I always assumed the baby thing was kind of exclusive to the Others in part for their massacre of the Dharma folks etc...kind of retaliation/judgment by the island. May be the same reason Ben gets cancer on the island when everyone else on the island seems to get healed.

Makes sense to me!

always seemed obvious to me that the others kidnapped kids because they couldnt have their own and needed to strengthen their numbers

yeah. plus children = innocent/pure/good.

This is one reason I was able to enjoy the finale- I had very low expectations. Being Disney/ABC, the ending was going to be tears and hugs and a positive message. There are only so many ways to get there and I'm cool with the way they chose. And it's better than my prediction, which was that the alt-world was their new lives after the island sank.

Also, I think back on the thousands of hours I've wasted on crap tv shows and Lost absolutely kicks ass by comparison, even if it's a long way from perfect.

ya and since utilitarianism is a theme of the show, and because cindy specifically says it, that the others really just wanted to make sure the kids didn't die ("we give them a better life") since there was no food/shelter/etc, as well as stopping them from becoming corrupted by man.

Yeah it would have been pretty insane on like HBO, Showtime, FX etc. Way more violent and crazy, Claire/Juliet/Kate getting naked!, much more room/time to spend on the writing and less of a crazy frantic pace compared to network TV. I mean they could have been like Chase and taken a year off in between seasons if they wanted lol. But it was such a fluke for network TV anyways...most execs would have probably just been fine with the original version which was basically Survivor the TV show.

I think Cindy and the kids are still alive...didn't FLocke say they scattered into the jungle. Hurley is so gonna end up tapping that.

Just want to quote this because it's fascinating. Quote speaks to why I've read this whole thread and although throughout it, it seems like the side arguing finale was awesome, stuff that mattered was in fact answered, etc (defenders) have been usually right, even though personally I'm now massively disappointed in Lost overall and agree with posts from Assani/TomCollins.

For me I couldn't disagree more with what I quoted. I remember often my mind just shutting off during flashbacks to some character's past and in rare instances fast forwarding. By the time s2 came around the only interesting characters were those that could somehow answer some mysteries about what is going on and what the island is, expecting sick reveals. The OMGLOST moments were just so well-crafted and chilling that anything else took a backseat. It's possible if the show was on a totally normal island and was about hunting boars and maybe engaging a generic local tribe s1 thru s6, but the characters were the same somehow I'd like the show. But that wasn't Lost for me, at all.

Also possibly why the some questions that were kinda-sorta or vaguely answered are a big deal to some and "whatever" to others, like food drops or the total bull**** Numbers answer. Some expected a buildup to a crazy well-conceived reveal others just thought "ooh spooky" and didnt worry about it.

Sidenote: after reading some of the articles I totally forgot that Jack was essentially the reason or push for his father falling of the wagon and going on his downward spiral drinking himself to death. Can't wait to wait like a year and re-watch the seasons one by one. So much crap that I've missed or forgotten.

2nd sidnote - pretty gay of Ecko to not take the easy paycheck and just show up in LA for a day.

It seems you liked different seasons better than others. The first 2 were about 50:50 Character:Sci Fi. After 3 Lost tilted strongly towards time travel, sharp jerkings in the plot, island mythology etc.

They didn't completely abandon all of their human-interest (like with Desmond) but it was lessened, especially amongst the original cast.

And that Michelle Rodriquez didn't buy a radar detector, Walt kept growing, Mrs Rosseau didn't want to travel to Hawaii... but that is the business [they] have chosen.

I mean, this is part of why Lost was so genius at it's inception. I remember one of my friend's girlfriends being shocked that I watched lost, because she watched it, and thought it was a "chick show" because of all the Skater/Jater stuff. The show was able to appeal to people that were looking for so many different things, but ultimately, it can't possibly satisfy all of them. In the end, it is going to be much more satisfying for the people who cared about the characters, because that is what the writers prioritized from day one.

Honestly though, I loved all of the WTF reveals just as much as I appreciated the characters episodic tribulations, and I feel completely satisfied with the mythology and whatever answers they provided. For me, it was much more about theorizing, tho, than knowing absolutes.... I mean it's fun to think back on what I thought in s4, that it was some giant global corporate conspiracy... or that Aaron was Jacob... or tons of redic theories...

I really cannot think of one single thing they left unanswered that I am dying to know, besides why Nadia was killed (and that wasnt even supposed to be mysterious!)... and personally, I think they answered too much.

At this point, me too. The only reason I wanted answers was because I assumed anything mysterious happening had an answer as soon as it was written, and when it was revealed it would be awesome and shocking somehow. What I'm realizing from this thread is a lot of people just perceived the show differently.

When I say something like wanting stuff answered, I don't mean "they're part of this obscure math equation" or "they're periodic food drops that happen all the time" or "others were weird because ben's a terrible leader". I expected Lost writers were crazy masterminds and planned from the start for a huge reveal to bring everything together and make everything make sense. Obv I gave up on this sometime in season 6 and tried to enjoy it for what it was and accept that mysteries were often created for mystery's sake. At this point the show lost a lot of what I enjoyed about it.

Yeah, it's somewhat interesting because I started watching in S2, watched a few, then went back and watched it all. I have seen S1 and 2 4 times, S3 and 4 twice, and the rest once.

Each season had its highs and lows. I really liked a lot of pretty much S1-5 (the first half of S3 was bad, but S3 had some really good parts too).

Biggest things I liked:

S1 - good to get to know people and get introduced to the basic mysteries/hatch. Locke and Rose getting healed.

S2 - Obviously entering the numbers in the computer was huge. What will happen if they don't press them!??? This pretty much took over the season. Also the best part was "Henry Gale" and trying to figure out his story. Loved how Sayid figured it all out. Terrible part is WAAAAAAAAAAAAALT

S3 - Obviously all the stuff with Desmond. Locke joining the others, and trying to get rescued. Not Penny's Boat. Worst part was all the filler episodes.

S4 - Wasn't a huge fan of this season, but not terrible. Didn't like the Oceanic 6 mystery so much. At least two cool characters were added in Miles and Lapidus.

S5 - I liked this season a lot and it gave me a lot of hope. Flashes were cool and had a lot of potential. Absolutely loved the plot to kill Jacob.

S6 - Can't think of any redeeming factors for this season. LA X started out with so much promise and WTF moments, and of course it was all for nothing.


Another unanswered mystery of course - WTF were they doing with Sayid in the water? Why didn't it work? What does "infected" even mean?

I remain utterly disappointed by the sideways timeline ending up being just a weird temporary afterlife (in which, for some reason, Jack and Juliet have a son together). It had nothing per se to do with the island, with the nuclear explosion, or with the normal timeline. That is, it ended up just being this thing tacked onto the main storyline. This is to say that this was a pretty horrible failure at storytelling in what had been an excellent series for weaving a story.

I'm not one of the people disappointed because we didn't have every question answered. I didn't even need a specific or clear answer to what was going on in the sideways timeline. But the specific answer they seemed to give was just a big disappointment.

when did the afterlife timeline start? was jack born, raised, etc? is jack jr a zombie? is jack sad that his son doesnt get to come to heaven too and his soulless little body will toil around in an imaginary world until it dies?

I WANT ANSWERS!

LOL guys Lost was always a character driven show and the the answers aren't/werent ever important!

but...

if you really want answers, boy have i got a deal for you!



for just a couple hundred dollars we will give you ~ 14 mins worth of answers that just couldnt be included in the final 2.5 hrs!

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/45259

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Complete-...4976438&sr=1-4

glad "answers" weren't important, but could be used as a cash grab after the fact instead of adding something to the finale for the answers crowd...

cool story bro

If the answers don't matter, why did the writers even pose the question?

this is why lost was bad. there is no rewatchability. movies like usual suspects, shutter island, sixth sense with huge reveals make for great rewatch because there are a lot of subtle clues that point to the truth. lost has none because the writers themselves didn't know the answers from the beginning.

try it. go try watching lost without just picking the best episodes. i doubt you'll make it through season 2 without getting tired of all the inconsistencies.

the problem with lost is there was never an overlapping answer to tie everything together. what the writers should have done was start from the end and go backwards, like they promised they did. instead they wrote it as the seasons went along, which created a lot of inconsistencies and an underwhelming final season

Say what you will about this show, but there are over 2,000 posts on it's finale alone on an internet gambling forum.

Fluke is a great way to put it, this was an extraordinary experience. And by the way, thanks for sharing your insights into television production in these threads- the constraints placed upon a network series like this are no trifling matter.

how many posts are there on the actual LOST forums!?!?

Not sure if this has already been mentioned- just thought it was cool:

"The Book of the Dead is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary texts known as The Book of Coming [or Going] Forth By Day...
Books of the Dead constituted as a collection of spells, charms, passwords, numbers and magical formulas for the use of the deceased in the afterlife. This described many of the basic tenets of Egyptian mythology. They were intended to guide the dead through the various trials that they would encounter before reaching the underworld."

http://www.thenazareneway.com/index_..._book_dead.htm

"The Liberation Through Hearing During The Intermediate State (Tibetan: bardo "liminality"; thodol as "liberation"[1]), sometimes translated as Liberation Through Hearing or Bardo Thodol is a funerary text. It is often referred to in the West by the more casual title, "Tibetan Book of the Dead," a name which draws a parallel with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, another funerary text.

The Tibetan text describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, during the interval between death and the next rebirth. This interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death, and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place. It is the most internationally famous and widespread work of Tibetan Nyingma literature.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol

Why does LOST not being rewatchable make it bad? The logic there is so lol.

unless you never really liked the show/characters...the notion that it isn't re-watchable is pretty funny. There is so much crammed into each episode that I'd bet people will discover something new the 2nd and 3rd time around. Plus episodes like Through the Looking Glass, The Constant, Do No Harm, etc are just awesome stand alone episodes of TV. I may skip Stranger in a Strange land though lol