How Would You Have Ended Lost?

[Aragorn]

Had to make sure this wasn't a Joe Washington thread before responding.

I think the show would've been better off without Jacob and MIB. The smoke monster would have to be something else, but smoke monster as Locke was pretty cool. I think the flash sideways could've worked better as a legitimate alternate reality that the time traveling Losties created, and it would've been interesting to see these characters deal with knowing about the island and the correct timeline, especially if they're dead in that timeline, and what they would do next.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

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.

 

[startrekwatcher]

The sad thing was LOST was just moving along just fine for S3-5 and it seemed it was poised to drive it home by pulling together the final threads and provide satisfying answers in an exciting final season. Instead it did exactly what Heroes did post S1--the writers stopped caring or were burnt out and started doing random plot points and moving characters from one camp to the next grasping at what to do.

None of the cast had much to do--Sun was unable to speak English, Jin was kidnap victim, Kate was Kate, Hurley was annoying, Claire's return was pointless and she/Sayid were pod people arbitrarily flip flopping from good to evil, Richard was a plot device, Widmore who was once an intriguing figure became a convenient plot device etc etc.

The flash sideways were boring even moreso knowing they were contrived to misdirect--nothing in them had a rhyme or reason as far as the people they interacted with or the change in circumstances. And since the characters were reset mentally to their selves before the island in the flash sideways it failed to really explore how they had been changed.

The ominous war hinted at by Widmore in S5 was disappointing and fizzled out. The answers we did get were weak--whispers were dead people, the smoke monster's origin was awful, nothing about the island, I hated Jacob//MIB origin story.

The show was known for giving us exciting finales full of exciting action and twists ended up giving us a very stale finale with an unsuspenseful and anticlimatic fight between Jack and Smokey.

Really it just retroactively hurt the show overall there is something about trying to rewatch it knowing there are no answers coming or are so stupid. I honestly expected the writers to tie everything together but instead they just gave up. I disagree with those that say it was better to not answer the mysteries because they'd be disappointing--well I counter that good writers could supply satisfying inventive answers. The show got too big and unwieldy and that's why I think self contained season long arcs is the best storytelling format where you introduce a season long storyline with a set of characters, mysteries, arcs and resolve them by the end of the season before launching into a new one--it worked for the Xindi arc on ENT, Heroes S1.

LOST is definitely one of the better shows to emerge from the last decade but it was nowhere as good as it should have been. Looking back it seemed to thrive on twists or introducing new mysteries for the sake of an immediate OMG reaction rather than introducing them with the intention to develop them really well and do them justice. The writers in the end just wanted to throw everything but the kitchen sink into it just to be big and epic(Kelvin, Hanso, DeGroots, Dharma, Aaron, the wheel, the numbers, the Hatch Diagram, the ruins, the Temple, the healing waters, the point of pressing the button, the statue, Mother, Widmore, why Walt was kidnapped etc)--without the necessary attention and ultimately payoff a viewer demands.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^

A simple way to have made it better would have been for that door at the end to have led to the island rather than a white light. But really, the entire last season would have to be rewritten to answer more questions and give a more satisfying and meaningful resolution to the characters. Off the top of my head, I don't have anything more specific than that.

Yes. The final "Jacob centric" season needed to go. Instead the series should have stayed focused on the "sci fi" elements: time travel, sonic fences, Dharma, etc.

Off the top of my head, given the amount of time travel like concepts in the show, especially involving Locke, I would have have Jacob be revealed as a time displaced Locke who had been thrown back into the past during the whole island shift/A-bomb stuff and who was basically guiding himself back to his own destiny. That would have also explained why "Jacob" couldn't let John (or almost anyone else but Richard) actually see him. They would have been tipped off to the time paradox.

Actually, after we got that glimpse of "Jacob" in the cabin (which was dropped and never explained when we got new Jacob), I was convinced that Jacob was Jack from the future trying to set right what once went wrong. That would have been pretty cool.

Also, I still think my Rambaldi Cult idea was awesome.

 

[the G-man]

I thought about Jacob as Jack too at one point, but as they established Locke's supposed connection to the island, the time jumping and the visit from Richard when Locke was a kid it just seemed much more likely that Locke, not Jack, was Jacob.

Either way, a better idea than what we got IMO.

 

[DevilEyes]

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.

Or do you mean only SF/F series? Well, Angel had a good, open-ended ending.

The writers originally planned the "they are dead and the island is purgatory" as the ultimate solution.

I'll bet they had no definite ending in mind at all. The only element that seemed obvious from the first was the idea that the characters were metaphorically lost, and that side of the story would be all about their journey to be found.

On the other, literal side of the story, they threw every idea under the sun at us (the purple sky, what was that?!? a resurrection pool??? did anyone ever figure out what all that fuss was about approaching the island on the right bearing??? and frankly I still don't see why Desmond had to keep punching in the numbers since the world didn't end when he stopped) just to keep viewers intrigued. I realized about midway thru (S4ish) that there was no way any human mind could ever devise a single coherent explanation for that mountain of nonsense, so I simply decided not to be disappointed when the inevitable occurred, and they let the show end with a lot of stuff unexplained.

I believe them when they say they had the ending planned at least since season 3, they determined a set date for the ending so they had to. But I think it only referred to people getting off the island at some point, getting back and being 'found' in the afterlife. All the mysteries and new characters were probably things they kept making up as they went along.

 

[DWF]

Cut off the ending in the church and I think it's got a fine ending.

 

[Mysterion]

Well, Bob Newhart wakes up in bed next to Suzanne Pleshette and...

 

[Alidar Jarok]

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.

 

[OsmiumJohnnycake]

Really it just retroactively hurt the show overall there is something about trying to rewatch it knowing there are no answers coming or are so stupid. I honestly expected the writers to tie everything together but instead they just gave up.

At this point my desire to rewatch the series is solely to refresh my memory and find out where I think it went wrong for me. I haven't seen most of the episodes since the original airing, so I don't recall where most of anything took place, but I do know my problems with it go back farther than s6.

As exciting as the "we have to go back to the island" flashforward was at the end of s3(?) was, as time went on I became more and more confused by why they all felt they had to go back. And how they did it, with the need to duplicate the original flight and passengers, didn't made a lot of sense. But at each step I never got too angry, because I understood they were holding some cards back to reveal later*. Of particular interest to me were Desmond's capabilities, which I imagined would help fix/explain things at some point in the game, but that really fizzled out.

There was a moment, (again it's been too long for me to place this properly, but I'm thinking around the s3/4), where they reveal the plane under the water on the news and Farraday is overcome with a deep sadness and he doesn't know why. I thought this moment was powerful and had sort of a David Lynchian feel. I don't recall that this ever amounted to anything though.

I guess I was really hoping the more sci-fi aspects of the show would be able to make a great finale. Time travel would be involved, I figured. And I assumed the s6 sideways universe really was an alternate/parallel universe caused by the s5 explosion, and that Desmond with his unique abilities would be able to straddle the universes and help them rejoin or something.

*I can only speak for myself, but the reason I expected things to be explained more is that throughout the series there were plenty of "that really makes no sense but i know there's more to be revealed so I will withhold judgment for now" moments. S1 in general was an exception, and there were characters here and there at times also, but for the most part the characters served the plot for the duration of the show. So no, with the show we got, I'm not up for a 'satisfying character finale.' It's the reason I want to go back and watch, I suppose: to find out if all those times I cut the show some slack because I knew not everything had been revealed outweigh the good stuff.

I certainly watched the show and eagerly anticipated most of it, but with the resolution we got I would classify it as one of the most frustrating shows I have ever watched.

Although the pilot episode(s) is probably the best start a show has ever had.

 

[species5618]

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.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

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.

 

[Mistral]

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.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I like Alidar Jarok and Temis's version of the ending better than what we got.

 

[Samurai8472]

*Lost cast goes into the light*

Tom Paris- So what did you think of the holo series?

B'Elanna- People use to watch a box?

 

[label]

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 like the idea of this ending as well. I don't mind the afterlife ending either and I didn't have a problem with the psuedo-spiritual way they handled the post-island resolution of the characters. The reunions were brilliant and compelling. I also thought Jack dying to save his fellow passengers was great and him dying where he started was awesome as well.

That being said, too much of Season 6 provided no answers, raised a few more questions and didn't do much to move the plot. They didn't answer a lot of questions they should have and on the other hand, as Temis points out, some of the answers we did get like the Whispers sucked.

If I were ending Lost, I would have attempted to resolve some of the major questions they never bothered with (why did Flocke want off the island, what would have really happened if he got off, why didn't claire get on the helicopter with Aaron like Desmond saw in his vision, how can smokey seemingly reanimate dead people ala Claire and Sayid, what does the cork actually hold in, etc, etc) and spent a lot less time on the afterlife stuff until the last 6 episodes or so.

While I enjoyed the afterlife angle from the perspective that the payoff when they realized where they were was big, but there was an awful lot of buildup to wade through they didn't make much sense or felt like they were trying to intentionally mislead us into think it was really an alt-timeline.

So, bottom line for me, more answers and explanations that gave more of the the story context by which we can better understand it.

 

[startrekwatcher]

As exciting as the "we have to go back to the island" flashforward was at the end of s3(?) was, as time went on I became more and more confused by why they all felt they had to go back. And how they did it, with the need to duplicate the original flight and passengers, didn't made a lot of sense.

Yeah that was one of those really silly spiritual mumbo jumbo ideas that you just go with and not think too hard about it.

*I can only speak for myself, but the reason I expected things to be explained more is that throughout the series there were plenty of "that really makes no sense but i know there's more to be revealed so I will withhold judgment for now" moments.

Yeah that's how I felt. When a lot of fans were bashing LOST I was willing to be patient trusting that in time everything would make sense. I mean it would be like critiquing a film into the first two acts before seeing how it all played out--that was how I viewed LOST since unlik pretty much any other series it was set up as one big series-spanning telenovel and I was going to evaluate it when I get to the last page or in this case the series finale.

Now that I have you see all these mysteries that exist to generate an immediate sense of intrigue or interest then go nowhere--essentially a series of teasers that are never revisited-- and amount to a ton of dead ends--the mystery of the jumping cabin, what exactly was the entity John and Ben saw in the cabin, why Walt was kidnapped, why were people deposited in Tunisia?, who was Hanso?, who was Ilana? etc etc.

So when I rewatched it the show did a good job with mystery and atmosphere but it is frustrating with all the dangling threads that were just crammed in there. I feel duped by the writers. If they had been up front telling the audience to not invest too much into the mysteries from the beginning rather than constantly reinforcing our obsession with them all along I wouldn't be nearly as disappointed. But LOST was fundamentally an epic mystery and I don't know about anyone else but I expect answers. Even though the series ended and wasn't cancelled it still feels like a show that was canned on a cliffhanger since for all intents and purposes we still have a bunch of outstanding questions.

 

[Shurik]

Yeah that's how I felt. When a lot of fans were bashing LOST I was willing to be patient trusting that in time everything would make sense. I mean it would be like critiquing a film into the first two acts before seeing how it all played out--that was how I viewed LOST since unlik pretty much any other series it was set up as one big series-spanning telenovel and I was going to evaluate it when I get to the last page or in this case the series finale.

I felt the same way. I was hoping for some grand epic resolution to the mysteries up to Jacob and MiB origin episode, after which I understood that nothing is coming and all the mysteries are random stuff that is not supposed to make sense because even the writers have no idea about it. I have absolutely no intention to rewatch the series.

 

[label]

I was hoping for some grand epic resolution to the mysteries up to Jacob and MiB origin episode, after which I understood that nothing is coming and all the mysteries are random stuff that is not supposed to make sense because even the writers have no idea about it. I have absolutely no intention to rewatch the series.

Here's where I differ from most people who were very disappointed by the lack of answers we certainly did not get. I agree that they really owed it to the audience to provide at least a few of the main answers that affected the whole six season run, but I still greatly enjoyed the show and will definitely be rewatching it several times over the years.

While the lack of answers does detract from the overall experience, it doesn't negate how much outstanding work was done on the series in Seasons 1-5. In fact, you could just pretend that Season 6 doesn't exist and that the show was cancelled and probably get just as much satisfaction from the series. Season 6 does little to further the basic plot anyway so other than the closure that the characters got in the actual finale in the afterlife, the rest of the season 6 really didn't answer much for me personally.

 

[startrekwatcher]

While the lack of answers does detract from the overall experience, it doesn't negate how much outstanding work was done on the series in Seasons 1-5.

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

If you compare LOST to a one hour mystery episode it'd be akin to watching it for 45 minutes of intriguing set-up/build-up then giving a really weak resolution like it was just a dream.