Reviews by Matt

Yesterday (May 23, 2011), marked one year since “The End” aired. It has been 365 days since the final episode of “Lost,” a fact I had no idea about until late in the day. Interestingly enough though, I recently had a revelation about the end of the show and why some people hated it. I have heard a lot in the past year about how bad the ending was, but I loved it. I knew going in that there would still be some lingering questions. I thought the ending they chose was the perfect way to end the series.

The main bone of contention is that there are questions that were not answered. These people were watching a different show than I was. Yes, things were not answered, but to me, the show was never about knowing everything there was to know. I loved those questions and I spent hours upon hours online looking at theories and talking through my own with my friends. Despite the endless hours I spent on the mysteries of the island, that is not what defined my enjoyment of the show.

The survivors of the crash of Oceanic 815 were what the show was really about. If you look at season one, it focused heavily on who these people were. All the flashbacks were there to fill in the background information that helped define the character. The show was the characters’ experience on the island—not the viewer’s experience—on the island. Leading up to the finale, I heard executive producers, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, say that they would answer a question if it was important to the characters. That right there tells you everything you need to know about the show. The questions, while fun, were not the driving force behind the show.

That is why I loved the ending. It was not about knowing everything there is to know about the island, DHARMA, and all those strange things we saw in six seasons. It was always going to be about the people we were watching. Strong, good characters beat out mysteries any day of the week. To those who hated the ending and saw it as a waste of six years of their lives, think back really hard to season one and tell me if the show was about an island or the survivors of a plane crash?