All is Not LOST

Having been a "Lostie" for years, I was both a bit sad to see the end of one of television's most innovative shows in a long time and a bit relieved to finally get some answers to all the bizarreness of the island and the Lostaways over the past six years.

The two and a half hour LOST retrospective and series finale did answer some questions about the whole LOST legacy but as usual left many questions unanswered.  Part Twilight Zone part X-Files and a splash of Outer Limits made this show a great watch with such a great combination of mystery storyline coupled with great characterization.  Seriously, without the characters being just SO good throughout this show would have died seasons ago.

I don't think I or anyone will ever fully understand the plane crash, the ISLAND, the Others, or the Dharma Initiative, but it was a blast tuning in episode after episode to peel back another layer of intrigue and to see Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Locke, Ben and the other Lostaways maneuver there way through the mysteries of flashbacks, flashforwards, and even flashsideways for the past six years.  Though the end did get a bit schmaltzy at times, overall I thought the series did a great job of communicating positive aspects of community and redemption while sprinkling some Lord of the Flies just to add some spice from time to time.  It was an intelligent series in a medium that tends to dumb down programming and though networks are striving to create a LOST replacement it may be awhile.   After all, its hard to grab hold of the energy and power of "Black Smoke."

Spoiler Alert for those that may have not seen the series and plan to on DVD one day:  

I'm still not sure if the ending was supposed to really be the whole "time to enter the light" sequence and that they were really dead this WHOLE time?  The fading to black on Jack's eye as the whole series opened is highly suspicious that perhaps this was a whole St. Elsewhere scenario set-up which is slightly better than if it had been a Dallas, Pam Ewing dream sequence.  Still, the finale makes one believe that the passengers of fated Flight 815 did indeed die but the question is WHEN did they die (Time and Space) and was the WHOLE series a final last gasp firing of Jack's synapses before his lights went out???  Were the writers really that cruel?  Or were they just keeping us guessing until the very end?  (Cue the Twilight Zone theme music)   Picture a man on Oceanic Flight 815 bound for Los Angeles . . .