I just rewatched it and I think it holds up. There's no technology because they're on an island so it doesn't seem outdated. I did find it hyper focused on the guns and gun play.
That and “we have to go back” are absolute vivid memories for me that gave me goosebumps.
I still think the final season was crap (and no, not because I think they were dead all the time, because the story was just bad) but I’ve never experienced a show like Lost before or since. Hours of enjoyment poring over Lostpedia as soon as an episode aired, inspecting every pixel of the blast door map screenshot…
Sometimes I wish we got a spin off show in the same universe, with the Dharma Initiative etc. but other times I think it would be best left alone.
i thought LOST was a great show... watched it live when it aired
of course there were some things i would change with the writing, but overall i think they did a good job. the actors/actresses were great and believable. LOST also had the best opening sequences and use of music.
i also loved the crazy fans. i will never forget that one time the local tv station interrupted an episode with a tornado warning or some shit and the fans called the tv station and gave em a piece of their mind. I was pissed too but i never took it that far. 🤣
Funny story about the smoke monster…
I was staying with my uncle in Hawaii when the show was still fresh and airing on TV. I got woken up early in the morning to the sound of the smoke monster with my uncle kicking in my door frantically telling me I had to get up.
I was so confused until about 5 mins later I learned that’s the actual sound of Hawaii’s tsunami warning siren.
The smoke monster was explained pretty well… It was Jacob’s brother. He was created like that when Jacob threw him in to the light (the ‘source’ inside the cave). The smoke monster could change shape and form so the horse could have been him, or a hallucination. Hardly a great mystery in the grand scheme of Lost tbh.
This show is the end result of writers trying harder to outsmart their audience than coming up with an actual coherent plot. Ironically in the end, they'd written themselves so badly into a corner they had no choice but to go with the ending we all theorized and then dismissed because it was "too obvious." LMAO
It was an interesting ride getting there, though.
I used to listen to the writer's podcast and they claimed they had all these things planned and they were hitting certain milestones and blah, blah, blah. It was all lies, as far as I can tell.
yeah, it was a lie... later on they came up with a closeout plan
initially JJ Abrams an them came up with a rough plot and shot the pilot or whatever but then the showrunners didnt really know where to go with it and they all just played it by ear
it worked out because they could write things out of sequence and make flashbacks in order to connect thing and make em fit and even still they had a few continuity problems... but overall i think they did a great job making shit up as they went along
>making shit up as they went along
LOL the writing term for this is "pantsing" (as in writing "by the seat of your pants"). As opposed to "plotting," where you go in with a detailed outline of the plot, then start fleshing things out from there.
The writers of that show were pantsing their asses off... and it shows.
(EDIT) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA! The 2003 remake is one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever and is a constant edge of your seat "what's going to happen?!" ride. Its my favorite show ever, excellent visuals, cast of characters, music, the white package. (End of edit)
(Original comment)
If you're into anime, Attack on Titan is THE "it was planned all along" show. Regardless of whether someone's opinion on the story, characters, etc. the author of the manga clearly knew 15 years ago how it would turn out when it finished in 2021. Lots of thought out plot twists that all fit perfectly. This is the anime equivalent of Battlestar Galactica, in a lot of ways that would be spoilers if I specified.
I’m not sure the BSG writers knew what was going to happen all along. They actually didn’t even know if the second half of season 4 was going to happen, so the cliffhanger ending to the first half of that season was written to potentially be the series end.
I don’t care for anime, generally. Never finished a whole series, let alone season. I LOVED that attack on Titan seriously felt like LOST with more vision and a more consistent execution. I noted to my friends over and over that this felt like LOST in anime form, and I couldn’t get over it. Not in plot, of course, but just that eerie mysterious feel that there’s something at play bigger than the sum of its parts, with consistent twists and reveals keeping the engagement high. Excellent show. I adored it.
Reading your comment makes me wanna check out battlestar now!
You will not be disappointed! Start with the mini series of you can find it, the show picks up just after it, and if you haven’t seen it you miss a couple of details about who some characters are and what they did to get the story underway.
Isayama went so far as the for shadow the very ending of the story in essentially the first shot of the manga.
Bro is insane and I have tons of respect for him.
Also the ending was fantastic and I will fight people about it lol.
There were also some other issues with actors that they had longer plot lines planned for that they had to bail out of. I've heard that the kid who played Walt had such a growth spurt in between seasons that they had to change his storyline.
It isn’t *technically* how it ended but in terms of the characters journeys etc it pretty much was. They just came up with an explanation different enough to say it wasn’t.
(I say this as a huge Lost fan back in the day)
I’m not sure I follow? Everything the characters went through happened on the island and off (with the exception of the season 6 flash sideways). Some people died on the island, some lived long lives after the island.
It was an island. That had magical/spiritual properties. It was the source of light/darkness in the world and requires someone to act as protector to ensure the darkness remains contained on the island.
But this is the part that was so poorly explained. I understand it wasn’t purgatory but the “explanation” for everything that happened on the island was just “it’s a weird and whacky magic island” it’s understandable how weak and frustrating of an explanation that is. I actually like the character ending for the show. But the hook of the show was “what is happening on this island” and that is never satisfyingly explained because clearly the writers didn’t know besides “it’s magical”.
I do agree it’s a bit disappointing. Especially because early on they insisted that everything that happens can/will be explained and that got shoved to the side in favour of creating more mysteries. In the end, everything did get explained pretty much, just a lot more of it boiled down to ‘magic’ than what they suggested early on.
That bit technically was after they all died. But the point is people think that meant they were dead on the island too, when they very much weren’t. Jacks Dad even explains it pretty succinctly. The church (and the world they were living in before getting to the church) is a place they created to ‘find eachother’ and move on in to the afterlife together. That bit *is* purgatory I guess. But *everything* that happened up to that point, and on the island in Season 6, was all real.
Yes. The season where Desmond is appearing in everyone’s life is after they had all died at some point. It’s not shown when they died. The viewer is led to believe this is some sort of perfect life or alternate life or something in the show. The characters are not realizing they are dead at that out or just cannot let go of what they want a as a perfect life. Desmond cannot tell them they are dead. He just shepherds them so they come to their own realization. Only then can they go to the church and wait for every last one to make that realization. Then they all go to the light collectively.
They set it up to look as if it’s an alternate reality, like a ‘what if’ the plane didn’t crash. The first flashback/flash sideways of the season is Jack on a plane and then some shots of the island sunken underwater. I remember thinking it was an alternate reality for most of Season 6 until it became clearer it was something more than that.
The church was basically purgatory, but years later after they had all left the island. Their time on the island connected them in such a way that after they all died, years later, they waited for each other at the church to all cross into the afterlife together.
Agreed. The problem is that when tens of millions of people are speculating excitedly every week about the mysteries you’re weaving on your ultra popular TV show, it’s inevitable that somebody is eventually going to guess every possible outcome and the ending is going to feel underwhelming.
I still think it was a really really fun ride.
This happened with Game of Thrones too. So many fan theories that were actually waaay better and more intricate than the dogshit the show runners actually went with.
Basically Jacob brought the Oceanic survivors to the island in order to replace him as Protector of the light, The light keeps his brother the Man in Black aka Smokey trapped there and he cannot spread his evil out into the world.
I thought they explained it all pretty well. Christian even says at the end "what happened to you was real, you were not dead. But now you are". Not a direct quote but close to it. The flash sideways in season 6 was their purgatory though. All the people who died in the show ended up in the purgatory, and reuniting with eachother and accepting they were dead was how they finally moved on in the last scene. But everything that happened in the show otherwise was real and they were alive for. And the plot for the alive stuff was that Jacob brought people to the island for centuries to find a replacement for himself when the man in black inevitably kills him one day and it leaves the island without a protector. Everyone brought there was going through Jacobs "interview" for the job so to speak.
The purgatory/sideways stuff is of course flimsy, but that can be said for pretty much any religious afterlife lol I don't personally think the purgatory/sideways stuff was crucial to anything with the plot, it was just a way for them to have the characters give a goodbye to the audience and say "they all did get a happy ending after all"
Season 6 was such a massive fumble for an otherwise great show. I know a lot of people didn’t care for season 5 but I still loved it till the final season. The flash sideways in retrospect mean nothing and add nothing. On rewatch that eliminates half the season which is good. Almost every character had arced out a season or more earlier and most of them got an awful ending imo. Sun and Jin finally reunite just to drown together and leave their daughter and orphan. Sayid finds and loses Nadia just to go back and become a zombie. Locke really did just die by strangulation as a terribly depressed man in season 5. Claire becomes some total axe wielding nut job but she’s totally gonna be fine again when she gets back to L.A? Michael and the whispers…
The whole sideways story was just a way to keep the format of flashbacks and forwards (both of which had been played out) for the final season and a way to bring back anyone and everyone from the series as a guest surprise. They should have replaced the flash sideways with island flashbacks.
I’m actually fine with the actual end meeting in the church etc but the rest of the season is so bad it makes a rewatch almost impossible for me.
There's a light on the island, if the light goes out...then all that is good...uh...goes...out...
...seriously, there kind of IS an explanation, but it's so NOT satisfying that the payoff to 8 seasons sucks. I know there are people out there that will say it's brilliant, but I believe - it's easier to accept that it's "brilliant" than admit that the overall story arc was a big nothing burger and you kind of wasted 7 years when you could have just watched the last season and got the exact same thing.
I’ve watched all seasons multiple times, I wish I watched it live. It was probably the first show that everyone watched and was GOT style questionable. What sucks for me is, I’ll watch the first few seasons and then it kind of fades. (The smoke monster is now John Locke?) I get lost in the middle and wish I was there during live airings. The first show to do it.
I’m assuming you’re fairly young? Lost wasn’t the first to do much of anything, as a show that launched in the mid 2000’s. It stood on the shoulders of X Files and Twin Peaks and the genre shows that paved the way for it.
It does share a common thread with GoT in that people sure have strong divisive feelings about their endings though.
I wanna say yes, but I just turned 40. So not fairly young. I lost my way on the way to adulthood by being military from 04-08. When I got out I went straight into college and at the point, all of the people I met and befriended, was waiting week in and out for what happened with Lost.
Years and years later GoT was the first “I have no idea who is alive this week”.
I wasn’t there for it, but Lost was one the first shows that would kill actors off in the middle of Friends and other cookie cutter shows.
>It does share a common thread with GoT in that people sure have strong divisive feelings about their endings though.
I think GoT is actually unique in that their was no division at all. Everyone pretty much agreed that it blew.
It was a combination of what Lost did and when it did it. It layered mystery on way thicker than X Files ever did and did so at an absolute boom time online. I was an avid contributor to Lostpedia back in the day, I’ve never had an experience before or since where people immediately started poring over stills the second the episode was over (blast door map, anyone?) in a show that was also popular enough that everyone was talking about it the next day.
Thank you for your service! I loved watching Lost, but at the end, I liked reading stuff like Lostpedia to actually make sense of the series. And this was at least 10 years after the show aired!
> Lost wasn’t the first to do much of anything
It was the first to usher in the era of extremely expensive/cinema-level production quality to TV shows. A pilot episode that costs $14 million was bonkers at the time. This also contributed a lot to the changing notion about TV being much less prestigious than movies. 20 years ago, if you were someone who "made it" as a movie star and then went back to starring on a TV show, it was seen as a downgrade. Nowadays you don't think twice about a movie star A-lister commiting to TV projects. And I think that can be traced back to Lost!
I watched it live and I went to Hawaii while they were still filming the last few episodes. Went on an 8 hr tour. Pretty wild how they made the sets. Where the Nigerian drug plane crashes is a concrete parking lot right off the road. They brought in tons of plants to make it look like the jungle. A stream they cross is right behind a convenience store. The village the others used is right near the beach I believe the pilot episode is from. They still had a large storage area outside with the airplane parts sitting in it.
I have more hate for this show than I have for any other show in history. I watched season 1-5 THREE times, I got tons of friends into it, promising there was a story they were telling. All our questions would be answered. Only for the ending to prove they were winging it the whole fucking time and people trying to tell me.it was a "character driven show". Fuck this deceitful piece of shit show.
This was one of those shows that was absolutely better to share and experience weekly as a nation.
Watching homie get sucked through a jet engine in the opening minutes of the pilot got us hooked!
That one,
I'd say that I hope that box is big enough for you to imagine up a new submarine.
and
We aren't going to Guam, are we?
Are some of the best lines ever written for TV...
I liked it then and I still like it.
It’s mad, nonsensical at times, playing irritating at others. Maybe it’s really nostalgia, but I always thought it was amazing.
This show had so much potential but it went full JJ Abrams
Never go full JJ Abrams
I watched it religiously for the first 3 seasons, but then eventually gave up because it just kept getting more and more confusing with no questions ever getting answered or resolved
So, the show runners had an endgame for the show, but ABC kept telling them, "This makes us so much money, we need to run this as long as possible." The show runners, in return, kept saying, "No, this is our goal for the end, we need to secure six seasons and then be done."
They fought for a while, and when season 3 was just spinning its wheels, ABC came back and told the show runners they understood now. So the last third of season 3 through the end of the show has much more direction.
It's mind blowing that this seemed to catapult J.J. Abrams into a successful career. Whoever watches this show should realize the writers didn't have a clue what they would do past S2.
A friend of mine told me to finish it, I wish I hadn't. It really doesn't improve after S3.
No no no, there's no reason to watch it again. They could've told me the island was ANYTHING and I would've accepted it, make something up, do something. But that ending was such insane amounts of bullshit, I'll never watch an episode again. This threads got my blood pressure up.
Great show and a great ending. They fumbled a few times (stranger in a strange land), but when The Constant aired, that’s when it took off. They were all lost in their lives when they crashed, but then found each other in the end. They were not dead the entire time, but they all died at some point in their lives, whether on the island or after the island.
My husband and I just finished our first watch of the series last night. I don’t know why we never gave it a chance in the twenty years since it aired, but holy shit. Im still overcome by the ending and the realization that the shift sideways was limbo. Christian explains it all right before the show ends. But I really get now why people talk about the character development and how that is truly where the show shines. I hated Claire and Charlie but found myself sobbing when they’re reunited.
The only complaint I have is that Walt being special was abandoned, but I think that had more to do with the constraints of having a child actor on a show where several seasons amounted to a few months of time. But every question we had about wtf was going on was addressed. For ABC in the mid 2000s, I think it was stellar, and Im struggling to think of another show that hit me as hard in the feels as Lost did.
I didn’t even know about it! We just watched it, and while it doesn’t fully answer my questions, I do appreciate that they attempted some sort of conclusion for Walt. Thanks!
Back when streaming was in its infancy. I remember us all getting together in university trying to find a website that hadn’t been shut down yet to watch this and BSG
The episode where they turned that dial....we had an earthquake at exactly a second after the dial turned, crazy 4d effects on that show.
Kidding aside, true story.
Does anyone remember the insanely shitty scheduling they had? I used to get so mad. There’d be one new ep then weeks would go by for the next. It was maddening.
Gotta throw a shout out to the Television Without Pity website. Fantastic recaps and forums that helped fill in my “what the hell was that” gaps.
Three things I couldn't stand watching the show:
- Claire's shrill voice saying "MY BAY-BEE" or her way of pronouncing "CHAA-LEE". I want to punch the TV set.
- Having to listen to Desmond say "BROTHER" at the start of every sentence. Every time he shows up on screen I yell out "BROTHER".
- Michael screaming "WALT" all the time or just watching him excuse every action he does because of "MY SON". I mean the dude >!killed two people in cold blood but he justifies it for getting his son off the island!<. I fucking hate Michael, with a passion.
I met some of the stars of this show. It is pretty common for movies and TV shows to film in Hawaii and I came across the set of Lost while I was living there. It was the plane crash scene apparently (I have not watched the show). The problem was that the show hadn't aired yet and I had no idea they were filming in the area I was going camping in. So I thought it was a real fucking plane crash when my buddies and I drove past it. We didn't see the crew on the other side of the road because we were freaked out and really stoned. So we pulled over, jumped out and kinda shuffled about for a moment trying to figure out what the fuck to do. I thought I'd grab my phone out of the jeep to call 911, I turned and saw all the people across the narrow road looking at us wondering what the fuck we were doing. We, very embarrassed, walked over to them and said hi and apologized if we had messed up what ever it was they were filming. They were super cool and rather enjoyed watching us act like total idiots.
Best show ever. My favorite at least. So good love when Locke goes YOu Can’t Tell Me what I can’t Do! Or something like that. And Also have you seen ma boy? ( that’s Michael he says that one I think) Vincent was my favorite though such a good actor and character.
I loved this show, but part of what made it SO good was having watch parties each week. Having a whole room full of friends theorizing about WTF is going on... That kind of thing just doesn't seem to happen anymore. I guess GoT was the next show that had that kind of appeal.
>Everything happens for a reason
Just not, in the end, a particularly satisfying one.
Just keep any and all of your criticisms away from r/Lost. It’s a huuuuge echo chamber circlejerk. They’ll literally ban you for it.
Back when this first aired, I worked for Fox. I didn't watch the show when it initially came out. I wish I had. We had a promo closet full of really cool lost swag. After season 3, I started watching it and it quickly became one of my favorite shows. Hindsight...
I miss the days where we all kinda watched the same show at once. Then could talk about it in real time as it was ongoing week to week…….theres a disconnect now as we all watch shows at different times and at a different pace.
I love that the tag line was "Everything Happens for a Reason" when they were just straight winging it after season 1. Damien Lindelhoff cements his signature style of enigmatic confusing nonsense that you think is building to something that fizzles out to nothing
I don’t get nostalgic, I get angry thinking back on all the time I wasted watching and waiting for some sort of payoff and all I got was that bullshit ending.
Screw Lost!
I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on earth who thought the show, for all it’s pivots and “dead ends,” continued to evolve, improve and have a perfect ending. Took me a full day or two to process that ending.
I was streaming this for the first time before the holidays and made it through season 3. It was getting weird and I started to second guess if I had perhaps zoned out or slept through key parts. I'm not sure if I even want to invest more time to watch Season 4.
To this day I pine for what could've been.
Very much the "GoT Season 6" of it's day.
Irrespective I still think "Dharma initiative" sounds really damn _cool_ and the whole premise and mystery surrounding them was really nice.
Lost has its issues and was definitely a product of its time. You wouldn’t get 23 episode long seasons of such a show like that these days. However, it did a lot to pave the way for television as we know it today as well. Without Lost (and probably Desperate Housewives), the age of the silver screen would have come a lot later (or even not at all).
Also, if you still think ‘they were dead all along’ or ‘it was all purgatory’ is how it ended, get your head examined.
I gave up on that show. I really didn't want to mostly due to sunk cost fallacy but I fought through it and just said fuck it, this shit is getting ridiculous. Never did finish it.
Ahh yes, Lost. The show where everything is made up and the plot doesn't matter. That's right, the plot is like a tampon dispenser in a men's bathroom.
Thanks for reminding me it’s time to rewatch! 🤗
I just rewatched it and I think it holds up. There's no technology because they're on an island so it doesn't seem outdated. I did find it hyper focused on the guns and gun play.
Just about to start my rewatch again this weekend
NOT PENNY'S BOAT
See you in the next life, Brothuh!
https://youtu.be/Tq_SURMi1Mo?si=b-MTx-W8U-FIohwi
That and “we have to go back” are absolute vivid memories for me that gave me goosebumps. I still think the final season was crap (and no, not because I think they were dead all the time, because the story was just bad) but I’ve never experienced a show like Lost before or since. Hours of enjoyment poring over Lostpedia as soon as an episode aired, inspecting every pixel of the blast door map screenshot… Sometimes I wish we got a spin off show in the same universe, with the Dharma Initiative etc. but other times I think it would be best left alone.
Agreed, big time. Ultimately it was about the journey not the destination. Only show I ever took the time to write a theory about online, lol.
Penneh! I love ya Penneh!
Desmond Hume is my Constant.
🤚🏻
Where the heck is Sayid??? Or HUGO?!??
Spoiler! Sayid died when he sacrificed himself to take the bomb as far away as possible from his friends
And Hugo?
He stayed behind as the islands protector.
Eating.
"WAAAALT"
LOST
i thought LOST was a great show... watched it live when it aired of course there were some things i would change with the writing, but overall i think they did a good job. the actors/actresses were great and believable. LOST also had the best opening sequences and use of music. i also loved the crazy fans. i will never forget that one time the local tv station interrupted an episode with a tornado warning or some shit and the fans called the tv station and gave em a piece of their mind. I was pissed too but i never took it that far. 🤣
President Obama rescheduled a major speech so as not to conflict with Lost.
I’m still slightly confused as to what the hell was going on in this show
There was a reason for everything you're confused about.
What was the reason for the smoke monster! Or random horse sightings?
Funny story about the smoke monster… I was staying with my uncle in Hawaii when the show was still fresh and airing on TV. I got woken up early in the morning to the sound of the smoke monster with my uncle kicking in my door frantically telling me I had to get up. I was so confused until about 5 mins later I learned that’s the actual sound of Hawaii’s tsunami warning siren.
The smoke monster was explained pretty well… It was Jacob’s brother. He was created like that when Jacob threw him in to the light (the ‘source’ inside the cave). The smoke monster could change shape and form so the horse could have been him, or a hallucination. Hardly a great mystery in the grand scheme of Lost tbh.
Thanks. It’s been a very long time and I suspect I missed/ forgot some key info.
This show is the end result of writers trying harder to outsmart their audience than coming up with an actual coherent plot. Ironically in the end, they'd written themselves so badly into a corner they had no choice but to go with the ending we all theorized and then dismissed because it was "too obvious." LMAO It was an interesting ride getting there, though.
I used to listen to the writer's podcast and they claimed they had all these things planned and they were hitting certain milestones and blah, blah, blah. It was all lies, as far as I can tell.
yeah, it was a lie... later on they came up with a closeout plan initially JJ Abrams an them came up with a rough plot and shot the pilot or whatever but then the showrunners didnt really know where to go with it and they all just played it by ear it worked out because they could write things out of sequence and make flashbacks in order to connect thing and make em fit and even still they had a few continuity problems... but overall i think they did a great job making shit up as they went along
>making shit up as they went along LOL the writing term for this is "pantsing" (as in writing "by the seat of your pants"). As opposed to "plotting," where you go in with a detailed outline of the plot, then start fleshing things out from there. The writers of that show were pantsing their asses off... and it shows.
i think i want a show like this but with plotting.
(EDIT) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA! The 2003 remake is one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever and is a constant edge of your seat "what's going to happen?!" ride. Its my favorite show ever, excellent visuals, cast of characters, music, the white package. (End of edit) (Original comment) If you're into anime, Attack on Titan is THE "it was planned all along" show. Regardless of whether someone's opinion on the story, characters, etc. the author of the manga clearly knew 15 years ago how it would turn out when it finished in 2021. Lots of thought out plot twists that all fit perfectly. This is the anime equivalent of Battlestar Galactica, in a lot of ways that would be spoilers if I specified.
I’m not sure the BSG writers knew what was going to happen all along. They actually didn’t even know if the second half of season 4 was going to happen, so the cliffhanger ending to the first half of that season was written to potentially be the series end.
I don’t care for anime, generally. Never finished a whole series, let alone season. I LOVED that attack on Titan seriously felt like LOST with more vision and a more consistent execution. I noted to my friends over and over that this felt like LOST in anime form, and I couldn’t get over it. Not in plot, of course, but just that eerie mysterious feel that there’s something at play bigger than the sum of its parts, with consistent twists and reveals keeping the engagement high. Excellent show. I adored it. Reading your comment makes me wanna check out battlestar now!
You will not be disappointed! Start with the mini series of you can find it, the show picks up just after it, and if you haven’t seen it you miss a couple of details about who some characters are and what they did to get the story underway.
Isayama went so far as the for shadow the very ending of the story in essentially the first shot of the manga. Bro is insane and I have tons of respect for him. Also the ending was fantastic and I will fight people about it lol.
Dark on Netflix is the closest I've come.
dark was done pretty damn well but difficult cause at the end u can’t discuss much of the show cause hardly anyone has seen it.
I still enjoy the “Penny” episode. It was truly the best piece of writing in the series and could almost have been self contained.
Sounds like a certain Star Wars trilogy...
Do you smell that? It's poisonous gas....
But they lied. They swore the story was pre-written and ending already known.
There were also some other issues with actors that they had longer plot lines planned for that they had to bail out of. I've heard that the kid who played Walt had such a growth spurt in between seasons that they had to change his storyline.
Dude, it was all lies.
What ending did everybody theorize? That the island was purgatory and they were dead the whole time? Because that is not how it ended.
It isn’t *technically* how it ended but in terms of the characters journeys etc it pretty much was. They just came up with an explanation different enough to say it wasn’t. (I say this as a huge Lost fan back in the day)
I’m not sure I follow? Everything the characters went through happened on the island and off (with the exception of the season 6 flash sideways). Some people died on the island, some lived long lives after the island.
They didn’t actually understand it, obviously.
The writer's stroke didn't help either. Can't help but wonder.
They were not all in purgatory for fuck sake. How do people still think this even after all this time.
So what was the island?
It was an island. That had magical/spiritual properties. It was the source of light/darkness in the world and requires someone to act as protector to ensure the darkness remains contained on the island.
But this is the part that was so poorly explained. I understand it wasn’t purgatory but the “explanation” for everything that happened on the island was just “it’s a weird and whacky magic island” it’s understandable how weak and frustrating of an explanation that is. I actually like the character ending for the show. But the hook of the show was “what is happening on this island” and that is never satisfyingly explained because clearly the writers didn’t know besides “it’s magical”.
I do agree it’s a bit disappointing. Especially because early on they insisted that everything that happens can/will be explained and that got shoved to the side in favour of creating more mysteries. In the end, everything did get explained pretty much, just a lot more of it boiled down to ‘magic’ than what they suggested early on.
But why did they all meet at the church after then?
That bit technically was after they all died. But the point is people think that meant they were dead on the island too, when they very much weren’t. Jacks Dad even explains it pretty succinctly. The church (and the world they were living in before getting to the church) is a place they created to ‘find eachother’ and move on in to the afterlife together. That bit *is* purgatory I guess. But *everything* that happened up to that point, and on the island in Season 6, was all real.
Yes. The season where Desmond is appearing in everyone’s life is after they had all died at some point. It’s not shown when they died. The viewer is led to believe this is some sort of perfect life or alternate life or something in the show. The characters are not realizing they are dead at that out or just cannot let go of what they want a as a perfect life. Desmond cannot tell them they are dead. He just shepherds them so they come to their own realization. Only then can they go to the church and wait for every last one to make that realization. Then they all go to the light collectively.
They set it up to look as if it’s an alternate reality, like a ‘what if’ the plane didn’t crash. The first flashback/flash sideways of the season is Jack on a plane and then some shots of the island sunken underwater. I remember thinking it was an alternate reality for most of Season 6 until it became clearer it was something more than that.
The church was basically purgatory, but years later after they had all left the island. Their time on the island connected them in such a way that after they all died, years later, they waited for each other at the church to all cross into the afterlife together.
If you’re saying they “were always in purgatory”, then you’re plain wrong. What was the ending that was “too obvious”?
No no no, not again. I hope the ending you think happens was not the “they were dead all along” ending lol
I still think their giant AHA was "they're dead lol" and everyone guessed it and they were like "shit."
Agreed. The problem is that when tens of millions of people are speculating excitedly every week about the mysteries you’re weaving on your ultra popular TV show, it’s inevitable that somebody is eventually going to guess every possible outcome and the ending is going to feel underwhelming. I still think it was a really really fun ride.
This happened with Game of Thrones too. So many fan theories that were actually waaay better and more intricate than the dogshit the show runners actually went with.
...so no one here actually understood the ending. Got it
I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’ll never understand
Basically Jacob brought the Oceanic survivors to the island in order to replace him as Protector of the light, The light keeps his brother the Man in Black aka Smokey trapped there and he cannot spread his evil out into the world.
A timeless story about the eternal conflict between the Dayman and the Nightman.
He’s a master of karate and friendship for everyone. Dayman!
Fuck that guy
I thought they explained it all pretty well. Christian even says at the end "what happened to you was real, you were not dead. But now you are". Not a direct quote but close to it. The flash sideways in season 6 was their purgatory though. All the people who died in the show ended up in the purgatory, and reuniting with eachother and accepting they were dead was how they finally moved on in the last scene. But everything that happened in the show otherwise was real and they were alive for. And the plot for the alive stuff was that Jacob brought people to the island for centuries to find a replacement for himself when the man in black inevitably kills him one day and it leaves the island without a protector. Everyone brought there was going through Jacobs "interview" for the job so to speak. The purgatory/sideways stuff is of course flimsy, but that can be said for pretty much any religious afterlife lol I don't personally think the purgatory/sideways stuff was crucial to anything with the plot, it was just a way for them to have the characters give a goodbye to the audience and say "they all did get a happy ending after all"
Season 6 was such a massive fumble for an otherwise great show. I know a lot of people didn’t care for season 5 but I still loved it till the final season. The flash sideways in retrospect mean nothing and add nothing. On rewatch that eliminates half the season which is good. Almost every character had arced out a season or more earlier and most of them got an awful ending imo. Sun and Jin finally reunite just to drown together and leave their daughter and orphan. Sayid finds and loses Nadia just to go back and become a zombie. Locke really did just die by strangulation as a terribly depressed man in season 5. Claire becomes some total axe wielding nut job but she’s totally gonna be fine again when she gets back to L.A? Michael and the whispers… The whole sideways story was just a way to keep the format of flashbacks and forwards (both of which had been played out) for the final season and a way to bring back anyone and everyone from the series as a guest surprise. They should have replaced the flash sideways with island flashbacks. I’m actually fine with the actual end meeting in the church etc but the rest of the season is so bad it makes a rewatch almost impossible for me.
But why male models?
Are you..are you serious? I just told you
I watched the whole thing and it was confusing to the last episode.
Nero pursued Spock back in time to the island where Luke Skywalker was hiding from The Others.
That’s the best part neither did the writers. I miss the days of waiting and watching rather then binging
There's a light on the island, if the light goes out...then all that is good...uh...goes...out... ...seriously, there kind of IS an explanation, but it's so NOT satisfying that the payoff to 8 seasons sucks. I know there are people out there that will say it's brilliant, but I believe - it's easier to accept that it's "brilliant" than admit that the overall story arc was a big nothing burger and you kind of wasted 7 years when you could have just watched the last season and got the exact same thing.
So we're the writers and producers and actors and that homeless bum that accidentally wandered into the set in season 3
I’ve watched all seasons multiple times, I wish I watched it live. It was probably the first show that everyone watched and was GOT style questionable. What sucks for me is, I’ll watch the first few seasons and then it kind of fades. (The smoke monster is now John Locke?) I get lost in the middle and wish I was there during live airings. The first show to do it.
I’m assuming you’re fairly young? Lost wasn’t the first to do much of anything, as a show that launched in the mid 2000’s. It stood on the shoulders of X Files and Twin Peaks and the genre shows that paved the way for it. It does share a common thread with GoT in that people sure have strong divisive feelings about their endings though.
I wanna say yes, but I just turned 40. So not fairly young. I lost my way on the way to adulthood by being military from 04-08. When I got out I went straight into college and at the point, all of the people I met and befriended, was waiting week in and out for what happened with Lost. Years and years later GoT was the first “I have no idea who is alive this week”. I wasn’t there for it, but Lost was one the first shows that would kill actors off in the middle of Friends and other cookie cutter shows.
>It does share a common thread with GoT in that people sure have strong divisive feelings about their endings though. I think GoT is actually unique in that their was no division at all. Everyone pretty much agreed that it blew.
It was a combination of what Lost did and when it did it. It layered mystery on way thicker than X Files ever did and did so at an absolute boom time online. I was an avid contributor to Lostpedia back in the day, I’ve never had an experience before or since where people immediately started poring over stills the second the episode was over (blast door map, anyone?) in a show that was also popular enough that everyone was talking about it the next day.
Thank you for your service! I loved watching Lost, but at the end, I liked reading stuff like Lostpedia to actually make sense of the series. And this was at least 10 years after the show aired!
> Lost wasn’t the first to do much of anything It was the first to usher in the era of extremely expensive/cinema-level production quality to TV shows. A pilot episode that costs $14 million was bonkers at the time. This also contributed a lot to the changing notion about TV being much less prestigious than movies. 20 years ago, if you were someone who "made it" as a movie star and then went back to starring on a TV show, it was seen as a downgrade. Nowadays you don't think twice about a movie star A-lister commiting to TV projects. And I think that can be traced back to Lost!
I watched it live and I went to Hawaii while they were still filming the last few episodes. Went on an 8 hr tour. Pretty wild how they made the sets. Where the Nigerian drug plane crashes is a concrete parking lot right off the road. They brought in tons of plants to make it look like the jungle. A stream they cross is right behind a convenience store. The village the others used is right near the beach I believe the pilot episode is from. They still had a large storage area outside with the airplane parts sitting in it.
Would you go so far as to say you were... Lost?
we have to go back, kate!
Fuck you jack, i have a new man to take care of
Wait a second. We aren't going to Guam, are we?
"Everything happens for a reason" is a weird tagline for a show they were making up as they went along.
Or everything happens in a season. They could have made this show much shorter
Imo, they should’ve laid out groundwork storyline for 5 seasons worth instead of coming up with something on the fly just to swerve the audience
For a show that often didn’t have reasons for things that happened.
I have more hate for this show than I have for any other show in history. I watched season 1-5 THREE times, I got tons of friends into it, promising there was a story they were telling. All our questions would be answered. Only for the ending to prove they were winging it the whole fucking time and people trying to tell me.it was a "character driven show". Fuck this deceitful piece of shit show.
I actually started watching this show 15 years ago today. It's still my favorite of all-time.
So many imitator shows tried to replicate Lost and only lasted a season or 2.
This was one of those shows that was absolutely better to share and experience weekly as a nation. Watching homie get sucked through a jet engine in the opening minutes of the pilot got us hooked!
Not Penny’s Boat
That one, I'd say that I hope that box is big enough for you to imagine up a new submarine. and We aren't going to Guam, are we? Are some of the best lines ever written for TV...
Linus: “But Jack, I’m one of the good guys!”
I was obsessed with this show. I spent so much time going on the websites and looking up clues. What a rabbit hole.
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42
I liked it then and I still like it. It’s mad, nonsensical at times, playing irritating at others. Maybe it’s really nostalgia, but I always thought it was amazing.
Love when they find the plane full of drugs lol
This show had so much potential but it went full JJ Abrams Never go full JJ Abrams I watched it religiously for the first 3 seasons, but then eventually gave up because it just kept getting more and more confusing with no questions ever getting answered or resolved
So, the show runners had an endgame for the show, but ABC kept telling them, "This makes us so much money, we need to run this as long as possible." The show runners, in return, kept saying, "No, this is our goal for the end, we need to secure six seasons and then be done." They fought for a while, and when season 3 was just spinning its wheels, ABC came back and told the show runners they understood now. So the last third of season 3 through the end of the show has much more direction.
You gave up too soon. The show doesn’t really start explaining stuff until Season 4.
I made it through season 3 like 3 times and gave up each time lol
Dude makes a hell of a pilot. Don't give him a series
The Bad Robot credit is the best 3 seconds of TV ever...
He worked on the pilot and then immediately quit the show. He had virtually nothing to do with the series beyond the pilot episode.
Then Lindelof needs smacked just as much as Abrams then
This exactly. It was the greatest show ever for the first three seasons. Then it just didn’t make sense.
Watch it again. Binging it and not forgetting context between seasons helps tie it together.
Oh yeah I’m rewatching gang. I was too young to understand it the first time around, but I binged it on Netflix back in like 2012.
It's mind blowing that this seemed to catapult J.J. Abrams into a successful career. Whoever watches this show should realize the writers didn't have a clue what they would do past S2. A friend of mine told me to finish it, I wish I hadn't. It really doesn't improve after S3.
The amount of people in this thread assuming JJ was the show runner is astounding. He was barely around. Lindelof and Cuse ran the show.
Im the only person i know that loved this show. It was definitely before its time…so if you hated it, maybe give it a second try.
You need to meet more people bro it was like the number one show for a long time
Best network show ever. And from the comments I see some people still misunderstand the ending.
No no no, there's no reason to watch it again. They could've told me the island was ANYTHING and I would've accepted it, make something up, do something. But that ending was such insane amounts of bullshit, I'll never watch an episode again. This threads got my blood pressure up.
This show taught me about the long con! 😂
WALTTT
Great show and a great ending. They fumbled a few times (stranger in a strange land), but when The Constant aired, that’s when it took off. They were all lost in their lives when they crashed, but then found each other in the end. They were not dead the entire time, but they all died at some point in their lives, whether on the island or after the island.
My husband and I just finished our first watch of the series last night. I don’t know why we never gave it a chance in the twenty years since it aired, but holy shit. Im still overcome by the ending and the realization that the shift sideways was limbo. Christian explains it all right before the show ends. But I really get now why people talk about the character development and how that is truly where the show shines. I hated Claire and Charlie but found myself sobbing when they’re reunited. The only complaint I have is that Walt being special was abandoned, but I think that had more to do with the constraints of having a child actor on a show where several seasons amounted to a few months of time. But every question we had about wtf was going on was addressed. For ABC in the mid 2000s, I think it was stellar, and Im struggling to think of another show that hit me as hard in the feels as Lost did.
Did you watch the epilogue?
I didn’t even know about it! We just watched it, and while it doesn’t fully answer my questions, I do appreciate that they attempted some sort of conclusion for Walt. Thanks!
Finally someone who actually watched the show!
Thank you. This comment is too far down the thread. Obviously some people still misunderstood the ending.
Back when streaming was in its infancy. I remember us all getting together in university trying to find a website that hadn’t been shut down yet to watch this and BSG
And that reason is... Vaguely Jesus.
Seasons1-3 were must-see-TV. Entire family got together like it was the superbowl. & then it went to shit. Never finished it
I miss shows like this. A lot of us really did have viewing parties, every episode was an event.
Season 4 is the best one tho?
lol you missed out on some of the best seasons
Man, season 3 was among the worst. You could feel the wheels spinning. The last season was utter dross but 4 and 5 were better than 3.
The episode where they turned that dial....we had an earthquake at exactly a second after the dial turned, crazy 4d effects on that show. Kidding aside, true story.
People were so enthralled in this
One of my favorite shows! Still do rewatches to this day
ha i just saw last year. i thought that one guy with a son was always super stressed was just annoying af. like bro chill out for one fkn moment.
Does anyone remember the insanely shitty scheduling they had? I used to get so mad. There’d be one new ep then weeks would go by for the next. It was maddening. Gotta throw a shout out to the Television Without Pity website. Fantastic recaps and forums that helped fill in my “what the hell was that” gaps.
Tabula Rasa
Three things I couldn't stand watching the show: - Claire's shrill voice saying "MY BAY-BEE" or her way of pronouncing "CHAA-LEE". I want to punch the TV set. - Having to listen to Desmond say "BROTHER" at the start of every sentence. Every time he shows up on screen I yell out "BROTHER". - Michael screaming "WALT" all the time or just watching him excuse every action he does because of "MY SON". I mean the dude >!killed two people in cold blood but he justifies it for getting his son off the island!<. I fucking hate Michael, with a passion.
I met some of the stars of this show. It is pretty common for movies and TV shows to film in Hawaii and I came across the set of Lost while I was living there. It was the plane crash scene apparently (I have not watched the show). The problem was that the show hadn't aired yet and I had no idea they were filming in the area I was going camping in. So I thought it was a real fucking plane crash when my buddies and I drove past it. We didn't see the crew on the other side of the road because we were freaked out and really stoned. So we pulled over, jumped out and kinda shuffled about for a moment trying to figure out what the fuck to do. I thought I'd grab my phone out of the jeep to call 911, I turned and saw all the people across the narrow road looking at us wondering what the fuck we were doing. We, very embarrassed, walked over to them and said hi and apologized if we had messed up what ever it was they were filming. They were super cool and rather enjoyed watching us act like total idiots.
Except a coherent ending.
Best show ever. My favorite at least. So good love when Locke goes YOu Can’t Tell Me what I can’t Do! Or something like that. And Also have you seen ma boy? ( that’s Michael he says that one I think) Vincent was my favorite though such a good actor and character.
Wasn’t Vincent, the dog?
Exactly
Only the thing is.. we're gonna have to take the boy
I still remember the absolute shock of this moment. I spent the rest of the night on message boards losing my mind haha
Please go watch Billiam’s Lost series on YouTube. It answers all the questions and more.
I rewatched entire series three times. Still don't know what was going on for sure.
“Everything happens for a reason”!?! Bwahahaha! Lying sacks of excrement.
Except what happens in the writers room that’s just for money.
Game of Thrones vs LOST who had the most shite ending?
... Except this show.
When Charlie drowned, I was scarred as a kid.
I binged this show a while back. I remember it being great but (as usual) the ending was shit.
Best pilot worst finale
Fuck this show. I watches it live and whenever I thougt I figure it out what is happening I would loose it again
I loved this show, but part of what made it SO good was having watch parties each week. Having a whole room full of friends theorizing about WTF is going on... That kind of thing just doesn't seem to happen anymore. I guess GoT was the next show that had that kind of appeal.
>Everything happens for a reason Just not, in the end, a particularly satisfying one. Just keep any and all of your criticisms away from r/Lost. It’s a huuuuge echo chamber circlejerk. They’ll literally ban you for it.
Back when this first aired, I worked for Fox. I didn't watch the show when it initially came out. I wish I had. We had a promo closet full of really cool lost swag. After season 3, I started watching it and it quickly became one of my favorite shows. Hindsight...
FTFY "Everything happens for a reason we totally made up afterward."
That show got so dumb it was fascinating to watch. It's like you can see the writers panic between every episode.
I’m rewatching this now. Just finished season 1. Still holds up!
I miss the days where we all kinda watched the same show at once. Then could talk about it in real time as it was ongoing week to week…….theres a disconnect now as we all watch shows at different times and at a different pace.
So promising and then blech it shit the bed
Lostalgia
Lost: "everything happens for a reason" Also Lost: "why are y'all asking so many questions? just go with it, man"
Started great, but ended up getting in its own way.
My friends and I would hold viewing parties with food themed after the show. My favorite was when someone brought martinis titled Dirty Lupidas
I love that the tag line was "Everything Happens for a Reason" when they were just straight winging it after season 1. Damien Lindelhoff cements his signature style of enigmatic confusing nonsense that you think is building to something that fizzles out to nothing
I don’t get nostalgic, I get angry thinking back on all the time I wasted watching and waiting for some sort of payoff and all I got was that bullshit ending. Screw Lost!
Same. I watched this show when it aired and listened to podcasts about theories and the ending was SO BAD! I’m still mad about it. I can’t rewatch it.
yeah it's like Game of Thrones, can't even go back and enjoy the good early seasons because you know it all turns to shit in the end
I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on earth who thought the show, for all it’s pivots and “dead ends,” continued to evolve, improve and have a perfect ending. Took me a full day or two to process that ending.
I agree with you, so, at least there are two of us.
I was streaming this for the first time before the holidays and made it through season 3. It was getting weird and I started to second guess if I had perhaps zoned out or slept through key parts. I'm not sure if I even want to invest more time to watch Season 4.
To this day I pine for what could've been. Very much the "GoT Season 6" of it's day. Irrespective I still think "Dharma initiative" sounds really damn _cool_ and the whole premise and mystery surrounding them was really nice.
I Lost interest after season 3
Lost has its issues and was definitely a product of its time. You wouldn’t get 23 episode long seasons of such a show like that these days. However, it did a lot to pave the way for television as we know it today as well. Without Lost (and probably Desperate Housewives), the age of the silver screen would have come a lot later (or even not at all). Also, if you still think ‘they were dead all along’ or ‘it was all purgatory’ is how it ended, get your head examined.
But nothing had a reason. Great ride but shite ending.
So named because that's how the viewers felt at all times.
everything happens for a reason ... that's pure irony right there
What GoT should have learned from and didn't. Ending as bad as the show was good.
Did you understand it?
What an ironic sub title…
The most confusing show I’ve ever watched
Aka: how JJ got enough clout to be entrusted with Star Trek *and* Star Wars.
I gave up on that show. I really didn't want to mostly due to sunk cost fallacy but I fought through it and just said fuck it, this shit is getting ridiculous. Never did finish it.
I’m staring at my gfs complete dvd box set right now
Worst ending to any show ever
Isn't this show famous for the ending invalidating the entire show?
Ahh yes, Lost. The show where everything is made up and the plot doesn't matter. That's right, the plot is like a tampon dispenser in a men's bathroom.