

As Lost Ends, Creators Explain How They Did It, What’s Going On - winanga
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_lost/

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pak
It's going to bellyflop. At this point there is no way you can satisfy the
questions people have.

In some ways I always felt Lost was the TV version of a pyramid scheme:
resolve one mystery, create two more, repeat. I gave up myself when mysteries
started getting resolved by papering things over with outright mysticism --
"that's the way it is in this world" or the magic science approach, if you
will, which totally turns me off. When the show was just about the Dharma
initiative, or even the Others, both artifacts of a lost civilization and
grounded in human decisionmaking and anthropology, I was more intrigued. I had
to pack my bags around the third season.

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ebiester
I figured that I would wait until it was finished. That way, I could know if
everyone else was angry about the ending.

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pak
Tell me what you think when it airs ... :-P

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gizmo
The thing that annoys me about lost (and we're leaving HN territory here)
isn't just that the show makes things up as it goes along, or that the show
pretends to be clever... it's that people actually _believe_ the show is
clever.

In a way, I can respect it that the producers/writers sit in a room and decide
to throw mystery after illogical mystery at the viewer just because it does
wonders for their ratings. What I can't respect is that people enjoy and are
captivated by things that obviously have no explanation, or a Deus Ex Machina
that is supposed to pass for one. What's the point of a mystery if you as the
viewer can't think about possible explanations?

What is it that people like about Lost? I understand why people watch sci-fi,
or medical dramas, or romantic comedies, or gross out comedies, or
documentaries. All those things give the viewer something it wants (a laugh, a
sob story, facts about history, and so on). But a show like Lost? I just don't
get it.

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defen
For me, Lost is a deeply frustrating show. For at least the past 2 years I
feel like I have been "chasing the dragon" - trying to regain that excitement
I _know_ I felt about the show at one point, even though I can't point to
exactly when that was, or what I was excited about.

I guess I'm just disappointed that all the cool stuff that happened in seasons
2-5 was mostly filler, buying time until we got to the planned end in season
6. I'm sad that they neutered my favorite character, even though it seems
necessary given how the plot is playing out. And I'm a little bit upset that
the writers knew what they were doing all along, taking advantage of people's
naive belief that they wouldn't dare give us all these juicy plot points with
no resolution!

In retrospect, what we need is for someone to make "Lost: The Good Parts"
which will be a 60-90 minute summary of everything that happens in seasons
2-5. That would greatly reduce the anguish of having watched so much with so
little payoff.

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michael_dorfman
_It’s like when you spend time with a 3-year-old, you quickly find out that
one question just begets another-- there’s a 'why' in the wake of every
'why'-- and the only way to end the conversation is to say, "Oh look, a Chuck
E. Cheese!" The show is doing its best to say, "Oh look, Chuck E. Cheese!"_

I am _so_ glad I never watched this show, if that's the producer's attitude.

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defen
I like that they admit they're just not going to explain certain things. I
wish they had told me this six years ago - would have saved me about 200 hours
of my life.

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puredemo
I was so bitter from the BSG finale I never watched Lost. Woohoo!

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TomOfTTB
When battlestar ended Lost was already halfway through its fifth season so
that really doesn't make much sense

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puredemo
I tend to watch shows all at once in weeklong binges.

Breaking bad is next in queue.

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BRadmin
single page: <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_lost/all/1>

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swolchok
I have never seen the show, but I think they tipped their hand, given 1) the
existence of the continuity czar that _began after the show started_ , 2)
their commentary about figuring out the best way to run the show _by watching
the show_ , and 3) the explicit acknowledgement that they may have been making
it all up as they went along:

    
    
        Locke is now the voice of a very large subset of the
        audience who believes that when Lost is all said and
        done, we will have wasted six years of our lives, that we
        were making it up as we went along, and that there’s
        really no purpose. And Jack is now saying, “the only 
        thing I have left to cling to is that there’s got to be 
        something really cool that’s going to happen, because I 
        have really, really fucking suffered.”

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TomOfTTB
If I may ask why on earth would you read an eight page article on a show that
you've never seen?

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swolchok
I have a few friends who watch it, and someone told me to watch it once upon a
time. Reading a flashy, well-written 8-page article at my leisure seemed like
a much quicker way to find out what all the fuss was about than actually
watching a 6-season show.

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barmstrong
Yep - each time they wove a plot twist in, it was like writing a big check.

At the end, either all those checks are going to cash out and they are going
to look brilliant (if it somehow all makes sense), or they will bounce (they
were just making things up as they went), it will be revealed as a fraud and
people will feel tricked.

It seems increasingly likely to be the latter as time goes on.

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sown
tl;dr: No spoilers.

