How did LOST get so lost?

[nickytea]

To me it always seems that the type of people who read a book just to get to the ending are typically the people who didnt enjoy LOST. If youre the type who enjoys a story for where it may take you, then you would probably like the show.

"Rosebud is his sled. There, I just saved you two boob-less hours."

 

[Cheeflet]

Hey thanks buddy!

 

[Riceball]

I think the problem that LOST ran into is that it was one of those kind of shows that can't run indefinitely until the ratings drop to where the network wants to cancel. From the beginning it was obvious the show was supposed to go somewhere regardless of whether or not the producers knew where that was ahead of time. The problem that they ran into was that they didn't know how long they had to get to the end so in the meanwhile they basically treaded water and answered every question with more questions or answered in such a vague and mysterious way that it left you even more confused than you were before they answered the question. I feel that shows like this need to be either written and produced with a specific timeline in mind, like the 5 seasons for B5, or be flexible enough to wrap things up in 2 - 3 seasons but move onto a new premise/purpose afterward.

 

[blip]

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[Frank]

I thought the show overall was great. It started very strong and the last few seasons I thought was handled perfectly. Granted the middle seasons did go alittle off on too many tangents. But all-in-all I thought it was great.

I cant wait for Alcatraz to start.

I agree. I loved lost but season 4 was kinda :sick although some good came out of it ie. faraday, charlotte, miles.

 

[Solo4114]

Nicky,

Please forgive any snarkiness that may have snuck in to my comments earlier. I mean this sincerely. I underestimated you and misinterpreted you. My heartfelt apologies. No joke.

Your post...well...I dig it. Well said. I'll elaborate.

I don't watch many TV shows, so it's hard for me to agree that I'm any particular kind of viewer, but it is the distinction that you re-iterate in your most recent post that I still have trouble digesting. I don't think that a viewer's predilection toward enjoying the journey of the characters is at all preventive of their being invested in the primary mystery or outcome of the plot-at-large. On the contrary, I think they feed each other so necessarily that you can't help with some measure of concern on both fronts.

In not so many words: I don't think that primarily-caring-for-the-characters equals satisfaction with the finale, nor that primarily-caring-for-the-mystery equals dissatisfaction with the finale. It can't be -- and isn't -- as simple as that.

This is the bit I'd misinterpreted previously. I actually agree that it's not an either/or situation. I do think people tend to hew more in one direction than the other, but that's not to say that they can't draw satisfaction from both, nor that either element is disposable for people who may be drawn more to the other. So, I think I actually agree with you here.

I'm in no way trying to disprove the existance of the legions of the dissatisfied ... I'm surrounded by it.

On the point of marketing, while I agree it has the potential to be an instrumental player in the expectation and perception of the work itself, I'd still like to believe that the work can be objectively allowed to stand on it's own merits. Perhaps this will take only the passage of time, as the show will continue to gain audiences that experience it on video.

The real shame, as I see it, is that the market is currently organized as such that the work itself is created independantly, from a different mind than that of the advertising. Yet they are to be percieved as a single entity. I can totally understand that, even if I don't fully appreciate the level to which the advertising for Lost had an adverse effect on the perception of the show's conclusion. (I was fairly able to avoid it in my own viewing of the show.)

You mention an EXCELLENT couple of points here.

1.) The writing and marketing have GOT to be better harmonized to manage audience expectations. The studio as well, for that matter. I think many shows have been victims of this, and it sucks for all involved. The writers end up with fans pissed at them for things they never intended, the fans get misled or focused on the wrong stuff, etc.

2.) The experience of watching these shows on DVD is, I think, completely different from the week-to-week-plus-season-breaks experience, and I think naturally lends itself to different responses. I have friends who watched BSG straight through and see ZERO deviation or change in theme thoughout, and who feel no sense of dissatisfaction whatsoever with the show's end. They recognize how it might be taken that way, but it's not their experience. Especially with longer-form, ongoing stories, I think the more condensed experience of watching the DVDs is increasingly becoming my preference since it's less prone to the marketing elements.

Overall, thought, I find the focus on conclusion unbefitting of the show itself. The finale enriched the experience that was watching the show, taking the journey. The way some people talk about it (perhaps because of advertising, as you said) focused totally on the ends at the expense of the means -- which I take to be the real meat of the show, all of which culminated in the events of the finale.

Right, I think that's the split I'm more focused on -- some people watch shows for a conclusion, a finale, etc. Others enjoy the experience. And there's an in-between where you enjoy the experience overall, but also want a satisfying conclusion (although one's sense of satisfaction, I think, depends on what drew one's attention while viewing).

I think that the writing on a show can sometimes telegraph the wrong things (IE: Ron Moore's whole "Why'd everyone focus on Daniel and think he was Starbuck's dad?!" thing), usually unintentionally, but sometimes I do think people end up with the situation Riceball described below -- where the writers (either because of network orders, or because they don't know the future of the show) have to manipulate the show a particular way to deal with the immediate realities, rather than to cater to their longer-term intentions.

Don't take me the wrong way, I certainly wasn't trying to insult any diverging interpretation. I can see how it could come off that way. I was just mentioning that in my argument in regard to the above topic, that I don't think we can so easily catagorize those that were dissatisfied as "those-who-cared-about-the-outcome."

I've read a slew of negative responses to the finale that I thought were well-formed and totally legitimate. I never want to be that guy who calls you stupid when you dissagree.

Well, my apologies if I overread unintended insults (and if I sent any back your way, too). I'm not sure what makes folks dissatisfied with the finale is prone to easy categorization of simply "not happy with outcome", since I think what really matters is how/why they aren't happy. What about the outcome did they not like? It may not be the same for everyone. What I've seen suggests that there's some sense of "That's IT?! All this time and that's IT?!" about the ending. That still begs the question, though, of what about the ending failed to satisfy, and what people were hoping for. Certainly, without seeing the show, I can't really hazard much of a guess there.

You never know. Lack of civility elsewhere has often dissuaded me from posting in topics I'd otherwise sink my teeth into. These days I have to keep the energies for the items that really matter to me. Lost just so happens to tickle that spot.

And for the record, I don't think my own feelings on the mechanics of creating a show would be so different from what you presented here. It just offers me no advantage when discussing the effectiveness of a show already created.

I guess I kinda hope that people will take the comments of fans in situations like this into account and make more universally enjoyed stories (conclusions included). You may not be able to make everyone happy, but I've seen/heard of a few shows in recent years that have REALLY split their audience at the end, and I have to wonder how that happens, why it happens, and how/if it can be avoided. I guess that's why I talk about it as much as I do.

"Rosebud is his sled. There, I just saved you two boob-less hours."

I loled. :lol

I think the problem that LOST ran into is that it was one of those kind of shows that can't run indefinitely until the ratings drop to where the network wants to cancel. From the beginning it was obvious the show was supposed to go somewhere regardless of whether or not the producers knew where that was ahead of time. The problem that they ran into was that they didn't know how long they had to get to the end so in the meanwhile they basically treaded water and answered every question with more questions or answered in such a vague and mysterious way that it left you even more confused than you were before they answered the question. I feel that shows like this need to be either written and produced with a specific timeline in mind, like the 5 seasons for B5, or be flexible enough to wrap things up in 2 - 3 seasons but move onto a new premise/purpose afterward.

Agreed. It's one of the things I'm currently loving about watching the UK version of Life on Mars. It's 16 episodes. Period. I don't know if they designed it that way from the start, but I'm finding that there (so far -- I'm not done yet) seems to be a really good balance of elements, and a tightly focused, well-crafted story, probably because the thing is very circumscribed. I think knowing that you have X amount of time to tell your tale forces (helps?) the writers to stay focused, AND to maintain the audience's focus on the right things.

 

[Larry Young]

It's one of the things I'm currently loving about watching the UK version of Life on Mars. It's 16 episodes. Period.

If you're dissatisfied with the end of LOST, you're really not going to like the end of Life on Mars.

 

[nickytea]

This was the offer they seemed to put to me.

Hey, Joe, you wanna watch a sci-fi survivor type mystery. We'll show you a strange island and figure out what those scientists are doing with those numbers, and there will be an explainable smoke monster by the way.

Sure I said, then they failed to hold up their end of the deal.

You bought something that was never for sale.
I think this may be at the heart of a lot of the dissatisfaction associated with the topic at hand, and easily applicable to a lot of other franchise reactions.

Forgive my conitnuing with this simile, but it's like buying something for the wrapper without acknowledging that there's something inside.

 

[Solo4114]

If you're dissatisfied with the end of LOST, you're really not going to like the end of Life on Mars.

I wasn't dissatisfied with the end of LOST. I never saw LOST in the first place.

I'm also actually not that heavily invested in the "answer" to the mystery for Life on Mars. I've come up with about four or five different possible "answers" and any of them work for me, including the ones he mentions at the start of each episode. With Life on Mars, while I dig the overall "mystery," it's not really why I watch. I'm much more just enjoying the ride. An odd departure for me, actually. I do tend to get sucked into the mystery elements, myself, but this time it's incidental to me.

I am, however, curious as to how the "story" then continues into Ashes to Ashes, about which I know nothing except that it's set in the early 80s and has a female DI instead of Sam.

 

[clonesix]

Because all I wanted was a Red Ryder, lever Action, 200 shot, carbine rifle with a genuine compass in the stock. When I finally got it, I shot my eye out.


No, seriously, the build up was Super Bowl, and the pay off was the National Debt.

 

[Guri]

Because all I wanted was a Red Ryder, lever Action, 200 shot, carbine rifle with a genuine compass in the stock. When I finally got it, I shot my eye out.


No, seriously, the build up was Super Bowl, and the pay off was the National Debt.

For you. This is what I think a lot of people miss... They did what they did and it worked for a lot of people, for others, not at all. It was a risk - I wouldn't change anything.

(Okay, maybe it would have been nice if Ilana didn't just blow up.)

 

[Larry Young]

I wasn't dissatisfied with the end of LOST. I never saw LOST in the first place.

Ha! You sure are writing a lot about a show you've never seen.

I am, however, curious as to how the "story" then continues into Ashes to Ashes, about which I know nothing except that it's set in the early 80s and has a female DI instead of Sam.

I think I liked Ashes to Ashes even more than I did Life on Mars. Especially so in series three.

 

[dbuck]

Listen to only half of ABBEY ROAD. Watch only half of Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO. You can have an opinion of both those works... but it wouldn't be as VALID an opinion... not as well informed... as someone who watched the whole thing.

The title of his thread, which is really an inquiry, begs my answer from my experience. If this show meanders off course, takes a few breathers, and loses some of it's audience and I explain why I personally gave up on it, I have answered the question in it's relation to me.
You call it superior television, I disagree. Five million other people stopped watching the show, as well. The show did not 'lose' you, a point you make quite adamantly.
They 'lost' me. And telling me how great it ended, despite everything else I have heard from more trusted sources, will not change my lack of caring. I'm actually upset I invested as much time as I did it the show.
It's not a masterpiece to me. The middle of Psycho did not make me lose interest. Love Me Do isn't directly related to With a Little help From My Friends, and not liking one song will not affect my enjoyment of the rest of the album. Lost required missing no episodes, for six seasons, but I could not force myself to tolerate it for that long.
I didn't have to finish watching Lost to know I didn't care how it ended.

 

[Solo4114]

Ha! You sure are writing a lot about a show you've never seen.

Actually I've been more writing about general concepts in a thread about a show I've never seen. My guesses about the show are based on people's reactions, but I freely admit that I don't know what happened in the show -- only how people responded to it.

I think I liked Ashes to Ashes even more than I did Life on Mars. Especially so in series three.

Huh. Interesting. Well, I'm keeping myself in the dark about it until I wrap up Life on Mars. The only thing I know is that Gene is back, and that cannot be a bad thing.

 

[Cheeflet]

dbuck, please dont take this personally, as I dont even know you nor have anything against you, but the people who say they are upset over a tv show just really bring the LULZ for me. Gotta thank those guys.

Also, Solo4114 do you get paid by the letter when you write? Not here, of course, but in your day job maybe? It sure seems like you do. Reminds me of this old timer I had for a prof. He was a pulp/sci fi writer back in the 30's, 40s, and 50s. That man was seriously verbose. He just couldnt help himself.

 

[TK765]

Lost was the writers after they realized the show was going to last longer than 2 or 3 seasons.

see this link

Unanswered Lost Questions - CollegeHumor video

 

[Cheeflet]

Maybe this is the real dichotomy of the universe. It isnt really good vs evil. Its more like people who need everything spelled out for them and those that dont.

 

[dbuck]

dbuck, please dont take this personally, as I dont even know you nor have anything against you, but the people who say they are upset over a tv show just really bring the LULZ for me. Gotta thank those guys.

No problem here. No, I am not upset about the show as in 'the show really ticked me off'. The wife and I just didn't care anymore, and after buying the DVDs of seasons 1 and 2 to catch up for 3 and then 4 I was sorry I put money and emotion into a show that failed us.
Once again, if you loved the show, good for you. I wish I could say that. I never said it was lousy tv, or a stupid show. The interest just faded when it appeared it's own plots were 'lost'. The wife and I kept looking at each other after every show saying , there is no way they can tie this up properly, huh?

The show did lose one out of very three viewers during it's run, but that also means most people stuck with it.

 

[Cheeflet]

I guess when you said:

I'm actually upset I invested as much time as I did it the show.

It reminded me of when the Season 6 DVD came out and people got super upset at the New Man In Charge mini ep. Especially on the LOST Facebook page. People were seriously outraged. I honestly laughed heartily for 10 minutes reading the comments.

 

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