I love Lost. As most of you know I was a bit disappointed that it was all over and especially the way the writers ended everything, but nevertheless, it was still great writing and television. Since the show ended there are a few pieces I wanted to point to that are certainly worth the read.
First, and probably my favourite, was a 13,000 word essay on Lost by Jennifer Galicinski. It is entitled LOST: A Critique of the Modernist Quest and Prophet of a Better Way (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). It is absolutely excellent and for anyone that found themselves lost in the weaving storylines might find this helpful. It’s also a great critique on philosophy tying it in with the imagery and storytelling of Lost. Awesome. Chris Seay should be writing stuff like this instead (he wrote a book on the gospel according to Lost before it was even finished. WHAT?
I put together a quick response to her essay here.
I wrote this when Lost first finished. 5 Reasons Why LOST Disappointed. Which after reading Jennifer’s essay above, it was probably a bit premature considering I didn’t put a lot of work into it.
This was a hilarious video that summarized a lot of how you feel after watching Lost.
An Open Letter To Anyone Who Thought The End Of Lost Was Awesome.
It would be a could compilation of links if I didn’t link to Lost and Gone Forever, who I followed and read after every single episode of the last three seasons. This site helped me understand and analyze the show much better.
I finally commented on Jennifer’s essay, it’s awaiting moderation now.
I’ll paste it here if you’re interested in reading it, I have no idea how often she checks for comments there.
Hi Jen,
I read your essay a few weeks ago (Nathan pointed me here, we’ve had many, many LOST discussions, theology discussions, etc.).
I considered commenting then, but I decided to let both LOST and your essay steep a while in my thoughts first, so I returned today and just reread what you wrote.
Full disclosure, I was a huge LOST fan, even something of a LOST apologist encouraging my LOST friends to hold faith to the end because the grand plan would be revealed. My own love for LOST was shaken with Across the Sea and shattered by the emotionally over wrought The End that tugged heart strings, but not story lines.
I truly enjoyed your essay and the perspective you bring to viewing LOST. I enjoyed how you successfully showed through the story of LOST that a reliance on the purely rational can be disastrous at times. I would quibble with your critique of the modernist methods inevitably leading to violence as more honestly being a case where the modernist reliance on an objective and rational truth is no shield from the human condition that leads to a struggle for power and an easy reach for violent means to attain/maintain power.
You claim in the body of your essay that the lack of answers provided is both intentional and a brilliant literary device. I would challenge that as I believe it became apparent that the writers did not actually withhold answers, they simply never bothered to write answers. They did not know the answers, so they could not share them if they wanted to. To some degree, I can overlook issues where real life events intruded and Mr. Eko needs to go due to contract disputes, Libby needs to go due to criminal charges, Walt needs to go due to a far more pronounced and rapid puberty than anticipated etc. but when we consider characters like Jacob, Smokey/MiB/FLocke, Christian Shephard, Claire we find that for a character driven story, these very key and central characters simply do not work. They are shallow puppets that act and react at the whim of the writers without regard to their place in the story.
If we simply accept the Jacob revealed in Season 6 alone and out of context with LOST, then then we can see a wonderful character struggling to help Jack et al find their place, but when we consider the history we know Jacob has been a part of, we see a series of contradictions of intervention and non-intervention, contradictions that go to the heart of the character. This is not a complicated flawed character, it is an unrealised character.
The unnamed character is even worse, nothing this character does or is involved in over the first 4 seasons bears any resemblance to the character and motivations revealed in the final 2 seasons. It becomes so clear that this character served multiple stand in purposes until it was finally written as prime antagonist and then tied to Jacob’s character.
Christian works into the same issue. Christian’s appearances are obviously the result of multiple writers calling on his apparition to serve their episodes needs without regard to his place in the story until the final season attempts unsuccessfully to pull them together. christian as MiB on island and friendly guide spirit in the Flash Sideways world only works if you allow yourself to forget his appearances in earlier season and their context.
Claire’s disappearance for a season swims out of the same muddy waters. Given the context of a devoted young mother abandoning her child; her story was loaded with significant potential. Coming back in season 6 with a Claire that simply wandered off, missed the ride home and went squirrely waiting for someone to return is not a case of a brilliant literary device, it’s a writer that simply gave up on the story.
Now that all is said and done LOST, for me, is not a brilliantly written TV series, it’s a show that offered some interesting characters, some great individual episodes but it fell short of becoming the grand story it aimed for.
Many fans of LOST that were saddened by the ending were not necessarily reacting to a lack of complete answers, but to a lack in the writing and story telling.
LOST had fantastic potential, and I’m happy that you were able to connect with that potential and take something out of it for yourself. The message you are lifting from LOST and sharing in this essay is wonderful regardless of how well the writers of LOST accomplished their own task.
LOST was like this real sleezy guy who strings this girl along for 6 years even giving her an engagement ring and then decides with no good reason, “Nevermind, I am not interested in marrying you anymore!” Isn’t this what the producers did? For my people and I (who were TRUE, REALLY TRUE LOST fans) the finale wasn’t thee downfall. The package as whole is TERRIBLE!! If you really study the whole show and look back, LOST really took it’s terrible turn for the worse starting around season 5. At first, we thought Season 5 was an epic season! But when you meditate on it now that the show is over, you will realize that, that is when the show took a dive downhill! Season 5 totally went another angle and in classic LOST fashion began creating more questions and issues that not only disconnected from Seasons 1-4. But they NEVER answered Season 5 questions AT ALL. In total, http://www.darkufo.com did a brilliant research project that illustrates how bad this show became. Their research revealed that the total mysteries raised were 628, the ones ANSWERED were 351 and the UNANSWERED question count was: 277. Unbelievable! 277 questions unanswered sounds like really bad, terrible, incoherent writing! They tanked! The show was never about the characters, it was always about the mysteries. That is why they worked soooo hard to create them. Saying ‘It was about these characters who are lost” was a perfect copout from a bunch of producers/writers who went blank. Their only fanbase will be those weirdos who say they were happy and satisfied with the LOST finale. I guarantee you that if these weirdos were to open up about their personal lives we would find them probably in a relationship with a “significant other” that has no point and brings them no real satisfaction! Because that what LOST was like! The bottom line is that the LOST creators were great question creators (BRILLIANT)…but they were absolutely terrible question answerers. We gave them too much credit and they just were so unable to deliver. And that’s the truth Ruth!!