I'm Here For The Plot (Finales That Don't Quite Satisfy)

I see a lot of complaining online about the ending of LOST, as well as a lot of confusion. While I think that I liked the ending, I'm not 100% sure, I do understand where the disappointment comes from.

LOST's ending suffers from much of the same problems as BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's. On GALACTICA, the head writer infamously decided the ending was "all about the characters" (I'm paraphrasing here) and the rest of the stuff didn't matter. Too bad that's incredibly dumb. That stuff, all those mysteries introduced by those same writers, did matter to the fans.

When you're working on a plot dense show, to toss aside all the questions you chose to raise, and don't answer because you're too lazy to have thought up answers, you're bound to annoy people who stuck around. All you have to do is ask, "Would this show have been as interesting or successful if it was a bunch of people sitting around a room talking and it wasn't set on a mysterious island or space ship?"

Characterization is great, but I think a lot of people are more interested in the plot itself. I know that while I like seeing characters change, etc, I'm very plot driven. Saying, "oh it's all magic" or chalking it up to angels and saying that the things that made the show so interesting don't matter is a bit of a slap in the face to fans.

How often did you hear people talking about how interesting it was that Sawyer discovered that he liked to read books on the island? Pretty much never. People wanted to know who the Others were. People wanted to know what the numbers meant, etc.

This sort of "it's all about the characters, nobody cares about the rest" line from writers isn't unique to series finales. (For the few Brits reading, I'm speaking in terms of the entire show. I know what we call "seasons" you guys call "series".) The first four seasons of DOCTOR WHO were full of "emotion" and "characterization" over plot. Unlike the original run of the show this stuff took precedence over story. A lot of episodes were resolved with some sort of lazy magical fix. This is a pretty stark contrast to the older shows, where there were the occasional emotional moment (like the Doctor leaving his granddaughter behind), but mostly the show was about the plot. It wasn't concerned with trying to please "shippers"* or attempting to make the audience weepy. I think the current regime on WHO is doing a much better job of blending the two.

Don't think I'm tossing characterization under the bus. There is something to be said for making the characters interesting and not just as tools to advance the plot. That's where HEROES failed, by making the characters act however the plot required them to that given week, regardless of consistency.

The original STAR TREK is a good example of something that was plot-driven (although episodic rather than overall) while having interesting characters. In fact, the sequel shows all suffered from having bland characters and being overly plot driven. The actors seemed like they just recited a bunch of "technobabble" with zero personality.

I suspect that some of this "the plot doesn't matter" stuff is laziness. People come up with interesting ideas, but paint themselves into a corner when it comes time to explain the hows, whats, and whys. Better to make it sound like we didn't consider that important in interviews rather that admit we came up with a cool idea and then couldn't come up with an explanation.

To me, LOST's ending felt more satisfying that GALACTICA's. We got most of the answers. Unlike BSG (or THE SOPRANOS), I don't feel like I wasted a few years watching the show. Finally, the ending makes sense if you were paying attention... (Skip the next paragraph to avoid spoilers if you haven't seen the final episode yet.)

SPOLIERS: Seriously, anybody confused by the ending of LOST wasn't paying attention: The island stuff all happened. The sideways universe from the final scene is where the characters went after they died, either on or off the island at different times. They spell this out on the show. Like Jack's father told him, some of those people died before him (Jin, Sun, etc) and some after (Kate, Sawyer). Once they're all together, they're going to move on together. Presumably to some sort of afterlife.

Still, there were a bunch of lingering questions, and I just hate it when shows do that, or have cop out endings and try to make the audience feel like we shouldn't have cared about the plot. That all we should've been interested in were how the characters interacted and changed. We care about that stuff too, but we wouldn't have started watching and stuck around if it weren't for the plots.

* An incredibly stupid online term for fans that are interested in various couplings on the show. All these people care about are whether Jack and Kate (or Kate and Sawyer) get together. Or they're only worried about The Doctor and Rose being "in love". (Ugh. 900+ year old alien in love with a lower species. That'd be like falling in love with your dog or cat.) These people usually write terrible fan fiction.