Lost…The End

After 6 seasons of clues, hints, games, deaths, births, monsters, polar bears, submarines and time travel, along with all around weirdness, television’s most innovative show, Lost, comes to an end on Sunday night, concluding the Final Chapter.

And I couldn’t be happier.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am totally addicted to Lost.  Actually, this has been the only show I have religiously watched over the last couple years, as my life has become busier.  I always loved T.V., but simply don’t have the time anymore.

But I always make time for Lost.

I have watched most of the seasons multiple times on DVD.  I have for the first time gone to websites and blogs regarding the T.V. show,  something I still think is ridiculous.  I go on chat rooms, and argue everything from somebody’s look on the show to the philosophical meaning of life.

Lost has me and millions of others hooked.

But Lost is a unique cultural phenomenon, and a worldwide one at that.  It started out as a ABC imagined reality show version of Gilligan’s Island…I am not kidding.  It turned into Robinson Crusoe-meets-a-plane…quickly evolved into a science fiction story with monsters, time travel, and the supernatural…and now ends as a philisophical discussion of right and wrong, good vs. evil, and personal redemption.

Yeah, heavy stuff.

How many shows have ever gotten the general public interested in the connection between Alice In Wonderland, Soren Kierkegaard and philosophers as wide ranging as David Hume and  John Locke.  Active discussions have occurred regarding the identity and reality of this world versus alternate universes.  Wormhole theories.  Electromagnetic powers effects on the mind.  I could go on and on.

Additionally, Lost is unique in that you can’t really come in midway.  The story is a lost cause for anyone unwilling to go back to season 1 and start over from scratch.  There are so many significant allusions and references to old episodes, even the pilot, that I can’t possibly imagine jumping midstream into this storyline and hope to understand much of anything.

Lost is an interesting cacophany of science fiction, soap opera, and most of all, unanswered mysteries.  Those mysteries are ultimately what has hooked viewers such as myself…and maybe our worst nightmare is that many of those mysteries won’t be answered Sunday night.  Why were the children from Oceanic 815 taken?  And if Walt was so important, why did he comfortably disappear?  (Other than the practical matter that the actor that plays him grew up too fast…).  And do we get conclusions for other children, like Aaron?  And for God (or dog’s) sake, what happened to Vincent?

Thank God for JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who have said that they will try to answer these questions in the ultimate DVD release.

Lindelof, Cuse, and to a lesser extent Abrams have been the three main driving forces behind the show, have never really let up on their concept however.  Regardless of how critical some people have been, they have moved steadily forward with their vision.  They have had their ups and downs, to be sure.  But unlike so many other shows that stayed passed their prime and ‘jumped the shark’, Lost goes out on a high note. (I know…some thing last years time travelling jumped the shark…but the geek is me says ‘No way!’).   This season has been excellent, and the writing has been excellent for all 6 seasons.

So, for that closed community that makes up the Lost world, I say adieu.  Unlike other T.V. shows, whose finale is often just a goodbye, this finale should (hopefully, as promised) bring closure for years of rambling on about mysteries of the Island.  And I for one am looking forward to it.