How Would You Have Ended Lost?

[Greylock Crescent]

Yes you can still enjoy LOST "in pieces" but as a whole it is an utter failure.

Apparently the reports detailing the demise of hyperbole on the internet were, themselves, hyperbolic.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Are you telling me LOST tells a whole complete story when all is said and done?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Am I saying that it is an "utter" success? No. But to say that it is an "utter" (defined as "complete; total; absolute; unqualified; unconditional") failure? Surely not. Unless one is being "utterly" hyperbolic.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Okay, here's an idea (I'm not saying it's a good idea): what if they hit the idea harder that MiB was an alien criminal who had been exiled to Earth, because Earth has "ley lines" and other hooey that can be used by the aliens to create an ideal prison for a prisoner who, because of the nature of the aliens, is very hard to keep ahold of?

We don't need to see the aliens, their ships, or anything along those lines. Just imply this more strongly, that we get the idea that the whole thing has an extraterrestrial, but essentially rational, origin. Leave the mysteries plotline in the sci fi "real world," and save the mysticism and religion for the characters plotline.

Honestly, I think I like this idea better than the ending we got.

I agree, although I would prefer humans from the future exiling a prisoner, perhaps guilty of no more than thought crimes, to Earth's distant past.

Like Clarke's "Exile Of The Eons." That would have been a good way to go.

I couldn't possibly claim to have written anything better than what was written. However, the ending I was expecting was Jack fighting Locke, but doing so in a way that allowed everyone else to escape. Then it cuts to Jack and Locke on the beach playing backgammon and bickering like Jacob and the Man in Black. Essentially, have everything go full circle, but not really resolve the island in any way.

Best answer I have heard.

I agree. That would have worked perfectly.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Am I saying that it is an "utter" success? No. But to say that it is an "utter" (defined as "complete; total; absolute; unqualified; unconditional") failure? Surely not. Unless one is being "utterly" hyperbolic.

I wasn't referring to it as a failure as a business venture or as a piece of entertainment but was referring to it failing at its attempt to tell a coherent long-term narrative. It was far too disjointed with too little payoff on so many of its threads that I can't look at it as anything else. It takes very little energy to come up with teaser and piling them up the real talent comes when actually doing something with them in a substantive way and providing a satisfying pay-off or resolution. So many are just left there dangling with not much to make of them except a gimmick by the writers to toy with the audience.

 

[the G-man]

What is it these days with good series all having crappy endings?

I'm looking at you BSG.

Same problem as Lost - trying to create a huge, multi-season storyline that juggles the plotlines of a large number of characters, do it all on the fly under the merciless gaze of network (or even cable) ratings needs, and then tie it all up with a nice bow at the end.

To turn it around, name a serialized series that has run for four or more years and does have a good ending. I can't think of one.

The Shield.

Yes. The Shield had possibly the best ending in TV history of any show not named "Newhart."

I also enjoyed the endings to Six Feet Under and even the Sopranos.

 

[Sindatur]

Same problem as Lost - trying to create a huge, multi-season storyline that juggles the plotlines of a large number of characters, do it all on the fly under the merciless gaze of network (or even cable) ratings needs, and then tie it all up with a nice bow at the end.

To turn it around, name a serialized series that has run for four or more years and does have a good ending. I can't think of one.

The Shield.

Yes. The Shield had possibly the best ending in TV history of any show not named "Newhart."

I also enjoyed the endings to Six Feet Under and even the Sopranos.

Babylon 5

 

[Gaith]

^ The West Wing finished pretty well (though not quite wonderfully), also.

There will be the isolated character moments here and there and the mysterious aura to be had it just cheats by not wrapping up all these threads they introduce. That's why I have really become soured on these massive mythology shows--none of them can juggle it. It is fine to be epic and big and complex but ultimately if you can't keep it all in check then why bother--it is just the latest fad as far as I am concerned ushered in by Lost. Call me old fashion but I'd much prefer a show that introduces a manageablr number of storylines, then actually *develop* them rather than treating them as nothing more as teasers, plot points or aborted storylines and finally provide a satisfying payoff. These days shows just want to cram as much as they can into themselves without doing them justice. Quality over quantity I say.

To hear the series creator tell it, the entire six-year macro story of Carnivàle was mapped out from the start, which (as has been mentioned above) was not the case with Lost. Granted, the show only had the chance to do a third of that story, so the overall cohesion potential remains unknowabale, but while the series certainly evolved in some respects (no one thought the Dreifuss family would become as prominent as it did), it certainly remained almost entirely coherent 'til the end.

 

[Mr Light]

I guess I'm in the minority but I loved the Jacob / MIB origin story. I didn't mind the answers or lack thereof when it came to the Island. It's just the other things I wanted more on; Dharma, Hanso, the Egyptian statue, etc.

I thought they did a good job of explaining what the Island is. It's the wellspring of souls for humanity. If it gets destroyed/disabled, babies would be born dead (like the way the children on the Island are) and humanity would go extinct in a generation. MIB/Cerebus was the other half of that equation. If he left the Island, the wellspring would cease to function.

I just really, really, really wish they didn't do the flash-sideways.

 

[C_Miller]

I heard a theory for the flash sideways a while back that I really like so I adapted it for some of my own ideas:

The bomb was successful, however, the nuclear force along with the electromagnetism on the island created a time shift just as the bomb went off splitting the timeline. But, it was not a complete split. Our heroes who are connected to the Island are caught between the two realities and when you die in one, your entire self goes to the other reality.

However, this is unnatural and it can't work like this, so the divide must be broken completely. That's where Desmond comes in who acts as a tether. He has to work at getting people to move on. Not from life itself, but from the Island reality. So slowly but surely our heroes die, but come alive in the Flash Sideways world, until they realize this is what the smoke monster wanted all along. He manipulated them all along into doing this so all the candidates would die and he could get off the Island. As for what he would do, we've seen enough end of the world situations through Buffy, Angel and others to infer, but it would be similar to that. But they decide that one of them has to become the New Jacob to protect the Island.

So, we have Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sawyer left and naturally Jack decides to play hero and decides to be the one who sticks around on the Island. Kate protests, but Jack is steadfast, realizing that this is his destiny. So, Desmond pulls Kate, Sawyer and Hurley over with him and somehow, Jack gets word in the Flash Sideways timeline that he has to die, which in the end he does, putting complete Jack on the Island with the Smoke Monster for all eternity. We can even end the show with Jack and Locke having the same conversation as Jacob and MiB at the end of Season 5.

So that's not perfect and it would need working out if it was to go to a fanfiction or an actual script, but that's the basic idea and I think it would bridge the real timeline and the Flash Sideways timeline, which was my main problem. It deals with Jack's character arc without cheapening it (That's one of the things I really liked about the real season 6, Jack's arc) and it has a happy ending for most. Jack is able to save the world at the expense of his happiness, while the others are allowed to live in the new timeline together as friends.

Also, I would have distinguished the Smoke Monster and the Man In Black as two separate entities. The Smoke Monster would have existed as a tool for the protector of the Island to use when their own power isn't enough. Take the roman village for example. That's so much easier to explain the massacre than just the old lady doing it. But when it Jacob threw his brother down into the cave, the energy in there fused the two together.

I don't know just some ideas. Might have some more later...

 

[Alidar Jarok]

^ The West Wing finished pretty well (though not quite wonderfully), also.

I wish they had ended with a new group of staffers sitting around the table with Josh Lyman giving the Block of Cheese Day speech. Although I'm not sure if that would too obscure overall for how it should end, but it would be a great tribute to Leo and show that Josh now matured to be Chief of Staff.

BTW, about my Lost ending. While the last seen in my mind works as being absolutely fitting, I also have no idea how the rest of the episode would genuinely work. I'm trying to take a neutral status on the flash sideways, but their nature would obviously affect most of the content of the episode.

 

[timothy]

nukeing the island after some of the main cast got off the island . sorry hated this show after season 2 .

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm sure the feeling was mutual. And it's nuking not nuking, which by the way is technically what they did do.

 

[C_Miller]

I must say that I don't like it when people come into a thread, with nothing to add, just to say that they hate something.

Back to the discussion.

 

[RoJoHen]

nukeing the island after some of the main cast got off the island.

Yep, that actually happened.