L O S T - WTF???? What the hell was that?

[Taverner]

The whole thing was 'St Elsewhere' - 'Newhart' - AKA a dream or purgatory...

WTF - that's just lazy writing!

Although I should have known they were going this direction with the snowglobes - its not as if they didn't warn us...

[Mojambo]

1. I don't think the whole thing was purgatory/limbo, just the sideways "timeline"

Everything that happened on the island happened. People did what they did, loved who they loved, and died when they died. The machinations of Jacob, the Others, Widmore etc etc all happened.

The writers just felt the need to wrap up the series in a very sentimental manner (too sentimental by far, IMHO.) They were basically saying that because of such an unusual shared experience, and the island's unique mystical properties the castaways would have found and redeemed each other in the "afterlife"

I didn't love the finale. Didn't hate it.

I did like how they brought Jack back to the beginning and ended on his eye, mirroring the opening scene of the show.

[Taverner]

3. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't - who's to know???

Sloppy writing all around...

The writers kept throwing things into the show, and then making up shit to explain them later

ARGH! I need a life!

[Mojambo]

5. I agree that they basically spent the entire show throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks

But that is pretty much the nature of serialized TV drama.

I'm okay with it, but I certainly don't want to hear anyone say that this was how they planned it all along because that is clearly total bullshit.

That being said, I'm okay with the pseudo mystical ending in the case of LOST.

[Regret My New Name]

2. The finale confirmed they just made the shit up as they went along

teehee... It was rather disappointing and uncreative.

[Mojambo]

6. I think they did fine with this ending given where the "make it up as they go along" storytelling

had brought them.

It was a well put together finale, even if I personally would have gone a different direction.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. The Chris Carter Effect

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChrisCarterEffect

[MorningGlow]

4. No, it wasn't

Neither a dream nor purgatory. The writers confirmed that what happened on the island did indeed happen.

The Otherworld/afterlife (the church) is outside of time--that's why Christian said they were all able to gather there whenever necessary even though some died earlier and some later. The Losties were a soul family or soul group (look it up) and were always there for one another to help one another "wake up" (in this case, Jack) when it's time to transition from the living world to the Otherworld.

I thought it was brilliant.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. The island timeline appeared to be real. The alternate 2.0 universe was "purgatory"

That's what I can gain of it.

Had they attempted to explain all the different supernatural mythos questions, it would have been lamer than the Star Wars prequels. Instead, the writers did the wise thing and focused on the personal aspects of the characters.

[MorningGlow]

8. I realized something

As I lay in bed last night, staring at the ceiling till 1 a.m. (swear to gods), mulling all this over--for all those "unanswered" questions, we actually do know the answers already. There were very few outstanding mysteries that I couldn't dig up the answers for (although the answers were deep in the fug of my addled brain).

[Goblinmonger]

9. I agree that we have the answers.

Sure, it may not be spelled out completely and in wikipedia detail, but it is all there. One of my friends said, "Why were there polar bears?" Because the Dharma people were testing them for, among other things, teleportation properties of the island. Which lead to "Why were the Dharma people there?" Because Jacob brought them to see if they wouldn't suck. They did.

Ultimately, if there is something that is still unanswered, it just doesn't matter in the detail you want the answer. Why was there a 4-toed statue? Because some Egyptian dudes were brought there by Jacob and they did what they do.

[XemaSab]

13. The only thing that bugs:

Why were the others sterile after the purge?

(And this plot point drives the first three plus seasons, so it's pretty key.)

[Taverner]

14. you can't have children if you're already dead

[MorningGlow]

16. Uggghhh

They WEREN'T dead! :banghead:

[MorningGlow]

15. I always thought it had something to do with

the electromagnetic energy. The children who were on the island were brought there by their families (Dharma Initiative recruits), and any woman who conceived while on the island couldn't bring the baby to term and died during the pregnancy, right? Except for Ethan, who was born in the '70s. So...maybe the Dharma folks messing with the island's properties?

[Xithras]

21. Yes, it was the Incident, IMHO. The writers pretty much laid it out.

Prior to the "Inicident" which lead to the construction of the Swan Station and the computer, women reproduced just fine. When the Swan diggers struck the electromagnetic pocket, the island was bathed in intense waves of electromagnetic radiation. After that, women could no longer carry children to term on the island.

Thinking back to an earlier season, it sort of makes sense. We know from Locke and from conversations with the Others that the island has healing properties. We know from this season that the "power" of the island comes from its vaguely referenced "electromagnetic radiation". We know that the "incident" at the Swan station bathed the island in this radiation. We know from Juliet that the mothers die when their immune systems turn on their fetuses...they see the infant as a parasite and go into full attack mode. This immune attack eventually kills both the mother and the fetus.

While the Lost writers never directly addressed it, they did put all of the pieces in place to really answer the question. The healing powers come from the electromagnetic radiation. The blast at the Swan soaked the island with huge amounts of radiation. This radiation would have presumably amplified the islands healing powers. Women, subject to those healing powers, would have had far more aggressive immune systems, which eventually attacked their own fetuses.

[soleft]

22. I thought it had to do with the Islands Healing Elements

The way it cured Rose's cancer. It's like the Island perceived the embryo as a foreign body. But then, it wasn't only the fetus who died, but the mother as well during birth.

I have a friend who has auto-immunilogical issues who wasn't able to sustain a pregnancy because it's like her body's anti-bodies attached the pregnancy.

Almost like the Island was heavy duty chemo.

[Goblinmonger]

20. Because Jacob wanted it that way

He got to set the rules. Hurley probably would have let them breed.

[jotsy]

10. I'm trying not to appreciate it.

It's like that moment from the Christmas Story when the big secret turned out to be a commercial. I've been a fan since it started and expected more than what I feel like I got. I had hoped for an ending as unique as the getting there and this struck me as a fairly easy way out. Had the island been about souls saving the infinite quality of spirit, I might have considered that a good explanation is to why all the weird, wicked and wacky stuff had to be waded through.

One last beef. Echo?

[Mojambo]

11. How does Penny get in, but not Echo?

She wasn't even on the island!

[The2ndWheel]

12. TV can be fickle

If Lost were a book, it would've been easier to tell the story. If it were a movie trilogy, it could have been streamlined. But with tv, actors come and go for whatever reason, and story lines need to be changed quickly, etc. Plus, with a show like Lost, where you know an ending with something in it will need to take place(as opposed to a sitcom for example), it's tough to do when it doesn't seem like they worked from the end, in order to explain the plot a little better.

They had a beginning, and an idea for an end. I can believe they had an idea for an end. They just didn't know when that was going to happen. So they start telling the story of where the characters could go, with an end floating out there in the future. It makes for some crazy story lines. That's the pro side. Half way through, they get an end date. Now the focus has to shift directly to the end. That's where the con side of making it up steps in. As soon as they got that end date, in a bit of a twist, it felt like the show lost its way. It had branched out from the beginning into however many threads, and only then did they really focus on an end, working their way back from the end, and trying to make everything fit. Or not even bothering to make some things fit.

The last two seasons were a bit off. Too much temple time, obviously. The time travel was interesting at times. I liked Locke telling Richard to tell Locke that he had to die, only later finding out that that wasn't what it looked like.

I'm still not sure what I think of the series finale though. I enjoyed the whole Lost ride enough, that I want to let it sink in and have a chance. It's not at the Season 3 finale level of impact, but it probably shouldn't be, since it's closing out the series. But my initial reaction was on the fence.

[TCJ70]

17. They weren't dead and the island was real.

The "sideways timeline" wasn't really a timeline at all...but an afterlife for them all to meet up in.

[MilesColtrane]

19. Island events were real.

They just didn't matter in the long run.

Which is just as bad as making them "all a dream" imo.

[WinkyDink]

23. 1. The island was where some passengers died, some survived. 2.Whenever they each died, the fellow

passengers were the ones they met for their "transition", because the crash/island was the single most significant experience of their lives; hence, they looked the same way the deceased last knew them, no matter how they really aged or when they themselves really died.
3. Because only one character was needed to illustrate this, the major protagonist was shown dying and transiting. The open coffin was his.

As for the preceding 6 years: I haven't a clue!