Monday, May 24, 2010

Why the Lost finale did not "suck"


ABC image/ Jack and Vincent prepare for the end.

WARNING: I am going to talk about the end, because last night the show "Lost" ended. I think it's OK to do that.

Last night, while I was waiting for the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" special to start, I popped on Facebook and Fark.com to see what people were saying about the "Lost" finale. Overwhelmingly, one word was coming up again and again - "sucked." I won't get into why we can't be more eloquent in our criticism here, but I am here to tell you why it did not, in fact, suck.
This obsession with answers that cropped up in season six of "Lost," and became almost deafening the closer the finale got - I'll admit, I got a little caught up in it early in season 6.
The closer it got to the end, the more I reverted to my "Lost" mantra, I am along for the ride. And today I understand perfectly what they were doing.
The "Lost" finale was about closure, not answers.
As I watched people reunite, still wondering what was going to happen, I didn't even think about wasting time, or what made the island so special. Because who cares. In the end, the island was mystical and had electromagnetic energy and a lot science geeks got off on that, but what really kept us watching were Jack, Sawyer, Hurley, Sun, Jin, Locke, Ben, Charlie, Claire, Desmond, Sayid and Kate - well, maybe not so much Kate (although she was awfully good in the finale). It was the characters.
The last 15 minutes, I could not stop sobbing. I was sobbing as much about saying goodbye to the show as what was happening on screen. And the final image, although it now seems obvious, I never tried to figure out what it would be, and therefore it was a beautiful, perfectly appropriate coda.
You can say I'm thick for not figuring it out. I will tell you I got to experience it fully for not obsessing about being "first" for knowing what it would be.
And when you think about it, many of the answers were already there. I read a particularly annoying article the other day with "50 questions 'Lost' must answer!" - What was the Dharma Initiative? - seriously? A failed attempt at Utopia thwarted by a murderous Ben Linus. Next question? No wonder Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof did an interview with Wired magazine where they basically said "Lost" fans are toddlers always asking "why? why? why?"
I miss the characters already. Namaste.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Coming soon to a TV near you

The fall announcements are coming in -- "upfronts" to people in the biz -- and one of the quirkier offerings is the reboot of "Hawaii Five-O." It just seems to me that the ship may have sailed on this one. However, Daniel Dae Kim from "Lost" is in it, with Alex O'Loughlin from "Moonlight," Scott Caan of the "Ocean's Eleven" movies and Grace Park from "Battlestar Gallactica," so it could be good.

Here's the opening credits. This is a test of how you are, whether or not this makes you smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0i0ik3WO68