Seasons 4, 5 and 6 were awful with a smattering of really good episodes that progressed the plot ... whenever it was announced that Season 6 was going to be the last, that's when the series completely fell to crap ...

Lindelof stated from the very, very beginning he felt the story they wanted to tell was a 100 episode arc. Season 6 ran from episode 104 to 121. That's *at least* one season too long, and I think the writers started to completely lose their way after the "Season 6 is our last" announcement ... I believe that happened sometime in Season 4 ... maybe during the writers strike? Or maybe it was during the weird, extended break in Season 3

I 100% believe that Network pressure to get 6 seasons out of the show with good ratings completely ( well, at least 80% ) ruined the series ... I don't think a lot of what we saw in Season 5 and 6 was originally intended by the writers ...

Think about how awesome everything was the first 3 seasons ... there really wasn't a glimmer of them not knowing what they were doing ... everything flowed, everything made sense ( even if we didn't know what it meant ) ... they had a story to tell ... they had a roadmap ... everyone was completely hooked

Then they had to draw it out for the network ... arcs had to be extended, other storylines had to be inserted ... was the entire drawn out freighter arc originally intended? How about the jughead storyline?

We can't let the writers completely off the hook tho ... even if there was an entire seasons worth of fluff material thrown in the last 3 seasons, how do they **** up the ending so bad and the entire ramp up to the ending?

By the first few episodes of Season 6 anyone who wasn't completely delusional knew the ending was going to be a ginormous letdown ... I'm confident in the future, maybe 10 or 20 years from now, Lindelof and Cuse will come out in an interview and say "Yea, that sucked"

I doubt we'll ever see anything big from Lindelof again ... I truly believe he was the right guy to write this series ... he's a comic book fanatic, intent on telling a good story ... he knows what it's like to be hooked on a story and be a real fan of something ... I think he feels completely burned by the network juggernaut procedures / pressures and will mostly stay out of the spotlight from now on, instead concentrating on little pet projects like writing comics or being a producer on shows

What is even worse for me is I never think about Lost without someone else bringing it up. Almost like the ending was a traumatic experience that I block from memory.

Yeah, I remember the journey being frustrating as hell, wondering when it would all come together. If I would have known the result, I would go back in time and make sure I never watched this show.

Like I said before, the alternate universe or whatever you want to call it completely ruined it for me. It added nothing at all to the story, had no tie-ins with the rest of the story, and took up like 1/3 of the final season of this show. Lost would have gone down as an all-time great show had they just added more to the on-island storyline in the final season and ended the show with Jack dying while the plane flies over his head.

^ the discordance you are referring to was definitely happening in season 3.

if the above is true than I feel bad for you given what a massive nit you must be that 4-5 episodes out of 100+ could somehow ruin 6 years of awesome TV viewing.

I think the problem is part of the fun of lost was trying to figure it out etc and the reveal would be mind blowing. I think as a show it was v good but the last season was a major downer and disappointment. I mean if you take out some bad episodes of the sopranos at the end then whatever, it was still a great show. The problem with lost is you are waiting for the final mind blow and the last episodes are just mind blowingly bad/ made the whole story pointless.

seasons 4 and 5 were way more awesome than 2 and 3. the 1st half of 2 and 3 were bad.

Some of the best characters/themes/storylines on the show didn't even exist or come into their own until seasons 4+.

You can make the argument that if they had ended the show with Season 5 it would have been a better "ending" but the whiners like TC etc would still whine and everyone else would be super pissed cuz they ended with a cliffhanger and left all the characters unresolved and didn't answer all the questions blah blah blah.

All the bitchy people and whiners would insta tivo LOST Season 8 if it suddenly came on their TV guide lol.

All this talk about having your mind erased and going back and choosing not to watch an awesome movie or show cuz you didn't like how it ended is so ******ed and complete BS.

Goofy, TC, and all the whiners would watch it all over again cuz it would suck them in even if just on a season by season, episode by episode basis.

Part of what you realize is that a certain segment of the viewing audience didn't even care about anything that went on in the show, it was so well done they were sucked in but overall it was just like a road trip for them - they were simply waiting to get to the destination and get out of the car...they simply wanted to know how it was all going to end. If they could have skipped season 3,4,5,6 and just gone to the last chapter of the book and read it and then be done with it...they would have.

The notion that Season 6 was soooo horrible and poorly written and blah blah blah, so much so that it made watching and enjoying all the episodes/arcs/storylines prior is idiotic.

really? I thought the standard was seasons 1-2>3>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>4-6

why in gods name did you watch it in the first place lol. I find watching something like The Event or say Caprica(some mindless weird sci-fi show) neither entertaining and at the same time incredibly annoying..so I don't watch it. I don't get why someone who so didn't enjoy watching a show...would keep watching it lol...seems pretty stupid. No ending was going to make up for all the frustration

I'd go
1
4
5
3
2
6

in terms of a single season. 2 and 3 are severely hurt by their super slow 1st halves but recover with awesome 2nd halves. 1 is essentially awesome only because you knew nothing about the shows characters, etc so everything was fresh and interesting despite it not being all that interesting or complex. 6 is hurt because of all the expectations, how passive the main characters are, the mangled alt storyline.

but then you remember the whole journey was one long cluster****.


this is all you need to know:


for 2 years I was planning on buying (in a store, not torrents) the entire series in a box set and watching from season 1 in like a month.

now, i don't even want to watch it at all. I am rewatching The Sopranos now, and will rewatch the Wire and Deadwood. Lost had potential but didn't fulfill it.

It's a good show, but I've seen lots of good shows. You don't see me rushing back to rewatch Law and Order Season 4

I never re-watch serialized TV shows or buy DVD sets after they go off the air. Who cares?
Re-watchability is just about the worst barometer of whether a heavily serialized TV show was good/great/awesome/etc.

I think rewatchability separates the good from the great. Although being a continuous serial may distort that because it's harder to watch one episode in a vacuum.

They seemed to have everything planned out, and the ride seemed like it was going somewhere. I put too much faith in their word and got burned.

I also became too invested. I had invested all this time into watching it and catching up and rewatching, that it was too late to give up.

I enjoyed thinking it was going in one direction when in reality it was going in none. Knowing where it kills the ride because none of it was relevant to knowing the end.

Because it was terrible.

Ending is meh, but show is incredible.


You'll not find a Hurley, Locke, Ben, Sawyer, Desmond, Jack....need I go on?.......in any other show.



I will re watch with my children someday.

win


lose



the fact i never want to watch the show again speaks volumes about it's legacy

yes you will.

the wire has a dozen characters like that. so does the sopranos.

your premise makes no sense, obv they will never have characters like that, because they are unique to the show.


thats like saying deadwood>lost solely because lost doesn't have Al

+1

I'm not sure how important rewatchability is in determining whether a show was great or not, but I was really looking forward to rewatching Lost and picking up things I didn't notice the first time around (like I did with The Wire). I tried rewatching Lost, and I just got mad about all of the storylines that went nowhere. I gave up after season 3.

i've been saying it over 100 times, but if they ended the show in season 5 and closed the circular loop just a bit more cohesively, lost would have been a god tier show. instead they killed it with season 6 with jacob and smokie.

All I said is that you'll not find Hurley, Locke, Ben, Sawyer, Desmond, Jack in any other show.

Premise is simple.

law and order is def the greatest show of all time then

Lost > LO for sure

Law and Order is good in a different way. I was watching some great scenes on youtube last night of Ben/Locke. When Lost was good it was so good.

Yeah, but you won't find Kate, Juliet, Sun, Michael, Ana Lucia, or any of the other terrible characters.