# LOST, what would have satisfied you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 30, 2012, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162 "2012-01-30T05:44:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/21 "2014-07-16T02:27:14Z")
Honestly, I would’ve been cool with anything - **anything** - that took some sort of _chance_. A Universe controlling race that uses it to QA a predestined outcome that provides the best possible outcome for our race. God, but he shows up and / or isn’t that great of a guy, ala **Frailty**. Zoom out and it’s a Snow Globe. Zoom out and it’s one of those Terrariums like you made in Grade School. Have an alien put his Earth marble back in his bag of marbles, ala **Men In Black**. Have the scene turn into text and it’s Locke writing a book. Or it’s Vincent’s doggie dream. But no, it’s just another timid Purgatory-like state that offends nobody and takes no risks. And now he wants me to get into his new HBO show? HAH! ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/22 "2014-07-16T03:43:01Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Bumped to provide a link to a NYT interview with showrunner Damon Lindelof. He says he’s really sorry: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?_r=0) Well, he should be. And I don’t forgive him. Hmph. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/23 "2014-07-16T03:48:54Z")
\*\*LOST, what would have satisfied you? \*\* A coherent story. I quit watching after 5 or 6 episodes because the show made no sense whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Orr\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ee59a6/32.png) [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/24 "2014-07-16T04:43:34Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Bumped to provide a link to a NYT interview with showrunner Damon Lindelof. He says he’s really sorry: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?_r=0) CTRL-F “sorry” on that article, and you’ll fine one instance, in a comment posted by a reader. ---
**Author:** ![Kyrie\_Eleison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kyrie_eleison/32/7682_2.png) [@Kyrie\_Eleison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyrie_Eleison)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/25 "2014-07-16T06:28:48Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Bumped to provide a link to a NYT interview with showrunner Damon Lindelof. He says he’s really sorry: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?_r=0) Fuck that guy, and his new show. I usually check out HBO’s offerings, but I won’t view this one. I didn’t mind the show as much as the show runner’s deception in the press about having some actual idea of where it was going. Forgive me for not being fooled a second time, Mr. Lindelof. And I want credit for [calling this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12494089&postcount=384) at the time: > [@LOST 6.17 "The End"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-6-17-the-end/540459/384): > > My interest for the last couple of seasons has been continued for two reasons: the drama is interesting even if the underlying theme is disjointed, and I wanted know if my initial suspicion was correct: The writers of this show, after the first season, were thinking, “OMFG, we just got renewed. How the hell do we now make sense of this hash?” > [@NYT](#): > > But that’s not what happened. The pilot was broadcast, the critics loved it and the ratings were huge. “When I got the call the next morning as to what the ratings were, I literally cried,” Lindelof said. “Not with joy, but sort of like, this is too much.” By then he’d been working for five months without a day off. Network shows are grueling, and he was expected to make more than 20 episodes that season. “I wanted the ‘Firefly’ trajectory. Like, we’re going to be kind of pushing up against cancellation, and we’re going to make 13 of these things, and then it will be like this cool cult success.” > > “When you’re a show runner,” Cuse says, “the Holy Grail is if you could have a show that’s both critically acclaimed and a ratings success. I remember Damon walking into my office and saying: ‘Oh, my God. Does that mean we have to keep making this?’ ” ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/26 "2014-07-16T07:02:00Z")
Yeah. . .fuck Lindelof. In his heart, he still thinks he did a good job on ‘Lost’, and I won’t waste another second on one of his shows. Shit, I think a lot of shows with a central mystery introduced in the last several years have suffered because of ‘Lost’, with people avoiding them out of fear of it being another waste of time. Now Lindhoff himself is doing another show? Seriously, fool me once. . . ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/27 "2014-07-16T09:19:21Z")
There really wasn’t any ending that could have worked IMHO. The show became so convoluted with all it’s weird mysteries, unexplained phenomenon, omnipotent or prescient characters, shady all-powerful organizations and time loops that it basically painted itself into a corner of one (or more) of several possible standard “twist” endings: They were all dead They were all kidnapped by aliens They were all clones They were trapped in a VR simulation It’s the same problem they had with ending The X-Files. The show only really worked when it hinted at some vast conspiracy involving shady forces just visible below the surface. As soon as you show what the mystery actually us, then it’s just cheesy and stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@Absinthe\_Anecdote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absinthe_Anecdote)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/28 "2014-07-16T13:02:24Z")
Proposed ending for Lost: The last few minutes of the series finale, we see the characters gathering at a diner. They all come in on by one and chat over an order of onion rings. Jack drops a few quarters in a juke box to play a crappy Journey song, while Kate struggles to parallel park a car in front of the diner. We see her rush to the door to meet her friends, and as she opens to door… Cut to black. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/29 "2014-07-16T13:51:27Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Bumped to provide a link to a NYT interview with showrunner Damon Lindelof. He says he’s really sorry: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/magazine/damon-lindelof-leftovers-lost.html?_r=0) Fuck this guy. I’m not watching _The Leftovers_ because of this idiot. How does this moron still get work? As to the ending of _Lost_, I would have taken anything over what we got. Even aliens(!) would have been better. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/30 "2014-07-16T14:28:43Z")
I was satisfied with the ending at the time. I didn’t expect to be. There were just too many crazy things happening that I didn’t think there was any way they could wrap it up. But the more I hear people complain about it the better the ending looks. I’ve never heard of an ending from anyone else that would have been close to being good. > [@Absinthe\_Anecdote](#): > > Proposed ending for Lost: > > The last few minutes of the series finale, we see the characters gathering at a diner. They all come in on by one and chat over an order of onion rings. > > Jack drops a few quarters in a juke box to play a crappy Journey song, while Kate struggles to parallel park a car in front of the diner. We see her rush to the door to meet her friends, and as she opens to door… Cut to black. Well, at least Lost took the time to craft an ending and didn’t just stop when they ran out of film. > [@Morbo](#): > > But no, it’s just another timid Purgatory-like state that offends nobody and takes no risks. And now he wants me to get into his new HBO show? HAH! No. That isn’t just dismissive, it misses the point. And it maybe misses the fact that purgatory episodes only happened in the last season and even that season had plenty of thrilling time travel, magic, monsters, fights on cliffs and the world about to end. The ending of Lost deals with the fact that everybody dies. People that live long adventurous lives die. People who’s lives were cut unfairly short die. People that have lived far longer then they deserve die. And everybody in between dies. And it had a message that you can cope with that without being horrified. This goes against just about all other tv shows or movies that have a hard time acknowledging that anyone ever dies and that you can always Kobayashi Maru a way to avoid it. Or if people do die it’s one person or some kind of horror movie. So I would say they did take a big chance with their ending. If they wanted to play it safe they could have made a list of all the unsolved mysteries and explained them one by one. Then we could be here complaining about how boring that was. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/31 "2014-07-16T14:35:33Z")
I must point out as always how annoying it was that in the afterlife, Sayid reconnected with the horrible Shannon (was that her name?) - like they were mates for life after their island hookup, cruelly separated for years, and now reunited. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/32 "2014-07-16T14:37:01Z")
My thinking in that last season was that they had prevented the crash and that the “no crash” timeline was now real but that the people still on the island had to stay there because if they left it would all collapse back to the prior reality. (Desmond could go back and forth somehow in his mind without causing that collapse because he was “special”.) This would set up a dynamic where Sawyer, grief-stricken over the loss of Juliet, would be determined to leave and Jack would have to stop him. In essence, they would become the new Jacob and man-in-black. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/33 "2014-07-16T14:59:44Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > But no, it’s just another timid Purgatory-like state that offends nobody and takes no risks. And now he wants me to get into his new HBO show? HAH! That’s not what we got. What we got didn’t make much sense, but it wasn’t Purgatory. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/34 "2014-07-16T15:05:13Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > The island isn’t an island at all, but some kind of spacetime-travel vessel. There are original natives who didn’t come from off of the island, but they aren’t actually people, they’re the vessel’s GUI. When the GUI interacts with people, it does so as a member of their species, and doesn’t just interact with them but gets in their head. It wasn’t designed to work with humans, hence, when it works with humans, the humans go all nuts. > > The vessel is looking for a crew, and most particularly, a captain, so it can take off and go back home. Oooh! That’s very close to my own private explanation for Lost - I was thinking that a crashed alien starship with a reality-warping FTL drive. The smoke monster was a collection of nano-robots that served as the starship/island’s protector, sampling humans from time to time and destroying some due to miscommunication, saving others because it thinks they might be able to pilot/communicate with the ship or help repair it. Occasionally the insanely advanced alien ship’s medical systems do weird things, like re-grow Locke’s leg. The Others and Whitmore are attracted to the unusual abilities shown by the island, but don’t know it’s true nature… And then the writers junked my nice Sci-fi theory for some stupid Eternity Water and brotherly hate. The thread would also not be complete without this: [http://youtu.be/rrcF7dYADsw](http://youtu.be/rrcF7dYADsw) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/35 "2014-07-16T15:46:54Z")
> [@Absinthe\_Anecdote](#): > > Proposed ending for Lost: > > The last few minutes of the series finale, we see the characters gathering at a diner. They all come in on by one and chat over an order of onion rings. > > Jack drops a few quarters in a juke box to play a crappy Journey song, while Kate struggles to parallel park a car in front of the diner. We see her rush to the door to meet her friends, and as she opens to door… Cut to black. Or Juliet wakes up in her bed, hears the shower running in the bathroom and sees Sawyer and we learn that it was all a dream. Or Jack marries some girl he’s been alluding to for six seasons, only to have her die of cancer and he shows up at Kate’s window with a blue French horn with a Dharma logo on it). Or possibly the survivors are charged with the deaths of everyone who died during the course of the show. After a parade of witnesses consisting of past guest stars, Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley are sentenced to jail. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/36 "2014-07-16T16:22:21Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Or Juliet wakes up in her bed, hears the shower running in the bathroom and sees Sawyer and we learn that it was all a dream. > > Or Jack marries some girl he’s been alluding to for six seasons, only to have her die of cancer and he shows up at Kate’s window with a blue French horn with a Dharma logo on it). > > Or possibly the survivors are charged with the deaths of everyone who died during the course of the show. After a parade of witnesses consisting of past guest stars, Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley are sentenced to jail. Or Matthew Fox wakes up in bed next to some actress from “Party of Five” and says, “What a strange dream.” Or the island’s in a snow globe held by an autistic Waaaaalt! (Have we covered all the iconic series endings yet?) ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/37 "2014-07-16T16:34:40Z")
Michael et al. leave on the raft. They are picked up by a fishing boat and return to the island with a rescue fleet following. The end. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/38 "2014-07-16T16:48:15Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > I was satisfied with the ending at the time. I didn’t expect to be. There were just too many crazy things happening that I didn’t think there was any way they could wrap it up. > > But the more I hear people complain about it the better the ending looks. I’ve never heard of an ending from anyone else that would have been close to being good. > > Well, at least Lost took the time to craft an ending and didn’t just stop when they ran out of film. > No. That isn’t just dismissive, it misses the point. And it maybe misses the fact that purgatory episodes only happened in the last season and even that season had plenty of thrilling time travel, magic, monsters, fights on cliffs and the world about to end. > > If they wanted to play it safe they could have made a list of all the unsolved mysteries and explained them one by one. Then we could be here complaining about how boring that was. Right, and that’s the only ending which would have satisfied all the "WTF? people. Still, they made some bad choices. Time travel and changing the past is \*always \*bad. In any case, he’s not suckering me into his new show, I watched the first epi, had dozens of WTF? moments, saw people acting totally irrational, and the stupid fucking cult was just plain bad. I have said it before- before I watch another “Lost” like show, I need to know all the answers have been written down and sealed into a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnal’s porch. And that if the show is canceled, they reveal all. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/39 "2014-07-16T16:49:08Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > Oooh! That’s very close to my own private explanation for Lost - I was thinking that a crashed alien starship with a reality-warping FTL drive. The smoke monster was a collection of nano-robots that served as the starship/island’s protector, sampling humans from time to time and destroying some due to miscommunication, saving others because it thinks they might be able to pilot/communicate with the ship or help repair it. Occasionally the insanely advanced alien ship’s medical systems do weird things, like re-grow Locke’s leg. The Others and Whitmore are attracted to the unusual abilities shown by the island, but don’t know it’s true nature… EXACTLY! EXACTLY! I’d forgotten all the details but I swear to god everything you just said is part of what I thought as well (except the reality warping FTL drive)! It’s so nice to hear I’m not crazy. This would have made a genuinely satisfying explanation IMO. And at the end, some people could choose to go with the ship, others to be left behind, that kind of thing. Oh it would have been so nice. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162/40 "2014-07-16T16:58:39Z")
I agree with **msmith537** - they wrote themselves into a corner (actually, twelve or fifteen corners). There was no way to resolve the dozens of loose ends. They never resolved it because when they came up with all of their plot twists, they had no idea what it was all in service of - it was just “here’s another mystery to distract you from the fact that we never resolved the last mystery”. Shaggy dog stories aren’t any fun after the third season of one. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-what-would-have-satisfied-you/611162.md?page=3)