Lost: Never watched it, wondering what the big deal was...

[taurusowner]

I watched up til about halfway through season 3, thought I dowloaded the episodes so I didn't miss any.  I agree that season 2 with the hatch and all the other abandoned Dharma stations was pretty interesting.  But it really lost steam with "The Others".  It felt like they we just making up a bunch of crap to fill episodes without furthering any plot, especially all the episodes that focused on one character and whatever depressing/angsty past they might have had.  I just don't care about Merry Brandybuck's old band or someone's dead dad.  The show just didn't go anywhere.

[Ben]

I was disappointed in the "they're all dead" ending. I remember even early on when talking about the show to others I know who watched it, that I'd be really disappointed if they did a cop-out "they're dead" or "it's a dream" or other lame scenario. And of course they let me down and did it.

I think the writers got in way over their heads and gave us too many mysteries. Too many to be answered in the span of the series. There was a ton of stuff from early on that they seemed to indicate was pivotal (the giant statue, all the weird hieroglyphics, the teleporter, Walt, etc.) that they just abandoned. I think they wrote themselves into a corner and ended up trying to get out of it by killing off people like crazy in the final season and then coming up with the lame "they're dead" for everyone else.

As to guns -- gun handling was often atrocious, but there were some neat old guns in the show, like Garands, and Enfields and Mausers.

[taurusowner]

That's what happens when writers don't have a plan about where they're going with the plot.

[Devonai]

Well, if we're going to discuss the finale...

SPOILER ALERT

What I took away from it was that everything that happened on the island was real.  No purgatory, no after-death hallucination, but real.  It was Christian's line at the end, "Some died before you, some long after."  Also, Hugo says to Ben, "You were a great Number Two," implying that they had a long relationship after the events depicted in the finale.  The last season's "flash-sideways" was the purgatory of sorts, where nothing that happened really mattered.  The events on the island were the important things.

[AJ Dual]

Yes, in the limbo-church, it had been a few days for some of them, maybe thousands of years (of protecting the island) for Hurley. They were not dead while on the island. Perhaps the island was "hell" for smoke monster/man-in-black. But not for anyone else.

Ben wanted to live in limbo for awhile, possibly so he could work out some of the pathos with Rousseau and Alex and live as a "normal family" with them and get right with all the things he felt guilty for.

The big statue on the island was the Egyptian Crocodile god, Sobek, who was holding an Ahnk as an investment of additional power (cross with a loop top). Sobek wasn't exactly "good", but instead he went about righting wrongs caused by the destructive/bad gods. Instead of direct action, Sobek nudged things behind the scenes, making sure the right people were in the right place etc. Arguably much like Jacob. 

Later as Egyptian mythology evolved, Sobek became an avatar of Ra, the chief sun-god when Ra was doing Sobek-like things. (sort of like father, son, holy spirit trinity as all aspects of God etc.)

[seeker_two]

This is why I stick to USA Network....

....Psych....White Collar....In Plain Sight....Burn Notice....Royal Pains....

....these are shows that I can enjoy without any freaky-deaky, zoned-out surprises.... 

[Bogie]

I know someone who thinks that Ghost Whisperer is real...

[Ben]

Well, if we're going to discuss the finale...

SPOILER ALERT

What I took away from it was that everything that happened on the island was real.  No purgatory, no after-death hallucination, but real.  It was Christian's line at the end, "Some died before you, some long after."  Also, Hugo says to Ben, "You were a great Number Two," implying that they had a long relationship after the events depicted in the finale.  The last season's "flash-sideways" was the purgatory of sorts, where nothing that happened really mattered.  The events on the island were the important things.

I got that from the explanation in the church -- sorry, didn't mean to imply that it was a "you were always dead" revelation thing. I guess the ending wouldn't have been disappointing to me if they'd just tied up a few of the bigger mysteries and storylines that were such a big todo in the first three seasons.

[Boomhauer]

This is why I stick to USA Network....

....Psych....White Collar....In Plain Sight....Burn Notice....Royal Pains....

....these are shows that I can enjoy without any freaky-deaky, zoned-out surprises.... 

I love Burn Notice. Enough storyline to keep you interested, and a hell of a lot of action...none of this wishy washy mythical bullshit or preachiness...

[Ben]

Yeah, Burn Notice rocks. Season 3 releases to DVD June 1st.

[StopTheGrays]

The big statue on the island was the Egyptian Crocodile god, Sobek

Taweret

[StopTheGrays]

There was one thing I wished they had explained. There were air drops from Dharma for the people in the hatch. If a plane could do air drops, why couldn't anyone else deliberately get to the island that way? It was either by sub or by crashing. 

[AJ Dual]

Taweret

No, Taweret is stubby, shorter, pregnant, with fertility-idol shaping to her. The statue (when still standing) was taller, male proportioned body etc.

There was one thing I wished they had explained. There were air drops from Dharma for the people in the hatch. If a plane could do air drops, why couldn't anyone else deliberately get to the island that way? It was either by sub or by crashing. 

I think it's just a loose end that the writers abandoned and did not follow up on. If you remember all the Lost websites early on, they also had stuff about the Hanso Foundation. (which I think) kind of transformed into Widmore and his expeditions to re-take the island.

"The writers had the vision/plan all along" is B.S.

I think they intended the "Others" to be the Dharma Initiative, or have Dharma still active on the island, etc. at first, maybe taking a more sci-fi angle of "mad science secret experiment island ZOMG!" etc. Which would have explained the ongoing food drops. Then they went more mystical later, probably because it let them make up anything they wanted to. I also think they had the sound effects for the smoke-monster sound "technical" at first, like it was a more scientific phenomena, (maybe even a nano-tech swarm or something) then decided later to make it the ghost (or whatever) of the "man in black".

Way too many loose ends to say "they had a plan". LOL... 

[StopTheGrays]

No, Taweret is stubby, shorter, pregnant, with fertility-idol shaping to her. The statue (when still standing) was taller, male proportioned body etc.

From WiKi
In the April 2009 issue of the magazine Wired, which was guest-edited by the series' producer J.J. Abrams, one of the coded messages in the issue decrypted to the sentence, "The four toed statue is Taweret."[4]

[Scout26]

Next watched Lost, 24, The Sporano's, or any other series....