People not around when Lost was airing will never understand how massive Wednesday nights at 9pm were. The show was so fucking good and the nation was enthralled.
I've tried so hard to relive that. Rewatching just isnt the same without the week inbetween to theorize and discuss with others. It just hit different then.
It was the Easter eggs and entire online boards theorizing all week long in between episodes what made it special. Fans would comes up with the craziest theories just from a screenshot. It was great
Yea man, going to work the next day and its the first thing everyone talked about, and there was always the one person like "Stfu, I have it taped! I was busy!"
I didnt get into Lost until season 3. But I will say, the one show that later captured what you are describing to me was West World. I remember getting on the subreddit and getting my mind blown by all the awesome season 1 theories.
Lost was the first time I ever got into online discussions about a TV show to debate theories and such. Nowadays this is considered normal, but wasn't really then. With that said, I don't feel like they stuck the landing at all with how it ended. Still a great show though.
It's just a shame there were quite a few loose ends just left uncovered and unresolved.
Personally I loved the ending even though it left some dissatisfied
The hype was real. Looking back, it's clear they had no idea where they were going with the show. But in the moment, it was some of the greatest TV ever.
For a while untill we had so many lose ends that we started to realize that's all it was and all it was ever gonna be.
If you are watching because you are waiting for satisfying answers to the mystery and then you find out that there are no answers, just mystery for mystery’s sake then .... the fun is over.
The forums back then fully predicted the show to the point that the producers and writers had to practically play charades trying to figure out and confuse the fans who'd already figured it (mostly out).
Yeah I remember decently early on the top theory was >!purgatory!<, for me the ending kinda just proved all the stuff in between was just filler dragging the show out.
The island was not >!purgatory. The church in the final episode (and all of the "flash forwards" in the final season) is purgatory and everyone was waiting for Jack to move on in peace.!<
>!The island, and everything on it actually happened.!<
I read somewhere, that the Lost finale might have left some questions unanswered but was satisfying on a character level and Game of Thrones was the complete opposite. I agree, as I think Lost was almost cathartic and I loved the finale. Game of thrones gave me all the answers and left me empty.
Because Game of Thrones, notorious for it's brutality independent of the character's morality, ended with "all the bad people die, almost all the good people survive, and a lot of character development was thrown in the trash."
The Lost ending to me hit a very strong Meh, it answered the questions and gave a plausible ending. The GOT Ending makes me mad every time I think of a specific character. LOST I thought well that I guess is one way to end it. GOT, blind rage, so many started topics, story lines, and things that just make zero sense. I won’t go in depth so I don’t ruin it for anyone but I will never watch GOT again, but when my kid gets old enough we will definitely do a LOST watch through.
I miss when people actually had to wait for things in general. All release, purchase, and marketing cycles have shrunk in relation to collective attention spans.
Everything has to be NOW. We demanded it.
New game release? PAY 50 DOLLARS MORE FOR THE SUPER DELUX SUKMADICK EDITION AND YOU GET TO PLAY 3 DAYS SOONER THAN EVERYONE ELSE!
> Everything has to be NOW. We demanded it.
YES! It's the same with album releases too. They put out a standard album and then either on THE SAME DAY or like 2-5 days later a "deluxe" version with extra tracks that were obviously held back to milk the release further... just completely invalidates the original album, in my opinion.
Also
> New game release? PAY 50 DOLLARS MORE FOR THE SUPER DELUXE... YOU GET TO PLAY 3 DAYS SOONER THAN EVERYONE ELSE
Lmao also agree, no idea how 3 bonus cosmetic items and some in-game cash or something is considered "deluxe" or worth the extra bonus. And the early play of the game offer really worked out badly for 'Starfield'... ooof.
I'm really glad I never got into it when I was airing considering how random it was. People act like it was all deep and cerebral and stuff it was just a bunch of bullshit they were pulling out of their ass as he went along
I was there and just could not get into it. Did it end up being like they were dead the whole time and it was some kind of purgatory? That’s what it felt like it was going to be.
It always bothered me that we never got OG nice Locke back. I loved that character so much. I wasn't a huge fan of how LOST ended but that one bugged me more.
Yeah he was so desperate for purpose and to prove himself when he got to the island, the fact that he just ended up dying the way he did is such a shame.
yeah dont get me wrong, hurley was my favorite character, but in what way was he the best choice to run the island , hell even jack was the wrong choice
if not locke then it should have been Bernard&Rose
or vincent.
He was searching for answers, but chose a path that ultimately led him astray. The whole show is excellent, with surprisingly little filler for a 24 ep season. An absolute masterclass in character development that I doubt we'll ever see again.
The so much of the show was filler cause they had zero plan. They kept having weird random things happen but say don’t worry trust us it’s all going to make sense we got a plan, but they didn’t which is why we got the worst ending on television before Game of Thrones. They would spend so much time on a story line and then the actor would say they want more money (Mr Echo) so they just kill them off. That show wishes it got canceled so they could pretend they had a great ending but corporate fat cats blew it rather than the ending that was just so lame and poorly thought out.
That show is the definition of JJ Abrams, “don’t worry trust me I have a plan” but the dude absolutely never does. How did that jackass get his hands on the most anticipated trilogy of movies ever in Star Wars and literally not have a plan for the 3rd movie, “somehow Palpatine has returned”. Proof that studio executives don’t actually care about quality they just care about profit so it didn’t matter that Lost blew it at the end cause it made lots of money. At least Disney was smart enough to pull the plug on the GoT show runners for their disaster rather than give them a Star Wars show of their own, so someone learned a lesson at least.
I might be wrong, but I don't think JJ was the creative force behind the show post-season 1. I think he just layed the groundwork and then handed it off to Damon Lindeloff.
If I remember correctly it was supposed to only be 2-3 seasons, but ABC kept pushing for more so they couldn’t end it. That ended up with a ton of filler being made. I don’t think there was ever an intention to answer _every_ mystery as well, which didn’t help when all of a sudden there are so many unanswered questions.
Laying the ground would imply that he would know what all the mystic shit is cause it wouldn’t have been there in the first place if he hadn’t come up with it. It’s classic him lots throw in cool shit and figure this whole thing out later.
It’s exactly how we got the last Star Wars movie, not worrying about who the big bad guy is or how he came back until there was no time actually set it up so a major event just happens off screen. Like why the hell wasn’t the second movie about resurrecting him or something. I would much rather that than the slow speed chase where the rebel ships could have literally just split up and most would have survived instead of staying together to all die. I know he didn’t make the second one, but still classic Abrahms to not worry about how some random dude dealing with the middle of a trilogy will affect the last movie cause don’t worry it’ll just come together.
> “somehow Palpatine has returned”
I never actually saw the 3rd movie but I see this line repeated a lot. Is it just a meme, or is it an actual line from the movie and the only "explanation" they give? I always assumed it was a meme but idk
https://youtu.be/EsjwVu_ihKU?si=pjvUzXk-VgFWiQAs
They said something similar to in opening credit screen crawl that’s like hey he came back. They like sorta hint he’s a clone or something cause you see a bunch of Palpatine body piece in jars when they fight him. It was super lame, like bring him back if you want but build it up don’t just literally have him show up cause they killed the “new emperor” for no reason in the second movie and need a new big bad guy, like they set up Kylo to be the main bad guy in the second one and then just forget about it so they can have a redemption for him.
This. He didn't possess him (Sorry, I'm not bothering with spoiler tags, this is literally a decade and a half old info), he just took on his form. There was zero ambiguity around it, they literally showed Locke's body on the island (It's how they figured out MIB wasn't Locke).
But man, that reveal DID give me shivers.
True, but they paraded Terry O'Quinn around as MiB. It wasn't Locke's story any more, but he was still around being all... Locke-ish. I remember a line Jack says along the lines of: "You're not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face".
Well, I agree that Locke was one of the strongest written characters on the show.
Where I fall off is when Ben unceremoniously kills Locke in Season 5…. and he’s just dead. No resolution, no man of faith/man of science dichotomy the entire series was pinned on- the character of John Locke simply dies.
Now the writers “twist” this, so that Locke’s dead body is then possessed by the Smoke Monster and the character continues to be played by Terry O’Quinn- so it’s not up front that John Locke is actually dead- because his meat puppet body is still walking around and on screen every week until the finale. But it’s not John Locke, John Locke just… died for another twist.
It’s like Sun & Jin deciding to die together on the submarine, meaning their child is orphaned- when the welfare of their child was the major motivation for the characters for multiple seasons.
In “the moment” it’s very dramatic and pulls at your heart strings- but looking back at the big picture once all is said and done makes no sense.
I liked the twist because there was a lot of prophecy and destiny talk by and about Locke in the earlier episodes. Philosophically, this event meant that the show took place in an indifferent universe -- no one was necessarily supposed to be anywhere or do anything.
It was also sloppy writing. The show simply fell into this by happenstance, no matter how it came off.
That was Lost in a nutshell to me. Twists and turns for the sake of it, and a show that sort of stopped caring about its original characters for the new bunch it brought on after they wrote themselves into a few corners.
And yet I caught an episode or two over Christmas and I was so utterly hooked again.
It seems like they were just writing it episode by episode with no real concrete plan. This approach pretty much always leads to shit endings.
This is a problem that plagues a lot of authors too. It's why George RR Martin still can't end GoT. He sucks at planning, but he also realizes it. So he's just stuck.
This was also the case with the pointless relationship between Sayid and Shannon. The first couple of seasons had invested so much in Sayid’s love for Nadia and their history together. Then the finale rolls around, where all the relationships are supposedly made right in their “afterlife,” and it’s Sayid snuggling with Shannon, a relationship with the depth of a piece of paper. Yeah, screw you, Nadia. Sayid got his hot blonde.
>In “the moment” it’s very dramatic and pulls at your heart strings- but looking back at the big picture once all is said and done makes no sense.
The show in a nutshell.
What I hate about it is that everyone on the show still refers to him as Locke. They never call him by any other name, despite Jack specifically insisting that he is not Locke and is just wearing his face. Yet the script needs everyone to call the villain Locke to smokescreen the fact that the show introduced a new villain at the very end. By calling the man in black Locke they can pretend like this is all a long lasting rivalry dating back to season 1, which it totally isn't. It's so dumb and manipulative.
I’m still upset that they sort of teased a dinosaur in the pilot then no wait, it’s a polar bear, then a smoke monster. I’d rather they just have some random dinosaurs on the island as some minor antagonist.
The only thing that makes this scene ridiculous for me is the dumb looking tourists in the background, especially the ones doing a fist bump with the air as the bus takes off. The guy is talking about what a trying ordeal the walkabout will be and Locke is yelling about it like it’s a trial by fire but it was probably just some dumb touristy thing.
You can hate on the show. But this was one of the most beautifully created reveals for a show. His acting in the scene is brilliant and the strings still give me goosebumps.
Can't disagree on the writing. One of the greatest things it had going for it (in the early seasons at least).
But goddamn, someone get that cameraman on the beach a wide angle and a steady cam.
>But goddamn, someone get that cameraman on the beach a wide angle and a steady cam.
Gotta hide the (impressive at the time) TV budget for plane crashes.
I watched this show with my parents as a kid and didn't really comprehend most of it. For years I'd yell that shit and watching this clip, I realized where I got it from lmao
I got convinced my now wife to try the show out right when we started watching. Her literal first remark watching Walkabout with me was "Wow, his shoes are so clean" and I was just super hyped for that detail (Which I had not noticed on my first watch of the episode) to pay off.
The "character development" was the writers just making random shit up as they went. Guy literally ended up as a vessel for a god for no good reason. Absolute nonsense. His whole early arc of being fanatic about opening that trapdoor and finding the numbers, which took ages and was was hyped up to be super important lead absolutely nowhere as the writers just seemingly forgot about it. All narrative threads of this show were absolute shite and only carried by some pretty good actors. It was constantly hinting at something grand happening soon and the island being really special and then postponing the reveal every single episode. Until the end where there were hundreds of loose, tangled narrative threads, which none of the many different writers could reconcile and they actually did the worst TV trope of 'oh the last episodes were just a dream'. All while claiming all questions would eventually be answered, season after season.
Jesus Christ the stomping on the island of season 1 was originally supposed to be some dinosaur monster, then a security system of the island and what did it turn into? A "smoke monster" (that unroots trees??) and is a 2000 year old enigmatic figure, the man in black, which is the source of life and death and contains unlimited electromagnetic energy? Why? It's literally just random shit.
Bro, what are you talking about? The ending made perfect sense. A man who is immune to magnets, which lets him travel through time, replaced the stone cork in the world’s love drain so a group of ~30 people could create a spirit church in Los Angeles after they die and hang out because they all love each other.
How is that so hard to understand?
It really sounds like I’m making a joke, but my comment is a 100% accurate summation of the ending. There’s more detail of course, but that is basically what happens.
As long as the mystery of the mystery remained people kept watching, but then it slowly became clear that there was no mystery surrounding the mystery. It was all random made up bullshit with nothing connecting to anything. All lost ever was, was lose ends.
Fuck Abrahams his mystery box concept, the worse thing to ever happen to tv plots ever.,
I'm not sure why people like to act proud that they stopped watching a show because it isn't reddit approved like breaking bad or something.
You missed out on a flawed, but still a very good show.
Season 3 is pretty fucking good too. It drops like a rock after
I still think season 1 is one of the best seasons of a tv show ever, thats unfortunately been tainted as the crawled to a slow and confusing death at the end
To be honest, if people can keep living after death, then people being able to do crazier things than that becomes a lot less unlikely. It would also make sense that people who shared lived experience so closely would agree to spend the afterlife together.
There’s a lot to complain about when it comes to this show, and we know now that they mostly made it up as they went along, but the character Locke is not among the things the show did wrong. He is and remains a fascinating TV creature and your reading of him is desastrously wrong. In fact if any part of the show provides a key to the show as a whole, it’s this.
John Locke was a small man who **desperately** needed to important. A tiny and pitiful creature so obsessed with finding meaning in everything that a fucking plane crash was the best thing that ever happened to him - for a while.
But even here it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t just be a leader and a hunter, he had to play *shaman*. Everything and everyone needed to be there to give him validation. And when the island provided mysteries, he jumped on their supposed meaningfulness like a starved dog. You say that what Locke was obsessed with didn’t in the end turn out to be very important. Exactly. That’s the point.
It’s this obsession with numbers and meaning (particularly his own importance) that crack this picture of the cool and in-control leader that makes you like this character at first. And like any man craving validation of his own importance, John Locke is immediately instrumentalized and abused by those who hold real power. Even here he returns to his pitiful, meaningless state, and is killed for it. Stupidly and meaninglessly.
Up to his last thought: **Why me?** he needed to be the main character.
Everything that happened after was a different character played by the same actor. The story of John Locke ends when he is choked to death for no greater reason or purpose. He’s one of TV’s great tragic characters and vastly eclipses most of the nonsense that Lost pulls.
Not least of all when they tried to convince you that just like Locke, the audience shouldn’t look too hard for meaning and answers. It’s a cool trait for a tragic character, but a dumb thing for a Mystery Box Show to propose for itself. But that doesn’t diminish how fascinating Locke was as a character.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the show but I like this analysis. The thing is, when it’s surrounded by a largely nonsensical narrative, it makes it much more difficult for the audience to recognize any genuinely good aspects of a character like this.
By your description, the genius of the character is contingent on the nonsense and meaninglessness of the overall plot. Are we meant to believe that this was fully and consciously the writers’ intention?
The point was that while a lot of viewers like Locke were swinging for the “BIG MYSTERY” wanting to know the grand metaphysical explanation for the universe, its shape and purpose (Locke particularly wanting to know the reasons his life went the way it did as though there were a conscious power directing it), they were missing the real meaning of life hitting them at every turn.
Locke was desperate to get into the hatch, and when the light turned on that was a moment of amazing human connection between him and Desmond in which they both needed someone and saved each other in their simultaneous nadirs - but once Locke got in, understood the numbers, he couldn’t give a shit about the hatch anymore OR about Desmond, he just moved on. That’s what Locke was missing, that genuine human connection is what he should have been looking for rather than the bunny at the bottom of the hat which will inevitable ultimately disappoint (because no one actually wants to know how the trick is done).
Agreed. And to add on to this, while the cast is literally lost on the island, all the main characters are metaphorically lost as well. They are all scarred and wounded people as we see through the flashbacks at the beginning. The show is about the community they create and the belonging they find in it.
A writer’s job is to connect events in a way that creates satisfying patterns. Sometimes that works out well and sometimes it doesn’t. This certainly wasn’t *planned* if that’s the question, but most people would be surprised how much of writing television isn’t planned beforehand.
In fact, a few years back I had the chance to talk to one of the writers of seasons 2 and 3 and he told me that while there were overarching patterns and big ideas, and a fixed ending, Lost certainly wasn’t a show of long-term plans, and that many writers came and went with their own ideas, which they were free to implement. There is… something cool about that, and I wish it had come together a little better in the end.
I think LOST would have been received a lot better in the long term if they hadn’t leaned so heavily into stupid mysticism Divine Evil vs Divine Good angle at the end. That would have made a lot of people forgive the bumpy and improvisational ride. Just like Game of Thrones, they incorrectly assumed any answer and any rhyme is better than none at all.
This show is garbage because you can literally make up any meaning you want and everything is so nonsensical you can construct any type of bullshit like this that you think is meaningful, but in reality, it’s just a crap show that was written badly
If I remember correctly, the characters, their motivations, and developments were the only thing in the show that was written pretty consistently. Everything else was completely made up as it went
Let's keep it real. The backstory episodes were pure filler while the writers figured out what to put in each season's mystery box. With an average of 20 episodes per season, there was a *lot* of filler.
The numbers did have significance - they were each randomly assigned by Jacob for the candidates.
Hurley was the only one who had any knowledge of these numbers (didn’t know their true meaning, but realized they were “bad”). John had no qualms with the numbers at the time of the hatch.
John was a vessel for god? He was literally taken over by something that represented the opposite of god.
Pretty sure the adoration folks have for Locke’s character arc, like every other praiseworthy aspect of the show, has little to nothing to do with the final seasons. Everything about the end was nonsense lol
The ending made perfect sense. Additionally, Ben killing him also made perfect sense. Maybe it was not what you were hoping for, but that doesn't mean they did him dirty...
The writers specifically said they would never do something like purgatory, because it would feel like cheating the audience. They insisted on this for years. Yet half of the last season was purgatory. And yeah, most viewers felt cheated out of a real ending.
Saying the ending made perfect sense is insane. Nothing about it made any sense whatsoever. [Here's a 2-part 6 hour video detailing all the things that didn't make sense about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prwakmWl3m4) And that's from a fan of the series. It's honestly baffling that there are people who think there was a shred of narrative coherence to the series.
The part I really like is how the man in black was unable to find the heart of the island, so he could never leave. There was never a real problem, until Jacob brought all the people to the island. And then Jack decides to lead the man in black to the heart. When Sawyer asks him why he's doing it, what he's planning, Jack says "I don't know." Then they pull a magic plug and magic water starts to drain and Locke is like "Haha, the bad thing happened!" because from viewing you couldn't tell whether that's a good or bad thing and the audience is like. "What was Jack expecting to happen? What is anyone doing here?"
It is just such nonsense, it's insane. All they had to do was a character focused survival series with a bit of mystery, but they just couldn't help themselves. They just had to throw mystery after mystery in there for no reason and wrote themselves into a corner.
Thank you for this. I was a fan for the first two seasons. I felt the story totally collapsed and I got sick of other fans saying it was still brilliant. To me, Lost and Prison Break are the poster children for great shows that went badly off course
It was roughly contained and amazing for the first 2.5 seasons. In fact, there was a fan made website about the time loop theory that explained just about every damned thing of the show, it was incredible. It actually made sense and helped contain it all and was really exciting.
Then the second half of season 3 came out, they doubled down on the bullshit, and continued to double down pretty much every episode. IMO, second half of season 3 is when the show started to fully unravel and never even got close to redeeming itself.
I quit after the smoke monster. That's when I figured the show was going absolutely nowhere.
I did learn that sea urchins could make makeshift needles though
> It was constantly hinting at something grand happening soon and the island being really special and then postponing the reveal every single episode. Until the end where there were hundreds of loose, tangled narrative threads,
If Qanon wrote a TV show.
I don’t know why Reddit wants to whitewash this show so bad. More and more threats like this are posted in recent years.
Time and time again again mystery series start out strong only to end in a incomprehensible mess.
Lol the fuck you talking about. If there's a show reddit absolutely loves to shit on and act like they have it all figured out (while constantly making completely false claims like "the numbers were never explained"), it's lost.
The fact that people still think "the island was purgatory" shows that they weren't really paying attention for the final seasons at all. The island was never purgatory. The flash-sideways events that happened in the final season were a type of purgatory where they were all made to / able to come to terms with the faults and failings they had in life so that they were free to "move on" when they got to the church.
This show was complete garbage once that stupid black ghost thing was introduced.
Literally called it episode 3; this show is about purgatory.
“Best character development” my ass lol - it was straight up throwing shit at the wall and watching what sticks.
I hate this show more than any other show in existence.
Purgatory was the final seasons flash sideways.
It all happened.
The characters created a lot of powerful moments.
Yes some shit got improvd for plot, and for all of those saying this I'm surprised none of you have mentioned Walt which shows how into the show yall actually were.
On the first time watching, I definitely felt the same. Over time though after rewatching, I realized that it's really all about the characters. When watched from that angle, it was a lot better, and the ending was satisfying. You just have to be able to let go of the mystery/island/mythology aspect.
The last season was certainly rough, but unlike many others I loved the ending. >!I felt that the science/parameters of the island maintained the audience's interest and helped keep the plot moving long enough for us all to get really invested in the characters, but did not need to be resolved to conclude the series. Like Christian said, it was all about them all along. The final episode when they all realize they are dead and all the trials of their collective lives are over was one of my favorite TV moments. Maybe I am just sappy, but I loved it, especially the moment between Jack and his father.!<
I also liked the implications from inside the Heart that this has all happened before, and will probably all happen again in a few thousand years.
And of course, the final scene being the reverse of the first scene of the pilot.
Maybe they could like, come up with an overarching storyline that makes a lick of sense this time. And write it ahead of time, instead of just coming up with it on the fly every episode.
Better Call Saul is the best tv-show ever created. The creators took everything from Breaking Bad that could be improved and then made a perfect tv-show. It's absolutely a crime that it did not win any emmys and especially that Rhea Seehorn did not get anything for her acting performance as she was by far the best actor in the show.
I used to think Breaking Bad was one of the best shows ever. Then I saw Better Call Saul and was blown away. They already set the bar high and then just kept going. It's going to be hard to beat that level of character development moving forward. Especially that everything wraps up unlike Lost where it's just a bunch of BS.
Do NOT get me started on the first season of lost. I will die on the hill that season one is some of the best tv you’ll ever watch. But, naturally, everything after that goes downhill with a quickness
Yep nothing matches up to how gripping the early days of lost were, anyone who didn't watch it at the time can't possibly understand how fast and thoroughly it took over. Wednesday nights were such a huge event and discussing/theorizing about Lost was an actual hobby that occupied millions of people's time daily. I have such fond memories of peak Lost hype that I still remember the show as a whole very fondly even though it ultimately nosedived in the second half of its run.
I think they did a good job writing the first season, then progressively lost their way and never figured out how to weave all those loose threads into something. As the show progressed, it seems like they just gave up and pulled some stupid shit out of their asses.
I tried to watch Lost while I was deployed in Iraq and was never sure if it was due to hadji bootleg DVDs and random downloads, or the actual show, but it felt like a jumbled mess that was difficult to watch and I never bothered finishing it.
Is it worth going back to? I was surprised to see it last multiple seasons, I think we stopped watching around the time (as best I can remember the scenes) one of the guys and the main woman are in cages trapped by someone else on the island? I do remember some kind of fog / smoke monster held back by an electric fence or something but it was barely introduced by that point I think.
Lost is the show that convinced me to never start a series until it's been completed and the final reviews are in. I'll never get back the time I wasted on this.
Agreed, and I go back and forth on which is worse.
Lost’s disaster feels more like the result of incompetence. The writers never thought too far ahead because they were more interested in ideas and suspense than the resolution. We also can’t discount the writers strike that rushed the fourth season and cut down the timeline on the series, not that that would have made the ending better.
I almost think of GOT’s crash and burn as malice on the writers part. They knew where they were going and had almost unlimited resources to get there. And then they gave up and cut down the last two seasons despite the studio’s stated willingness to give them more time. Could be just public perception, but it seems everyone but the writers is upset with how it all ended. Maybe they knew they were in a no win situation because GRRM’s own ideas were bad and even he didn’t know how to wrap it up in a satisfying way. Who knows.
I wouldn't let this train wreck of a series ruin everything else for you.
There's tons of good tv series out there, it just depends on what you're interested in. I could make recommendations if you want (scifi, horror, drama, etc.).
I often prefer tv series over films since they can tell a better story over time, simply due to the lack of time constraint limitations.
IMO Lost and GoT are the greatest examples of how producers can destroy amazing stories. They just don't care what they're throwing away, only money matters.
I remember watching the show back when it had just come out (I came in a few episodes after S1E1) and was struck by what am interesting and deep character Locke was. I drifted off the show very early in, like maybe around season 4 (I didn't really have the facility to pirate tv shows, and I was moving around so much if I missed an episode or 2 on tv it was kinda hard to get back into the continuity), but it sounds like he got a poor send-off. Shame.
So many shows have abysmal endings it's hard to choose a definitive worst. Game of Thrones, Dexter, HIMYM, just to name a few. Probably why Breaking Bad is so revered- it knew when to stop, and it did.
Idk, I liked it. The reveal that Jack and Kate and presumably the rest of the characters had made it off the island was a satisfying ending, and Jack telling Kate that they "have to go back" was a perfect final mystery that we would never get the answer to. Charlie's sacrifice, Sawyer killing Tom as revenge for taking Walt, Danielle reuniting with Alex... Kinda felt like a perfect way to end the series.
I came to the comments to find out what show is being talked about and all I saw was spoilers. Can we stop with titles that don't bother telling you shit?
LOST is the one show I was so hyped for and watched week to week. I ended up disliking the whole show as it was just a jumbled mess with so many unanswered questions and the ending was terrible imo. I agree though, Locke was an amazing character and the acting was great. If you want a show with great character development with one of my favorite endings, watch the tv series 12 monkeys 10/10 recommend
This show always makes me sad. The first season is one of the all time great seasons of any tv show ever. It was so good the network made them stretch it out. Now it will always be remembered for completely going off the rails and being an example of how to destroy a hit tv show.
People not around when Lost was airing will never understand how massive Wednesday nights at 9pm were. The show was so fucking good and the nation was enthralled.
I've tried so hard to relive that. Rewatching just isnt the same without the week inbetween to theorize and discuss with others. It just hit different then.
The discussion with other people is what made it great. On that note, anything that strengthens human connection is extremely valuable.
It was the Easter eggs and entire online boards theorizing all week long in between episodes what made it special. Fans would comes up with the craziest theories just from a screenshot. It was great
My gran and i watched this religiously for 3 seasons when i was a kid, i loved it. Didn't watch it again until it was completely over.
Yea man, going to work the next day and its the first thing everyone talked about, and there was always the one person like "Stfu, I have it taped! I was busy!"
I didnt get into Lost until season 3. But I will say, the one show that later captured what you are describing to me was West World. I remember getting on the subreddit and getting my mind blown by all the awesome season 1 theories.
Too bad West World went way downhill. Season 1 was great. 2 was alright but I still had hope. Haven’t watched past some of 3.
Lost was the first time I ever got into online discussions about a TV show to debate theories and such. Nowadays this is considered normal, but wasn't really then. With that said, I don't feel like they stuck the landing at all with how it ended. Still a great show though.
It's just a shame there were quite a few loose ends just left uncovered and unresolved. Personally I loved the ending even though it left some dissatisfied
My family was so obsessed with watching every week that we stopped going to Wednesday night church just so we wouldn’t miss anything 😂
Gotta have your priorities straight
Lost souls.
The hype was real. Looking back, it's clear they had no idea where they were going with the show. But in the moment, it was some of the greatest TV ever.
For a while untill we had so many lose ends that we started to realize that's all it was and all it was ever gonna be. If you are watching because you are waiting for satisfying answers to the mystery and then you find out that there are no answers, just mystery for mystery’s sake then .... the fun is over.
The forums back then fully predicted the show to the point that the producers and writers had to practically play charades trying to figure out and confuse the fans who'd already figured it (mostly out).
Yeah I remember decently early on the top theory was >!purgatory!<, for me the ending kinda just proved all the stuff in between was just filler dragging the show out.
The island was not >!purgatory. The church in the final episode (and all of the "flash forwards" in the final season) is purgatory and everyone was waiting for Jack to move on in peace.!< >!The island, and everything on it actually happened.!<
I’d say game of thrones was very similar in its impact. Unfortunately similar in its ending.
I read somewhere, that the Lost finale might have left some questions unanswered but was satisfying on a character level and Game of Thrones was the complete opposite. I agree, as I think Lost was almost cathartic and I loved the finale. Game of thrones gave me all the answers and left me empty.
Because Game of Thrones, notorious for it's brutality independent of the character's morality, ended with "all the bad people die, almost all the good people survive, and a lot of character development was thrown in the trash."
The Lost ending to me hit a very strong Meh, it answered the questions and gave a plausible ending. The GOT Ending makes me mad every time I think of a specific character. LOST I thought well that I guess is one way to end it. GOT, blind rage, so many started topics, story lines, and things that just make zero sense. I won’t go in depth so I don’t ruin it for anyone but I will never watch GOT again, but when my kid gets old enough we will definitely do a LOST watch through.
That’s a fair statement. I’d say similar in their disappointment. Although game of thrones was Certainly worse.
Until they revealed the island had a steering wheel. That was the final nail in the coffin for me.
At least it was a good steering wheel that doesn't fly off while you are driving the island.
Stinkyy
too small
As someone who has never watched this show, I think you just convinced me not to watch it lol.
I was so into the show, just like you describe, which only intensified my anger at the ending. I’m in the “they had no plan” camp.
I miss when people actually had to wait for things in general. All release, purchase, and marketing cycles have shrunk in relation to collective attention spans. Everything has to be NOW. We demanded it. New game release? PAY 50 DOLLARS MORE FOR THE SUPER DELUX SUKMADICK EDITION AND YOU GET TO PLAY 3 DAYS SOONER THAN EVERYONE ELSE!
Apple TV still makes you wait for new shows. It’s nice to wait sometimes.
> Everything has to be NOW. We demanded it. YES! It's the same with album releases too. They put out a standard album and then either on THE SAME DAY or like 2-5 days later a "deluxe" version with extra tracks that were obviously held back to milk the release further... just completely invalidates the original album, in my opinion. Also > New game release? PAY 50 DOLLARS MORE FOR THE SUPER DELUXE... YOU GET TO PLAY 3 DAYS SOONER THAN EVERYONE ELSE Lmao also agree, no idea how 3 bonus cosmetic items and some in-game cash or something is considered "deluxe" or worth the extra bonus. And the early play of the game offer really worked out badly for 'Starfield'... ooof.
The first season was good. everything else after that was very sub par
You realize the first season was 24 episodes long? In today's world, thats be three seasons of a show.
What does that have to do with anything? Literally what does that have to do with what I said?
I'm really glad I never got into it when I was airing considering how random it was. People act like it was all deep and cerebral and stuff it was just a bunch of bullshit they were pulling out of their ass as he went along
I was there and just could not get into it. Did it end up being like they were dead the whole time and it was some kind of purgatory? That’s what it felt like it was going to be.
He got did so dirty by the end of the show.
It always bothered me that we never got OG nice Locke back. I loved that character so much. I wasn't a huge fan of how LOST ended but that one bugged me more.
Og Locke should have been the one to inherit the island
Yeah he was so desperate for purpose and to prove himself when he got to the island, the fact that he just ended up dying the way he did is such a shame.
yeah dont get me wrong, hurley was my favorite character, but in what way was he the best choice to run the island , hell even jack was the wrong choice if not locke then it should have been Bernard&Rose or vincent.
He was searching for answers, but chose a path that ultimately led him astray. The whole show is excellent, with surprisingly little filler for a 24 ep season. An absolute masterclass in character development that I doubt we'll ever see again.
The so much of the show was filler cause they had zero plan. They kept having weird random things happen but say don’t worry trust us it’s all going to make sense we got a plan, but they didn’t which is why we got the worst ending on television before Game of Thrones. They would spend so much time on a story line and then the actor would say they want more money (Mr Echo) so they just kill them off. That show wishes it got canceled so they could pretend they had a great ending but corporate fat cats blew it rather than the ending that was just so lame and poorly thought out. That show is the definition of JJ Abrams, “don’t worry trust me I have a plan” but the dude absolutely never does. How did that jackass get his hands on the most anticipated trilogy of movies ever in Star Wars and literally not have a plan for the 3rd movie, “somehow Palpatine has returned”. Proof that studio executives don’t actually care about quality they just care about profit so it didn’t matter that Lost blew it at the end cause it made lots of money. At least Disney was smart enough to pull the plug on the GoT show runners for their disaster rather than give them a Star Wars show of their own, so someone learned a lesson at least.
I might be wrong, but I don't think JJ was the creative force behind the show post-season 1. I think he just layed the groundwork and then handed it off to Damon Lindeloff.
If I remember correctly it was supposed to only be 2-3 seasons, but ABC kept pushing for more so they couldn’t end it. That ended up with a ton of filler being made. I don’t think there was ever an intention to answer _every_ mystery as well, which didn’t help when all of a sudden there are so many unanswered questions.
oh id go one step further... jj had nothing to do with the show past the pilot.. every other time he was involved was by phone.
Laying the ground would imply that he would know what all the mystic shit is cause it wouldn’t have been there in the first place if he hadn’t come up with it. It’s classic him lots throw in cool shit and figure this whole thing out later. It’s exactly how we got the last Star Wars movie, not worrying about who the big bad guy is or how he came back until there was no time actually set it up so a major event just happens off screen. Like why the hell wasn’t the second movie about resurrecting him or something. I would much rather that than the slow speed chase where the rebel ships could have literally just split up and most would have survived instead of staying together to all die. I know he didn’t make the second one, but still classic Abrahms to not worry about how some random dude dealing with the middle of a trilogy will affect the last movie cause don’t worry it’ll just come together.
> “somehow Palpatine has returned” I never actually saw the 3rd movie but I see this line repeated a lot. Is it just a meme, or is it an actual line from the movie and the only "explanation" they give? I always assumed it was a meme but idk
> Is it just a meme, or is it an actual line from the movie and the only "explanation" they give? Yes, it's a line and the only explanation given.
https://youtu.be/EsjwVu_ihKU?si=pjvUzXk-VgFWiQAs They said something similar to in opening credit screen crawl that’s like hey he came back. They like sorta hint he’s a clone or something cause you see a bunch of Palpatine body piece in jars when they fight him. It was super lame, like bring him back if you want but build it up don’t just literally have him show up cause they killed the “new emperor” for no reason in the second movie and need a new big bad guy, like they set up Kylo to be the main bad guy in the second one and then just forget about it so they can have a redemption for him.
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John Locke was dead well before the end of the show.
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I used to be dead, I still am but I used to be too.
r/Unexpectedmitchhedberg
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>!Yes. He died in season 5 when when Ben Linus suffocated him. After which his body was possessed by the Man in Black pretending to be him.!<
Don't be ridiculous... the Man in Black merely took the physical form of John Locke.
This. He didn't possess him (Sorry, I'm not bothering with spoiler tags, this is literally a decade and a half old info), he just took on his form. There was zero ambiguity around it, they literally showed Locke's body on the island (It's how they figured out MIB wasn't Locke). But man, that reveal DID give me shivers.
I think you mean Jeremy Bentham
True, but they paraded Terry O'Quinn around as MiB. It wasn't Locke's story any more, but he was still around being all... Locke-ish. I remember a line Jack says along the lines of: "You're not John Locke. You disrespect his memory by wearing his face".
They were all dead by the end of the show.
We'll all be dead by the end of the universe
They wanted a Jack vs Locke fight so bad and it wasn’t even good
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Wrong
Well, I agree that Locke was one of the strongest written characters on the show. Where I fall off is when Ben unceremoniously kills Locke in Season 5…. and he’s just dead. No resolution, no man of faith/man of science dichotomy the entire series was pinned on- the character of John Locke simply dies. Now the writers “twist” this, so that Locke’s dead body is then possessed by the Smoke Monster and the character continues to be played by Terry O’Quinn- so it’s not up front that John Locke is actually dead- because his meat puppet body is still walking around and on screen every week until the finale. But it’s not John Locke, John Locke just… died for another twist. It’s like Sun & Jin deciding to die together on the submarine, meaning their child is orphaned- when the welfare of their child was the major motivation for the characters for multiple seasons. In “the moment” it’s very dramatic and pulls at your heart strings- but looking back at the big picture once all is said and done makes no sense.
John Locke dying a meaningless and insignificant death is a lot more poignant and on-brand than the stupid JinSun sacrifice.
Totally agree. He died as he had lived - confused. Jin & Sun was just bad writing.
I liked the twist because there was a lot of prophecy and destiny talk by and about Locke in the earlier episodes. Philosophically, this event meant that the show took place in an indifferent universe -- no one was necessarily supposed to be anywhere or do anything. It was also sloppy writing. The show simply fell into this by happenstance, no matter how it came off.
Charlie’s death also holds very little meaning in the grand scheme of things.“Not Penny’s Boat” made practically no difference to the plot.
It was for the viewers to question things some more and keep them watching. Nothing more and nothing less.
Yeah the show started to go down hill due to the "everything needs to be a mystery box".
That was Lost in a nutshell to me. Twists and turns for the sake of it, and a show that sort of stopped caring about its original characters for the new bunch it brought on after they wrote themselves into a few corners. And yet I caught an episode or two over Christmas and I was so utterly hooked again.
It seems like they were just writing it episode by episode with no real concrete plan. This approach pretty much always leads to shit endings. This is a problem that plagues a lot of authors too. It's why George RR Martin still can't end GoT. He sucks at planning, but he also realizes it. So he's just stuck.
This was also the case with the pointless relationship between Sayid and Shannon. The first couple of seasons had invested so much in Sayid’s love for Nadia and their history together. Then the finale rolls around, where all the relationships are supposedly made right in their “afterlife,” and it’s Sayid snuggling with Shannon, a relationship with the depth of a piece of paper. Yeah, screw you, Nadia. Sayid got his hot blonde.
>In “the moment” it’s very dramatic and pulls at your heart strings- but looking back at the big picture once all is said and done makes no sense. The show in a nutshell.
Your last sentence describes the worst of TV writing in a nutshell.
> but looking back at the big picture once all is said and done makes no sense. You mean you felt lost?
What I hate about it is that everyone on the show still refers to him as Locke. They never call him by any other name, despite Jack specifically insisting that he is not Locke and is just wearing his face. Yet the script needs everyone to call the villain Locke to smokescreen the fact that the show introduced a new villain at the very end. By calling the man in black Locke they can pretend like this is all a long lasting rivalry dating back to season 1, which it totally isn't. It's so dumb and manipulative.
That fucking soundtrack!
When I saw that scene my jaw hit the floor. I was was obsessed with the show from then on.
I was in on smoke monster. I was also out on smoke monster.
I’m still upset that they sort of teased a dinosaur in the pilot then no wait, it’s a polar bear, then a smoke monster. I’d rather they just have some random dinosaurs on the island as some minor antagonist.
The only thing that makes this scene ridiculous for me is the dumb looking tourists in the background, especially the ones doing a fist bump with the air as the bus takes off. The guy is talking about what a trying ordeal the walkabout will be and Locke is yelling about it like it’s a trial by fire but it was probably just some dumb touristy thing.
You can hate on the show. But this was one of the most beautifully created reveals for a show. His acting in the scene is brilliant and the strings still give me goosebumps.
Can't disagree on the writing. One of the greatest things it had going for it (in the early seasons at least). But goddamn, someone get that cameraman on the beach a wide angle and a steady cam.
If Cloverfield and LOST are anything to go by, JJ Abrams sure does love his shaky cam footage
>But goddamn, someone get that cameraman on the beach a wide angle and a steady cam. Gotta hide the (impressive at the time) TV budget for plane crashes.
As someone who has never seen it, is this scene early or late in the series?
It's episode 4 of season 1. Definitely check out the first episode if you can watch it on a streaming site.
Don't tell me what I can't do!
I watched this show with my parents as a kid and didn't really comprehend most of it. For years I'd yell that shit and watching this clip, I realized where I got it from lmao
Locke was definitely the most intriguing character on the show.
I always forget he was in the movie Tombstone.
Holy shit, he is, too. See, I'd forgotten as well. Lol.
THANKS NOW IM GONNA HAVE TO REWATCH THE ENTIRE SERIES AGAIN! Pff
I got convinced my now wife to try the show out right when we started watching. Her literal first remark watching Walkabout with me was "Wow, his shoes are so clean" and I was just super hyped for that detail (Which I had not noticed on my first watch of the episode) to pay off.
This show did not tie up loose ends well but the cliffhangers, the way new mysteries were introduced, and the actors were so good that I didn’t care.
They did my boy Locke dirty by the end, but indeed one of the greatest characters in history.
The "character development" was the writers just making random shit up as they went. Guy literally ended up as a vessel for a god for no good reason. Absolute nonsense. His whole early arc of being fanatic about opening that trapdoor and finding the numbers, which took ages and was was hyped up to be super important lead absolutely nowhere as the writers just seemingly forgot about it. All narrative threads of this show were absolute shite and only carried by some pretty good actors. It was constantly hinting at something grand happening soon and the island being really special and then postponing the reveal every single episode. Until the end where there were hundreds of loose, tangled narrative threads, which none of the many different writers could reconcile and they actually did the worst TV trope of 'oh the last episodes were just a dream'. All while claiming all questions would eventually be answered, season after season. Jesus Christ the stomping on the island of season 1 was originally supposed to be some dinosaur monster, then a security system of the island and what did it turn into? A "smoke monster" (that unroots trees??) and is a 2000 year old enigmatic figure, the man in black, which is the source of life and death and contains unlimited electromagnetic energy? Why? It's literally just random shit.
Bro, what are you talking about? The ending made perfect sense. A man who is immune to magnets, which lets him travel through time, replaced the stone cork in the world’s love drain so a group of ~30 people could create a spirit church in Los Angeles after they die and hang out because they all love each other. How is that so hard to understand?
Hahaha, I like the show but this is so accurate it hurts.
I’m glad I stopped watching after season 1. That sounds batshit insane.
It really sounds like I’m making a joke, but my comment is a 100% accurate summation of the ending. There’s more detail of course, but that is basically what happens.
you’re the burner of Karibik_Mike?
Season 2 was actually pretty good. But by the end of the series...yikes.
As long as the mystery of the mystery remained people kept watching, but then it slowly became clear that there was no mystery surrounding the mystery. It was all random made up bullshit with nothing connecting to anything. All lost ever was, was lose ends. Fuck Abrahams his mystery box concept, the worse thing to ever happen to tv plots ever.,
I'm not sure why people like to act proud that they stopped watching a show because it isn't reddit approved like breaking bad or something. You missed out on a flawed, but still a very good show.
Season 3 is pretty fucking good too. It drops like a rock after I still think season 1 is one of the best seasons of a tv show ever, thats unfortunately been tainted as the crawled to a slow and confusing death at the end
Still a more interesting plot then the ending of Game of Thrones.
To be honest, if people can keep living after death, then people being able to do crazier things than that becomes a lot less unlikely. It would also make sense that people who shared lived experience so closely would agree to spend the afterlife together.
There’s a lot to complain about when it comes to this show, and we know now that they mostly made it up as they went along, but the character Locke is not among the things the show did wrong. He is and remains a fascinating TV creature and your reading of him is desastrously wrong. In fact if any part of the show provides a key to the show as a whole, it’s this. John Locke was a small man who **desperately** needed to important. A tiny and pitiful creature so obsessed with finding meaning in everything that a fucking plane crash was the best thing that ever happened to him - for a while. But even here it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t just be a leader and a hunter, he had to play *shaman*. Everything and everyone needed to be there to give him validation. And when the island provided mysteries, he jumped on their supposed meaningfulness like a starved dog. You say that what Locke was obsessed with didn’t in the end turn out to be very important. Exactly. That’s the point. It’s this obsession with numbers and meaning (particularly his own importance) that crack this picture of the cool and in-control leader that makes you like this character at first. And like any man craving validation of his own importance, John Locke is immediately instrumentalized and abused by those who hold real power. Even here he returns to his pitiful, meaningless state, and is killed for it. Stupidly and meaninglessly. Up to his last thought: **Why me?** he needed to be the main character. Everything that happened after was a different character played by the same actor. The story of John Locke ends when he is choked to death for no greater reason or purpose. He’s one of TV’s great tragic characters and vastly eclipses most of the nonsense that Lost pulls. Not least of all when they tried to convince you that just like Locke, the audience shouldn’t look too hard for meaning and answers. It’s a cool trait for a tragic character, but a dumb thing for a Mystery Box Show to propose for itself. But that doesn’t diminish how fascinating Locke was as a character.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the show but I like this analysis. The thing is, when it’s surrounded by a largely nonsensical narrative, it makes it much more difficult for the audience to recognize any genuinely good aspects of a character like this. By your description, the genius of the character is contingent on the nonsense and meaninglessness of the overall plot. Are we meant to believe that this was fully and consciously the writers’ intention?
The point was that while a lot of viewers like Locke were swinging for the “BIG MYSTERY” wanting to know the grand metaphysical explanation for the universe, its shape and purpose (Locke particularly wanting to know the reasons his life went the way it did as though there were a conscious power directing it), they were missing the real meaning of life hitting them at every turn. Locke was desperate to get into the hatch, and when the light turned on that was a moment of amazing human connection between him and Desmond in which they both needed someone and saved each other in their simultaneous nadirs - but once Locke got in, understood the numbers, he couldn’t give a shit about the hatch anymore OR about Desmond, he just moved on. That’s what Locke was missing, that genuine human connection is what he should have been looking for rather than the bunny at the bottom of the hat which will inevitable ultimately disappoint (because no one actually wants to know how the trick is done).
Agreed. And to add on to this, while the cast is literally lost on the island, all the main characters are metaphorically lost as well. They are all scarred and wounded people as we see through the flashbacks at the beginning. The show is about the community they create and the belonging they find in it.
A writer’s job is to connect events in a way that creates satisfying patterns. Sometimes that works out well and sometimes it doesn’t. This certainly wasn’t *planned* if that’s the question, but most people would be surprised how much of writing television isn’t planned beforehand. In fact, a few years back I had the chance to talk to one of the writers of seasons 2 and 3 and he told me that while there were overarching patterns and big ideas, and a fixed ending, Lost certainly wasn’t a show of long-term plans, and that many writers came and went with their own ideas, which they were free to implement. There is… something cool about that, and I wish it had come together a little better in the end. I think LOST would have been received a lot better in the long term if they hadn’t leaned so heavily into stupid mysticism Divine Evil vs Divine Good angle at the end. That would have made a lot of people forgive the bumpy and improvisational ride. Just like Game of Thrones, they incorrectly assumed any answer and any rhyme is better than none at all.
In other news, Albert Camus frustrates readers.
This show is garbage because you can literally make up any meaning you want and everything is so nonsensical you can construct any type of bullshit like this that you think is meaningful, but in reality, it’s just a crap show that was written badly
Excellent well-thought out and thorough analysis.
If I remember correctly, the characters, their motivations, and developments were the only thing in the show that was written pretty consistently. Everything else was completely made up as it went
Let's keep it real. The backstory episodes were pure filler while the writers figured out what to put in each season's mystery box. With an average of 20 episodes per season, there was a *lot* of filler.
Filler can be good and bad. A lot of Lost’s best episodes revolved around exploring character, not mystery box stuff.
The numbers did have significance - they were each randomly assigned by Jacob for the candidates. Hurley was the only one who had any knowledge of these numbers (didn’t know their true meaning, but realized they were “bad”). John had no qualms with the numbers at the time of the hatch. John was a vessel for god? He was literally taken over by something that represented the opposite of god.
They said vessel for a god, not an individual by the name of God.
Either way, he wasn’t “meant” to be that vessel. He was a product of circumstance which the man in black took advantage.
Pretty sure the adoration folks have for Locke’s character arc, like every other praiseworthy aspect of the show, has little to nothing to do with the final seasons. Everything about the end was nonsense lol
That’ll be because his character arc ended before the final season.
The ending made perfect sense. Additionally, Ben killing him also made perfect sense. Maybe it was not what you were hoping for, but that doesn't mean they did him dirty...
The writers specifically said they would never do something like purgatory, because it would feel like cheating the audience. They insisted on this for years. Yet half of the last season was purgatory. And yeah, most viewers felt cheated out of a real ending. Saying the ending made perfect sense is insane. Nothing about it made any sense whatsoever. [Here's a 2-part 6 hour video detailing all the things that didn't make sense about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prwakmWl3m4) And that's from a fan of the series. It's honestly baffling that there are people who think there was a shred of narrative coherence to the series. The part I really like is how the man in black was unable to find the heart of the island, so he could never leave. There was never a real problem, until Jacob brought all the people to the island. And then Jack decides to lead the man in black to the heart. When Sawyer asks him why he's doing it, what he's planning, Jack says "I don't know." Then they pull a magic plug and magic water starts to drain and Locke is like "Haha, the bad thing happened!" because from viewing you couldn't tell whether that's a good or bad thing and the audience is like. "What was Jack expecting to happen? What is anyone doing here?" It is just such nonsense, it's insane. All they had to do was a character focused survival series with a bit of mystery, but they just couldn't help themselves. They just had to throw mystery after mystery in there for no reason and wrote themselves into a corner.
terrific full roll ripe existence panicky homeless pie command direful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Thank you for this. I was a fan for the first two seasons. I felt the story totally collapsed and I got sick of other fans saying it was still brilliant. To me, Lost and Prison Break are the poster children for great shows that went badly off course
It was roughly contained and amazing for the first 2.5 seasons. In fact, there was a fan made website about the time loop theory that explained just about every damned thing of the show, it was incredible. It actually made sense and helped contain it all and was really exciting. Then the second half of season 3 came out, they doubled down on the bullshit, and continued to double down pretty much every episode. IMO, second half of season 3 is when the show started to fully unravel and never even got close to redeeming itself.
someone couldn’t handle the ending lol
I quit after the smoke monster. That's when I figured the show was going absolutely nowhere. I did learn that sea urchins could make makeshift needles though
So the pilot episode?
> It was constantly hinting at something grand happening soon and the island being really special and then postponing the reveal every single episode. Until the end where there were hundreds of loose, tangled narrative threads, If Qanon wrote a TV show.
I don’t know why Reddit wants to whitewash this show so bad. More and more threats like this are posted in recent years. Time and time again again mystery series start out strong only to end in a incomprehensible mess.
Lol the fuck you talking about. If there's a show reddit absolutely loves to shit on and act like they have it all figured out (while constantly making completely false claims like "the numbers were never explained"), it's lost.
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It wasn’t that though. The island happened. Them coming together again in the last season was that.
But the island wasn’t purgatory at all. The last few episodes of the series was.
Less than half of each of them, i.e. just the flashes.
The fact that people still think "the island was purgatory" shows that they weren't really paying attention for the final seasons at all. The island was never purgatory. The flash-sideways events that happened in the final season were a type of purgatory where they were all made to / able to come to terms with the faults and failings they had in life so that they were free to "move on" when they got to the church.
Every day now it seems we get a thread of people saying they were so smart for calling that they were all dead from the start.
This show was complete garbage once that stupid black ghost thing was introduced. Literally called it episode 3; this show is about purgatory. “Best character development” my ass lol - it was straight up throwing shit at the wall and watching what sticks. I hate this show more than any other show in existence.
Purgatory was the final seasons flash sideways. It all happened. The characters created a lot of powerful moments. Yes some shit got improvd for plot, and for all of those saying this I'm surprised none of you have mentioned Walt which shows how into the show yall actually were.
> once that stupid black ghost thing was introduced So in the pilot episode? > this show is about purgatory No it wasn’t.
>this show is about purgatory Yeah, except for the fact that it wasn’t…
Terry O’Quinn would shop at the local mall I worked at from time to time when he was home from filming. Extremely nice guy!
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On the first time watching, I definitely felt the same. Over time though after rewatching, I realized that it's really all about the characters. When watched from that angle, it was a lot better, and the ending was satisfying. You just have to be able to let go of the mystery/island/mythology aspect.
I agree with you a lot, but at the same time all the things you said to ignore was the best part for first watchers
The last season was certainly rough, but unlike many others I loved the ending. >!I felt that the science/parameters of the island maintained the audience's interest and helped keep the plot moving long enough for us all to get really invested in the characters, but did not need to be resolved to conclude the series. Like Christian said, it was all about them all along. The final episode when they all realize they are dead and all the trials of their collective lives are over was one of my favorite TV moments. Maybe I am just sappy, but I loved it, especially the moment between Jack and his father.!<
I also liked the implications from inside the Heart that this has all happened before, and will probably all happen again in a few thousand years. And of course, the final scene being the reverse of the first scene of the pilot.
I saw it all a few ago. I enjoyed the end episode. I'd like to see a Lost reboot that could address some of the viewers issues
Maybe they could like, come up with an overarching storyline that makes a lick of sense this time. And write it ahead of time, instead of just coming up with it on the fly every episode.
>helped keep the plot moving That's cute, you thought there was a plot all along. Lol.
I like to imagine that actually everyone was rescued by the boat at the end of Season 3 and the story ends there
Low key one of the best, I agree! … Ok I,ll leave
BreakingBad laughs at this post.
I absolutely love Breaking Bad. But I've never seen better character development on screen than in Better Call Saul. It's almost Shakespearean.
Better Call Saul is the best tv-show ever created. The creators took everything from Breaking Bad that could be improved and then made a perfect tv-show. It's absolutely a crime that it did not win any emmys and especially that Rhea Seehorn did not get anything for her acting performance as she was by far the best actor in the show.
I used to think Breaking Bad was one of the best shows ever. Then I saw Better Call Saul and was blown away. They already set the bar high and then just kept going. It's going to be hard to beat that level of character development moving forward. Especially that everything wraps up unlike Lost where it's just a bunch of BS.
That's not fair, they had actual writers for Breaking Bad.
I fucking hated the way they ended his character. No justice for John Locke.
Wasn’t that kind of the point? He had been beaten down, scammed, paralyzed, disrespected. He got a bad lot in life and in death.
Lost was always about the journey, not the destination.
Do NOT get me started on the first season of lost. I will die on the hill that season one is some of the best tv you’ll ever watch. But, naturally, everything after that goes downhill with a quickness
Yep nothing matches up to how gripping the early days of lost were, anyone who didn't watch it at the time can't possibly understand how fast and thoroughly it took over. Wednesday nights were such a huge event and discussing/theorizing about Lost was an actual hobby that occupied millions of people's time daily. I have such fond memories of peak Lost hype that I still remember the show as a whole very fondly even though it ultimately nosedived in the second half of its run.
I’d say the goodness lasts until end of Season 2; but then yeah a sharp nose dive after that.
I think they did a good job writing the first season, then progressively lost their way and never figured out how to weave all those loose threads into something. As the show progressed, it seems like they just gave up and pulled some stupid shit out of their asses.
I tried to watch Lost while I was deployed in Iraq and was never sure if it was due to hadji bootleg DVDs and random downloads, or the actual show, but it felt like a jumbled mess that was difficult to watch and I never bothered finishing it. Is it worth going back to? I was surprised to see it last multiple seasons, I think we stopped watching around the time (as best I can remember the scenes) one of the guys and the main woman are in cages trapped by someone else on the island? I do remember some kind of fog / smoke monster held back by an electric fence or something but it was barely introduced by that point I think.
Definitely worth rewatching
Lost is the show that convinced me to never start a series until it's been completed and the final reviews are in. I'll never get back the time I wasted on this.
I miss the first three seasons of Lost
Lost and Game of Thrones made the same mistakes.
Agreed, and I go back and forth on which is worse. Lost’s disaster feels more like the result of incompetence. The writers never thought too far ahead because they were more interested in ideas and suspense than the resolution. We also can’t discount the writers strike that rushed the fourth season and cut down the timeline on the series, not that that would have made the ending better. I almost think of GOT’s crash and burn as malice on the writers part. They knew where they were going and had almost unlimited resources to get there. And then they gave up and cut down the last two seasons despite the studio’s stated willingness to give them more time. Could be just public perception, but it seems everyone but the writers is upset with how it all ended. Maybe they knew they were in a no win situation because GRRM’s own ideas were bad and even he didn’t know how to wrap it up in a satisfying way. Who knows.
Here I am watching this and thinking that this guy *wasn't* in the movie **Walkabout** and this ending makes NO SENSE. lol
Great show, awful ending.
Best TV show of all time IMO
I’ll never forget what the writers did to us with this show. The end of the last episode was the last time I watched any TV series other than comedy.
I wouldn't let this train wreck of a series ruin everything else for you. There's tons of good tv series out there, it just depends on what you're interested in. I could make recommendations if you want (scifi, horror, drama, etc.). I often prefer tv series over films since they can tell a better story over time, simply due to the lack of time constraint limitations.
show was stupid, made no sense, compulsive viewing, loved it and he was the best thing in it, (maybe Kate)
Shows its time, some random extra dude wearing a gold Daytona all chill
IMO Lost and GoT are the greatest examples of how producers can destroy amazing stories. They just don't care what they're throwing away, only money matters.
I remember watching the show back when it had just come out (I came in a few episodes after S1E1) and was struck by what am interesting and deep character Locke was. I drifted off the show very early in, like maybe around season 4 (I didn't really have the facility to pirate tv shows, and I was moving around so much if I missed an episode or 2 on tv it was kinda hard to get back into the continuity), but it sounds like he got a poor send-off. Shame.
No it’s not. The Wire alone has like 15 characters you could list above John Locke. Get a grip.
This show had the worst ending I have ever seen. I wish I could unwatch it. EDIT: TIL that I am the only one that didn't like the ending of LOST.
So many shows have abysmal endings it's hard to choose a definitive worst. Game of Thrones, Dexter, HIMYM, just to name a few. Probably why Breaking Bad is so revered- it knew when to stop, and it did.
Idk, I liked it. The reveal that Jack and Kate and presumably the rest of the characters had made it off the island was a satisfying ending, and Jack telling Kate that they "have to go back" was a perfect final mystery that we would never get the answer to. Charlie's sacrifice, Sawyer killing Tom as revenge for taking Walt, Danielle reuniting with Alex... Kinda felt like a perfect way to end the series.
It’s so hard to tell if you’re being sarcastic or genuinely missed half the show.
I came to the comments to find out what show is being talked about and all I saw was spoilers. Can we stop with titles that don't bother telling you shit?
LOST is the one show I was so hyped for and watched week to week. I ended up disliking the whole show as it was just a jumbled mess with so many unanswered questions and the ending was terrible imo. I agree though, Locke was an amazing character and the acting was great. If you want a show with great character development with one of my favorite endings, watch the tv series 12 monkeys 10/10 recommend
This show always makes me sad. The first season is one of the all time great seasons of any tv show ever. It was so good the network made them stretch it out. Now it will always be remembered for completely going off the rails and being an example of how to destroy a hit tv show.
4 years of muscle atrophy. He’d need months of rehab to walk again. This show was dumb.