Random
The Night LOST Became A Soap Opera
I’m really impressed by all the journalists who could calmly sit down and bust out a thoughtful response to the finale of LOST last night or even this morning. Not me. It was such a royal disappointment, I can hardly put my words together. After a six year commitment, I am left feeling like maybe I should have broken up with it five and a half years ago.
Why?
Because last night the writers of the show invalidated all of the things that made the show unique and intriguing by opting to focus on the human characters rather than the one character that made the show what it was, the island. I sure as hell wasn’t tuning in every week to find out whether or not Sayid would redeem himself or Ben would turn out to be a good guy or who Kate would choose to make out with or if Charlie was ever gonna kick his heroin addiction. That’s the soap opera shit that you can find on any television show. No, I tuned in every week because of the mystery, the mythology, the numbers, the Others, the Egyptian shit, the time traveling, the donkey wheel, the electromagnetism, the Dharma Initiative, the Hanso Foundation, the smoke monster, the disease, the question of fertility, quantum physics, immortality, whispering ghosts, haunted cabins, magical ash, fountains of youth, glowing caves, etc.
Unfortunately, the writers decided those things were superfluous. And thus, they chose to turn a brilliant and mysterious epic into a mere soap opera. Ask yourself: without the island, how is LOST any different than Days of Our Lives?
(*As a side note, this is exactly why Battlestar Galactica ended up sucking: it, too, lost sight of what made it unique and succumbed to becoming a soap opera.)
Tags: lost finale
I feel your pain, though it’s not as strong since I tuned out after season 2 and only came back for last week’s episode and the finale. Still, come on, dead people hugging in a church and walking toward a bright light? The purgatory conspirators had it all along. Suck.
Didn’t like the Egyptian butt-plug?
I’ll tell you how the end of LOST is different than other character-driven dramas: It is much worse. You can’t say something is about characters and then end with them all happy and cult-faced, faced with zero human problems or conflicts. The finale was a cop-out whether you care about the mystery or the characters. For most of the series, I cared about both. The ending failed on every front.
I agree that the island was the main character, like how Baltimore was the main character of The Wire. The end of The Wire respected that, while also letting us see where some of our favorite characters “ended up” (all in ways that fit with the spirit of the show). That was a great finale.
I know, Molly! What shite! They were dead? Seriously? I thought for a split second last night that The Onion had hijacked the network. Epic fail.
Hahah! Would’ve liked it more if perhaps the show would’ve ended at the moment when Jack slipped it back into the opening – like maybe a cut to black at the moment when it slides back into place?
I watched the first two seasons, and then bailed until the finale last night. The sheer wretchedness of the finale made me feel pretty good about those four years, even if I’ll never get to know WTF the smoke monster was.
No kidding! The creators kept promising over and over that it wasn’t a purgatory thing. . . epic fail.
i’m glad we stayed friends with no benefits
Really good point, Amy. The happy happy everybody goes into the light ending was certainly a cop out on the character front. I guess I was so peeved about the other failures, I neglected to consider just how sour that was, too.
I stopped watching The Wire maybe five episodes before the ending. Sort of didn’t want to see it end for fear of it ending poorly– liked it so much. Will now go and finally finish it. Thanks!
i wept like a baby last night and never seen an episode before!
Smart move, Reynard.
I cried two weeks ago, when Sun & Jin died together…but last night I was too frustrated…my anger emotion overpowered my sadness emotion. :(
I cried throughout the entire episode. I loved it, in that it was emotionally satisfying and I was enraptured, the entire time. That said, it is downright offensive, what the Lost writers pulled, and frankly, a little lazy. They clearly didn’t have a master plan and at some point realized, “oh shit,” we’re going to have to end this thing at some point. All along, the producers swore Lost wasn’t about death or heaven or purgatory. Fucking liars.
almost the entire sixth season kind of sucked, except for the ricardo episode. the entire season was a soap opera. each episode devoted to the silly wrapping up of all the important characters. it was really boring, little mystery.
devil’s advocate though: the purgatory people were only half right. it was the Sideways that was purgatory; all the island stuff was pre-death. everyone i knew figured the island itself was purgatory, etc. anyway, disappointing.
i wonder though. all my favorite shows ever have been canceled before they got far along: especially like carnivale and deadwood and john from cincinnati. and then all the shows that i end up being disappointed by the are the ones that come to conclusions. it’s as though the mystery/magic of the first couple seasons disappears, gets worn out, used up. i think this happened with lost.
how many people seem to be shocked at the shitty ending is the most shocking thing to this long time lost fan. maybe they missed seasons 3-5, when directionless narrative was exposed episode after episode
also for me, the sci-fic candy was only interesting when the power struggles and character conflicts woven into them were compelling. soap opera & science fiction grounded each other
for every good sci-fi show gone wrong b/c it abandoned some spicy imaginative concept in favor of soap opera, it seems like there are ten sci-fi shows with spicy concepts that are still totally unwatchable because their soap operas aren’t convincing (every show i’ve ever seen on the sci-fi network)
I’m definitely in the minority, but I didn’t hate the finale. I thought this entire season was garbage, culminating with “Across the Sea” (not the Weezer song, but the Jacob/Man-in-Black flashback). That is without a doubt the worst episode of the series. A yellow light? Mysterious woman with no background behind everything? How did she fill in the well? How did she kill that whole village? It was like the Midicholorians in Star Wars. And if that’s what answers looks like on LOST, I’d rather them not even bother and at least attempt to say something (even if it was corny, contrived and lifted straight out of Our Town) about faith, death and redemption.
If I cried, it was only out of disappointment and boredom. I’ve watched the show diligently, and this, the payoff. Lamest.
I know, I know, exactly! And they also promised to explain what the island was — which, to my satisfaction, they did not do.
By the last minutes I was prepped to see them all dawned in Nike’s and sucking on mass suicide for a comet like Heaven’s Gate.
yeah, i was moved, despite myself. despite the fact that i felt pushed around a bit and wanted more and felt all the same stuff about purgatory. even so, i was pretty sad was jack was stumbling around in the bamboo jungle, finally knowing he’d done what he needed to do.
I’m not so sure. If the island was pre-death, then why does Desmond tell Jack that it doesn’t matter what they do on the island, since there is some better place where they will be with their loved ones? Why would Desmond of all people agree to pull the butt plug out if real people were going to really die due to his actions? Seems like he was saying it WAS purgatory, and that they’d all proven themselves already so it didn’t matter anymore.
Seriously. Is the island heaven? Did all the stuff really happen and they all died in random ways? WTFFFFF??? Gah.
I LOVED IT hahaha.
yeah i was thinking hale bop when kate kept gooey-ly saying We have to go now.
Hey Mark,
My wife takes this position, too: i.e. “soap opera & science fiction grounded each other” — we’ve been talking about this very thing since last night. I sort of agree, but sort of disagree. It’s like a matter of foreground/background. I think I tend to like it when the sci-fi aspect is foregrounded while the soap opera aspect if backgrounded….I’m thinking of Star Trek and Stargate and X-Files…but then as I’m typing this I get to thinking about sci-fi shows like Buffy or Firefly that balance the two really well — I mean, I really like the soap opera elements in both of those shows — but then Firefly never had a proper ending and Buffy’s final season went awry.
Thinking…thinking…
I’m a huge fanatic and have watched and rewatched the show so many times it’s sad. But I really don’t think there’s a ton to suggest that what we saw on the Island happened after they died. Christian told Jack everything that happened in his life happened. So my take is that everything in the LA X reality was happening outside of time, in a nonexistent space where people who died at all different times (because from Ben telling Hurley “You were a good number two” we can assume at least he and Hurley survived a long time after Jack’s death).
So, the LA X reality is kind of like a flash forward, but even more extreme. I guess it’s a flash outside of time? Everything we saw over 6 seasons led to Jack’s death.
I don’t know… I dug it. It was better than expected. Funny how a lot of you are telos driven when it comes to Lost (“we must get to the source! Find the FINAL answer!” etc), but generally argue against such things.
a few minutes later after pulling the thing and killing the light, desmond says he was wrong. and he doesn’t go to be with his loved ones after he pulls the buttplug thing out that kills the light.
Yes, I agree. The island was “real”–all flash forwards and backwards–only the sideways timeline was outside of time. All of this from Hurley’s comment.
yeah, i read it like salvatore.
That makes the finale even more frustrating but hell, the show, as a body of work, was outstanding. There are definite flaws in Lost but as a whole, I think they really did something interesting.
i cried a couple of months ago, while watching the itunes visualizer to ‘wind river powwow’ a moondog song which has no words
definitely. the first three seasons, maybe four, are so so strong, compelling, imaginative, and fun.
i really liked it a lot!
They died on the plane. The island was Limbo. The Sideways world was Purgatory (not the same thing). Unbaptized babies can’t leave Limbo.
what?? the show was “unique” because of the interdependency of the human characters and all the mysteries of the island. I feel like the Island, from the perspective of Carlton/Damon was merely a conduit for telling human stories of redemption.
I understand the complaint though. So many questions unanswered. still dont know anything about the island’s history, the special powers of Walt, Miles, Etc, don’t know anything about the Numbers.
Am I okay with not knowing? I don’t know. I feel that I like how open ended it was.
but I’m gonna try to not decide for a little bit. gonna think it over more.
i wasn’t as down with the final season simply because there wasn’t enough mystery. the first four seasons opened up and kept opening up to new possibilities and convolutions. the sixth season felt like it shut that down, focusing a bit too heavily on sentimental character sketching/development. lost has always had that sentimentality built into it, but this season took it too far.
i forgot: i liked the part where ben didn’t get/choose not? to go into the church. heh.
also a nice touch of the finale: after jack’s death, during the credits, flashing back or forward to the old/a new crash site.
shit, as much as i’m talking about it, maybe i liked it more than i thought.
The ending to The Wire was really beautiful. The newsroom material had some real problems but I think the last season in general was hugely underrated. The homeless guy’s speech — the one they arrest — is incredible.
It wasn’t purgatory at all. The island all happened. The “flash-sideways” world was purgatory.
I thought it was great.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the desire for answers, and I think similar things (Hanso, hieroglyphics, etc.) drove my initial interest in the show. But here’s the thing about answers: those answers are usually midichlorians.
I’d prefer to leave the mysteries mysterious. That way I have something to write my fan fiction about. So who wants to read a poorly edited novel about Ben and Hurley solving island crime while riding polar bears?
Agreed. But The Wire was a superior show by any measure, am I right?
yes. definitely “flash out of time”. Flash to purgatory-like place, where people need to come to terms with the mistakes of their lives, or something, before they can move on.
I just don’t understand why Michael was “cursed” to roam the island for maybe a couple betrayals and killings, while, Ben gets to contemplate his fate right outside of the church. At least Michael’s intentions were good. Ben, although I sympathize with him because of his fucked up past, deserves, in some karma sense, a lot worse.
Where’s Walt?
I wouldn’t know — I couldn’t make it past Episode 1 of Lost. But I’m willing to guess you’re right. The Wire made me desperately want to write television.
Is there a tangible way to successfully “end” a series that thrived on a lack of answers? The most enjoyable element of the show (through all the “soap opera” moments that were there from day one) was the mystery. The rush of piling on more and more questions rather than checking them off a list. I would much more prefer the writers give us this culty new age cop out than to sit through two-and-a-half hours of “answers.” That sounds like the biggest let down imaginable. For me, it would negate the whole series to explain the origins of the number and the ancient civilization and the motivation of each character and/or organization. The enjoyment was in not knowing. I prefer works that choose not to spoon-feed, that raise more questions than they answer. And despite the stumbling finale, Lost still succeeded.
For me, the cop out they chose (tacky as it was) is better than the alternative.
I didn’t care about the issues that drove all the early seasons like the lack of pregnancies, the widmore/ben feud, why Walt was special, what happens if Smokey leaves the island… I just wanted to see Shannon and Sayid make out and Charlie to snuggle with Clarie again while cheesy music plays. Mission accomplished LOST writers! I salute you.
yeah, i got so irreparably frustrated by how stupid the hugs episode finale was i made myself promise to refuse to expend further energy thinking about it, but i will say that I AGREE WITH YOU. fuck that ending. i didn’t even necessarily want more answers, if anything i wanted more questions, or aliens, or desmond and jack to make out, or the island to float above everyone and flicker and actually be a projection a la the invention of morel, or a volcano to pompeii-ize every one, or kate to spend an hour and a half falling over, or for the writers to actually pull the ultimate cop-out but in a really subversive way that i could have laughed about for days: everybody dies, screen fades to black, medium shot of hugo waking up in an easy chair in front of his tv with an empty bucket of chicken. he rubs his chest. he says to himself, “damn, I gotta stop eating so much chicken before bed, gives me really fucked up dreams.”
On the flip side, would you care about the OG Star Wars if halfway through return of the Jedi they were like “oh who cares about Darth Vader or the empire/rebel struggle, this movie is now about Leia and Han making out!”
not to change the subject higgs, but other than the last half hour or so of the finale, which was utter bullshit, battlestar was awesome, and the fourth season was pretty incredible. that shit with baltar seeing another baltar in his head? that was awesome.
You frame this as if there were only two possible endings: the actual one and the laundry list of answers. I didn’t want answers, but I also didn’t want them to pretend that all those questions simply didn’t exist or didn’t matter. They managed both not to solve any mysteries and also to negate the power of mystery by pretending to answer big questions that a television show has no business trying to address, especially not via shit like soul mates.
unbaptized babies can’t leave limbo, heh. island as limbo, yeah, i thought this might be the case, especially considering the shot during the credits of the empty crash site (like, hey, really, everybody was dead). but no, i don’t think it makes sense. most important evidence probably: christian shepherd tells jack of the people in the church “some of them died before you, some of them long after” etc. so it doesn’t make sense that they all died on the plane. also, the narrative in the finale suggests that after jack dies, the living go on living (hurley tells ben he was a great number 2 (ewww, gross) etc). not to mention too many living folks from the outside world show up and leave at will (the freighter, the sub, etc). and then there’s the press conference to the entire world concerning the Oceanic 6 survivors. so, if the island’s limbo, then everything is. that doesn’t mean that i don’t think the island might be some gate between heaven and hell, but i think it does mean the folks didn’t die on the plane. okay, i’m done revealing my dorkhood.
oh man no way, everything about the final five and cylons going from crazy robots to merely humans but who are somehow still robots but exactly like humans was awful. And the final five being awoken to some Jimmy Hendrix remix was like the worst thing ever put on TV.
Yeah, sorry Sasha but I’m with Lincoln — Battlestar turned dreadful absolutely dreadful.
I agree with Amy. I wasn’t looking for answers at all. I was looking for attention to be paid to the most intriguing aspects of the show rather than attention paid to the run-of-mill aspects that we could find on any daytime television show.
Two friends of mine directed an episode of the Wire, their first big gig. It may have been the 100th episode? Can’t recall. They moved to LA and have been battling for survival ever since. Turns out, one big gig opens very few doors.
Never got into Lost, seemed (at the start) like a Hollywood variation on Survivor, which I could never stomach. But Battlestar… I didn’t have a problem w/ the ending or the soap opera. A few missteps on a few episodes, superfluous action/violence at times, but I liked how the whole thing paralleled contemporary politics, etc., and I loved the characters and the development of the back/story and time-/shape-shifting/spirituality concepts. Buffy, Firefly, X-Files, too. All great shows, I think. Powerful writing, acting, directing, etc. Entertaining AND smart and sometimes provocative. It’s funny: I’ll watch this sort of sci-fi/paranormal stuff on TV or in the movies, but I’ll rarely read it, or if I do, I don’t see it as “genre,” like “Brave New World” to me isn’t genre fiction. Neither is “The Road,” etc.
I get that, but I don’t think it’s really the situation here. There was a lot of excitement/plot in last night’s episode in addition to all the reunions (all of which I found really touching). Now, the central tension may not have been what we thought it was in, say, season three, but it was there.
Star Wars and its prequels are a perfect example of what happens when a movie/show puts its mythology ahead of its characters. Instead of getting Vader choking dudes, we get a kid to explain Vader. Instead of an Empire, we get a lot of talk about trade embargoes because we all wanted answers about the origins of the Empire.
By no means do I think Lost is perfect on this score, but I think it’s better than we had any right to expect. I mean, I want to know about Hanso and the numbers as much as anyone, but I doubt there’s an answer that would have satisfied me more than being able to speculate satisfies me. So, yeah, it’s definitely flawed. No doubt. But sometimes I enjoyed it despite those flaws and sometimes I enjoyed it because of them. Mostly, I found the world/mysteries captivating and I still do.
I hate myself for both being able to make a Star Wars-based argument and for making it. On the internet.
I loved everything up to the last episode, which is a lot better if you stop it before the final two minutes.
Doesn’t the fact that LOST and Battlestar ultimately fail speak pretty directly to the short-term gain/long-term lousy results of cryptastically cryptic storytelling? In the end they almost are forced into some afterlife metaphor (Starbuck was an angel, get it?)
The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Magic Mountain, Book of Mormon, whatever–in the end you’re going to have throw up your hands because you’ve been spreading clues to a riddle you yourself didn’t know, right? The test of such a show in my mind is entirely about the good faith of the writers–both these show failed that test. The clues turned out to be bait.
It is an interesting question, but I think the biggest problem with the shows that fail here is that they end up abandoning the questions/mysteries that drove the show to turn them into something else. It is not so much that the mystical endings of Lost and BSG suck as much as they have little to do with the show we watched up until the last seasons. Starbuck was the angel of death who was going to lead everyone to destruction but then…. she isn’t at all. Walt is super important, the lack of pregnancies is a central issue, Ben and Widmore are a central conflict…but then none of that matters at all.
Honestly, regardless of what you thought of the last ten minutes (I didn’t hate it, didn’t love it), people who would get angry at having 5-6 seasons of something they loved (or liked) “ruined” by a mere ten minutes that didn’t do exactly what they wanted are lame people.
They’re also usually the same people who would be complaining NO MATTER WHAT the answers were (or weren’t).
And, honestly, if it were “no different” than Days of Our Lives, why the fuck were watching? Because of the “Egyptian Shit”? How is that different than The Mummy?
this reminds of something i saw days ago re: the new star wars movies. this about yoda using a light-saber destroys the entire concept of the force… http://www.youtube.com/user/RedLetterMedia#p/u/9/Blkx6axytKQ
“wait, Rosebud was a sled? So it didn’t matter??? LAME!!”
“Everyone in Hamlet dies at the end? So it didn’t matter? LAME!”
what the frak yall
this whole season was a disaster, not just the last 10 minutes.
The weakest of the seasons, no doubt…but not because of the “soap opera elements” (which were LESS prevalent in the final season) but because of the “Egyptian Shit” elements (the temple, the healing water, Chip from Kate and Allie) which were built up and torn down too quickly.
I think the failure of Lost, if any, is that season six was too heavy on adding mystery and not heavy enough on the character-driven stuff. I thought the final episode reversed that trend nicely. I have no doubt that if they had explained every little detail, the same people would be bitching about the explanations “not making sense”.
It’s hugely funny to see people on a site devoted, somewhat, to unconventional narrative bitching because shit like “why was walt magical?” wasn’t wrapped up in a bow and spoon fed to them (mix that metaphor until smooth).
did anyone say that this finale ruined the previous five seasons? i know i didn’t. i said i was a let down by the finale. and now, thinking about it, i’m not so let down by the finale. i liked it okay, but little parts bothered me, in the same way most of season six did. i was bothered by how the finale was executed. i think what jack did needed to play a bigger role in the afterlife. like, people needed to recognize his sacrifice or something (ala end of return of the king). i know that’s cheesy, but it’s better drama than a lovefest in a church and a door opening unto white light. i agree with lincoln to a point. though i don’t think the whole season was a disaster, i didn’t think most of season six was very strong. sappy, sentimental character wrapping-up rather than crazy cool mysterious fun stuff happening. that said, there were a couple pretty decent episodes, and some fun moments.
Um, yes: the first paragraph (RiF):
“After a six year commitment, I am left feeling like maybe I should have broken up with it five and a half years ago.”
alright. alright. the hendrix thing was fucking awful. but for me, the majority of the final season was great. and beginning of the second half, with the mutiny, was amazing.
no, it got bad in parts, but please let’s differentiate between that and dreadful.
the ending being dreadful.
I find this approach to television-watching kind of strange and interesting. I mean, I don’t feel about television series the same way I might about a long novel. They’re something else entirely. Each episode is a novel, or a novella, in and of itself, albeit one specifically designed to allow for a string of sequels.
Surely every episode is the payoff. It’s not like you sat through six seasons of boredom and personal suffering just to ‘earn’ that finale — weren’t you being entertained, titillated, enthused, intrigued throughout?
Why do you think that’s different than a novel? Do you read 500 pages of boredom just for the payoff? Can a shitty novel ending not change how you feel about the rest of the book?
I don’t know. Running with the “commitment” theme of the original post, does a messy divorce invalidate all of the nice things that happened in the course of the marriage? Savour the journey.
If I found out in the divorce the whole marriage was a dream or my wife was like a Reptoid spy or something, yeah it might change my perception.
Topher, when you say “It’s hugely funny to see people on a site devoted, somewhat, to unconventional narrative…” you are making the mistake of conflating art and entertainment. I have written about this distinction over and over again here at the giant…from my perspective, LOST is entertainment not art, therefore it should be judged according to different criteria than art. (In other words, the fact that I and others who champion unconventional narrative techniques in art, has no bearing on this discussion because we aren’t discussing art) Anyway, for a while I waffled on the placement of LOST in terms of its categorical distinction, but having now experienced the totality of the vision I would personally determine it to be entertainment…to fully explicate these distinctions would require a much longer essay…but for the sake of this conversation suffice it to say that from my perspective, which I know causes people to get massively pissed off at me, LOST is an entertainment. But in no way would I desire anything to be spoon fed, whether it be art or entertainment. I think maybe you misunderstood my reaction.
Not sure how that statement = the whole show was ruined. For one thing, you missed an important qualifier “maybe” if you look you’ll see it there in the sentence you quoted.
let’s not confuse sloppy writing with “unconventional narrative.”
The fact that the Lost writers realized they had no cool way to tie up all the central mysteries and driving forces for the show and so tacked on an ended and ignored most of the questions the book raised wasn’t some like brilliant post-modern take on TV or anything.
There was some good stuff, but in general the show got ruined for me once the Cylons–previous super strong invincible robots–became robots that were 99.9% human and just needed “love” to become fully human.
Adam, you always know how to make me laugh. Your Ben/Hurley novel sounds dynamite. This one is for you:
http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Lost/
I feel your pain, though it’s not as strong since I tuned out after season 2 and only came back for last week’s episode and the finale. Still, come on, dead people hugging in a church and walking toward a bright light? The purgatory conspirators had it all along. Suck.
Didn’t like the Egyptian butt-plug?
I’ll tell you how the end of LOST is different than other character-driven dramas: It is much worse. You can’t say something is about characters and then end with them all happy and cult-faced, faced with zero human problems or conflicts. The finale was a cop-out whether you care about the mystery or the characters. For most of the series, I cared about both. The ending failed on every front.
I agree that the island was the main character, like how Baltimore was the main character of The Wire. The end of The Wire respected that, while also letting us see where some of our favorite characters “ended up” (all in ways that fit with the spirit of the show). That was a great finale.
Wasn’t there something early on about a copy of Flann O’Brien’s “The Third Policeman” lying conspicuously around? That should have been a clue.
Glad I never got sucked into this. It sounds like a six-year-long “Twilight Zone” episode.
I know, Molly! What shite! They were dead? Seriously? I thought for a split second last night that The Onion had hijacked the network. Epic fail.
Hahah! Would’ve liked it more if perhaps the show would’ve ended at the moment when Jack slipped it back into the opening – like maybe a cut to black at the moment when it slides back into place?
I watched the first two seasons, and then bailed until the finale last night. The sheer wretchedness of the finale made me feel pretty good about those four years, even if I’ll never get to know WTF the smoke monster was.
No kidding! The creators kept promising over and over that it wasn’t a purgatory thing. . . epic fail.
i’m glad we stayed friends with no benefits
Really good point, Amy. The happy happy everybody goes into the light ending was certainly a cop out on the character front. I guess I was so peeved about the other failures, I neglected to consider just how sour that was, too.
I stopped watching The Wire maybe five episodes before the ending. Sort of didn’t want to see it end for fear of it ending poorly– liked it so much. Will now go and finally finish it. Thanks!
i wept like a baby last night and never seen an episode before!
Smart move, Reynard.
I cried two weeks ago, when Sun & Jin died together…but last night I was too frustrated…my anger emotion overpowered my sadness emotion. :(
I cried throughout the entire episode. I loved it, in that it was emotionally satisfying and I was enraptured, the entire time. That said, it is downright offensive, what the Lost writers pulled, and frankly, a little lazy. They clearly didn’t have a master plan and at some point realized, “oh shit,” we’re going to have to end this thing at some point. All along, the producers swore Lost wasn’t about death or heaven or purgatory. Fucking liars.
almost the entire sixth season kind of sucked, except for the ricardo episode. the entire season was a soap opera. each episode devoted to the silly wrapping up of all the important characters. it was really boring, little mystery.
devil’s advocate though: the purgatory people were only half right. it was the Sideways that was purgatory; all the island stuff was pre-death. everyone i knew figured the island itself was purgatory, etc. anyway, disappointing.
i wonder though. all my favorite shows ever have been canceled before they got far along: especially like carnivale and deadwood and john from cincinnati. and then all the shows that i end up being disappointed by the are the ones that come to conclusions. it’s as though the mystery/magic of the first couple seasons disappears, gets worn out, used up. i think this happened with lost.
how many people seem to be shocked at the shitty ending is the most shocking thing to this long time lost fan. maybe they missed seasons 3-5, when directionless narrative was exposed episode after episode
also for me, the sci-fic candy was only interesting when the power struggles and character conflicts woven into them were compelling. soap opera & science fiction grounded each other
for every good sci-fi show gone wrong b/c it abandoned some spicy imaginative concept in favor of soap opera, it seems like there are ten sci-fi shows with spicy concepts that are still totally unwatchable because their soap operas aren’t convincing (every show i’ve ever seen on the sci-fi network)
I’m definitely in the minority, but I didn’t hate the finale. I thought this entire season was garbage, culminating with “Across the Sea” (not the Weezer song, but the Jacob/Man-in-Black flashback). That is without a doubt the worst episode of the series. A yellow light? Mysterious woman with no background behind everything? How did she fill in the well? How did she kill that whole village? It was like the Midicholorians in Star Wars. And if that’s what answers looks like on LOST, I’d rather them not even bother and at least attempt to say something (even if it was corny, contrived and lifted straight out of Our Town) about faith, death and redemption.
If I cried, it was only out of disappointment and boredom. I’ve watched the show diligently, and this, the payoff. Lamest.
I know, I know, exactly! And they also promised to explain what the island was — which, to my satisfaction, they did not do.
By the last minutes I was prepped to see them all dawned in Nike’s and sucking on mass suicide for a comet like Heaven’s Gate.
yeah, i was moved, despite myself. despite the fact that i felt pushed around a bit and wanted more and felt all the same stuff about purgatory. even so, i was pretty sad was jack was stumbling around in the bamboo jungle, finally knowing he’d done what he needed to do.
I’m not so sure. If the island was pre-death, then why does Desmond tell Jack that it doesn’t matter what they do on the island, since there is some better place where they will be with their loved ones? Why would Desmond of all people agree to pull the butt plug out if real people were going to really die due to his actions? Seems like he was saying it WAS purgatory, and that they’d all proven themselves already so it didn’t matter anymore.
Seriously. Is the island heaven? Did all the stuff really happen and they all died in random ways? WTFFFFF??? Gah.
I LOVED IT hahaha.
yeah i was thinking hale bop when kate kept gooey-ly saying We have to go now.
Hey Mark,
My wife takes this position, too: i.e. “soap opera & science fiction grounded each other” — we’ve been talking about this very thing since last night. I sort of agree, but sort of disagree. It’s like a matter of foreground/background. I think I tend to like it when the sci-fi aspect is foregrounded while the soap opera aspect if backgrounded….I’m thinking of Star Trek and Stargate and X-Files…but then as I’m typing this I get to thinking about sci-fi shows like Buffy or Firefly that balance the two really well — I mean, I really like the soap opera elements in both of those shows — but then Firefly never had a proper ending and Buffy’s final season went awry.
Thinking…thinking…
I’m a huge fanatic and have watched and rewatched the show so many times it’s sad. But I really don’t think there’s a ton to suggest that what we saw on the Island happened after they died. Christian told Jack everything that happened in his life happened. So my take is that everything in the LA X reality was happening outside of time, in a nonexistent space where people who died at all different times (because from Ben telling Hurley “You were a good number two” we can assume at least he and Hurley survived a long time after Jack’s death).
So, the LA X reality is kind of like a flash forward, but even more extreme. I guess it’s a flash outside of time? Everything we saw over 6 seasons led to Jack’s death.
I don’t know… I dug it. It was better than expected. Funny how a lot of you are telos driven when it comes to Lost (“we must get to the source! Find the FINAL answer!” etc), but generally argue against such things.
Well, it sounds like you thought the final episode was bad enough that you (even if only somewhat) wished you hadn’t watched the rest of it. I don’t understand that sort of thinking. If that’s not what you meant, then I’m sorry, but you can surely see how i would have gleaned that from what you wrote, right.
As to the whole Art vs. Entertainment thing: I see what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t really make that distinction. I see the art in the entertainment, and vicey-versey-like. To me, there’s bad entertainment and bad art. You could argue that the final season was a failure, and “bad,” but I don’t understand the people who act like it was a betrayal of what had gone before. It was pretty obvious that this was the direction they’ve been heading in for years (plot points, like Walt and the dying mothers were dropped a long time ago, in favor of “will they or won’t they” with Kate and Jack, and Sawyer and Juliette’s relationship). Questions of “what happens to these people and how are they changed” were always more important to me than “what were those polar bears doing there?” To me, the show had a LOT of flaws and a lot of stupid shit throughout, not just in the last episode.
A serious question: Is the cool science fiction/magic stuff still cool without being explained?
a few minutes later after pulling the thing and killing the light, desmond says he was wrong. and he doesn’t go to be with his loved ones after he pulls the buttplug thing out that kills the light.
Yes, I agree. The island was “real”–all flash forwards and backwards–only the sideways timeline was outside of time. All of this from Hurley’s comment.
yeah, i read it like salvatore.
That makes the finale even more frustrating but hell, the show, as a body of work, was outstanding. There are definite flaws in Lost but as a whole, I think they really did something interesting.
i cried a couple of months ago, while watching the itunes visualizer to ‘wind river powwow’ a moondog song which has no words
definitely. the first three seasons, maybe four, are so so strong, compelling, imaginative, and fun.
The recent Battlestar Galactica was ruined for me because it lacked a Cylon bubble machine:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxFhmtCQ9d4
and Space Glow Putty.
Or Colorforms! Where the hell were the Colorforms?
Now sucks. Shit was better years ago.
i really liked it a lot!
They died on the plane. The island was Limbo. The Sideways world was Purgatory (not the same thing). Unbaptized babies can’t leave Limbo.
I agree with both of you. I think I was just saying it could have been worse. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the lack of answers and I think I was responding to that more than the fact that it was Soul Mate City. But yeah, more mystery and less hugs would have been far more satisfying.
what?? the show was “unique” because of the interdependency of the human characters and all the mysteries of the island. I feel like the Island, from the perspective of Carlton/Damon was merely a conduit for telling human stories of redemption.
I understand the complaint though. So many questions unanswered. still dont know anything about the island’s history, the special powers of Walt, Miles, Etc, don’t know anything about the Numbers.
Am I okay with not knowing? I don’t know. I feel that I like how open ended it was.
but I’m gonna try to not decide for a little bit. gonna think it over more.
i wasn’t as down with the final season simply because there wasn’t enough mystery. the first four seasons opened up and kept opening up to new possibilities and convolutions. the sixth season felt like it shut that down, focusing a bit too heavily on sentimental character sketching/development. lost has always had that sentimentality built into it, but this season took it too far.
i forgot: i liked the part where ben didn’t get/choose not? to go into the church. heh.
also a nice touch of the finale: after jack’s death, during the credits, flashing back or forward to the old/a new crash site.
shit, as much as i’m talking about it, maybe i liked it more than i thought.
The ending to The Wire was really beautiful. The newsroom material had some real problems but I think the last season in general was hugely underrated. The homeless guy’s speech — the one they arrest — is incredible.
It wasn’t purgatory at all. The island all happened. The “flash-sideways” world was purgatory.
Hey, sorry. I wrote that second post right after my first and didn’t see your reply, although the “I don’t know” ended up looking like it was just a lacklustre response, haha.
I certainly wouldn’t read 500 pages of boredom for a payoff. What I mean, though, is that episodes tend to be more or less self-contained (other than continuity bridges etc.) in the same way that (most) novels are. The whole thing is working towards the finish. The end of a series seems more like the final book in a series of novels.
I also wasn’t thinking of lengths anything like 500 pages, which is why I said “or a novella”. I guess the comma there was unfortunate. Something like “a novel or novella” might have been preferable. You know, things in the area of 80-150 pages, anyway.
Re: the second post, Reptoid spies are certainly always a difficulty. Is that really what happened here, though? I can only go on what I’ve seen written here and there — I’m a couple of seasons behind — but it seems like it’s more a case of finding out that the alternate timeline into which your marriage occasionally slipped was divorced from your initial reality in a different manner to the one you’d originally presumed or expected.
You’re right, though, actually. I remember seeing a study a while ago which basically found that your overall perception or appreciation of an event sequence is largely determined by the nature of its conclusion. So, for example, between a patient who underwent a dental operation in which they suffered intense and frequent pain but were comfortable for the last stretch, and one whose pain was lesser and more sporadic but also extended to the operation’s finish, it’s actually the former who leaves with a more positive memory of the experience. That seems a shame, though.
I still feel like an entire series shouldn’t be thought of as one sequence, though, as I’ve said. It’s more a sequence of sequences.
I thought it was great.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the desire for answers, and I think similar things (Hanso, hieroglyphics, etc.) drove my initial interest in the show. But here’s the thing about answers: those answers are usually midichlorians.
I’d prefer to leave the mysteries mysterious. That way I have something to write my fan fiction about. So who wants to read a poorly edited novel about Ben and Hurley solving island crime while riding polar bears?
Agreed. But The Wire was a superior show by any measure, am I right?
yes. definitely “flash out of time”. Flash to purgatory-like place, where people need to come to terms with the mistakes of their lives, or something, before they can move on.
I just don’t understand why Michael was “cursed” to roam the island for maybe a couple betrayals and killings, while, Ben gets to contemplate his fate right outside of the church. At least Michael’s intentions were good. Ben, although I sympathize with him because of his fucked up past, deserves, in some karma sense, a lot worse.
Where’s Walt?
I wouldn’t know — I couldn’t make it past Episode 1 of Lost. But I’m willing to guess you’re right. The Wire made me desperately want to write television.
Is there a tangible way to successfully “end” a series that thrived on a lack of answers? The most enjoyable element of the show (through all the “soap opera” moments that were there from day one) was the mystery. The rush of piling on more and more questions rather than checking them off a list. I would much more prefer the writers give us this culty new age cop out than to sit through two-and-a-half hours of “answers.” That sounds like the biggest let down imaginable. For me, it would negate the whole series to explain the origins of the number and the ancient civilization and the motivation of each character and/or organization. The enjoyment was in not knowing. I prefer works that choose not to spoon-feed, that raise more questions than they answer. And despite the stumbling finale, Lost still succeeded.
For me, the cop out they chose (tacky as it was) is better than the alternative.
I didn’t care about the issues that drove all the early seasons like the lack of pregnancies, the widmore/ben feud, why Walt was special, what happens if Smokey leaves the island… I just wanted to see Shannon and Sayid make out and Charlie to snuggle with Clarie again while cheesy music plays. Mission accomplished LOST writers! I salute you.
yeah, i got so irreparably frustrated by how stupid the hugs episode finale was i made myself promise to refuse to expend further energy thinking about it, but i will say that I AGREE WITH YOU. fuck that ending. i didn’t even necessarily want more answers, if anything i wanted more questions, or aliens, or desmond and jack to make out, or the island to float above everyone and flicker and actually be a projection a la the invention of morel, or a volcano to pompeii-ize every one, or kate to spend an hour and a half falling over, or for the writers to actually pull the ultimate cop-out but in a really subversive way that i could have laughed about for days: everybody dies, screen fades to black, medium shot of hugo waking up in an easy chair in front of his tv with an empty bucket of chicken. he rubs his chest. he says to himself, “damn, I gotta stop eating so much chicken before bed, gives me really fucked up dreams.”
On the flip side, would you care about the OG Star Wars if halfway through return of the Jedi they were like “oh who cares about Darth Vader or the empire/rebel struggle, this movie is now about Leia and Han making out!”
not to change the subject higgs, but other than the last half hour or so of the finale, which was utter bullshit, battlestar was awesome, and the fourth season was pretty incredible. that shit with baltar seeing another baltar in his head? that was awesome.
You frame this as if there were only two possible endings: the actual one and the laundry list of answers. I didn’t want answers, but I also didn’t want them to pretend that all those questions simply didn’t exist or didn’t matter. They managed both not to solve any mysteries and also to negate the power of mystery by pretending to answer big questions that a television show has no business trying to address, especially not via shit like soul mates.
unbaptized babies can’t leave limbo, heh. island as limbo, yeah, i thought this might be the case, especially considering the shot during the credits of the empty crash site (like, hey, really, everybody was dead). but no, i don’t think it makes sense. most important evidence probably: christian shepherd tells jack of the people in the church “some of them died before you, some of them long after” etc. so it doesn’t make sense that they all died on the plane. also, the narrative in the finale suggests that after jack dies, the living go on living (hurley tells ben he was a great number 2 (ewww, gross) etc). not to mention too many living folks from the outside world show up and leave at will (the freighter, the sub, etc). and then there’s the press conference to the entire world concerning the Oceanic 6 survivors. so, if the island’s limbo, then everything is. that doesn’t mean that i don’t think the island might be some gate between heaven and hell, but i think it does mean the folks didn’t die on the plane. okay, i’m done revealing my dorkhood.
oh man no way, everything about the final five and cylons going from crazy robots to merely humans but who are somehow still robots but exactly like humans was awful. And the final five being awoken to some Jimmy Hendrix remix was like the worst thing ever put on TV.
Yeah, sorry Sasha but I’m with Lincoln — Battlestar turned dreadful absolutely dreadful.
I agree with Amy. I wasn’t looking for answers at all. I was looking for attention to be paid to the most intriguing aspects of the show rather than attention paid to the run-of-mill aspects that we could find on any daytime television show.
Two friends of mine directed an episode of the Wire, their first big gig. It may have been the 100th episode? Can’t recall. They moved to LA and have been battling for survival ever since. Turns out, one big gig opens very few doors.
Never got into Lost, seemed (at the start) like a Hollywood variation on Survivor, which I could never stomach. But Battlestar… I didn’t have a problem w/ the ending or the soap opera. A few missteps on a few episodes, superfluous action/violence at times, but I liked how the whole thing paralleled contemporary politics, etc., and I loved the characters and the development of the back/story and time-/shape-shifting/spirituality concepts. Buffy, Firefly, X-Files, too. All great shows, I think. Powerful writing, acting, directing, etc. Entertaining AND smart and sometimes provocative. It’s funny: I’ll watch this sort of sci-fi/paranormal stuff on TV or in the movies, but I’ll rarely read it, or if I do, I don’t see it as “genre,” like “Brave New World” to me isn’t genre fiction. Neither is “The Road,” etc.
I get that, but I don’t think it’s really the situation here. There was a lot of excitement/plot in last night’s episode in addition to all the reunions (all of which I found really touching). Now, the central tension may not have been what we thought it was in, say, season three, but it was there.
Star Wars and its prequels are a perfect example of what happens when a movie/show puts its mythology ahead of its characters. Instead of getting Vader choking dudes, we get a kid to explain Vader. Instead of an Empire, we get a lot of talk about trade embargoes because we all wanted answers about the origins of the Empire.
By no means do I think Lost is perfect on this score, but I think it’s better than we had any right to expect. I mean, I want to know about Hanso and the numbers as much as anyone, but I doubt there’s an answer that would have satisfied me more than being able to speculate satisfies me. So, yeah, it’s definitely flawed. No doubt. But sometimes I enjoyed it despite those flaws and sometimes I enjoyed it because of them. Mostly, I found the world/mysteries captivating and I still do.
I hate myself for both being able to make a Star Wars-based argument and for making it. On the internet.
I loved everything up to the last episode, which is a lot better if you stop it before the final two minutes.
yes the newsroom material in season 5 was pretty silly but the wire otherwise ended strong as hell. definitely definitely watch it. it’s kind of bittersweet seeing a lot of the wire actors appearing in random tv roles now after getting such amazing roles in the wire. but they’re getting paid.
don’t you fucking dare diss chip from kate and allie. dude made that show, sort of like wesley from mr. belvedere.
Doesn’t the fact that LOST and Battlestar ultimately fail speak pretty directly to the short-term gain/long-term lousy results of cryptastically cryptic storytelling? In the end they almost are forced into some afterlife metaphor (Starbuck was an angel, get it?)
The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Magic Mountain, Book of Mormon, whatever–in the end you’re going to have throw up your hands because you’ve been spreading clues to a riddle you yourself didn’t know, right? The test of such a show in my mind is entirely about the good faith of the writers–both these show failed that test. The clues turned out to be bait.
It is an interesting question, but I think the biggest problem with the shows that fail here is that they end up abandoning the questions/mysteries that drove the show to turn them into something else. It is not so much that the mystical endings of Lost and BSG suck as much as they have little to do with the show we watched up until the last seasons. Starbuck was the angel of death who was going to lead everyone to destruction but then…. she isn’t at all. Walt is super important, the lack of pregnancies is a central issue, Ben and Widmore are a central conflict…but then none of that matters at all.
Honestly, regardless of what you thought of the last ten minutes (I didn’t hate it, didn’t love it), people who would get angry at having 5-6 seasons of something they loved (or liked) “ruined” by a mere ten minutes that didn’t do exactly what they wanted are lame people.
They’re also usually the same people who would be complaining NO MATTER WHAT the answers were (or weren’t).
And, honestly, if it were “no different” than Days of Our Lives, why the fuck were watching? Because of the “Egyptian Shit”? How is that different than The Mummy?
this reminds of something i saw days ago re: the new star wars movies. this about yoda using a light-saber destroys the entire concept of the force… http://www.youtube.com/user/RedLetterMedia#p/u/9/Blkx6axytKQ
“wait, Rosebud was a sled? So it didn’t matter??? LAME!!”
“Everyone in Hamlet dies at the end? So it didn’t matter? LAME!”
what the frak yall
this whole season was a disaster, not just the last 10 minutes.
The weakest of the seasons, no doubt…but not because of the “soap opera elements” (which were LESS prevalent in the final season) but because of the “Egyptian Shit” elements (the temple, the healing water, Chip from Kate and Allie) which were built up and torn down too quickly.
I think the failure of Lost, if any, is that season six was too heavy on adding mystery and not heavy enough on the character-driven stuff. I thought the final episode reversed that trend nicely. I have no doubt that if they had explained every little detail, the same people would be bitching about the explanations “not making sense”.
It’s hugely funny to see people on a site devoted, somewhat, to unconventional narrative bitching because shit like “why was walt magical?” wasn’t wrapped up in a bow and spoon fed to them (mix that metaphor until smooth).
did anyone say that this finale ruined the previous five seasons? i know i didn’t. i said i was a let down by the finale. and now, thinking about it, i’m not so let down by the finale. i liked it okay, but little parts bothered me, in the same way most of season six did. i was bothered by how the finale was executed. i think what jack did needed to play a bigger role in the afterlife. like, people needed to recognize his sacrifice or something (ala end of return of the king). i know that’s cheesy, but it’s better drama than a lovefest in a church and a door opening unto white light. i agree with lincoln to a point. though i don’t think the whole season was a disaster, i didn’t think most of season six was very strong. sappy, sentimental character wrapping-up rather than crazy cool mysterious fun stuff happening. that said, there were a couple pretty decent episodes, and some fun moments.
Um, yes: the first paragraph (RiF):
“After a six year commitment, I am left feeling like maybe I should have broken up with it five and a half years ago.”
alright. alright. the hendrix thing was fucking awful. but for me, the majority of the final season was great. and beginning of the second half, with the mutiny, was amazing.
no, it got bad in parts, but please let’s differentiate between that and dreadful.
the ending being dreadful.
I find this approach to television-watching kind of strange and interesting. I mean, I don’t feel about television series the same way I might about a long novel. They’re something else entirely. Each episode is a novel, or a novella, in and of itself, albeit one specifically designed to allow for a string of sequels.
Surely every episode is the payoff. It’s not like you sat through six seasons of boredom and personal suffering just to ‘earn’ that finale — weren’t you being entertained, titillated, enthused, intrigued throughout?
Why do you think that’s different than a novel? Do you read 500 pages of boredom just for the payoff? Can a shitty novel ending not change how you feel about the rest of the book?
I don’t know. Running with the “commitment” theme of the original post, does a messy divorce invalidate all of the nice things that happened in the course of the marriage? Savour the journey.
If I found out in the divorce the whole marriage was a dream or my wife was like a Reptoid spy or something, yeah it might change my perception.
Topher, when you say “It’s hugely funny to see people on a site devoted, somewhat, to unconventional narrative…” you are making the mistake of conflating art and entertainment. I have written about this distinction over and over again here at the giant…from my perspective, LOST is entertainment not art, therefore it should be judged according to different criteria than art. (In other words, the fact that I and others who champion unconventional narrative techniques in art, has no bearing on this discussion because we aren’t discussing art) Anyway, for a while I waffled on the placement of LOST in terms of its categorical distinction, but having now experienced the totality of the vision I would personally determine it to be entertainment…to fully explicate these distinctions would require a much longer essay…but for the sake of this conversation suffice it to say that from my perspective, which I know causes people to get massively pissed off at me, LOST is an entertainment. But in no way would I desire anything to be spoon fed, whether it be art or entertainment. I think maybe you misunderstood my reaction.
Not sure how that statement = the whole show was ruined. For one thing, you missed an important qualifier “maybe” if you look you’ll see it there in the sentence you quoted.
let’s not confuse sloppy writing with “unconventional narrative.”
The fact that the Lost writers realized they had no cool way to tie up all the central mysteries and driving forces for the show and so tacked on an ended and ignored most of the questions the book raised wasn’t some like brilliant post-modern take on TV or anything.
There was some good stuff, but in general the show got ruined for me once the Cylons–previous super strong invincible robots–became robots that were 99.9% human and just needed “love” to become fully human.
Adam, you always know how to make me laugh. Your Ben/Hurley novel sounds dynamite. This one is for you:
http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Lost/
Wasn’t there something early on about a copy of Flann O’Brien’s “The Third Policeman” lying conspicuously around? That should have been a clue.
Glad I never got sucked into this. It sounds like a six-year-long “Twilight Zone” episode.
Well, it sounds like you thought the final episode was bad enough that you (even if only somewhat) wished you hadn’t watched the rest of it. I don’t understand that sort of thinking. If that’s not what you meant, then I’m sorry, but you can surely see how i would have gleaned that from what you wrote, right.
As to the whole Art vs. Entertainment thing: I see what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t really make that distinction. I see the art in the entertainment, and vicey-versey-like. To me, there’s bad entertainment and bad art. You could argue that the final season was a failure, and “bad,” but I don’t understand the people who act like it was a betrayal of what had gone before. It was pretty obvious that this was the direction they’ve been heading in for years (plot points, like Walt and the dying mothers were dropped a long time ago, in favor of “will they or won’t they” with Kate and Jack, and Sawyer and Juliette’s relationship). Questions of “what happens to these people and how are they changed” were always more important to me than “what were those polar bears doing there?” To me, the show had a LOT of flaws and a lot of stupid shit throughout, not just in the last episode.
A serious question: Is the cool science fiction/magic stuff still cool without being explained?
The recent Battlestar Galactica was ruined for me because it lacked a Cylon bubble machine:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxFhmtCQ9d4
and Space Glow Putty.
Or Colorforms! Where the hell were the Colorforms?
Now sucks. Shit was better years ago.
I agree with both of you. I think I was just saying it could have been worse. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the lack of answers and I think I was responding to that more than the fact that it was Soul Mate City. But yeah, more mystery and less hugs would have been far more satisfying.
Hey, sorry. I wrote that second post right after my first and didn’t see your reply, although the “I don’t know” ended up looking like it was just a lacklustre response, haha.
I certainly wouldn’t read 500 pages of boredom for a payoff. What I mean, though, is that episodes tend to be more or less self-contained (other than continuity bridges etc.) in the same way that (most) novels are. The whole thing is working towards the finish. The end of a series seems more like the final book in a series of novels.
I also wasn’t thinking of lengths anything like 500 pages, which is why I said “or a novella”. I guess the comma there was unfortunate. Something like “a novel or novella” might have been preferable. You know, things in the area of 80-150 pages, anyway.
Re: the second post, Reptoid spies are certainly always a difficulty. Is that really what happened here, though? I can only go on what I’ve seen written here and there — I’m a couple of seasons behind — but it seems like it’s more a case of finding out that the alternate timeline into which your marriage occasionally slipped was divorced from your initial reality in a different manner to the one you’d originally presumed or expected.
You’re right, though, actually. I remember seeing a study a while ago which basically found that your overall perception or appreciation of an event sequence is largely determined by the nature of its conclusion. So, for example, between a patient who underwent a dental operation in which they suffered intense and frequent pain but were comfortable for the last stretch, and one whose pain was lesser and more sporadic but also extended to the operation’s finish, it’s actually the former who leaves with a more positive memory of the experience. That seems a shame, though.
I still feel like an entire series shouldn’t be thought of as one sequence, though, as I’ve said. It’s more a sequence of sequences.
the whole thing was a dog’s dream? wtf?
yes the newsroom material in season 5 was pretty silly but the wire otherwise ended strong as hell. definitely definitely watch it. it’s kind of bittersweet seeing a lot of the wire actors appearing in random tv roles now after getting such amazing roles in the wire. but they’re getting paid.
don’t you fucking dare diss chip from kate and allie. dude made that show, sort of like wesley from mr. belvedere.
Yes, every time I see an actor from The Wire I get so depressed because they never have good roles. The black actors in particular are fucked for life. Although I say that and then I think, what happened to McNulty?
hahahahahah
Yes, every time I see an actor from The Wire I get so depressed because they never have good roles. The black actors in particular are fucked for life. Although I say that and then I think, what happened to McNulty?
hahahahahah
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