- Disjointed story that barely holds together through time-jumping structure
- No sense of agency or ability to meaningfully change the story
- A parade of overwrought, clichéd plot points straight out of high school creative writing class
- An utter lack of tension or anything resembling real drama
- Characters that can't hold together coherent motivations
- Insultingly easy quick time events
- Game play mostly boils down to "find the dot to continue the story"
For those whimsical souls who thought LOST was a roller coaster and they were going along for the ride, the 180 degree out-of-no-where turn to the spiritual conclusion was fine with them. They were content with The Ending.
Even though the basic questions to that plot twist were never explained:
Who was chosen and who was not?
What was the island if the sideways was purgatory?
When did the sideways world get created when no one knew each other before the crash?
Where was the island? (the first character question posed in the pilot episode)
Why were so many family members and friends left out of the final church scene?
How could one forget the "most important" part of your life while at the same time create a new sideways world?
It is unacceptable and contrary to believe the show's final story arcs were all targeted to the spiritual world from the very beginning. In the final season, we had so many new side stories like Jacob, MIB, Alpert, which seemed like more filler than story movement. Then we had the main characters criss crossing the jungle which seemed like more filler. I recall barking at the screen once "do something!" when the characters sat around a fire waiting for Flocke to return. There was no sense of urgency on anyone part to do anything to escape MIB, Widmore or the island. No one was motivated; they were all spectators which was opposite of their gung-ho, mission approach to survival in the first five seasons. There was little tension, little drama, and events fell off the board like old post-it notes (for example, Desmond in the well was a meaningless asterisk.) The characters kept bouncing back and forth, jungle to beach, to small island, to beach, to small island . . . wandering aimlessly through the final plot.
On the other hand, there was a surreal beauty in the smiling faces in the church. Everyone seemed happy, relieved, and content. The quiet calmness was in stark contrast to nonstop twists, turns, dangers and anxiety of the first five seasons. In the church, they were all finally safe. Serenity is the goal for any lost soul.
But for the core group to have created the complex sideways world, which contained a fully populated world of people the churchgoers never met, is a troubling disconnect from Christian's speech to Jack. The further inconsistency is that Ben could be awakened but choose not to move on. One of the baddest characters in the series still retains the power to set his own selfish course? How did he earn that right or privilege?
It meant that the sideways world would continue on, even though it was allegedly created by the core group so they could gather and move on together in the after life. It is just as likely when put into that perspective that Christian's statement on the sideways world was totally wrong. Was it truly "real," or was it another smoke monster illusion?
We may never know except that the series was filled with inconsistencies and paradoxes that erased any clear path to a final resolution of the main story lines of the series.
