny.

Who says it's electro-magnetic energy? Fans? The show has CLEARLY said it's not, given the fact that it turned his brother into a smoke monster, they're immortal, etc. That's not one mention of electro-magnetic energy in that episode.

Furthermore, there's been no pseudo-scientific explanation for ANYTHING. It's all been a ridiculous good versus evil faith battle showdown. I don't know what show you're watching right now.

[ManaByte]

The problem is, what you're talking about is not even what's on display.

Yes it is. 

A glowing cave of light is either some mystical source or electro-magnetic energy depending on who you ask.  Jacob has "faith" in his mothers explanation while Titus chills with the human researchers who offer technical explanations.  It's the same dynamic the shows been using since forever. It's just that the execution was super corny.

Who says it's electro-magnetic energy? Fans? The show has CLEARLY said it's not, given the fact that it turned his brother into a smoke monster, they're immortal, etc. That's not one mention of electro-magnetic energy in that episode.

Furthermore, there's been no pseudo-scientific explanation for ANYTHING. It's all been a ridiculous good versus evil faith battle showdown. I don't know what show you're watching right now.

Um, the ENTIRE series has tied the "light" on the island to electromagnetism.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I just read an interview where the writers state that they did have an explanation for the outrigger scene but they weren't able to fit it in to the season organically 

Remind me again, what outrigger scene?  I can't seem to remember that.

In season 5 a few cast members are skipping through time on the island.  They wind up on an outrigger and are eventually shot at by a few men on another outrigger.  Sawyer ends up popping one of them.  But we never find out who the men on the other outrigger actually are. 

Ahhh....that's right.  Now I remember.  Just another random event on Fantasy Island.  Like that flaming arrow attack out of nowhere at the beginning of season 5.

[The Fake Shemp]

When? What are you talking about? That doesn't even make sense, because from all accounts, the "Man in Black" took the light or what have you in the underground watering hole. Electro-magnetic energy turns you into a smoke monster? Is the Man in Black just took all the electro-magnetic energy, and if so, how is there pockets of it still across the island? When did anyone ever refer to the electro-magnetic pockets as light?

Answer: THERE ARE NONE BECAUSE THIS WAS NEVER TIED INTO THE SERIES, YOU GUFF

True answer: The only thing you might be able to cite is that when Ben turned the island, there was a flash of light.

[ManaByte]

When? What are you talking about? That doesn't even make sense, because from all accounts, the "Man in Black" took the light or what have you in the underground watering hole. Electro-magnetic energy turns you into a smoke monster? Is the Man in Black just took all the electro-magnetic energy, and if so, how is there pockets of it still across the island? When did anyone ever refer to the electro-magnetic pockets as light?

Answer: THERE ARE NONE BECAUSE THIS WAS NEVER TIED INTO THE SERIES, YOU GUFF

True answer: The only thing you might be able to cite is that when Ben turned the island, there was a flash of light.

When Desmond turned the key in the Swan station.

[The Fake Shemp]

Again, two instances of two characters using pseudo-scientific instruments with a scientific origin doesn't really tie into that. It pretty much proves my point, which is the writers have no idea what they're doing. If the best line Losties can come up with is that two characters using pseudo-scientific instruments with electromagnetic energy emit light, thus some weird radiant watering hole that emits light and turns people into smoke monsters makes sense, then you need to reevaluate the show, man.

Thinking about this just makes me angry, actually.

[Barry Egan]

The bright light is the same "pocket of electro-magnetism" that absorbed everyone in the hatch at the end of season 2.  It's the same energy that the dharma initiative struck in "the incident" at the end of season 5.  When Titus threw the knife and it landed laterally on to a rock, he was indicating the islands magnetic properties.  The humans who Titus spent his time with obviously were not scientists in a technical sense because the time period predates science as we know it today, but their outset is a direct analogue.  Research the island in order to exploit its properties.  And this is contrasted with Jacob, who passively accepts his mothers airy-fairy mythological explanation.  The mistake would be to take the mothers explanation of the white light as a "defintiive" explanation, when the pseudo-science explanation has been around for seasons now.  
    

[ManaByte]

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/exclusive-interview-lost-producers-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea

Last night's "Lost" review appeared to put me in the minority in enjoying the episode. And "Lost" showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are certainly aware of the polarizing reaction to "Across the Sea," and we talked about that - and about certain details of the episode, and complaints fans have had about the season, and even about my own personal obscure "Lost" obsession - in a wide-ranging phone interview this afternoon.

How much attention have you paid to the reaction to last night's episode?

Carlton Cuse: Some degree. We get a little bit of general feedback. We try not to obsess about the boards and all that stuff. So we have some sense.

Damon Lindelof: It's never exactly the reaction you're expecting. We knew it would be an episode that would be divisive. We've been talking since the beginning of the season about the idea that the great thing of doing a show on your own terms is you have no excuses, but it's also slightly terrifying that if you're a mystery show, there will inevitably be episodes that answer mysteries. That has the potential to frighten, terrify, make people hate. This was going to be the season where we said, "Whatever your theory was, our presentation of the endgame of the show may disprove your theory, so we're sorry if you don't like the fact that you don't get the Man in Black's name, but you don't get it." So that's going to piss some people off, and it's their right to be pissed off. In terms of what the specific reactions are, it's too hard to say 12 hours after the fact, and without seeing where this episode plays in the grand scheme of the series. That's all we can say.

One of the things I found interesting - and this is just me playing armchair psychologist - is that there's a lot of text and subtext in this episode about how much of Smokey's pain and the deaths it led to were caused by Mother's refusal to explain things and give him honest answers. And I'm wondering if that was intentional on a conscious or subconscious level - that perhaps after six years of doing this and seeing how angry people get when you don't tell them what they want to know, you've recognized the downside to that approach.

CC: We want the show to speak for itself. We don't want to offer up our interpretation of what the thematics are of the episode. But a lot of the things you say are very interesting. But we will say this: This is what an episode of "Lost" that is about answering questions looks like. This thing is a big mythological download. Our belief is that the real resolution of the show and the one that matters is what happens to these characters. We've felt a desire to provide the audience with Jacob and the Man in Black's origin story and make it not the last episode of the show for a very good reason. The show is going to focus on these characters. That's what we believe is more important and that's what we believe the audience wants to see. This all worked the way we wanted to. We planned it out so we could do a big mythological download episode at this point so that it would allow us to have the end of the show be more character-centric. That's the way we chose to tell our story.

Well, you guys have talked a lot over the years about how you feel the show is driven more by character than mystery. There have been some fans who have been very vocal in saying that they disagree - that they're watching for the mysteries. I dealt with this a lot in covering "The Sopranos," where David Chase was making one show, and a certain segment of his fanbase wanted him to be making a completely different show. How do you deal with losing control of the audience's expectations?

DL: Being fans of other shows ourselves, we always have the perspective is that one of the things you sign up for when you do a show like this is that it is a spectator sport. It feels it's a variance, because we all break up into respective groups and talk about what we think the show means, and there's a sense of ownership. You commit all this time to the show and you're inviting it into your own living room. But at the end of the day, it's David Chase's show. It's easy for people to say what they don't want the show to be, it's very difficult for them to say what they want the show to be. Carlton and I and the writers and everyone else who's creatively involved - it's it's our job to figure out what the show is and not what the show isn't. Usually, when we get criticisms, it's along the lines of, "I really wish you hadn't done that." Or "I wish it had been different." And you throw it back at them and ask, "Well, what did you want it to be?" And they say, "I wanted to see the statue built," or "I wanted the Man in Black's first name," or "I want to know about the guy Sayid shot on the golf course." Okay, that's cool, you wanted those answers and we decided not to provide them to you.  It's not because we're being cutesie, it's because that that didn't fit with our vision of the show. Right or wrong, we're going to have to deal the rest of our lives with questions about how "Lost" ended. We're comfortable with that, and at the end of the day, we have to remind people that we chose to end the show. We did not go on for a couple of more seasons and sort of pad it off to oblivion. And we knew we chose to end the show, that we were going to have to take our lumps. That's fine as long as we're happy with how we ended the show. We're not being obnoxious or cocky, it's just us saying we've done our best.

Even some people who were positive about the episode last night objected to or questioned its placement this late in the season, right after this big episode where so many characters died and right before the final hours. And at times I and other people have wondered about whether Desmond should have more prominently appeared in the sideways universe sooner, or if we needed to spend as much time in the Temple as we did, etc. Looking back over the season now, how do you feel about how you placed things and about certain landmarks. Did they have to be at the particular parts of the season where they occured?

CC: We told the story the way we wanted to. Like David Chase, we tried to make the show to entertain the audience. That was our primary goal. We kind of planned this episode to come at this period of time because we actually wanted to take a break after the deaths of these major characters. It felt like this was the perfect time to take a time out from the main narrative. And since this was the final big mythological episode that we were going to do, we felt like it was a good placement for it, and now we'll roll into the finale. We make no apologies. We planned this to be the way it is. Again, it is funny, because there are a lot of people who are very happy with the show, there's going to be a very vocal group of people who are not happy, and that just kind of comes with the territory. We're making the show the best way we know how to make it, and we stand by it, and we're excited about how it ends and how the journey's unfolded.

Let's get into a couple of specifics about last night. Last week, when you spoke to Jeff Jensen, you said all of the deaths happened in part so you could establish Smokey's bonafides as a bad guy, and to make it clear he's not on the side of our characters. And in that episode we were clearly meant to side with Jack as the newfound man of faith. But in "Across the Sea," it's Man in Black, who's the man of science, who winds up being the more sympathetic character, and the victim of his upbringing. So is it supposed to be black and white like the backgammon pieces, or is still supposed to be more complex in the war between the two sides.

DL: We have long sort of spoken about the interesting dynamic in the show is nobody is 100 percent good, nobody is 100 percent evil. Everybody has the capacity for both. Every time you come up with an explanation that's black and white, it turns into shades of grey. Ben Linus starts as a villain and then can become sympathetic. Sawyer and Jin who were also first presented in less than sympathetic lights became increasingly more sympathetic. We wanted to explain why the Man in Black had behaved the way that he does, and to show that like a lot of other characters on the show, he's the victim of very bad parenting. To reduce him to just a supernatural force, as opposed to a person, was not our intent. "Across the Sea" was our attempt to say, "Here's why Jacob feels the way he does about people, why the Man in Black feels the way he does about people," and a bit about their childhood. It's as simple as that and as complex as the themes of the show are.

Okay, you've now said at a couple of points here that you're not going to reveal the name of the Man in Black. Is there a significance to that, or you've just decided you prefer the air of mystery it gives the character to not give him a name?

CC: I think for us to explain why we're not giving him a name veers too far into the territory of explaining things that we don't feel the need to explain.

A couple of my readers pointed out that when Jacob sends the Man in Black down the log flume and he turns into the Smoke Monster, the light in the cave goes out. And they've wondered if that means that Smokey now is the light that Jacob is supposed to protect and that's why he can't leave the island.

CC: You'll get more information that will help you understand that in the episodes that follow this one.

When Mother slaughters the people in the human village, the iconography looked very much like the Dharma bunkers after the purge. Was this your way of suggesting why it was Jacob might have allowed The Others to slaughter the Dharma folk - that this is the punishment for anyone who gets too close to unlocking the island's secrets?

DL: In terms of what Jacob allowed, what he didn't allow, what The Others did of their own volition, with Ben basically saying "This came down from Jacob" is all in the area that is subject to interpretation purposely. What our intention was is that there is a repeating vicious cycle that seems to happen on this island, where people come to the island, they try to figure out what makes the island work, and the closer they came leads them to their own inevitable demise.

CC: Like Icarus

DL: The more curious you become about why the island has its properties, inevitably the protector of the island feels the need to engage in some form of mass genocide. It was more our attempt to say that history repeats itself, and this is an ongoing and continuing motif.

You've said many times that when people find out who Adam and Eve are, we'll all realize just how long you've been planning the mythology. Well, I went back and watched the "House of the Rising Sun" scene, and Jack says that the clothing looks like it's 50 years old. Is he just not very good at calculating the rate of decay on fabric?

CC: Jack is not really an expert in carbon dating.

DL: He's not really a forensic anthropologist. We need to bring in Bones.

CC: Or Charlotte. She's an anthropolgist.

DL: The other theory that I would like to throw out there is that Jacob and his mother were just expert craftsmen. They made those clothes on that loom so well, it would appear that they were only 50 years old in decomposition, when in fact it's several thousand.

CC: Or perhaps the fabric is magic. A lot of theories there, Alan.

As we've gone into this final season and you've introduced new characters like Dogen and Lennon and the other Temple people, and new mysteries, there have been some people who've said, "Okay, they don't have to answer all the old mysteries if they don't want to, but it's not fair for them to keep introducing lots of new ones at this late date." How do you respond to that?

DL: Are there any readers who actually like the show?

Many readers like the show. I like the show. But these questions are out there.

CC: We feel that we as storytellers, basically can only approach the storytelling the way that we do, which is it felt like there was no way that we could just be answering existing questions without the show feeling didactic. There would have been no larger narrative motor. For the show to devolve into running through a checklist of answers, we would have been, honestly, crucified for that version of the show. It's ironic that the episode that's generating so much controversy is one in which we answered questions, but it's not surprising to us. Between what the audience thinks they want and what they will find entertaining - we have tried ot make the show in a way that people would find it entertaining, moving engaging. To do that required having new mysteries. That's the way we operated.

Getting back to Adam and Eve for a second, can you talk me through the thought process of including that flashback to "House of the Rising Sun." Was there ever a thought of not having it in there and hoping the viewer could fill in the blanks, or did you just feel that the skeletons were too obscure a mystery to not have that extra context?

DL: The reason that we put it in certainly wasn't because we thought it was too obscure and we wanted to hit people over the heads with it. It was more a matter of, here's an episode where our characters don't appear in it at all, and we wanted to make it clear to the audience that this little family drama, this dysfunctional relationship between these three people is really responsible for everything that's happening to the passengers of Oceanic 815. We wanted to illustrate that by, at the very end of the show saying, "Oh, right, Jack and Kate and Locke are affected by the fact that Mother decided to raise her kids this way, and Jacob ended up bringing these people to the island." The idea was to say that this chapter of the series is significant to the story we've been telling you, and that the series is about the survivors of Oceanic 815. To have an episode that they did not appear in at all was never our intention.

CC: We also liked the juxtaposition of what those characters were like in "House of the Rising Sun" versus where they are now. We felt it was interesting for the audience to see the growth, the change, the evolution, the degree to which these characters had been affected by their time on the island. And we felt that the most effective way to do that was to recontextualize the Adam and Eve discovery by replaying that scene. It really provided a contrast that shows you how these characters have evolved.

The sideways universe, it seems as if those stories have also been used to illustrate that point. We see a Jack who hasn't been through everything on the island, a Locke who behaves differently, other characters reverting to a season one mode. Was that by design?

DL: Everything is by design. Unfortunately, when you ask that question, if you're not a believer, you say, "They're making it up as they go along," and if you are a believer, you say, "It's all part of a design." It's lose-lose for us, because you think we're just lying if we say everything was by design. I do feel that hopefully the conversation about the sideways will be a different conversation when the series is over than it is now. We knew going into it that the sideways would be a very polarizing form of storytelling.. But as Carlton reiterated earlier, we're doing our best version of ours how. We understand that you can't please all the people all the time, that's the kind of show that "Lost" is. If we tried to please all the people all the time, it's an impossible task. We loved "The Sopranos" ending. It was actually shocking to us the next morning when people were going, "It's a cop-out."' We're looking at it as the best, most poetic thing that we've ever seen on television, and other people were calling it a cop-out, and we got into these very impassioned arguments about it. The fact that he could make a creative choice like that that would create that sort of debate, I'm sure it wasn't his intention to create a debate. He was just doing what he wanted to do - what he felt was right for his show. We're doing the same. Whether or not what we're doing is in the best interests of our show is a matter of debate, and there's no way that we can enter into the debate, because were' the ones who did it. We could say, "Yes, this was great!" And the fans would say that we jumped the shark. I love the idea that some fans are literally saying we jumped the shark last night! 119 hours in! We finally jumped the shark! So good! You guys are going to spare yourselves the agita of the final three hours of the show.

And I should say I was not challenging the whole plan/not-plan issue with that question. What I meant was, was one of the purposes of the sideways a chance to, before we get to the end, revisit these characters in a state similar to how they were before the plane crashed?

CC: The anser to that quesiton is yes. We wanted there to be a symmetry to the show from the first season to the last season. In the first season, the show was very character-centric, and one of the great revelations was discovering who these people were. It's revelatory when you learn Kate is a fugitive and Sawyer's a con man and Hurley's a lottery winner. We wanted to have that same sense of revelation be a part of the final season. We wanted to bring the show back around to the characters and give a sense of this journey kind of coming full circle. We felt the sideways were a good narrative device to do that. You'll see in the end how the narrative closes. It's always how we saw the show working out, and we stand by it.

You've talked about the idea that you're damned if you do, damned if you don't, and you can't please everybody. But how much of a sense of responsibility do you feel you have - that the ending has - to the legacy of the show? There are some people who say, "Oh, if I don't like the ending, this has all been a big waste of time," and others who say they still will enjoy what they watched until then, and then others who say that if you don't stick the landing, they're never going to watch another show like "Lost" for fear of being strung along again.

DL: There are people who are in relationships with loved ones and then that relationship ends horribly and they say I'm never going to fall in love again. Diferent people are going to have different reactions. There are shows like "Seinfeld" where one guy says the "Seinfeld" finale wasn't a great finale, but it doesn't make it not be a great series, because it's a sitcom. "Battlestar" was one where the vocal fanbase said the finale affected in hindsight their entire experience of the show. But other people who said they loved the finale, and it made the series better for them. But because they chose to end their own show, we are opening ourselves up to the fact that an inordinate amoung of attention will be paid to the finale itself. The day after the finale ends, and the month after the finale ends, all anyone is going to be talking about is the finale. But hopefully a year or two or three or five years down the line, people are talking about the series as a whole. And certainly, that perception will be colored by whether or not they liked the finale, and newbies may be less likely to try the show if the zeitgeist says, "The last episode of 'Lost' was so bad that it made every episode that preceded it terrible." That's going to have an affect, but who are we to say what people are going to think?

Okay, finally, I have to ask, simply because it's been driving me nuts for a year and a half: what's going on with showing the other half of the outrigger shootout?

CC: The outrigger shootout is not something we're bending around in gyrations so we can solve it. In the grand scheme of the show, that is a fairly obscure piece of the show. It is your particular obsession...

DL: ...and you're not alone in it.

CC: You're not alone in it. And yes, it would have been great if we had had the opportunity to close the time loop. But you can't get everything done and keeping the narrative going in a straight line. This is one of those things where we made a very conscious choice to ask, "What are the big questions? And most importantly, what are the paths of these characters? Where do they lead?" And we followed those paths and tried not to trip ourselves up getting too diverted from that. We felt that that's the thing that's ultimately going to make the finale work or not work. We got to the point where we made the finale we wanted to make, that was our approach, and I think it was the only approach we could take. We sat here in my office, had breakfast every day for six years, talked about the show, and we used this gut check methodology, where if we both loved something and thought it was cool, that would go in. We applied that same methodology to the finale, and that was the only way we could do it. We came up with a finale that we thought was cool, that was emotional and one we really liked. That's the best we could do.

DL: When we wrote that scene and somebody started shooting at them, we knew exactly who was shooting at them. That is not a dangling thread that we don't know the answer to. That being said, as we started talking about paying that off this season, it felt like the episode was at the service of closing the time loop, as opposed to what the characters might actually be doing in that scenario. It never felt organic. We decided we would rather take our lumps from the people who couldn't scratch that itch than to produce an episode that was in service of putting people in an outrigger and getting shot at.

You put people in a lot of outriggers this season. It feels, frankly, like you're taunting me.

DL: We can't entirely deny that we're taunting you.

CC: Honestly, though, the logistics of getting all the participants in the outriggers in the configuration that was on the A-side of the time loop was actually really daunting.

DL: Considering half of them had been killed off

CC: It's not like we didn't want to do it. Like Damon says, it was just too much of a narrative deviation to do it.

[The Fake Shemp]

The bright light is the same "pocket of electro-magnetism" that absorbed everyone in the hatch at the end of season 2.  It's the same energy that the dharma initiative struck in "the incident" at the end of season 5.  

When Titus threw the knife and it landed laterally on to a rock, he was indicating the islands magnetic properties.  The humans who Titus spent his time with obviously were not scientists in a technical sense because the time period predates science as we know it today, but their outset is a direct analogue.  Research the island in order to exploit its properties.  And this is contrasted with Jacob, who passively accepts his mothers airy-fairy mythological explanation.  The mistake would be to take the mothers explanation of the white light as a "defintiive" explanation, when the pseudo-science explanation has been around for seasons now.

Here's where this all falls apart: If we are to believe this spiel, then it is established that Lost was playing with pseudo-science, not spirituality. The watering hole of light is really electromagnetic energy and not something spiritual.

Except that doesn't make sense.

The light turned his brother into a smoke monster (which has absolutely nothing to do with electromagnetic energy, I don't even think there is a pseudo-scientific explanation for that whatsoever). Not to mention that their mother's definition isn't ambiguous because it came from someone who was immortal - as are Jacob and the Man in Black. When you start dealing with deities that are drinking eternal elixir (and we know that both are immortal), you lose the whole "oh, it's ambiguous faith versus science" angle. It's just faith. That's pretty concrete stuff, bro.

It would be ambiguous if it was played in a way that could lead one to believe that the watering hole is scientific in origin and the faith part was unknown. Like, if we didn't know that Jacob and his brother are immortal. That kind of destroys that.

You also proved my point that Lost pretty much abandoned its earlier universe rules. Thanks.

[BlueTsunami]

After reading that interview, it sounds like they're not gonna answer anything important and it'll just be about specific people getting off the island and us seeing them living happily ever after. Worst ending to a series ever.

[The Fake Shemp]

Which would be better than some of this half-baked Carnivale garbage.

[BlueTsunami]

I want some Cthulhu shit TEMPLES RISING OUT OF THE SEA AND MORE SMOKE MONSTERS BEING SHITTED OUT INTO JACKS MOUTH.

[ManaByte]

So much for that Lost series finale!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/ptech/05/12/rogue.satellite.tv/index.html?hpt=Sbin

A rogue satellite is floating through space, threatening to push into another satellite's orbit and interrupt cable TV programming in the United States.
But the company that owns the satellite says they've known about the problem for more than a month and that the impact on cable TV will be minimal.
Galaxy 15, a satellite that catches cable signals and beams them back to Earth, broke loose from its orbit and began a slow, out-of-control drift at about a tenth of a degree per day, according to its owners, communications company Intelsat.
At that rate, the satellite will be close enough for its signals to interfere with the other satellite's signals beginning May 23.
But Dianne VanBeber, a spokeswoman for Luxembourg-based Intelsat, said media reports over the past day or so have drastically overstated the potential impact on television viewers.
"The reality is it's not quite as sexy as it sounds," she said Wednesday. "If we did absolutely nothing, it would create confusion ... [but] we're working with the limited number of customers that are on that satellite and taking active steps to make sure any interference is limited or completely avoided."
She said the chances of avoiding perceptible interference are "pretty good." If there is interference, it would last for hours, not days, she said.
Yves Feltes, a spokesman for SES World Skies -- which owns the other satellite -- issued a statement saying his company is "doing our utmost in order to mitigate any interference into any of our traffic in close coordination with our customers and our competitor Intelstat."
Neither company would comment on which cable TV providers or channels might be affected by any interference between the orbiting satellites. The two satellites will not crash into each other, the companies said.
See NASA's tracking map of satellites orbiting Earth.
VanBeber said Intelsat lost control of the satellite, which was launched in 2005, during a solar storm on April 5. At that time, they announced the problem and began moving customers to another satellite, Galaxy 12.
Recent media reports, including a story from The Associated Press, were apparently prompted by an industry publication updating the story, she said. It prompted such dramatic headlines as "Zombie satellite terrorizes the stratosphere" and "Solar storm creates killer zombie satellite."
But VanBeber said there's no reason to scramble a team of space cowboys to blow up the satellite before chaos ensues.
"It's a very stable, predictable path," she said. "It's not out of control. It's not going to race into the Earth."
VanBeber said that Intelsat is the world's largest user of cable satellites and SES World Skies, based in the Netherlands, is second.
"It's a weird thing to say, but it couldn't have happened to two better companies because we're both very well equipped to deal with these kinds of technical issues," she said.

[The Fake Shemp]

I want some Cthulhu shit TEMPLES RISING OUT OF THE SEA AND MORE SMOKE MONSTERS BEING SHITTED OUT INTO JACKS MOUTH.

Why not!

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

You've said many times that when people find out who Adam and Eve are, we'll all realize just how long you've been planning the mythology. Well, I went back and watched the "House of the Rising Sun" scene, and Jack says that the clothing looks like it's 50 years old. Is he just not very good at calculating the rate of decay on fabric?

CC: Jack is not really an expert in carbon dating.

 

[bud]

I want some Cthulhu shit TEMPLES RISING OUT OF THE SEA AND MORE SMOKE MONSTERS BEING SHITTED OUT INTO JACKS MOUTH.

i imagine a scene similar to one in king kong. smokey is chasing the losties and they're suddenly out in the open. ''fuck, we're done for,'' they think. but then... another smoke monster appears. the two look at each other and you can totally tell they're about to fight. the losties are in the middle of all of this. they're in awe. mib is kong; the other smoke thing is the dinosaur. they look at mib and explain that they understand why mib wanted to leave the island in the first place. they choose his side. mib gets all emotional and shit. he fights for them. he wants to protect them now.

smokey and mib duke it out, a couple of tornado's come out of nowhere, and both end up dying.

and then penny shows up in a helicopter and they fly home.

that'd be really cool.

[demi]

That is a horrible interview.

[Barry Egan]

The bright light is the same "pocket of electro-magnetism" that absorbed everyone in the hatch at the end of season 2.  It's the same energy that the dharma initiative struck in "the incident" at the end of season 5.  

When Titus threw the knife and it landed laterally on to a rock, he was indicating the islands magnetic properties.  The humans who Titus spent his time with obviously were not scientists in a technical sense because the time period predates science as we know it today, but their outset is a direct analogue.  Research the island in order to exploit its properties.  And this is contrasted with Jacob, who passively accepts his mothers airy-fairy mythological explanation.  The mistake would be to take the mothers explanation of the white light as a "defintiive" explanation, when the pseudo-science explanation has been around for seasons now.

Here's where this all falls apart: If we are to believe this spiel, then it is established that Lost was playing with pseudo-science, not spirituality. The watering hole of light is really electromagnetic energy and not something spiritual.

Except that doesn't make sense.

The light turned his brother into a smoke monster (which has absolutely nothing to do with electromagnetic energy, I don't even think there is a pseudo-scientific explanation for that whatsoever). Not to mention that their mother's definition isn't ambiguous because it came from someone who was immortal - as are Jacob and the Man in Black. When you start dealing with deities that are drinking eternal elixir (and we know that both are immortal), you lose the whole "oh, it's ambiguous faith versus science" angle. It's just faith. That's pretty concrete stuff, bro.

It would be ambiguous if it was played in a way that could lead one to believe that the watering hole is scientific in origin and the faith part was unknown. Like, if we didn't know that Jacob and his brother are immortal. That kind of destroys that.

You also proved my point that Lost pretty much abandoned its earlier universe rules. Thanks.

 

I'm not sure I follow.  So it's okay that an electromagnetic pocket can result in time travel and cancer cures and resurrections and talking to the dead and alternate universes, but it's not okay that an electromagnetic pocket can induce immortality and smoke monsters?  Why draw that line?  None of it is convincing to begin with, so I don't really see how taking these few additional steps breaks with the earlier rules of the show at all.    
 

[BlueTsunami]

I want some Cthulhu shit TEMPLES RISING OUT OF THE SEA AND MORE SMOKE MONSTERS BEING SHITTED OUT INTO JACKS MOUTH.

i imagine a scene similar to one in king kong. smokey is chasing the losties and they're suddenly out in the open. ''fuck, we're done for,'' they think. but then... another smoke monster appears. the two look at each other and you can totally tell they're about to fight. the losties are in the middle of all of this. they're in awe. mib is kong; the other smoke thing is the dinosaur. they look at mib and explain that they understand why mib wanted to leave the island in the first place. they choose his side. mib gets all emotional and shit. he fights for them. he wants to protect them now.

smokey and mib duke it out, a couple of tornado's come out of nowhere, and both end up dying.

and then penny shows up in a helicopter and they fly home.

that'd be really cool.

It would fade into credits with Cocteau Twins - Pandora playing and I'd be on the other side of the TV, dick out, slapping it around with grand exultation

[bud]

is that aura dione in your avatar?

[BlueTsunami]

is that aura dione in your avatar?

Actually Francoise Hard (60's French singer)

[WrikaWrek]

Jacob went from masta, to asshole.

Mother was a piece of shit. And man in black dude is the victim all along, and the one we should be rooting for. So, with that said, what's the fucking point in not allowing him to leave that fucking piece of shit island, goddamnit man.

[Third]

Just watched the last two episodes. To be honest, they weren't bad...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

...THEY WERE AN ABSOLUTE DISATER. BAD SOUND GOOD IN COMPARISON TO THIS SHIT. I'M NOT BUYING SEASON 6 BLU-RAY. LOST IS DEAD TO ME.

[close]

[BlackMage]

this show has more holes than a lesbian orgy but god damn it's still better than 95% of the tv shows out there so I will watch it until the end!

LOST 

[Phoenix Dark]

Just watched the episode...

The acting and writing in that episode were atrocious. Initially I dismissed it, thinking "eh, child actors." But even after adult versions of Jacob and MIB were revealed, the problem persisted. The episode was interesting at times, but at other times I truly felt embarrassed. One of my brothers is a big Lost fan, the other is the ultimate skeptic. We all watched it tonight and I just had to sit there, and afterwards when my brother was trashing it I couldn't even defend it. Just fuck that.

I love the characters, but clearly they aren't going to answer the questions upon questions that are left.


I would have never imagined that 24 would go out with a far bigger and better bang than Lost. Holy shit.

[demi]

uh, the show hasnt ended yet maurice.

[Phoenix Dark]

Yea you're right, there are TWO EPISODES LEFT.

Overall this has been a good season, but when compared to the rest of the series it has to rank at or near the bottom. As a final season it's been poor. They wrote themselves into a corner.

[BlackMage]

there's still one regular episode left and one what 3 hour special? thats like 4 hours still! That's like 2 movies!

[demi]

Yea you're right, there are TWO EPISODES LEFT.

Overall this has been a good season, but when compared to the rest of the series it has to rank at or near the bottom. As a final season it's been poor. They wrote themselves into a corner.

Technically 3 and a half

[Phoenix Dark]

Like I said, I love the characters and I can't really act like I've been "betrayed" since I only started watching this a couple years ago. Overall this has been a good season outside of tonight's episode and the first few episodes. But as a final season I don't see how anyone can deny this is disappointing.