Tag Archives: Lost
Beautiful Cacaphony: the Lost Series Finale
**SPOILERS BELOW, BEWARE IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LOST SERIES FINALE BUT PLAN TO**
It’s a shame, really. I do love the cast and characters (except Kate–I hate Kate for being a stereotypically weakfemale lead, always making stupid decisions that seem to illustrate that “if she’d just listened to the man” things would have been better), who’ve managed to grow on me, each in their own, wonky ways, over the course of the six seasons leading up to the Lost Series Finale. The drag is that the resolution was disappointing enough that I really will never recommend anybody start from the beginning of the series and watch it. Great acting is always wonderful, but without a well executed overall story, what’s the point?
But enough about the cast and characters; everyone already knows those are wonderful. The problem with Lost was always in its plot, or more accurately, lack thereof. In the end it sort of works out, in some sense, because Cuse and Lindelof successfully managed to explore a number of interesting themes both in the main body of the series and in the finale, not the least of which are those about personal choice and sense of self in the formation of identity.
Like life itself, Lost ends with no real revelations, no magical key to sudden knowledge or wisdom, and with countless plot threads utterly ignored. Lost can be summed up as a “beautiful cacaphony,” leaving you starved for a melody, yet mesmerized by its absence. As a series, Lost is chaos incarnate, with very little meaning in most of its machinations. It’s like Cracker Jacks: tasty by the handful, but ultimately you really do need to eat a real meal.
Is it worth the time investment? If you got into the series at the very beginning and already had a sizable time investment, say maybe, the first 3-4 seasons, I’d say yes. If you’ve never seen Lost and are wondering if you should start, I’d say no. Why? Simply put, you can get all the major philosophical themes of Lost via countless other stories or films and understand its meaning in a few short hours, whereas the series will leave you, most of the time, confused and spinning your wheels. I submit that life does that enough already.
In the interest of helping you, dear reader, avoid spoilers in the event you haven’t seen the finale but plan to, this is your last chance. Beyond the break you’ll find a list of top Likes and Dislikes about the finale, and I hope you’ll share your thoughts on this non-event Event in the history of television.
About Jason Ward
Tell us what you watch, win a game!
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I’m just going to admit it right now: I am lazy and forgetful about certain things. One of those things involves giveaways, and this is one that I meant to do waaaaaay back during E3 of this year. Sadly, I suck, and I tucked these snazzy little cards into a backpack pocket and promptly forgot about them. However, you’re in luck: they’re still valid! 
So what I’ve got are three copies of Battlefield 1943, which is a digital download. I have two copies for Playstation 3 and one copy for Xbox 360. The way this will work is simple: In the comments, tell us what your three favorite nerdy shows are and a sentence or two about why you watch them. We’ll sift through the comments and choose from those who make their case with the most…I dunno, I want to say “elegance,” but on the other hand, maybe “humor” would be a better criterion. In any case, get commenting and we’ll select the three luck winners on Halloween!
Nerdy TV: Can Dexter Please Kill Kate from “Lost”?
I spent the last 3 hours catching up with the most recent 2 episodes of Lost, and finished the evening off with 2 episodes of Season 3 of Dexter to get the rancid taste out of my mouth. As usual this season, Lost continued along its path of predictable horse shit where the characters are concerned, with the promise of hope in Sayid’s shooting of young Ben quickly snuffed out by the ever-stupid Kate hurrying off to help save the little future genocidal maniac and manipulator. After all, no child deserves to die, even if you have factual knowledge that in the not too distant future he’s going to murder all of your friends and a bunch of egocentric but otherwise rather harmless Dharma initiative clowns (and does anybody REALLY buy these quacks as Scientists?) before telling a massive series of lies to manipulate you and said friends into being trapped–again–on a bizarro island that just so happens to also be a fucking time machine.
Lost, I am sad to say, has long since jumped the shark. Of course, that much was obvious the minute the writers decided it’d be fun to move the island. Through time. But only some of its occupants actually do the time travelling, not all of them. The show is an interesting mishmash of brilliance and epic stupidity. On the one hand, the depth of character history (not to be confused with character development) is just phenomenal, with all the show’s major cast members enjoying what might be the biggest backlog of info that any single series has ever assembled for its ensemble. The acting is also consistently top notch from all corners (at least, once they got rid of the annoying Michael, Walt’s father, who was never anything but a waste of space). The problem is that beyond the late season 3 deliverance into ultra-bizarro land, in which a seemingly endless mess of mystical crap is piled on top of the character and island mythology so as to confuse the hell out of the average viewer, the show has simply devolved into a morass of unpredictable events and utterly predictable character responses to said events.
About Jason Ward
Nerdy TV: Lost is truly, truly Lost
Let me preface this with some fundamentally important information.
1. I am just at the end of Season 3. I have now seen seasons 1 and 2 twice in their entirety but am not yet caught up to season 5.
2. I love great character development. Lost gives me this by the acre.
3. I love great plot development, which even the best characters need in order for me to care about their plight. Lost is devoid of plot.
With all that said, I’m going to start blogging about each episode as I catch up from here. Recognize, therefore, that I’m a little behind and will catch up shortly. When I began watching Lost, I was quite entranced. The show was rich with character development (and it still is) and in the first season there was a fair amount of plot development as well. Most of the time, it even related to the character development in some way, which was pretty cool. I’m not at all sure there was any kind of epic point to it, but nevertheless it was quite enjoyable.
