10 Great TV Shows That Lost It By The End
5. Lost
If ever a television show can be justifiably accused of screwing over a long-suffering fanbase, its Lost. Not through incompetence or bad storytelling, like most of the examples in this article - through false advertising and misdirection.
A mystery drama about warring groups of survivors of shipwrecks and plane crashes on a magical island, Lost sets out its stall early, throwing curveball after curveball at the fascinated viewer. As time went on however, the mythology of the show becoming more and more convoluted and difficult to keep straight, it became obvious to many that the producers of the show were making it all up as they went along.
That wasnt actually true Lost was far tighter and more controlled than rumour would have had us believe but the important thing was that it felt true. Too many questions were left hanging in favour of yet more questions, and actual answers were few and far between, even as the show hit its sixth and final season.
Now, Lost isnt really about the resolution of the mysteries of the island any more than Mad Men is about advertising: its focus is on the dramatic heft of the conflict between the people on the island (and occasionally off), and that's the case from the pilot episode right through to the series finale. However, Lost and its producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof certainly allowed viewers to believe that they would reveal all the show's secrets come the end, and they absolutely did not.
Even more damning was the conceit of the secondary narratives of the final season. Whereas initial seasons focused on flashbacks to build character depth and later seasons utilised flash-forwards; as the timeline of the show became less linear, season six gave us something different... what appeared to be a timeline featuring the same characters in a different world, with no memory of any of the events depicted in previous seasons.
By the controversial finale, it became apparent that these flash-sideways scenes were the central characters involved in some form of post-death purgatory state, unable to move on to the afterlife proper until theyd come to terms with their lives and their time on the island. We say 'became apparent'... in fact, many fans of the show still don't understand what was happening in season six, and we don't believe they ever will. That sound everyone heard when the credits rolled was ten million or so people snapping their televisions off and hurling the remote at the wall in frustration.