One of my favorite shows was LOST. From season 1 on, I was hooked. The mystery, suspense, and drama always held me in and left just enough to my imagination to get me to watch the following episode. I still can't believe it's over after 6 seasons.
To me, the reason LOST has gotten progressively worse ever since the first season is simple. Academic touched on it: the answers the mysteries were not satisfactory in the least.
They spent so much time and energy into building the suspense and drama of the mysteries of the island. They built up the hype to it for so many episodes to the point where we as viewers were literally begging to know what the answer was. The problem with this is in the buildup itself that the writers should have been smart enough to figure out: there is no feasible way to satisfy such a teased mystery. Your better off omitting it from the show or not answering it at all, which would still lose you fans.
The biggest mystery and disappointment in this entire series, without question, is Walt. They dedicated so much time in season 1 and 2 to taunting the viewer about how "special" he was. Well, its season 6 and now all we know is he killed a bird. This is the prime example of building so much hype and anticipation with there being no possible satisfactory explanation for it. You could just tell they were on to something and kept trying to feed into it; with the others taking Walt and keeping him in a special dungeon (or whatever that place was).
Kind of like a few episodes ago when it was revealed what the voices were in the jungle. A dead Michael stands there and confirms to Hurley that the voices are just dead spirits who are stuck on the island.....Thats it?
You see, they teased the "voices" in the jungle for 5 and a half straight seasons and there simply wasn't going to be an explanation that felt good enough. They should have revealed what the voices were long before that.
Ironically, the mystery element is what made this series great and a later disappointment at the same time. Its like taking a loan out and not being able to pay it back later. They just kept borrowing our suspense and anticipation over and over and when it came time to pull back the curtain it was too late. The only reason any of us kept watching was for the suspense and anticipation for what was to come. The writers tried too hard to bait us and didn't put the same amount of effort into actually explaining what the answers were.
The problem with the ending was that it was anti-climactic and too safe. It gave me the feeling that all of it could have been in Jack's head. The main draw of the show was the mythology...not the characters. What was so interesting was not the love triangle between Kate, Sawyer, and Jack. It wasn't about the struggles of the characters. These were very interesting plot developments, but the main hook of the show was the mystery of the island, time travel, and all things supernatural.
The ending of LOST simply ignored all of these things and did not even make an attempt to explain them. What exactly was the smoke monster? Was it an ancient God? Was it simply a "security system"? Both of these explanations were eluded to in the show, but the answer was never given. This is a common theme with LOST.
Overall, however, this was still one of my all time favorite shows. My favorite characters would have to be Locke and Desmond. LOST had it's shortcomings, but the characters and their back stories helped to keep the show interesting while still teasing the viewers with mysteries.
No comments:
Post a Comment