Film Strip

I know this comic and blog are usually reserved for movies, but last night was the Series Finale of Lost. I confess that I have not been watching Lost faithfully over the past six seasons like some of you. In fact, for a long time, I have been a Lost naysayer. My journey with Lost has been quite an odd ride that culminated with yesterday’s four and a half hours of Lost festivities. Let me explain.

I have probably watched seven or eight complete episodes of Lost to date plus some occasional scenes when I was at friends and relatives houses here and there. Those episodes include two episodes from Season Three, the season premier of Season Six, and then the last four or five episodes of Season Six. So what happened?

Back when Lost premiered in September of 2004, I was in my last year of college. Like most college students, I rarely watched network TV and college football season was in full force. My roommates and I never really gravitated around shows, so we normally watched ESPN, Comedy Central, MTV, or other come-and-go programs that didn’t require big time commitments. Though we did watch The Ultimate Fighter on Spike together, and we all started 24 on Fox together, but 24 died down when we all missed two weeks in a row and had no idea what was going on. Additionally, we didn’t have DVR in our apartment in 2004

As Season Two started, I had graduated and was living with my parents as I started my first job out of college. They also didn’t have DVR, nor did they watch Lost. Therefore, I didn’t pick it up despite my brother proclaiming that it was really good. (That should’ve been a sign since my middle brother is the one who got my into comics, sci-fi, and fantasy.) I also hadn’t seen the first season, so I figured I’d be clueless when trying to catch up with this Sci-Fi Gilligan’s Island.

Then came Season Three and my first time to have DVR. I was living on my own, and the Fall 2006 TV schedule was mine for the taking. I recorded almost every show and tried to watch everything before weeding things out. By this time I’d heard people say they loved Lost, but I was reluctant. It stared the guy from Party of Five and a Hobbit, when people explained it to me, it sounded like lame Sci-Fi, and when I tried to watch two episodes, I was completely lost. (On a side note: all you people you tried to tell me Lost was good by saying, “but they give you all the character’s back-stories, and that’s what makes it good,” you give horrible explanations of TV shows.) Thus began my Lost-bashing.

Around the same time, Heroes started on NBC, and me being a hug comic fan, I loved Heroes. I would tell people that Heroes was great. Way better than Lost and 24. Where Lost never answered the questions it posed and 24 gave you too many questions and answers, Heroes posed questions and gave you answers within two or three episodes to always give you that sense of build-up and satisfaction. Lost gave people no satisfaction, only build-up. I even spent time reading Lost episode recaps online trying to figure things out and get myself up to speed, but it was too much, I couldn’t fit it all in.

Then, over the last three years, Heroes crumbled into a horrible show, Lost built its momentum, and I met and married a Lost-Fan.

Did my wife convert me? No, not in the beginning. It wasn’t until this, the sixth and final season of Lost that my wife actually got me to sit down and watch an episode.

We watched the Season Premier together, and it was pretty good, but I kept asking her questions and she kept having to explain everything to me. I was probably bothering her, and after that, I figured she’d be better off enjoying Lost as one of “her shows,” while I had House as one of “my shows.”

Then came the Lost countdown to the finale. It started with my wife watching episodes while I worked on this comic strip, but it turned into me simply watching it and not doing the comic. (Make sense why the comic has been late recently?) I didn’t quite know who all the characters were, but these were good TV shows.

WARNING: There are probably spoilers below if you haven’t seen Season Six or the Lost Finale.

My wife told me there were two quasi-parallel time-lines, and with my background in Sci-Fi and Comics, that was enough for me to follow along. She would explain who a character was here and there, but I think that was more for her to remind herself since these characters had not appeared on the show for many episodes.

I absolutely loved the episode with the origin of Jacob and The Man in Black. I read reviews online where some chumps were complaining that it was too slow or didn’t fit, but those people are dumb. The one time the writers start giving you answers, and you complain because it’s not a follow-up to the action and deaths of Sayid, Jin, and Sun from the prior episode? Give me a break.

The best thing for me was the two-hour recap special that aired before the Finale. It gave me everything I needed to know to get me up to speed. Then we watched the final episode.

Two and a half hours!? I love these Lost guys. Instead of dumbing it down for time constraints like so many movies do, they gave us everything they could, time-slot be damned.

This final episode gave me so much. I haven’t even been along for the ride for six years, and I felt like it answered so many questions and gave me a sense of satisfaction and completion.

Some of the early reaction I’ve read has been somewhat positive, but there are still people who didn’t understand or didn’t like how it ended.

To the people who didn’t understand, if you invested six years into this show and you didn’t get it in the end, then I’m sorry but this show was not meant for you. I’m not necessarily questioning people’s intelligence, but it takes a certain way of thinking, a suspension of disbelief, and a solid imagination to play with a show like Lost. If you didn’t go into it wanting to play with it and be part of it, then you weren’t going to get anything out of it.

No, they did not all die in the original plane crash, and this wasn’t purgatory. They lived on this sci-fi island for three years and actually had all these experiences together. Christian Shepherd outright told Jack that “The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people.” They didn’t really know each other before they got on the plane, so they had to have the island experience. Also, Hurley told Ben that he was “a good number two,” to which Ben replied, “you were a great number one,” indicating that the two of them ran the island for some time after Jack’s death. Then, the final scene was all of them in the afterlife reunited, after their individual deaths at different times.

There is a lot more to it than that, but again, if you didn’t get it, I’m sorry you wasted your time. I also loved that in the pre-finale recap, the writers said outright that they didn’t want to dumb it down for anyone.

To the people who didn’t like it, what did you want or expect? The island is a sci-fi island with supernatural powers. They showed you that its power came from the light with the plug in it. They told you that someone has to protect it and keep the plug in it. Jacob’s adopted mom did it before Jacob, and Jack, and then Hurley, protected it after Jacob. Jacob brought all these “Lost Souls” to the island to find a candidate to replace him. He found said candidate(s), they defeated his nemesis, The Man in Black, and these Lost Souls found each other. It seems pretty cut and dry to me.

That’s how the story goes, and if you didn’t like it, then like the people who didn’t understand it, I’m sorry that you wasted six years.

I few weeks back I explained how Star Wars was great because of its vast story and possibility for an expanded universe, for which they’ve been creating books, comics, and other media for the last twenty years. I feel like Lost has that same sense of an expanded universe. Much of it was explored on the show with flashbacks, flashforwards, and flash-sideways, but there are still things that could be explored either in your imagination or in later expanded universe books such as earlier island inhabitants or, more curious to me, island inhabitants while Hurley ran the island. These things aren’t part of this six-season story, but the simple fact that a world was created with so much potential shows that Lost is pretty awesome.

In the end, it’s Monday morning, and I can’t stop thinking about Lost. I’ll probably be thinking about it most of the week and debating buying the seasons to own. That tells me that this show was really good. Lost was and is something special. I was not on the bandwagon from the beginning, but now I see that this show will be remembered as one of the greats.

Will I go back and watch all the seasons? Maybe. I made a tentative deal with my wife (that she hasn’t yet agreed to) that if she reads all the Harry Potter books, which I love dearly, then I will watch every episode of Lost, which she loves dearly. Now I’m hoping that she agrees.

All in all, I was wrong originally about Lost, and I admit that. I’m sorry that didn’t listen to you guys who told me it was good, even if your description of why it was good didn’t sound appealing. You guys were right. I’m also sorry that I didn’t have DVR until 2006.

Thanks Lost, I am now a fan.