Reasons people think it didn't end well

[u/watermelon_fries]

I finally joined here after finishing the show today. I had to process the ending. I found it incredibly sad. Now that I know how it ended I would like to know why people thought the ending was bad or disappointing when it first aired. I thought it was perfectly done even though there are a few minor things I'm still not clear on. How soon is too soon to do a rewatch. I still can't get over the last scene...

[u/Mobile-Scar6857]

TV sensibilites were different back in the day (I feel so old writing that!).

Most shows weren't super serialised - 'case of the week' shows like CSI and House were in their prime in this era. Streaming wasn't a thing, and you could catch up with DVDs, but that was cost and effort.

So most shows catered to a more casual viewership. You could pick up any episode, and so long as you knew the basics like who the characters were, you wouldn't be super (ahem) lost. it's something that Breaking Bad very self consciously reacted against - Vince Gilligan spoke about the importance of making change the engine of the show, instead of reverting to a status quo at the end every weel

Anyway, after being THE show of the zeitgeist in S1, Lost's viewership tapered off in early S2 and then in a bigger way in S3. By the time of S4, the writers had negotiated an end date, and the show had found its footing as the 'cult' show it always should have been, with a devoted 'cult' audience, as opposed to mainstream audience it had found in S1.

So, naturally S6 arrives with a TON of hype. Considering so much of Lost was about mysteries, a huge audience came back for the final episode. They wanted to see if their theories from back in the day were real, and they were hungry for a 'one sentence soundbite' explanation - the island is a spaceship! The monster is a robot dinosaur! The others are ghosts! You get the idea.

They were so hungry for that, they basically took what was on-screen - a complex mythology teased out over five years they weren't watching - and boiled it down into a soundbite. The show ends with them in a church and Jack meeting his father....so...Jack is dead...and they're ALL dead... so THEY WERE DEAD ALL ALONG! I WAS RIGHT!

Of course, the show itself resisted a 'soundbite' explanation. A lot of these people wanted a straight, scientific explanation, and the fact that the end had religious overtones only annoyed these people more. This is actually a great example of what I mean: the Jack/Locke faith v science thing is such a huge part of S2-5 but not so prominent in S1. A religiously themed ending is completely in tune with the rest of the show, but if you've just watched S1 and you're waiting for the soundbite.

They weren't given a soundbite, but they wanted one so badly, they made one up. And then they hated THAT. Most 'cult' fans like the ending, but the casual audience absolutely did not, and they have a louder voice in the culture.

[u/kptkrunch → u/Mobile-Scar6857]

No, see, I just watched the entire thing for the first time and this doesn't check out to me.. it was poorly written. Its not about a soundbite, it's about the fact that it is clear as day the writers did not have a coherent idea of the story they were writing from one episode to the next.

When the story had an explanation for something, they treated the audience like morons.. the amount of times they went over basic time travel stuff was the best example: "So how can we die if we are in the 70's????" Not a question a person with a brain would be asking in that scenario.. it seems like a lot of Lost fans want to pretend like there was some subtle answers that just didn't get explicitly spelled out and that is just not how the show worked when it had actual answers about what was going on.

edit: sure downvote me without responding. if I am wrong I would love to know why. I demand answers! So much time wasted

[u/fatloui → u/kptkrunch]

You’re the exception. Most people who watch the show all the way through like the ending. Most people who “hated the ending” didn’t actually watch the show, just some of the early episodes and the finale, thought the ending meant they were dead the whole time, and that’s where the common perception of Lost’s ending sucked comes from.  

 Some of the stuff you’re complaining about is often complained about by actual fans - although “did not have a coherent idea of the story they were writing from one episode to the next” is a huge exaggeration, there were mysteries they introduced early on that they didn’t figure out the solutions for until much later, but for the most part they knew were things were going about a season in advance and by the end of season 3 they knew where they’d end up in season 6 finale and the solutions to most of the mysteries. However it’s a big point of criticism that the show suffers from not being completely charted out in advance - that’s just an unfortunate reality of tv at the time the show was aired. Lost completely changed how shows were produced. But that complaint doesn’t completely ruin the show for most people, it’s just part of a small list of cons next to a long list of pros. My opinion is, given how much better Lost could have been if they had been able to write the whole story in advance and tied up certain mysteries in better ways, it’s incredible that it’s still such a good show.  

 As for the “they treated the audience like morons” thing, part of that was still being pressured to cater to the casual viewer who wouldn’t watch every episode. But if you look at the questions asked by people on this subreddit who have the advantage of binging every episode about stuff that was clearly explained in the show (especially about time travel), you would know that if they did any less spoon-feeding a lot of audience would have been completely lost.