THE SHOWRUNNERS TIMES

Damon Lindelof was interviewed recently by the New York Times. He still seems bitter about the reaction to the end of LOST. Lindelof still not quite over what happened with the community reactions after the final episode of LOST.

LOST was both a critical and a popular hit when it debuted in 2004. He does not mention in the article that immediate reaction could have led to the series downfall. But the popularity show with a vibrant fan community using the web to interact after each show created an internal pressure to enhance the show with the clues, red herrings, misdirection, blind alleys and smoke monsters. Six seasons later, when the much-anticipated, much-podcasted, much-blogged-about final episode finally arrived, Lindelof and his fellow show runner, Carlton Cuse, felt they had brought the series to a satisfying close. 

They believed that the show’s main character, Jack, dies while saving the world, and there was a well of light, and also the afterlife.  However, a great deal of the fan base did not agree. For once, the ensemble cast was stronger than one main character. Second, Jack dies while "saving the world," but there was no explanation of what danger the world was in - - -  or why Jack had to die in the first place. The "well of light" was a misconstructed concept which was not integrated into either the original story line or explained in any rational science fiction basis as being the key to understanding the series. The Jacob-MIB story arc did little to rationalize why Flight 815 crashed on the island and how the characters could save the world from immortal monsters. And we don't know who or what made up the monsters. Finally, the Season 6 sideways "afterlife" was a lightning rod to certain fans to scream that the producers lied to them in early interviews that the series was not about purgatory or the afterlife.

The show’s most vocal fan contingent was not pleased. After the finale, they took to Twitter, where Lindelof was an active and lively presence, to tell him how he ruined their favorite show and wasted six years of their lives. Critics similarly decimated Lindelof and Cuse; one declared that “Lost” “ended in the worst way possible.” George R. R. Martin, author of the “Game of Thrones” novels and a co-executive producer on their HBO adaptation, summed up the magnitude of the disappointment when he told The New Yorker his biggest fear in ending his own series: “What if I do a ‘Lost’?”

Lindelof was devastated. He’s a zealous consumer of culture writing, and those critics who blasted “Lost” were ones he otherwise respected and agreed with. He tried not to care, to remember that he loved the ending and maybe that’s all that should matter. “But it’s like no, that’s not all that should matter,” he says. “I didn’t make the [finale] up in my head and sit in my room and basically weep and applaud myself for having designed this great TV show in my brain. I put it out on the airwaves for millions and millions of people to watch, with the intention of having all of them love it, and understand it, and get it.”

There were a lot of fans who liked the ending. But four years later, the negative reaction to the ending still haunts Lindelof. Until last year, his Twitter bio read: “I’m one of the idiots behind ‘Lost.’ And no, I don’t understand it, either.” There, he welcomed his detractors, retweeting their most virulent insults.

If the showrunners ended the show the way they truly wanted to, then that is fine. It was their show. But fans expected more from them. The promises that everyone would have an explanation and that the story tangents would be wrapped up in a mind-blowing explanation never came. Instead, the weak explanation was that some mysteries should remain mysteries (or the fans can make up their own conclusions).  As I have written in the past, a writer has certain obligations to his or her readers. One of them is not to write a grand, twisting mystery story then forget to publish the final chapter. And that is the gnawing cancer of the series: the lack of a visionary ending.

The End could have been so much better.  

I think much of the negative reaction of the ending could have been cooled off if the writers-producers went out on a limb and fully explained their series premise and foundation plot points. 

I think more fans would have understood and accepted the afterlife season if the producers told them by the end that everyone died in the crash, but their "lost" souls continued on in a human form on a magical island to stop the disastrous conversion of the real world and a spiritual realm.

I think fans would have also understood and accepted the premise that the 815 survivors were still alive, but living and trapped  in a different dimension in time-space or spirit world. The reason no one could escape the island is that no one could return to the human world. If the fans saw the main characters come to some enlightenment to such a predicament, then we can see a road to the conclusion that the only way to escape this trap was to die and go to sideways heaven.

But by not writing a complete ending of the series, Lindelof and Cruse opened themselves up to the type of criticism they got from the fan community. Some believe they painted themselves into a corner by throwing out major plot twists and new questions just for the sake of keeping fans engaged in the series. But even those twists became unruly and confusing, such as the time travel story line. 

Then the die hard fan base saw the detail in the set designs, especially the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the lighthouse dials, and the various science station experiments, and wondered how all this fit together as the explanation for the events happening in the series. Why did the producers put in such detail but not use it to make a clear and final statement of LOST was truly about.

They did say that the ending was to take their "character driven" story into a final "spiritual conclusion." However, there was little morality or redemption in the final season. Characters were turned into Star Trek red shirts. Evil people like Ben got to the same afterlife nirvana as a good character like Hurley. There was no judgment, no punishment, no moral trials. There was no life lesson being taught in the sideways arc.


All art is opinion based; and each object of art is judged by individuals based upon their experiences and personal tastes. Because LOST left a bitter taste in both the minds of the producers and a large portion of the fan base, that means there was a huge opportunity lost with this series.