LOST Series Finale and Beyond - Part 2

In case you were wondering, yes, I totally forgot about this. But I do remember most of what I was going to say, so let's jump right in. This post will be about the show itself, and not so much the "beyond" part.

I thought the Lost series finale was entertaining. I wouldn't say it was as good as the show's best episodes (mostly first and second season episodes), but it was satisfying, and more than anything else, it gave us a fairly gratifying wrap on the entire series. I did have one idea, though, regarding the "alternate reality" portion, which we ended up learning was a kind of limbo/afterlife deal.

Couldn't that whole storyline have been made into a movie? Certainly Lost has enough viewers to at least justify releasing a full-length feature; you'd get at least ten million people easy, which translates to at least $80 million. Moreover, that whole path was kind of a stand-alone storyline; it didn't depend on anything happening on the island. The value it brought to this final season was in the questions it brought up, the kind of second-season questions we all had about, "What exactly is going on here?" As far as stories go, it could have been just as effective on its own.

In the end, though, I do think it was ultimately necessary to include that storyline alongside the final season. The reason showed up at the end of the final episode; while the bookend of the close-up Jack's eye was a great move by the show, the finale needed emotionally powerful scenes to satisfy long-time viewers. The confrontation between Jack and Samuel (the man-in-black's apparent name) was good, the farewell between Jack and Kate was good, the bestowal of the island's caretaker role to Hurley was good, but for pure emotion, nothing came close to the final meeting between Jack and his father. The finale needed that emotion, so it had to have the other-dimensional sequence.

Are there still questions? Of course. I don't think any of us realistically expected the show to resolve all of our questions. And leaving Hurley's reign on the island open-ended leaves open the possibility for a future movie; we'd all like a little more Lost. In that regard, I think Lost's writers did a great job. You know the old saying...

...always leave them wanting more.