Tuesday, June 22, 2010

"I'm Letting Go Of Season 6"

Homer Simpson once said, "There's no moral to this story, it's just a bunch of stuff that happened!" That generally sums up how I feel about Lost (the TV show, not the entire experience) now that it is all over and done, and I've seen the finale. Unfortunately I have to place myself in the category, deemed by most fans who enjoyed the finale, of those who just don't get it. But that's OK. I'm happy for viewers who agreed with TPTB on how they ended the tale, I wish that I did.

Whether I got it or not, Season 6 and the finale just didn't seem to do anything for me, compared to the long strange trip that made up the first five seasons and hiatuses.The FS world didn't grab my interest at all for some reason, and the S6-present sort of felt almost like another show to me. Most of it just looked like people running to, and from, and back to again, MIB as he ran amok zigzagging through the jungle to get his holy revenge on. Revenge is best served cold? Not in his case apparently, and now we know how much 2000 years of hate can make you crazy and ruin the punchline for your resentment, haha. S6 also seemed really rushed to me as we were watching it unfold, but also at the same time felt like time was seriously a-wasting concerning the many interesting aspects that were open-ended at that point.

There were so many fascinating details in and about Lost that TPTB wrapped around our minds and hearts. We all know the unanswered questions, I won't go into them here, but the Lost storyline was like a huge octopus that branched off on vast arrays of subjects which spiraled into images in our minds like never ending fractal pictures! This was mostly due to the hiatus material that we got to play with, via the summer ARGs. What a glorious trip, I enjoyed it thoroughly. But now I almost wish that there hadn't been any ARGs and the side-stories of DHARMA, etc., because all that made me take the gory details very seriously and to expect much more than I got (IMHO) for a payoff in the end. Sort of how the pre-movie hype for Cloverfield all led to nothing in the actual movie. I know that the ARGs weren't meant to be a part of the show, but once your eyes and mind have been opened to the mysteries of the universe, there's no going back to stupid.

Even though the FS and the Limbo-verse doesn't jive with what I needed from the finale, of course I do understand all the purposeful parallels that TPTB forced, ahem, played on in the last season, and what they all are supposed to mean. Alas I fall into the minority who would have liked to see some closure in the real Universe too, and on the island (which TPTB insisted was a character of the show), not in the Afterlife universe where everything is apparently perfect and shiny and happy as long as Jack is happy. For the record, I didn't really like the end of Return Of The King with the long drawn out sappy scene of the Hobbits leaving with the Elves on the ship to Golden Land either. Man, I'm crabby, aren't I ?! :o)

But even in ROTK we got to go back to Hobbiton and see the real life that Sam had made for himself where real things happen to real people. I wanted to see people like Hurley, and yes even Kate, "work out their own salvation" as the apostle Paul put it, in the real world or on the island where their actions really mattered to me. Not in the Razzledazzle universe where amazing miracles happen only after we are tricked into thinking that it was another reality with real events, and the inhabitants finally realize that they're dead (with Des taking over for Jennifer Love Hewitt) and walking into the light. In the end the Limboverse did actually feel like the dreaded "snowglobe ending" to me. I'm really sorry.

Damon and Carlton insisted from the beginning of our guessing that purgatory had nothing to do with the show, so I guess that they made up their own kind of cross-over-ville. But did they give us a hint that we missed? The wise man Alvar Hanso, who was partially quoted by Tom in the jungle, was recorded in the TLE-ARG as saying, "The future need not be an undiscovered country". Lostpedia notes that the term comes from Hamlet and refers to the unknown that comes after death. Was that indeed a hint way back then, or just a coincidence? Well, I guess that I don't care too much now, I've let go. Namaste lost friends, I love ya all and I had a lot of fun watching and experiencing Lost with you! xo

19 comments:

memphish said...

A nice post Capcom. I also engaged in a Lost post-mortem today. I ran into the ultimate casual Lost fan at a bookstore. Her family blew through the DVDs over the past hiatus, and she admittedly didn't pay the most attention. Her teenage son was embarrassed by what she didn't know. She was one of those people who thought they all died in the crash. And she was completely unsure of what she was watching in the finale.

Anyway, enough about that. The reason I bring it up is that she asked me about the finale knowing that I'm a Lost fanatic. And thankfully for my own sanity I was able to say that while I did not enjoy S6 as a whole that I did enjoy the experience of watching the finale. I was glad I cried at all the Sideways World reunions and that the actual on Island ending still chokes me up. I was glad that the Sideways world was not in fact an alternate reality and that the choices made in the real world did in fact matter. Given the way it went that was probably the best possible answer to the Sideways world for me. I did not sign up for alternate universes.

Then my son asked me later in the day if you could talk to one person running a TV show what would it be and what would you tell them, and my answer was unhesitatingly I'd make Damon and Carlton completely redo S6. I feel like their need to tell off-Island stories in a new way while remaining "true" to the on-Island story made the season fall way short for me. The main problem was their failure to tell the off-Island stories in a way that connected to the Island world in all but the case of Ben. The inconsistency in the on-Island mythology was also very frustrating. The pacing was way off. And Across The Sea nearly sent me over the edge.

But in a way Across The Sea was good for me because it for once and for all told me that the only way I was going to enjoy the end was to get over there being anything other than predictable but potentially emotionally satisfying "payoff." And I was able to adapt and thus I enjoyed the finale as it aired.

Do I now recommend Lost the way I did before S6 aired? No, I don't. I think they played it safe in S6. I still think they hedged their bets at the end of S5. Their failure to commit to the boulder in the stream working or not working led to ambivalence at least on my part in both storylines.

But do I regret the 5 years I put into the show? No. I got to talk via my fingers to tons of cool people all over the world. I got to think about literature, philosophy and science in ways I never thought about them before and in ways that no other form of entertainment makes me think now.

I loved you Lost. You weren't perfect, but I still loved you. Fair winds and following seas.

memphish said...

And now a brief post to get email. Stupid blogger didn't have me signed in before.

maven said...

Thanks for posting your thoughts, Capcom (and Memphish). I, for one, was perfectly satisfied with the finale and found it beautiful. I believe the whole FS world was through Jack's eyes, and he created the satisfying lives for those that he was closest to and meant the most to him.

I decided well into S6 that I wasn't going to sweat the small stuff and agonize that I wasn't getting solid answers. Enough was given to me and I was satisfied.

I still highly recommend the whole series to my friends (one is right now zipping through my DVDs and a cousin is on S4). I know the finale divided the Lost fan community...and the beauty of the finale is that everyone can take what they will of it. And if someone is pissed off at Darlton I don't belittle their opinion. I was content with it.

Of course, the beauty of the show is how it brought together all of us to actually think about a TV show for once! I don't think I've used my brain so much since my college days. And the friendships formed are priceless. Hope we all keep in touch (especially on FB)!

Thank you for your blog, Capcom!

Tess315 said...

Be prepared this is going to be one of my novel length posts. I'll probably have to break it up into two posts.

Thanks Capcom for putting into words something that I haven't managed to do on my blog. I've always enjoyed reading your blog because we generally have the same viewpoint. Frankly I was over Lost when the credits rolled. But since you've made your final post I'll do one more rant. :)

My sister and I have been avid fans of Lost from the begining and always got together the next day to discuss that night's episode. Life was a little hectic for us at the time. I only had a moment to ask her at her work place what her initial reaction was. Her first words were, "that was pointless" referring to the FS. And I have to agree.

I generally watch an episode multiple times. I still haven't re watched the finale'.

I'e read on some blogs and heard on some podcasts that the people who didn't get it or like the ending, were the people who wanted answers and didn't get them. Or the ones who couldn't accept it was always a character show. Frankly I find it insulting to assume because they "get it" that they know why I didn't like it.

I've never been one who "needed" to have answers. Would I like to know certain things? Sure. Need to? No. I do know that it's a character story. But it wasn't solely that. They created this huge backdrop for the characters that they never bothered to resolve. I don't mean giving us answers to every little thing. I mean resolution.

They may have resolved the character story (in their minds)with the ultimate resulution, but to me it fell flat. Im not ten years old. I don't need a fairy tale ending with a happily ever after.

I'm sorry but everytime I think of them "creating" a place to stay in the afterlife within their heads until everyone can meet and be on the smae page then move on together, I think of that old rhyme "They all went to heaven in a ittle rowboat clap, clap."

I'm not sure how much room I have left so I'm going to pause here and finish my thoughts in the next post.

TPTB have always lied to us in interviews, podcasts etc. which I'm fine with. That's them protecting their creation. But as far as I can tell they'd never lied to us within the story, until the FS. They intentionally lead us to believe the FS was real. Which was evident with every enhanced version. - This is not a FB or a FF this is what happens if the bomb had worked. (I guess you could argue that's true. They still would have died and made up their fantasy after life. To me that's pushing it though.)TPTB worked very hard to make us believe the FS was something it wasn't. I think that's what annoyed me most. I spent the season thinging the FS was going somewhere and it didn't. Itv was aade up afterlife. I just resally find that lame.

Tess315 said...

Now to continue my thoughts.

I find it funny that after the Kate episode Damon tweeted he was offended that people thought the FS filler. When in essence they were. We didn't need an entire sesaon on FS,made up afterlife to tell the story that they were connected enough to wait for each other after they died. They could have used that extra half hour they got to do that. Anyone who is a "hard core" Lost fan knows these people have always been connected.

The story on the island seemed rushed in the finale'. I liked the island ending with Jack stumbling through the bamboo forest to die. (although it could have been shorter. It seemed to take forever) and smiling as he see his friends escape the island. I could take or leave Vincent showing up. (BTW that wasn't the orignial Vincent)

And yes I'm prpbably the only one who didn't cry during the finale'. I was tuched with two scenes. The charlie and Claire scene and the Hurley and Sayid scene in the van when Hurley tells Sayids he's a good man.

Season 6 including the finale' seemed disjointed. Does that mean I didn't enjoy the stories? No. The story telling on Lost has always been great. But this seson just didn' flow or connect. I wll buy the Season 6 dvd to complete the set. I'm not sure if I'll ever watch it again.

Also I don't need a 10 - 15 minutes of the Hurley and Ben show on the dvd, or what happened to Walt. If that was important it should have been in the show. Not an after thought on the dvd.

But like everyone has said the most amazing thing about this wseries is the fandom it created. Being able to share opinions with a multitude of people ona multitude of topics has been great fun. that's the part I'll miss the most about Lost. Nt the series it's self.

And how appropriate my last post is full of typos and misspellings. :)

Tess315 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tess315 said...

Those using email. Ignore my deleted post. My eyes are playing tricks on me. Or they're just old. :)

Tess315 said...

See what happens when I stop and answer the door?
My posts are screwed up more than usual. I put sentences in the middle instead of at the end.

Tess315 said...

Ok my OCD is creeping in. I have to fix that last bit in the first post.

It was made up afterlife. I just really find that lame.

synchrobrarian said...

i was hoping for a we need to watch this again finale but felt just The End, pfft

great images Capcom

Capcom said...

Hi friends, thanks for stopping by! Especially so long after the glow is over, heheh.

Yes, I'm feeling like you Memphish, and mostly like SG and SL. I wish that I could feel like you do about S6 and The End, Maven. Maybe some day. But I can't bring myself to watch the finale again yet either. It even took me a long time to watch the final Mythology DVD of The X-Files about the stupid supersoldiers of the last season (I just felt so betrayed, sniff!) but I'm doing that now finally, even though I still don't like it.

I too stopped telling people to watch Lost a while ago, but that mostly happened after Ben made Locke kill his father in front of the goons. That was just too yucky to recommend anymore.

I like your redo idea bout S6 Memphish. But on that video that Karen just posted on FB, they said that they would not do anything over about the end, so that's disconcerting to me. And J.J. has no regrets about Cloverfiled either, so, raspberries to 'em.

I also have my feelings about how they played S6, and I could be wrong but it felt to me as if they did some kind of projection analysis to figure out what ending would be most accepted and came up with that. Everyone's fave couples getting back together, how can you beat that?

We have agreed a lot SG, heheh. I've often wondered if they just put too much stuff into it at the risk of never being able to complete most of the spinoffs of the tale, and maybe when they created their endpoint of S6, they should have begun to tone down on the mysteries stuff and concentrate on the characters and their relationships, rather than having such mostly stilted soap-opera-ish dialogue that drove us crazazy. And yes, I kind of feel that their story became disingenuous after a fashion when the details seemed to go out of control on them.

And I didn't cry at the end either, accept for tearing up a bit when Jack died with Vincent cuddled up next to him, that was touching. Even though it was MIB in the Mobisode, maybe Vincent didn't know that and he was sticking to Jack's side. Sniff.

Maybe we should give it another go soon, Synchro, for the Lamppost blog? Get a fresh look? I'll bite the bullet if you guys do. Not much but repeats on TV now anyway. :-)

Overall, I REALLY enjoyed meeting you all since 2006, and that I believe has meant the most to me even over the show. We all became Faster Friends (Walt's comic)! XO!

synchrobrarian said...

I do plan to rewatch The End soon but I was hoping for really really wanting to rewatch the whole shebang and The End failed to motivate me

But watching the series as a whole was an EXCELLEENT 6 year journey and it’s been GREAT meeting you all everybody

Maybe I’ll write something on the Lamp Post (Lost Answers Project) after a finale rewatch

The Lamp Post

Capcom said...

Let us know when you watch it Greg, and I will too. At this point I can't even remember much of what happened as far as details, except for how it made me feel which was not so good.
:-o

Hybrid said...

Great post. I don't think lost is over. Maybe a spin off??

Follow me on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/thinkhybrid or check out my blog @ http://hybridnow.blogspot.com/

The Lost Goose said...

I enjoyed your final post, as always some intelligent observations. I like the way you avoided the normal vitriol that accompanies unfavourable reviews of the ending. I too was disappointed that some of the intriguing concepts developed in the ARG's weren't written into the main narrative. The low point of season 6 was MIB writing off the numbers as "Jacob had a thing for numbers". I nearly threw a shoe at the screen when that was mentioned. After all the brilliant potential provided by the Valenzetti Equation, a beautiful, central important mystery got written off as that. That being said, you already know my thoughts about the finale. I enjoyed it. I like the fact that these people are divinely connected and they move through the cycle of life, death and rebirth together; and in a way you could say the Numbers ultimately symbolised that. I enjoyed doing a rewatch of seasons 1 -5 and appreciating the foreshadowing that occurred e.g John Locke in S1 talking about playing mousetrap with his brother in a 'fight to the death' (or words to that effect). Overall an amazing but flawed piece of television; one that I'll be thinking about and reevaluating for a long time. I wonder what'll be in the epilogue?

The Lost Goose said...

I enjoyed your final post, as always some intelligent observations. I like the way you avoided the normal vitriol that accompanies unfavourable reviews of the ending. I too was disappointed that some of the intriguing concepts developed in the ARG's weren't written into the main narrative. The low point of season 6 was MIB writing off the numbers as "Jacob had a thing for numbers". I nearly threw a shoe at the screen when that was mentioned. After all the brilliant potential provided by the Valenzetti Equation, a beautiful, central important mystery got written off as that. We did see an amazing Wellsian type creation - The Lighthouse, but it was pretty much just an intriguing set piece.

That being said, you already know my thoughts about the finale. I enjoyed it. I like the fact that these people are divinely connected and they move through the cycle of life, death and rebirth together; and in a way you could say the Numbers ultimately symbolised that. I enjoyed doing a rewatch of seasons 1 -5 and appreciating the foreshadowing that occurred e.g John Locke in S1
talking about playing mousetrap with his brother . Overall an amazing but flawed piece of television; one that I'll be thinking about and reevaluating for a long time. I wonder what'll be in the epilogue?

Anyway, thank you for all your intelligent observations throughout the years. It must have been a lot of work for you. When I think of all the crazy theories that have been discussed! I remember reading that tales of mystery 40 comic multiple time in a vain hunt for clues! LOL. It really has been fun, and nothing beats sharing the ride. Cheers mate.

Capcom said...

Hi Goose, thanks for stopping by! Yes, I just saw a rerun of Flocke saying that about Jacob liking numbers, and it ticked me off too. :-D It still leaves so many "Huh?" thoughts about how the numbers got so integrated into the DI, The World, etc. But in the final analysis, it all means nothing now.

True, the Lighthouse, like so many other aspects, really had some neat potential (till Jack wrecked it, haha). Perhaps if TPTB could have been more focused (as in, not so all over the place with ideas that they knew would go nowhere), and the show was less frantic, they could have had the energy to do a couple more seasons to get the most out of the stories and myths that they laid down so interestingly in the beginning. I hope that some day I can see it the way that you and others do, and enjoy it more overall. If not, well I had a great time enjoying it with the Lost Community of fans who are so much fun.

I did enjoy doing this blog and talking with everyone who stopped by. It was a perfect way to occupy and challenge my mind while recovering from cancer treatment side-effects that had me side-lined for a few years after I moved to TN. Still not feeling great yet, but now I guess I move on to something else creative to do.

Thanks for your thoughts Goose! Hope to find something else to chat about in the future.

Setareh Ebrahimi said...

Hiiii

Liked your lost stuff, even borrowed your Bart Simpson for later use!
Check out my new blog, 100% online diary.

MIKE -

Capcom said...

That's OK, I "borrowed" that Simpsons pic too, I have no capture equipment myself.
:-)