Lost: Everything That Has A Beginning, Has An End - Part 2

There's a lot of reasons why Lost was a success. Great writing, with a perfect balance of strong, imaginative plotting supporting powerful, ongoing character arcs, for one. Great casting, from familiar faces like Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn...to new actors like Evangeline Lily to Josh Holloway. An Oscar winning composer. A huge budget to effectively realise the scope of the story. An original mixture of fantasy, science fiction and survival drama. And THAT tropical setting. Lost was unique on so many levels, and for those reasons alone, it will be missed as a regular fixture on the TV schedule.

But for me, the overriding reason is it's daring to tell a singular story over an entire series. The only other series to do that was Babylon 5 which was mapped out before hand, before telling it's epic tale over 89 episodes, spanning 6 years. Everybody else just makes it up as they go along, whether it be Buffy (year by year) or The X-Files (which had an ongoing narrative with no real ending). And having watched both JJ Abram's pilot episode and the finale in the last few days, you can see how much was planned right from the start, whether it be the debate over fate versus free will, the character's journeys or the representations of good and evil...it's all there waiting to be paid off.

I also like a show that you have to invest in. Something you have to work at. Where the answers are suggested and implied, rather than blurted out in over-long, exposition monologues. Also, there's just enough information provided to deduce what's going on, rather than a weak, techno-babble explanation of how the smoke monster travels or what the Island's power source is. Like the themes of the series, you, the viewer, didn't need to know certain answers...you just had to have faith in the little information that you had gleened about the Island was true. An like the characters, you could stick to your belief...or question it, as most of them did at one point or another.

The series final episode was typical of what had transpired before, being a perfect balance of character and plot, with both converging perfectly for its powerful, final moments. While I have a prefered theory as to what 'really' happened during Lost, I've seen a couple of other ideas that make sense to me too. Knowing how much Americans hated The Soprano's ending, I'm sure the Lost conclusion is going to go down like a shit sandwich. But the answers I need are all there, if you're willing to look close enough. And every time I look, I see more and more answers.

Some viewers may feel cheated by this ambiguous finale, but that's what art is supposed to do. You don't go into an art gallery to view a sculpture or painting, then complain that there's not an explanation on the wall next to it. You have to work it out for yourself. And if you're willing to put the effort in to following an unusual, complex, multi-layered story over 115 episodes AND spent the energy on working out, not only what's going on, but what it all means as well, then you're in for a rare treat. This is where television comes into it's own as an art form; no longer a knock off of the theatre or cinema; it can spent an extended duration to tell an epic tale with a beginning, middle and an end. And because the story and characters have had many years to build momentum and add depth, it makes the resolution all the more powerful when it finally arrives. Because of that, more so than the other two finale reviews I've written today, Lost will leave a massive hole. The tragedy is that series like lost come along at the rate of once a decade. Let's hope that pace never slips, but picks up instead.