I am pretty certain the finale took great pains to inform its audience that this is precisely not the case.

Maybe ABC will pull a Scrubs.

Ya know, make a finale. Have a party during the credits of the finale and showing everyone all happy and hugging--and then next season they'll magically have LOST: Medschool.

Cause, ya know, Scrubs was great til ~season 3. Same for Lost.

man FUCK lord of the rings they never explained WHY the ring had to be destroyed in mount doom of all places, how did that work????

also how did gandalf and saruman's rivalry start?? tolkien was such a hack

I'm actually glad I enjoyed it. You bitter, angry people must be really unhappy and unfulfilled in life.

About five years ago:

"OK, OK, so everybody is assuming the island is purgatory. But check this. What if we flipped that on its head and made the island real but ordinary life purgatory instead?"

"OMG, that is it. What would be the most convoluted way ever of making this happen?"

*furious dickshank noises*

Or, you know, just pissed off at th ending of a TV show. I'm not sure where you people aren't understanding that raging and/or people happy with a TV show is a completely legitimate and intended reaction. As soon as I saw the direction the show was heading, I could have stopped watching and detached myself completely, but I didn't. Why? Because half the fun is reading people's thoughts and comments, and figuring out what they did or didn't like, and comparing it to yours.

Yeah, I think I've enjoyed reading people's ideas on here, SA, and another message board more than I liked the ending of the show in general.

After seeing it, I was very confused and just trying to piece everything together. I wasn't really sure if I liked it or not. After letting it sink in, and hearing other people's issues/likes with it, I'm fairly content with what they did.

They could have just dumbed it all down for us and given us all the answers and washed their hands of it completely, but I like the fact there's still some stuff left to discuss--whether it be intentional, or just sloppy writing.

See, what I like about the ending is that it itself is open to interpretation. I always dig that, and I especially dig what Lost tried to do. My favorite theories that have been passed around are:

1. Yes, it's pretty much exactly as Christian Shepherd said.
2. No, everyone died on the plane crash, hence that last shot with the credits.
3. Ben said to Hurley that he could do things differently. Maybe he did, and the light that Christian reveals when he opens the big church doors is the island light again. Or something.

What I don't like, and what irked me so much about the ending was that it did almost completely ignore the mythology in favor of a big blanket answer that essentially said "who cares WHAT happened, what matters is that it DID happen." I don't like that. The mythology and the mysteries ARE important, at least, they certainly went to great lengths to make them seem important right up until the last episode. I wholeheartedly disagree that they are simply MacGuffins, as LeHah said. I know that the characters were the center of the show, but you don't put compelling characters in compelling situations just to say fuck all the situations later. They were a less important factor as the series went on, but they were still a large part of what people liked about the show (especially when it first started out), and I was hoping that since it was a SERIES finale and not just a finale to season 6, they would have addressed some of these things.

The show itself evolved the way Jack did. What was first a show of science slowly evolved into a show of faith. I just wish the writing would have taken a neutral standpoint and instead let the audience figure that out for themselves instead of dildoing us with it like in the church scene with all the religious symbols and the light and the crappy dialogue. Ugh, such pandering.

It's fascinating seeing how the hive mind of the show has changed over the years. I would be willing to bet that 80% of the people who are saying "the show was never about the mysteries" were singing a different tune back in 2004 when the mysteries were literally all the show had until they started getting in depth with the characters. Ah well, c'est la vie. At least I still have Breaking Bad.

Nothing really happened as a direct result of the mythology or even many of the "mysteries", so it's just basically to serve as background. Something I will remember this series by is the air of mystery around everything, and it was left pleasantly untouched. That would have been completely ruined by endless exposition about the past or the egyptians or the f-anything.

And apparently 20 minutes of the final episode was left on the floor of the cutting room, including the small tidbits instead of Jack's teleportation out of the cave, or how the hell Ben got out from under the tree. This was just to fit the episode into the time slot it was given.

Exactly. <3

I agree on Breaking Bad. Its probably the only thing worth watching today.

Also, this bit of news passed my desk - Lost: The final episode drew a disappointing 13.5 million viewers according to FORBES magazine. DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, which normally airs in the same time slot, averages 14 million viewers. The first episode of LOST drew 18.6 million viewers. Other series final episode ratings are: MASH--105.9 million, SEINFELD--76 million, FRIENDS--52 million, THE SOPRANOS--12 million. The good news is the final episode's audience was the biggest in two years.

In other words: People were fucking sick and tired of LOST's horseshit. :(

lol wtff..

In other words, there's a lot more to watch and do than just TV nowadays.

I dunno I think I'm alright with the ending. It makes me think about some things we've recently learned and I've come up with my own little thoughts on how everything went down. As convoluted as my theory might seem to you it makes the ending much easier to swallow.

For instance remember how the man in black was tossed unconscious into the golden tunnel only to come out as a smoke monster? After he did the golden light disappeared. How strange that the golden light was back when Locke, Jack, and Desmond returned later even if the golden light wasn't nearly as strong as it was before in this final episode. Let's think about that. MiB leaves the tunnel as smoke monster and golden light disappears. Hundreds of years later the golden light has built itself up again. What does that mean?

Their mother referred to going down into the tunnel as a fate worse than death. Was that just something to ward them off or something almost literal or perhaps both? I'd go with both. Going down into the golden tunnel turned the MiB into a smoke monster. That's pretty cool. But why? What turned him into a smoke monster? Well let's go a while back when Jacob pulled out his whine glass. He used the cork as a metaphor to describe the island itself being a cork to keep out ultimate evil that would destroy absolutely. I'd say that's pretty much it. However I'd go out and say that the island is itself the wine glass with absolute evil contained within and the golden tunnel with its room with the rock stopper and its golden light water works gizmo to be the cork keeping evil contained within the wine glass er.. island.

So! Why was the MiB turned into a smoke monster? Why did their mother tell them never to enter the golden tunnel? I believe she was correct in saying going in there would cause a fate worse than death but it wouldn't just apply to just one person. By going into the golden tunnel a person would be beset upon by a small portion of evil that was being contained. This person would be cursed into becoming the smoke monster and set forth actions that could eventually get someone to uncork and release all of the evil held within the island.

This may also explain the golden light going out. The small amount of evil that escapes must make the rock stopper water gizmo use a lot of energy in a last second effort to squelch the evil from escaping and/or that evil uses a lot of energy to give smoke monster powers to the person who came into the golden tunnel. Over time energy builds up again as does the golden light.

However I think it must be clarified that the MiB was never the ultimate evil. He was just a guy who really wanted to leave the island; an island that if he were ever able to set the requirements to escape (Jacob dead, candidates out of his way or dead, replacement Jacob not obstructing him, getting someone capable of removing the stone cork from the golden tunnel) would be destroyed releasing all the evil within that would then destroy everything absolutely including the MiB. The MiB was correct in that uncorking the island would allow him to escape. He just never quite knew that the evil within the island wanted this all along so it too could escape causing everything to end - a fate worse than death indeed.

But Acer! What of those skeletons down in the golden stopper room? I'm not completely sure but I believe they could be failed attempts at attempting to uncork the island. I don't believe the MiB was the first smoke monster. I believe he's the first and last to never find the golden chamber or perhaps the first to understand that he himself couldn't uncork the island and that he'd need a Desmond or perhaps the first that didn't after gaining this knowledge kill themselves. He had to get Desmond to uncork the island for a reason. Those skeletons are those reasons. Smoke monsters who try to uncork the island get zapped the fuck dead and then the leaked evil contained within the golden chamber has to wait for the next sucker to fall down inside to try this whole thing all over again. That's why Jacob and the MiB's mother knew not to go into the golden tunnel. It had happened to her people in the past and this was passed down from generation to generation.

So the MiB finally gets his Desmond to uncork the island. He loses his powers as they leave him to go about destroying their container to escape. The MiB is mortal again and soon enough meets his end. Jack then is able to enter the golden tunnel with the evil busy eating away at the island, and with the evil containment zap you the fuck dead sucka machine off he is able to recork it and start that thing up again. He laughs, somehow gets zap warped the hell out of there and then dies in a bamboo forest next to man's best friend. The evil is sealed once again. Close call guys. Good job.

Now Hurly is in charge and Ben is his right hand man. You never know if they leave the island, but with Ben's help Hurly might have used his powers to control the island to allow them to escape. Perhaps he does not. You never really know. However one day we can assume Hurly passes down this responsibility to someone else to protect the island from being uncorked and releasing evil because as we know in the flash sideways which was not really ever a flash sideways that he dies someday. Yes, the flash sideways was a way to bring everyone together to remember and then to move on. I'm okay with this. The island was real. Everything that happened did happen. Someone is still out there protecting the island. Life goes on. Life went on. Life will go on. What is after life will be. It's been a great journey everyone.

Cut and pasting this here from an IRC discussion I was having with friends about the show. Don't entirely agree with some points but the argument is sound.

ABC says final images of wreckage not part of the final story:

'Lost': ABC says final images of wreckage 'not part of the final story' | EW.com

Jack wakes up, the in-flight season finale over. He looks around, everybody looks pissed off. "Guys," Charlie says, awkwardly filling the void of silence, "what was that?"

Really, something like this would have been a better way to end the series. Like I said, the finale was disappointing.

Haha that would have been amusing.

Here's my favorite.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Complete-.../dp/B0036EH3WK

Anyone getting this? It's expensive. But it's everything. And it includes a Special Edition collectible 'Senet' Game as seen in Season Six :cool: