Tuesday, May 25, 2010

THE ENDING OF LOST.

My thoughts on the ending of the LOST series.

I decided to write this mainly for myself. I just wanted to make an attempt to translate my feeling of disappointment into words.

I have been an avid watcher of LOST since mid way through season two. Once I heard that people, whose opinions I respect, were digging the show, I decided to give it a shot. I watched all of season one and half of season two on DVD in about 3 weeks time. I then watched the remainder of season two in real time like everyone else. This means I have watched this every Tuesday since 2005. I even took half days off of work for the premiere and the finale of seasons 4, 5 and 6. My point being that I really liked the show and grew to expect a lot from the writers.

My favorite thing about the show was the writer’s ability to surprise me. The unexpected is what makes good things become great. Think about the things you find the funniest. It is mostly something happening that you did not expect. As a matter of fact, when humor fails, it is usually because it was predictable. This is the same with all great drama as well. Season two opened with Desmond waking up and fixing himself a protein shake. We were then blown away when the camera panned up to reveal that he was in the hatch. Season three opened with the book club meeting that surprisingly ended up being on the island. We get to see Oceanic 815 split above their heads. The premiere of season 4 shows what we think is a flashback of Jack and it turns out that he is actually off of the island. I consider myself to be a fairly intuitive person. I constantly marveled at the writer’s ability to do something that I could not foresee. I think this concept partly led to my disappointment with the finale.

After season three, the Damon and Carlton (the main writers) said that they were going to have a new method of storytelling for each season. It started with the Flashbacks. It then turned into flash forwards. This then led to the island literally flashing forward and backward through time. It also led to half of our story being in the present and half of our story being in the past but both being those characters present. You have to be a fan of the show to understand that sentence. The writers then had to think of a new storytelling element for season 6. They also had to think of a way to do something in the premiere that none of us would guess. Having 10+ million of the most analytical fans to dupe is not a small task.

This led to the flash sideways. What did the flash sideways accomplish? It was a new form of storytelling and something that none of us would have ever guessed. I am not saying that I did not like the flash sideways. I am just saying that the writers should not have made the flash sideways the focal point of the story. The last 20 minutes of the finale resolved the flash sideways. I was always one of those people who knew that we would not have an answer to all of the questions. I did not even demand answers. I thought we would never know who created the island or why it was created. I could lump this into us not knowing why man or the earth was created. Some things just are. I could have cared less if they tried to explain the whispers. But here are a few things I think we deserved to know.

1) What were the rules that governed Ben and Widmores relationship?
2) Who the hell is Eloise Hawking and why did she always seem to know exactly what was going on?
3) How did the Donkey wheel work and why did it dump you in the middle of the Desert?
4) Why was the time on the island different than the rest of the world?
5) Why did the oceanic 6 have to make the Ajira site as close to the Oceanic flight as possible?
6) Why did some of those people go back in time and others did not.
7) I could go on and on and on….


I feel like anything could of happened during the course of the show and we were just supposed to accept it. The only question the writers felt like they had to answer was, “What is the flash sideways.” I have news for the writers. WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE SHOW FOR 5 ½ FUCKING YEARS BEFORE THE FLASH SIDEWAYS EXISTED! In the middle of season three they could have had Sawyer grown a third arm out of his chest that looked a lot like Jacobs arm and offer no explanation for it at all.


Just for the record. When other people were disappointed with episodes, I was always the one saying to give the writers a chance. When people did not like where the show was headed or said it was too confusing, I preached that it would all make sense in the end. I was wrong. I was let down.

I will always have fond memories of getting together with my cousin and watching the show. Debating theories with others. Looking forward to watching TV in an era when everything else was just damn stupid. And, listening to the writer’s podcasts. I do not feel like I wasted my time watching the show, I just wish the writers would not have let the desire to shock us write them into a corner. Goodbye LOST. It has been unreal.

I am not going to proof read this so I am sorry about the mistakes.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

WalMart

Say what you want about Wal-Mart...they are evil, they are all that is wrong with society, etc...


But...

I just bought a $6.00 toaster and a $9.00 Blender.
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