REBOOT: FINAL 4

Now that the reruns have concluded on cable, and the madness of March will soon be upon us, it is time to look back what fans thought were the key issues, comments or direction LOST was heading in the final four episodes. The commentary is based on views expressed right after the broadcast in the LOST community blogs that I haunted:

THE CANDIDATE

This should have been the launch pad for the neat tie up of the series. But instead, it led to some harsh comments on the show's direction.

1. The treatment of children and parenting was a hot button. When Sun was trapped in the submarine, she never used their daughter, Ji Yeon, as a reason for Jin to save himself. They never thought that Jin saving himself for the sake of their daughter was important. Many viewers saw this as a major character flaw. It was a stupid and illogical that newborn parents would not have any strong bond with their only child. There appeared to be a total lack of parental instincts, common sense and the value of human life as the series wound down.

2. The submarine aspects of the show drove fans up the sea wall. Granted, it was a television show, but one that TPTB claimed to have crafted super-intelligently, but could not hold water. People observed the obvious and significant issues with the scene:

A. The sub was located inside a harbor. It would take several minutes to leave the harbor to get into open water to dive.

B.  Within a minute after diving, Jack finds a bomb below deck which meant that the submarine was not at any deep depth. Realistically, it should have still been on the surface in the harbor. The camera angle on the sub was level; this was not a "crash dive" but a normal one. Normal dive can be at most 50 feet per minute. Based on the sequence of events, the sub was probably less than 20 feet below the surface with more than 3 minutes left on the bomb clock (i.e. plenty of time to surface).

C. Submarines fixtures are all built in structures. A cabinet coming loose and trapping Sun was highly unrealistic. In addition, Sun being pinned by wall pipes meant that she had to wedge herself behind them before the explosion. Really? She did that?

D. Sayid taking the ticking bomb down the hallway, but not shutting the blast door was dumb, too. Submarines are built to be water proof segments. Besides, the bomb blast down the ship hall would not have dislodged the cabinets and pipes to trap Sun.

If they were trying to re-create the Looking Glass death scene, the set-up for Charlie's death was more believable than the Jin-Sun tragedy.

3. Many people observed the unbelievable inconsistency in the vague explanation and motivation of Flocke. First he said he needed all the 815ers to leave "with him." Then he needed to kill them all. Then he needed to kill all the candidates.

If Flocke needs all of the candidates to die in order for him to leave the Island, then why didn't he just let Widmore's mortar bombs kill the candidates? Zoe came over to the camp and threatened to bomb the camp if Flock didn't return Desmond? Why didn't Flocke just let her bomb the camp? He had all the candidates there except for Jin (and Jin might not even be a candidate - he had Sun which gave him a 50/50 chance of possibly having ALL the candidates in one place at the same time).
The missed opportunities for Flocke to kill off the candidates was unreal. With the sonic fences off, couldn't MIB as Smokey have easily killed Widmore and his entire group during the bear cage scene? 
When Zoe and Widmore's gang came to ask for Desmond back why they weren't all just "Smokied" right there. Certainly would have weakened Widmore's position and given MIB free reign to finish what he started.



4. The whole explosive nature of blowing up the plane to stop Flocke from leaving had one big story line hole: If Richard and Ben had stable Dharma C4 at the barracks, there was no reason for Ilana's crew go get the dangerous and unstable Black Rock dynamite. So no matter what any character said afterward, Ilana's death had no meaning or purpose. But it did follow a dark theme as the series was winding down: the shows turned into more of a human hunt than character development.

5. There were creeping major concerns about what we would find out about the island. Fused with that concern was the open question of what the sideways world meant, if anything, to the resolution of the island story. I disliked the sideways world then because I thought it is a last season crutch to be probably used as "an out" to not explain the mysteries that have piled up in the previous five seasons.

For the first five seasons, the island world could have been classified either as a) real, b) real people in a different realm, c) the after life, or d) something else (dreams, mind control).

By adding the sideways story arc, as its own contained and separate universe, the classification of the island world to the final story resolution multiplied the confusion. There is now at least 16 possible explanations of the saga (example, island world is (d) mind control in the sideways (a) real world; or island world is (c) after life test of redemption to pass on to (a)/(c) a "new life" in the sideways world.)

The idea of a "multi-universe" explanation was received with tepid remorse like old theories such as
815 flies through the electromagnetic burst which causes all sleeping passengers to have a collective dream/nightmare; and they "die" on the island by "waking up."

Many fans commented on another dilemma, the EM quandary. Typically in other television shows, a magical particle/energy substance had been used as a device to jump to alternate universes. If the island EM was used as a portal between universes, why was Widmore so keen on taking control of it? If Widmore is "amped" on getting this thing to work then he is in knowlege of an Alt uni. If that's the case, which one of the universes is he trying to "jump" to, or who is he wanting to "jump" where to do what? He was rich and powerful in both universes. Both universes were self contained and the characters functioning independently of the other universe.

A device such as an "EM field" is frequently used to keep things in, or keep things out.
So several people raised a big question:  What is Widmore's ultimate purpose for the home-made Stargate looking thing that buzzes or chars people but leaves bunnies unharmed? And that is another critical flaw in the story: the EM properties are inconsistent from season to season.

6. There was a growing angst that the series might not end well. Commentators did not want the show to be about  the after life, or  something else like dreams or a mind control experiment.  TPTB have been so adamant for so long about rejecting both options that they would lose all credibility to pull either of those rabbits out of the hat at the end of the series.

The mythology of the show had to be crystalized in order to attain full acceptance. But as the creative force behind the series, Darlton viewed the show as primarily about the characters and their arc of redemption. The idea of having the characters already dead, or in some sort of Bob Newhart-Bobby Ewing extended dream sequence destroys the reality of everything that has occurred over the first five seasons. Fans wanted to have confirmation that the events of the first five seasons were actual "real" events in the Lost universe. Any ending had to accomodate that premise and not dilute the viewer and character investment in what has already happened.

7. The beginning of the Big Why? questions. 

Why is there an EM breach? (Is this the portal between the parallel universes that needs to be capped?)
Why are humans brought to the island if the EM science is beyond their knowledge and technological skills? (Are tasty human souls the real food for Smokey?)
Why would the guardians treat their island mission (holding back the breach) as a game?
Why did several characters say "the Island isn't done with you yet."
Why did/does the island move in time?
Why are there "rules" which some people know (or think they know) but we, as viewers, don't know?
Why is the vague explanation "whatever happened happened" so important in the island universe?
Why is Widmore so important to the island's survival?


8. There was a growing concern about the relationship between the island and sideways stories.
Most critical was question "why are the two worlds time shifted?"


The sideways world is set in 2004.

The island world is currently in 2007.

If a single universe, looping on itself:
How could sideways Desmond, Charlie or Faraday "pull" memories from the island future, if their present was already changed in past?

If parallel universes:
How could sideways Desmond, Charlie or Faraday "pull" memories from the island future, when there is no "overlap" in both worlds to act as a portal? (the island in sideways 2004 is underwater, so no of the 815ers are there to start any process of change).

Some commentators responded that what happened in one universe,  did not happen in the other. It is relative. Only a person's consciousness would pass from time line to time line. However, the debate went on: that was a paradoxical point: there is no need for consciousness to move from one dimension to the other if the parallel universes are already self-contained, separate time lines. The island incident did not reboot a single time line/universe because apparently the island time line still exists in 2007. There is no evidence that the island incident created the sideways universe. A paradox is a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.

Many fans thought he sideways universe was created long before "the incident," and  long before Flight 815.The two time lines co-exist but the mystical forces that are unexplained on the island allow certain individuals that are on the island to transcend the other time-line on a consciousness level. Memories of an alternate life are uploaded with the help of a special catalyst. Some thought Desmond was that catalyst.

Others cited the example of the Steven King story, the Langoliers. In that story, ten sleeping passengers on an airplane awake to find that all their fellow passengers and crew missing. An off-duty pilot lands the plane at a deserted airport where nothing inhabits this dead world except for monsters who devour people who are lazy or waste time. The characters come to realize that they have gone through a time rip, and try to find a way back to their own time and world.

Viewers began to doubt which time line was "real" or most significant: the island or the sideways. Trying to logically deduce which time line was correct was hard. The flashbacks and sideways being part of the same time line because key character differences, like Desmond knowing Penny before the island events in the flashbacks. However, if the island events are the "fake" time line, that is probably the worst possible story line because many viewers had invested five years in it.

Many fans hated and loathed the idea of the sideways universe was being "projected" as a reward universe for those who made deals with MIB. That made little sense, since the show that started off with survival of a plane crash on an mysterious island searching for rescue as its main plot, is turning into one massive human hunt by MIB. It did not seem MIB/Smokey cared about anyone but itself.


So The Candidate episode did not quell many anxieties in the show's final direction.