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How Lost Got Lost — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:55:00 GMT

· Hi All - I posted this essay about the ending of Lost and it sparked what I believe is a great discussion about the landmark series as it applies to my book. Here it is in it's entirety...

John Rasor Lost sucks – I just can’t, for the life of me, figure out why someone would post just that and then go away – an unhappy childhood?

Lost certainly wasn’t for everyone, but for millions it was the ride of a lifetime, or at the very least, a great place to be on Tuesday night. The ending received mixed reactions, however, and I’m one of those ungrateful bastids who thought it came up short. I want to discuss here why I think that was.

The story was pure fiction, so to say that it wasn’t possible for it all to have happened as presented is both ridiculous and wrong. In that alternate reality known as fiction, it happened all right – “Whatever happened, happened.” And while we can’t control what happens in the real world, we/they can control what happens in that reality. Mark Twain said that “Life is a tale told by an idiot.” He didn’t say anything about Lost, which is probably too bad – or was it Shakespeare?

The ending of Lost pissed me off so badly that the only thing I could think to do about it was to write a book. I’ve been a writer for 20 years and it seemed the best way. What I didn’t figure on was how many people would actually accept that ending, and upon finding out that many of them weren’t the least bit stupid was also a bit tough to swallow. And the ones who liked it have no trouble at all defending their position. The ones who didn’t like it rant a bit and then the likers all gang up and kick his/her ass, and they are dispatched with extreme prejudice. My problem is, I’m on the wrong side, but that’s how I feel, so what can I do?

My book, How Lost Got Lost, tries not to take itself too seriously, however, and since I wrote it, I’ve learned a lot – not enough to change my mind…but a lot. Some of the likers are wicked smart and have more ammo than I do. I only watched the whole thing once and believe I got it the first time, which is how I wanted it to write a book that was a fair assessment of Lost.

So, I’ve pretty much given up on arguing details. For the most part they are what happened in that fictional reality, and aren’t really debatable, per se. I’m now focusing on the writing issues – was it good writing, was it bad writing, or a mixture of both – that sort of thing, and something I know a bit about. First of all, let me say that I don’t believe the Lost writers were lazy at all. They just believed what they believed and told their story. And for five seasons, most of it was pretty damn good. Season six wasn’t all bad, either, in my humble opinion. For instance, the bomb in the backpack in the submarine trick was brilliant – the cork in the cave, not so much.

Where I think it all went wrong was the answers. They may have given us too many, which falls under the heading of be careful what you wish for. There was much pressure for answers and I believe they tried to please in the end. For this, I blame Jacob. Jacob was a good idea, but they told us too much about him and the Island itself. Jacob suffered from what I call the Superman syndrome.

Superman was spawned in 1938 and was the best thing going back then. By the 1960’s, he was out of control. The writers decided he would have a super brain to go with all his other powers and that was the proverbial straw. Superman with a Hawking/Einstein brain was just too much. It made Kryptonite obsolete because he was just too smart to be trapped by it anymore and became boring. Don’t you kind of wonder why Clark on Smallville isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer? Chloe is way smarter – duh.

They did the same thing with Jacob. They showed us all this wonderful stuff he could do while maintaining that he really wasn’t aware of all that was going on around him, which was a bit ludicrous. If he knew what James Ford in Gimmesome Georgia was doing in 1970, then why didn’t he know about the conspiracies against him on this tiny Island - and what to do about them?

The 11 minute Epilogue was actually more damaging to Jacob by showing Hurley as more competent than Jacob. Sure, Smokey was gone, but it showed that all of Jacob’s machinations were just so much BS. They tried to make Jacob a deity, but ended up with a very powerful idiot instead. It also showed that Ben as second could be much more effective when he actually knew what was going on and begs the question: Why not a third and a forth and a…

Oh, and could someone please explain how Jacob could be immortal and still be killed by a simple knife wound, or several? Living 2000 years or more must have its pratfalls and then there’s infection in a world without technology. Just askin’…

As for the Island itself, my belief is that it was spawned in what we could only refer to as the Twilight Zone – the real one, if such a place exists, and in fiction I believe it does. The electromagnetic energy with Desmond was a rather nice touch early on, but to have us believe that it was the only thing at work here was a bit much. The Island began as infinite and mysterious and wound up with a giant stone cork – and no one can agree whether it was there when Jacob and MIB were born, which leads to the question: If it came after, then how did it get there?

The Dharma Group was a stroke of genius that was left somewhat vague, and with good reason. Although we saw much of it, it remained very mysterious till the end and that was right and proper. Like I said, the writers did a lot of things right, and that’s why we all stayed to the end.

I thought there were many problems with season six, and it seemed a bit rushed and disjointed in some parts. Like just blowing up Illana after she’d become a very worthwhile character. They’d already done this with Leslie (Dr. Artz), and it just seemed like very mean writing to repeat it with Illana. Also the whole we gotta save Sayid or we’re doomed thing, then, oh wait, we gotta kill Sayid or we’re doomed thing, because it turned Dogen’s sister into a hooker or a demon, or some such nonsense. And the whole Hurley with the guitar case thing was a bit anti-climactic, don’t you think. The Lighthouse was very cool, but again, more machinations from Jacob, and it didn’t really explain the numbers, just gave us more mystery concerning them. “Jacob had a thing for numbers.” This statement doesn’t explain why they appeared everywhere but does create interesting speculation on the matter.

And, of course, my final beef, the sideways flashes depicting the afterlife that went on all season long and really didn’t mean anything. It was just a means to perpetrate the fraud of letting us believe that the bomb accomplished what it set out to do. Some have said that the events in this unreality took but a few seconds, but I swear they went on for the entire season, ad nauseous. I admit, I was intrigued when I first saw them, but when I found out what they really were, I was furious. They were all like mini-pilots for new shows next season. I know, many of you derived meaning from them, but I saw none – just a ridiculous, season-long red herring designed to blow our minds in the end. Didn’t blow mine or, I suspect, those of the many people who didn’t like the ending anymore than I did.

So there you have it folks – my opinion as to why many of us didn’t like the ending. I swear, I wanted to like it. I may even have needed to like it. But I didn’t, and nothing is likely to change that. You folks who liked it are lucky. You have no reason to want to change your minds, and I envy you that. And I’m not trying to change your minds here, merely to explain why some people didn’t like it. Also, I wrote this to promote another decent discussion, the likes of which I’ve learned so much from reading and participating. I have more to say on the matter, I’m sure, and will jump in where appropriate. So have at it folks, I’m listening. Oh, and try to have fun with it. Some of you out there are really quite witty and I do enjoy your playful banter. We could all take a lesson from Viviana, including me. She keeps it positive all the time and is very sharp and funny – A true Lost delight.

· Darth Sillynous In depth critique! Very professional. You didn't like the ending and you are entitled to your opinion, just as people who liked it are also entitled to retort. The issue becomes when objectivity is lost (pun intended). People who say "Lost sucks!" and then disappear without explaining why they think it sucks is also like someone saying "I love Lost" and saying nothing more. I think people can state their opinion without explanation as long as respect is kept.

I mention objectivity and respect as it pertains to heated discussions from either side of the fence. Simple Example: "Lost sucks!" and someone responds "Your stupid!" A more complex example is when someone pours their perspective out explaining why they think the ending was terrible, only to have someone respond to them shunting that perspective. The loss of respect is what leads to the argumentative nature of discussion boards.

I value your opinion John and from your perspective, you are correct. There are two sides to every coin, however this topic is more like a box full of grey. I liked the ending as it pertains to the characters. I did not like that they played the emotion card and when it was all over, and the emotion passed, we were left holding this bag of unanswered questions. That's the short of it for me.

· Keith Schooley I come from the other side, but this was a really nice essay. Well thought out, well reasoned, much more "this didn't work for me" as opposed to "this was stupid and lazy." A lot of your points I can go along with, especially your perspective on the problem being trying to give too many answers, rather than too few. That led to some bad writing and awkward plotting--the worst was the explanation for the whispers. And killing off newly-minted characters, clearly because this was The Final Season and they didn't want to leave even more loose ends lying around, got ridiculous. The wrapping up of the Ben-Widmore feud was even more ridiculous: WIDMORE: "Jacob came to me and showed me the error of my ways." BEN: "Oh yeah? Well take that! <BAM> <BAM>

The ending, I think, worked only to the extent that viewers were willing to view the afterlife as a significant part of the story. You're right, it was a red herring, suggesting that setting off Jughead had worked in some sense. But for those of us who were willing to accept its premise, once it was made clear--that the story didn't end with rescue off the Island; it didn't even end with the deaths of the characters: it ended when those characters, in their afterlife, finally came to the acceptance that the plane crash wasn't a tragic detour in their lives, but was in fact the most significant event in their lives and brought them into contact with the most significant relationships in their lives--for those of us who were willing to accept that, then the ending worked.

I think the other thing that makes people disappointed in Lost was that the mysteries were (and I'm convinced, were always intended to be) like peeling back an onion. What's the big mystery? Well, it's the Monster and the Others, right? So you peel that back and find out about the Dharma Initiative. So that's where the Others came from, right? No, wait, turns out that the Others were around before the DI and killed most of them off. So that's the source of the mystery, right? Well, no, there seems to be this Jacob fellow, lives in a broken down shack, and the Others are following his orders--that's the solution. Except that they're not really following his orders after all, and there's this feud between two people over leadership of the Others to be the King of the Island, and THAT's the real point, right? Well, no, because Jacob has some guy who's out to kill him, and that's a Much More Important feud than the one between Ben and Chuck. And the Bad Nameless Guy (who turns out to be the Monster that had been all but forgotten) possesses John Locke's body and actually manages to off Jacob....

At any rate, my point is that at each stage of peeling back the Onion, we were supposed to drop our interest in the stuff that had been peeled off. And THAT, I'm convinced, is the real source of the frustration of people who are still asking about polar bears--it's not that they missed that the DI had brought them to the Island to experiment on--it's that they thought that early mystery should have more significance. But few of the early mysteries really did have any significance. It wasn't just the Sideways Flashes that were a red herring; virtually everything in the show was a red herring. Pretty much all that mattered, in terms of mythology, was that the Stone Cork stay corked--except for the few minutes necessary to kill off John Locke's zombie.

So I loved the show, liked the ending a lot, but I think that the last few seasons ultimately failed. Even though I liked the ending, I agree that Lost got Lost.

· Darth Sillynous Well said Keith!

· Rachel Newman There were big hints in the flash sideways that it was the afterlife for instance Locke Danielle Alex and many others were there and we knew they were dead we had seen them die on the island . Also we knew the 815 flight in the sideways wasn’t the actual 815 flight because Desmond was on it and he was in the hatch when the original flight happened. I Your above post was great John and although I still love the end after watching Lost again and learning so much about it from People like yourself I can understand more why you were a bit let down by it and I agree with you re Jacob he should have remained a man of Mystery instead they made him look a bit daft!!

· John Rasor Not too shabby, Keith. I have talked to a lot of intelligent likers and find that even though they liked the ending, as you did, they still had problems with some parts of it. This gives me hope in some way that I'm not wrong about this and that I just missed the boat. Yeah, most of the things unanswered were just a bit of nitpicking and not really important. What was important was the story - "The play’s the thing," I believe Shakespeare said and I agree. It’s always - ALWAYS - about the story. Look at Heroes, it had all of the glitz and high production values and great characters as Lost, but it fell flat because the only story there was to go the X-Men route and they didn't want to do that. I don't think the Lost writers would have fared any better than they did with that one, either. No, Lost was unique and brilliant, for the most part, I just believed they could have ended it better.

· John Rasor You know Rachel, people like you point out things that should have been so obvious when we saw them, but went overlooked by many of us - that whole forest for the trees thing, I guess. That's why I wanted to post this and learn more and more from great observers like you. The thought that they were doing the afterlife just didn't register because they wouldn't DARE! They dared and not all of us appreciated it. We don't mind it when a story jumps off to another universe, but don't f*ck with our faith, or lack thereof, I guess.

· Darth Sillynous To discuss about ending it better ... and to go along with what Rachel was saying about the hints ... those characters were there because the island sunk and did not exist in the sideways. The writers could have done a whole story line about convergence between parallel realities. That Jugheads detonation DID in fact work and split time and space. This would have redeemed Locke's character (which I was so deeply disappointed on how he ended).

I am in the process of writing my own story that picks up after the 12 minute epilogue and will explain more of the unanswered questions, bring to light the answers given in the details that some did not pick up on, and give relevance to the overall story arcs left open.

· John Rasor 11 minutes Darth - how's that for nitpicking... I've read your stuff and it’s very good. It doesn't really go along with people who didn't like the ending, but it is quite good and intriguing. The end was the end and bravo to you for keeping the thing going in that way. I hope it catches on and makes you a master blogger. You deserve it, pal...

· John Rasor As for John Locke, I think it was pure brilliance to make him Smokey's bitch. Terry is a very gifted actor and pulled it off with great style and class. He was going down anyway, and to go out on top is always best.

· John Rasor "Its just a damn Island!"

· Darth Sillynous 11 minutes 55 seconds if you want to be exact about it. LOL

Well your opinion is only based on the first 5 webisodes out of at least 20-22. And there may be more than that. The plan will blend in to the original story so that when you see Season 6 again, it will feel more complete.

They spent 5 years building up John Locke ... being special, man of faith, only to kill him when he was at his lowest point when he lost that faith. I am not discounting Terry's acting ability. He is brilliant and quite under rated. The story of him being the MiB was quite the twist. I am just saying it made John Locke's death a miserable one. Something I didn't think he deserved.

"It's NEVER BEEN easy!"

· Rachel Newman John @ Its just a damn island

The island aint done with us dude we gotta go back !! LOL
Much respect to you John.

· John Rasor Just a thought for you two. Smokeylocke was killed by Kate/Jack and we can infer from that that the smoke monster died too. But its not impossible that once the cork was back in that Smokey was released from Locke’s body manifestation. It wouldn't be hard to resurrect ol' Smokey for more fun in the sun, just sayin'...

· Darth Sillynous Already in the works my friend ... It is and always will be about balance. You cannot have good without the presence of evil because evil makes good ... look good. There is a big arc coming down the line about this.

· John Rasor Oh, and Darth, sorry for your loss. Fictional characters can be almost as emotionally linked as real people sometimes. My favorite fictional character was Data and I hated his demise most of all. I know, he can be resurrected at the flip of a switch, but it’s just not the same, is it?

· Rachel Newman mmm interesting Jacks dead body was there for the taking too Smokey could have a field day

· Dave Thomas At the end of the day LOST was the creation of Damon Lindeloff, Carlton Cuse, JJ Abrams ect, and I think they did a phenomenal job, I regard LOST as the greatest piece of television of all time, Does that mean it was perfect?? not at all, nothing has ever been or never will reach perfection TO ME unless it came from my own imagination. There lies the problem, it depends what each individual wants from a TV show, if you wanted everything explained in massive detail (ie CSI) LOST possibly wasn’t for you, If you liked deep themes with ample character development you more than likely loved LOST, Then came the end which i believe was always going to divide opinion, No one is right OR wrong, you feel what you feel and no one can change that.

They say the hardest part of a story is the end, if you leave with a cliffhanger people would have complained just as strongly as they do now but maybe the likers would be the haters and vise versa, I feel lucky to be on the side i am on, and i do feel sympathy for the ones who didn’t like it, and the ones that just didn’t get what the creators were trying to do. A lot of the "haters" do make valid points, the final season (even for me a hardcore LOST defender) wasn’t quite as good as what came before especially seasons 1-4 which were as close to perfection i am ever likely to see.
I think there are criticisms you can justifiably aim towards LOST, but i believe "bad writing" certainly isn’t one of them, yes they took directions in the story that some of us may not have liked, but the way they connected the complex mythology with the character arcs was genius.

You cant deny that whatever your feeling of the end, the show was in most part one hell of a journey, and if you are passionate in your dislike of "the end" it shows how you were captured by the essence of LOST, It not only captured the mind but the heart too, i hear so many people expressing how the characters on LOST were like friends and family, a little extreme?? maybe but that was the biggest triumph of LOST, making people truly fall in love with the characters on screen, after all a great story is nothing without great characters.

VIVA LOST.

· John Rasor Perhaps it's not over, and wouldn't that be fun.

· Rachel Newman God yeah!

· John Rasor Ah, Dave, welcome and well said. I totally agree that Lost stirred passion in all of us - the likers and the haters alike. And no, I cannot deny that, nor do I wish to.

VIVA LOST!

· Darth Sillynous @Rachel - I agree with you, but I wouldn't want to see Jack like that. LOL great idea though.

@ Dave - Well said and I agree with you 110% - Lost was the best TV show I have ever witnessed. Seasons 1-4 were perfection and I would even through Season 5 in there as well because I am a huge science time displacement theory freak. Season 6 to me did feel rushed as though they were trying to squeeze too much in just for the sake of answering things. I will say, as I was watching it as it aired, I loved every second of it, including the finale. I liked it from a character POV. After the emotion passed is when I felt the need to take a different stance. There were unanswered questions we were promised answers to. Granted, you can't answer everything in a show because that will ruin the mystery and there were answers in some of the details, or if you decided to do some research on the internet, which I did. But the average viewer didn't and feels they shouldn't have to.

"We HAVE to go BACK!"

· Darth Sillynous I think the writers did what they had to, to close out a TV show rather than a deep story. They left it up to all of us to debate for years to come. So many people are rewatching the entire series ... multiple times. So they did something right. We are all still talking about it. Had we got all the answers up front. There would be no more buzz about it, and life would return to its stoic ways.

· John Rasor I agree that as a viewer you shouldn't have to do research to make it work for you. Thank Jacob a lot of us did though because I've gotten more from these discussions than they ever gave us.

· Dave Thomas I think you’re right Darth, Television is run by certain constraints and demands, had it been a book for example rather than a TV series they may have done some things a lot different.

· John Rasor It was just a damn TV show! SO NOT!!!

· Darth Sillynous Exactly Dave! Actually, this show inspired me to write... and same goes with John I see.

· John Rasor Yes it did and I certainly have only a very few regrets. Lost inspired me more than any story I've ever experienced, and I've experienced many great ones. Stephen King's The Stand and It, the incredibly wonderful The Hunt for Red October, Silence of the Lambs, Star Trek IV, the Voyage Home, Back to the Future's 1 and 2. Star Wars 4, 5 and 6, and on and on...

· Darth Sillynous Amen!

· John Rasor Oh, and The Adventures of Hurley and Ben...

· Darth Sillynous Wow! I am at a loss for words. I can't think I've ever seen a better compliment. Thank you.

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe Jacob did nothing about the conspiracies simply because he didn't want to live forever, just like his mother he was tired of his job, and he knew how it was going to end. And Jacob did not possess many supernatural abilities, he was only able to set up rules for the island enforced by the light, like God made the rules of the universe. But lost sometimes disappointed me too, every time an answer was exactly what i expected i was disappointed, like the whispers.

· John Rasor But Gayan, what about all that traveling to the real world at just the appropriate times to set up the candidates? That was a great show of power. And I did get that he may have just wanted out, but what does that say about him? "I'm tired of this crap, you do it"...

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe yes I agree, but that’s something I always expected from Lost always wanted to see something beyond science, someone choosing them to be on the island. just like any other lost fan i wanted answers, but from season 1 to season 6 i had only 3 questions that i really wanted answers to.
why were they on that island, what or who brought them to the island and why did all of them have miserable lives
and I got very satisfying answers to all these questions, when i found out that our heroes were just pawns of some game, I loved it. I guess the writers just wanted to show us that Jacob was just another castaway and he was just human, in across the sea we can see Jacob hiding from the others, similar to what Losties went through. every time they introduced a mysterious character to the story i thought they were strange people with special abilities and knew everything about the island, the others, Ben, Dharma, Richard Alpert, but as we got to know these characters better we found out that they were just people, if they wanted to make Jacob a god like character they would have made him look like Gandalf from lord of the rings lol. i was surprised to see how average looking he was

· John Rasor Actually, they did give him a bit of a godlike appearance - the clothes, perhaps - but your point is well-taken. When you look at it like that, it makes more sense. And then we have our Jack, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet saying, "Gimmee the ball! Just gimmee the ball and whatever it takes I'm takin' it to the house - even if it kills me." One of the problems with portraying the afterlife is that it kinda takes the edge off dyin'. If we knew for sure there was an afterlife, we'd all do things a bit differently, don't you think? But we're not sure and that's how it's meant to be.

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe I don’t know if there’s an afterlife John, but what I believe is that there are things that science is too young to understand, so far science has not been able to send a man beyond the moon. and just because we don’t see or experience something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

· John Rasor The question of the afterlife is humanity's oldest question and no one can positively confirm or deny its existence. Our egos will not allow most of us to believe that death is the ultimate end of what we are. So I can't argue that its not possible. There are many shows and movies that deal with the afterlife, so that is nothing new. But when you extend a show like Lost beyond the boundary of life, it is kind of a cheat and a lot of people didn't like it. Was it wrong? No, was it disappointing? To some, it was.

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe Purgatory or whatever you wanna call it, that’s how they explained the flash sideways world. It was only a part of the show, not what the entire show was based on, I can understand the frustration of those were disappointed with the flash sideways world being afterlife, but seriously i would have hated if it was some parallel universe or an alternate timeline, that aint original either

· John Rasor True. But there were ways to resolve it without taking it beyond the boundary of life. In my book, I resolved it in a natural way using what they had written with only a few modifications. And it worked for me, and I'm told, for all those who've read it. I'm not really suggesting that most of you likers on the boards buy my book because it’s a bit simplistic for most of your tastes. I wrote the book for the general Lost audience and you folks have taken it way beyond that and I admire most of you for that. I've learned so much since I wrote it and you people are responsible for that and I thank you.

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe Is there an e book version of your book john?

· John Rasor Yes, www.howlostgotlost.com published by ireadiwrite.com available in all eBook formats. Thanks so much for asking and if you give me an email, I'll give any of you on these boards who ask a copy. I didn't write it for people like you guys and I'm afraid you might all find it beneath your concepts of the show. I'm not ashamed of what I wrote, but it’s not as deep as you guys, is all.

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe Nah that’s ok I love reading reviews about lost finale and the series itself, the book is not free is it

· John Rasor It’s only 4 bucks.

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe Oh, I’m sorry John, not familiar with buying things online, I’m not even from the states lol. anyway you could reach more people by getting a YouTube channel, and upload videos about your opinions about the show

· John Rasor Yeah, I know. But I sort of made things bad with the likers on this site in the beginning and I've grown to realize that. It's important for me to make peace with you folks - the real Lost experts - before I do that. The book is doing fairly well after 3 months and I'm at work trying to publish a print on demand trade paperback edition for Christmas. It would be nice to actually become part of the official Lost scene and have something of a Lost collectable as my legacy.

· Gayan Oceana Wickramasinghe Good luck with everything

· John Rasor Thank you Gayan...

Questions for the fans about Lost - Part One

How Lost Got Lost — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:49:23 GMT

Questions About Lost

I believe that part of the problem with the ending of Lost being so controversial is that there were relevant issues that were never addressed by the writers. Although time-travel is known to be impossible in this world, it is a major topic in the world of Sci-Fi and a favorite of many, story-wise. It’s just such a wonderful concept that creates so many imaginative possibilities. But it is Sci-Fi and does require some semblance of explanation. A good example of this would be the wonderful movie trilogy, Back to the Future. Time-travel was presented in the form of a not-so-mad scientist and a tricked-out DeLorean automobile and it was easy for us to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride. When Lost initiated time-travel, it was believable in the beginning and quite well done.

One of my biggest problems with some of this is that too much of it was explained away with the concept that an over-abundance of electro-magnetic energy caused everything. There were some truly magical and mystical events in Lost that can’t really be explained by electro-magnetic energy. The writers implied that it was more than that, but didn’t really elaborate, which might be fine if it made logical sense, but it didn’t. There are rules in literary interpretations of concepts of such things as time-travel and alternate reality scenarios, and even magic, which is pretty wide open, but it’s got to be believable, at least in a pseudo-logical way – pseudo-logic being that we can assume some impossible theories as long as they don’t contradict each other and make at least some sense in their progression. We don’t need to understand the science behind it – because there really is none – it just has to make sense within the accepted parameters. Bearing all this in mind, I have some questions which I don’t have answers to, and I don’t believe anyone else does either. Perhaps I’m wrong, so if you do, please enlighten.

1. At the end of season five there was a nuclear explosion on the Island of undetermined megatons from an old warhead called Jughead. This occurred in 1977 – the year to which some of the castaways had been time-traveled. The result of the explosion was never fully explained, and we are left to speculate its effects on the Island.

Jughead was detonated by some of the castaways in an effort to negate the event which caused Oceanic Flight 815 to crash in the first place, but it was unsuccessful due to the fact that “They still built the Hatch.” This statement was uttered by Kate upon the discovery of their inspection of the ruins of said Hatch, it seemed different than their first encounter with the ruins they experienced in season two. This brings up many interesting questions about that nuclear detonation and how it affected the Island and the people on it at the time.

One concept that we know from past stories of time-travel is that once the problem has been rectified, the effect is instantaneous – although it is not always portrayed as such for dramatic reasons, which is acceptable.

So, the working theory here is that if the bomb works as suggested, they were all saved from the effects of the blast, because history has been changed and they are instantaneously removed from danger and sent to where ever it is that they now belong. But in this case, history was not changed, and they should have been consumed by the blast. Some might argue that the progression of that history was changed, but I don’t believe that’s valid. As one of our most esteemed scholars once said, “A difference which makes no difference, is no difference.”

Another thing in this same line is that the Island was shown sunk to the bottom of the sea after the explosion and yet our heroes were still on the Island, having only been returned to the present. This begs the question: Where were they really after the blast? They were obviously not underwater, but high and dry, so where were they?

Two Lost Factions - Those Who Did and Those Who Didn't

How Lost Got Lost — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:10:00 GMT

Today I want to talk about the two factions of Lost fans – those who liked the finale, and those who didn’t. Both factions are adamant in their beliefs regarding the ending, and seem a bit intolerant of the other faction. Those who liked it call those of us who didn’t haters. Those of us who didn’t like or accept it, don’t call them anything. Some have simply chosen to write Lost off as a bad deal all around, and post that the writers screwed it all up, and that they are to blame, ignoring those who liked the ending. It seems to me, from all that I’ve read, that the two factions are split about 50-50.

The likers like to rag on the haters, and the haters like to rag on the writers, and the writers are all out spending their money and having a grand old time. What’s wrong with this picture?

We all loved Lost, or we wouldn’t have been there in the first place - so how could we have gotten such a skewed view of the Lost finale and our fellow fans? I believe both factions have a point, and would like to point out that this may very well be how wars get started. My book, How Lost Got Lost is very “anti” about the ending, but I can’t ignore those who liked it – there are just too many. And those of you who liked it can’t ignore those of us who didn’t for the same reason - there are just too many of us. The twain shall not meet any time soon, I fear.

Also, from what I’ve read, DVD and Blu-Ray sales for season six and the complete set aren’t too bad, although the haters aren’t buying - at least they say they aren’t - and why would they?

Lost is also quite worldwide in its fandom, and there are many comments in foreign languages that I can’t decipher, but I imagine they are running about the same - except that there are still many people in foreign countries who haven’t seen any of season six, or the finale.

Lost didn’t win anything at the Emmys, but that tells us nothing. Awards shows are notorious for getting it wrong, and I don’t put much stock in them. I honestly don’t believe Mad Men is so good that it deserved to win three straight times - or 30 Rock either, for that matter, and I watch both shows. Sci-Fi is notorious for being snubbed by the Arts as drivel, even though it’s always been popular with the masses, and that’s not fair. Actors are actors and the genre shouldn’t matter, and some of the Lost actors were truly wonderful in their portrayals. The fact that they were nominated at least says something. As for the show itself, the writing was often contrived and that is not good writing. A good example of this is in season two when Ben had a very convenient spinal problem and Jack just happened to be a world-renowned spinal surgeon. This is a contrived situation and most people recognize it as such and are turned off by it.

Some people take whatever they are given, and question nothing, - except that they question you when you say something neutral or negative and label you a hater. I hate that word - as it is over-used, and often people have valid complaints. I’m not a hater (well, okay, when I’m driving I pretty much hate all the other drivers, but that’s normal – and quite wrong – and I admit it.) Every now and then, a fellow driver surprises me and does something nice intelligently. People who don’t go at a stop sign are just annoying and slow things up, along with those who stop traffic for every jaywalker, and to let everyone else in from side streets and driveways. You can be too nice, and that’s just wrong – because by being nice to the one, you are often messing up the many, which has something to do with the Vulcans on some level, I guess.

A problem with my book, I suspect, is that the likers liked what they saw and don’t want to hear about it, and the haters know why they hated it and don’t need me to tell them. But my book is more than that. How Lost Got Lost was a labor of love as I strove for answers as to why they screwed it up so badly in the end. It looks at virtually every aspect of the show, and gives credit where it’s due - and when it’s not, I say so. I did rewrite the ending from what they gave us, and I think it’s better. It ends the story realistically.

My major beef was that they turned Hurley and Ben into the Skipper and Gilligan at the end, and those idiotic unreal sideways flashes with dead people acting as if they were alive.

The rift between the two factions may be religious in nature – not to be confused with spiritual, which is different. I’m not religious and most of the people I know who also didn’t like it are not either. I’m just guessing here, but it makes sense.

One question for those of you who liked it: Heaven implies a Hell, so why wasn’t Ben sent to Hell? He surely deserved it for all his murderous ways, as we perceive murder to be a mortal sin. Do we let him off just because Ben was a fun character and we liked him? Inquiring sinners want to know…

Let the Debates Begin

How Lost Got Lost — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:13:19 GMT

Let the Debates Begin

I challenge those of you who liked the Lost finale to make me understand why you liked it. I thought it was absolutely horrendous, so I will fire the first shot with my commentary below. Okay, people, show me what you got...

The purpose of my book How Lost Got Lost is clear. The ending and the final season were both horrendous, in my humble opinion – and in the opinion of many others, I assure you. It was written to publically call the Lost writers and creators on their mostly irrelevant and extremely lackluster writing in the show’s twilight.

I do not profess to be more intelligent than the people who liked it, quite the contrary, there are some really bright people out there who liked it, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. But they seem adamant about it, and most don’t even want to discuss it, it seems.

I do say, however, that whatever they gave us, no matter how lame, there are people out there who would have accepted virtually anything as part of the canon, and would have loved it. The canon, of course, meaning that whatever the Lost writers said was indisputably so.

Let’s just suppose for a minute that they portrayed it all as a dream by Walt, which occurred while he was waiting for his estranged father to pick him up after the death of his mother. It would all have fit nicely and have been very easy to do – and some would have liked it. Most of us would not have liked it, but hindsight is 20-20, which leads me to believe that I would have liked that much better than what they actually gave us. That’s just how bad I think the ending they gave us was. It was irrelevant, grandiose, and ridiculous.

As proof of this I cite that whatever happened after Desmond pulled the cork and the final battle began did not matter in the least. So what if Smokeylocke would have defeated Jack and the others? Once that cork was pulled, Smokeylocke was done forever. He was now mortal – something that he should have at least considered before entering into this scenario – and had no way to return the cork to its hole and stop what was happening. Done!

Also, since they were all so wrong about what would happen when that cork was pulled, there is no evidence that if the Island had completed its self-destruction that it would have affected the rest of the world. First of all, we saw the Island sunk to the bottom of the sea after Jughead exploded, and where they actually were for the final season of Lost is speculative at best. When they flew the plane off the Island at the end, there is no evidence to assert that they were not in some sideways alternate reality for some spiritual and unexplained reason, and may not have even been able to return to the real world in that plane. For all we know, they could still be circling the heavens looking for a place to land as in the Twilight Zone episode, The Odyssey of Flight 33.

The final season was all about “Get me to the church on time.” Apparently, this was what they were so obsessed with that everything else was just awful. And for what? I know groups of people who have been friends for upwards of 50 years, who do absolutely everything together. These people on the Island were together less than four years, tops, and were not all of them the best of friends anyway. So it was mightily presumptuous of the writers to say this was the most important time of their lives – a time incidentally that was fraught with danger, deceit, murder and betrayal. It was most probably the hairiest time of their lives, much like those who fought wars together - but everyone knows that when wars are over, most return to their lives and the experience fades. I was in the Viet Nam war for four years and I really don’t talk about it much. I made some good friends there, but have none of them now that I still even talk to, which is a shame. I know others who dwell on their time in the war – whatever war that might be – who only hang out with service buddies and that’s all they talk about, but this is not common, and it’s also a bit obsessive and not necessarily healthy – the kind of thing that sometimes results in people in clock-towers with high-powered rifles trying to make it all mean something.

I therefore contend that to turn Lost into some sort of religious statement was absurd. Those of you who are religious, I respect that, but am not the least bit religious myself. I believe that religion causes more problems than it cures. Organized religion seems to be where most of the world’s problems stem from throughout history. You may argue that the stained-glass window in the church in the finale was nondenominational and therefore represented us all, but I assure you, it did not represent me, and I’m sure many others feel the same.

Lost was a great paranormal adventure story that was spiritual in nature, but not at all religious – and there is a big difference between the two. To make it about religion in the end was an insult to our intelligence and beliefs, even to those of you who enjoyed that ending for whatever reason.

The sideways flashes throughout season six were also irrelevant and grandiose. I have been corrected by some I’ve discussed this with in forums on the net, that it was not purgatory, but the waiting room. To this I say whatever. Mr. Spock said it best when he said, “A difference that makes no difference is no difference…”

How Lost Got Lost Kickoff Blog - Addendum

How Lost Got Lost — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 06:13:00 GMT

Hi All - This is just a note to all to suggest you read the Kickoff Blog in order. It's a really great story and I published each blog after the advanced reading copy was published. But with the official launch of How Lost Got Lost, I wanted to remind new readers to read the blog as it was presented. Just scroll down to part one, on the left, click on it, then part two, then part three.

How Lost Got Lost Kickoff Blog Part 3

How Lost Got Lost — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 07:21:00 GMT

An Incredible Tale of Destiny Part Three

We passed out more bookmarks – we had about 2000 left – and our friend and I got rid of another 500 while my wife took many pictures and handed out a few herself. When it grew near one p.m., we were all pretty tired and hungry, so we took the trolley to Anthony’s Fish Grotto a couple miles down the harbor. We were exhausted, and accepted a ride in a pedi-cab the five blocks we would have had to walk, as a guy offered to take us for whatever tip we felt was fair. I tipped him 10 bucks.

We had a wonderful seafood lunch and felt much better after sitting and relaxing for an hour. We walked the five blocks back to the trolley and met another interesting guy on the train ride back.

He Had a Comic-Com badge and he too was a Lost fan, but one who liked the finale, which I couldn’t understand because he was a bright guy. He told us if we wanted to do a book presentation at Comic-Con in the future to contact a guy named Eddie Ibrahim at the Convention Center around the first of the year. Nice guy…

We made it back to the place we had worked before as people in costumes strolled the walkway, and we passed out more bookmarks and my wife took more pictures. I needed to contact the messenger company to see if the book had been delivered to Tim Surette as yet, so we returned to the truck for the phone number. I checked my phone and had four missed calls from them.

I called them immediately and played phone tag a bit but finally got through. They told me they’d tried to deliver it but the Comic-Con folks had said there was no tv.com registered there. I told them it was because they were there as press, and asked him to try again and tell them that.

That was when our friend spilled the beans – magic beans she had gotten during our last bookmark pass out. A lady had approached her with coupons for a five p.m. event at the Petco Center, the side entrance of which we were now looking at from our parking space in the garage across the street. She had listened to the woman’s spiel and picked up on tv.com, which she had heard me mention. They were going to have the tv.com awards there at five – today only.

My mind raced, and I called the messenger company with some more phone tag thrown in just to make it suspenseful. I told them the tv.com folks were all over there around the side entrance as I spoke - and some were standing outside by the growing line to get in. He talked with someone there with him and told me they’d get right on it.

I walked over there and asked security where a package for one of the tv.com people would be received, and the lady told me to take it to receiving down the block. I went back to the structure as I called them to relay the info, and then the magic beans kicked it into high gear.

I looked through the grill of the parking structure to see a man I believed to be Tim Surette standing at the curb, when a guy in a red messenger shirt on a bicycle approached him and handed him a package – my package. A bike messenger, I had forgotten about them, but sure, how very cool – gotcha Tim!

I saw the man I believed to be Tim Surette take the package with terror on his face. He ripped the package open and his face calmed a bit as he realized he wasn’t being served with legal papers. I was happy that he didn’t toss the package in the trash, but turned and walked up the street. He rounded the corner and disappeared, and it was done.

I had believed it was important to get my book to Tim Surette of tv.com, although I don’t know what I expected him to do – maybe nothing – but it just seemed right, you know?

I called the messenger company that had been so wonderful, and I thanked them again and the guy said they were glad they could help.

I looked at my exhausted gals and said, “Well, that’s it, we’re done, the end of a perfect day. Let’s go home.”

My wife protested, “Are you sure, John, we’ve got quite a few bookmarks left. I don’t want to hear tomorrow that we should have stayed and passed them all out.”

“I’m sure,” I said, “We did what we came here to do and we reached well over a thousand people from all over the country, we met some wonderful people who may help us a great deal with this book. I’m quite satisfied and happy. You won’t hear anything from me tomorrow except what a great trip it was.”

As we left San Diego, we began talking about the day, and how it had all come together so perfectly. Then we keyed on the numbers from Lost, and how they had actually applied in some ways. The key numbers for us, it seemed, were “8” (for Hurley) and “23” (for Jack), because they kept popping up all day. We had driven to San Diego on Interstate 8. John had insisted that we go on Friday, which we realized was July 23 – the only Lost number in the 20s, and the only day we could have reached Tim Surette – and my wife’s trolley ticket was #23. There were others, but I can’t seem to recall the rest just now.

As we headed out of town we were in great spirits, and decided not to get a motel, but to drive on home. Our friend wanted a bathroom, but the rest area between San Diego and El Centro was closed on both sides. The next option was a casino. We knew the restrooms would at least be clean. We decided that since my wife’s trolley ticket had been 23 that she was most likely to win – even though she NEVER wins at the casino. But what the heck – the idea of putting $20 in a video poker machine was irresistible. So, she found a JACKS or better machine – marked number EIGHT. She sat down and started winning – and Jacks, 8’s and Aces kept popping up. We don’t know what the aces meant, but we were happy with the Jacks and 8’s! She hit four of a kind on all three several times, but mostly 8’s and Jacks. One time, she hit four 8’s, and a Jack was the fifth card. She didn’t win a lot – but she didn’t lose at all – and her winnings even paid for the gas home.

What a mystical and marvelous day it had been!