The finale of
Lost has been a popular topic of conversation in the office today - to the point where I hadn't actually realised how many people within shouting distance were still watching and paying attention.
Also interesting were the rebel group of non-watchers who had given up on the show after the first series (or shortly into the second) for fear that the show was actually going nowhere - yet were still as keen as anyone to discuss the merits, plots and sub-plots of the whole thing.
I'd consider myself a fan for sure. In the ever-decreasingly world of must-see appointment TV, Lost is the one remaining show I'll make an effort to see without fail.
Yes, there are times when you feel it's not really moving on very much - yes, there are episodes where bugger all happens - but, when something DOES happen, it has an uncanny knack of grabbing your attention with such force that even those ready to give up on it still set their Sky-Plus boxes for next week's episode.
Lost is a show that demands dedication to get the most out of it. It almost starts to become an addiction - a fear that you'll miss something vital to the whole fabric of the show if you miss a show or even just nip out of the room for a pee at the wrong moment. Why the hell else would 3.something million viewers put up with the bloody 118 118 guys week after week.
I'll continue to stick with the show for the foreseeable in the hope that it continues to grow and grow. I'm not entirely sure WHY I give a toss why there's a ruddy great statue of a foot with 4 toes on the other side of the island, but I just do! (Although a McDonald's drive-thru would have been far more entertaining).
The biggest frustration that seems to be levied at the show by many fans is its habit of dropping stuff on you and then seemingly just forgetting about it. Remember the mystery of the Polar Bear? The black-cloud "security system"? The radio transmitter that Hurley passed on to Sajid about 10 weeks ago? What's happened to all that? Have the writers just forgotten about all that? Or is it just another cunning ploy to keep us watching until episode 6.17 when, out of the blue, they WILL suddenly reveal where the polar bear did actually come from. (Shame you'll probably have sneaked out for a pee at that point).
My biggest fear with the show though is that, another 2-3 years down the line, when we're still devoting half our year to watching it and getting ever-more mystified, creator JJ Abrams is going to suddenly just get bored with it and decide that, in fact, it was all just an elaborate hallucination of Vincent the dog following a dodgy tin of out-of-date Pedigree, and that's that.
The Lost-doubters in the office made the argument today that it can't possibly ever end satisfactorily. They have a point. Consider the options:
- boat comes along and rescues them all
- electro-magnetism on the island has another one of its "moments" and kills the lot of them
- it's all a dream
- they all eat each other
- they're actually all already dead and in some stage of purgatory
- it just ends, leaving them all on the island and in limbo
Would you be happy with any of those conclusions? No, me neither.
Suggestions on a postcard please...
~~steve~~
www.tellytunes.com
