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Lost: The New Man in Charge

"We deserve answers!"

[Spoilers for the Lost series finale below!]

It's no secret that after six years of analyzing and writing about Lost, I was disappointed in the finale – mostly with the parallel universe turning out to be the nondenominational antechamber of heaven. Yes, I was deeply moved; I cried, and not just a little. I still get upset thinking about that final shot of Jack and Vincent. I'll readily admit that in many ways, the finale was a strong, emotional way to end the series, even if it wasn't my cup of tea.

So I finally succumbed and checked out the eleven-minute "epilogue" on the season six DVD, hoping for the best. And I wish I hadn't bothered.

"The New Man in Charge" made me feel like the producers were admitting, yes, we screwed up, we didn't answer a bunch of questions. So we'll fix it and give you something. And in the process, we'll cheat you again because you have to buy the DVD set to see it. (Well, not really, because you can rent the disk, or watch it on the net with Turkish subtitles, but still.)



Basically, this minisode gave us eleven minutes of exposition and a laundry list of answers. Where the Dharma food drops came from. Why there were polar bears. How the bird was able to say "Hurley." Why pregnant women on the Island died. Why Pierre Chang used aliases. The reason for Room 23. What happened to Walt, and why he was "special." The last moment showed Ben, Walt and Hurley in a Dharma minivan leaving Santa Rosa for the Island. Come on. Were they going to drive there? Would the minivan have sprouted wings? Why were they driving on the wrong side of the road?

Would it have hurt the producers of Lost to have inserted some of these answers into the final season? Or couldn't they have just told us what the Island is, instead? (Actually, I don't think the producers ever knew what the Island is.) If they wanted to give us an epilogue with exposition that actually meant something, I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had taken place on the Island, maybe with Ben and Hurley talking with Rose and Bernard over Dharma Initiative tea and cookies.

The truth is that the producers of Lost made some mistakes in the final season, and this epilogue didn't fix anything. It was too little, too late. For me, anyway.

One out of four polar bears,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

6 comments:

  1. Interesting that you interpreted the epilogue as an attempt to "fix" the mistakes of the finale. The whole time I was watching it I felt like it was Darlton sticking a finger in the eye of the "we demand answers!" fandom, as if to say, "See? Here's how horribly uninteresting and dramatically unsatisfying an episode just stuffed with a mythology download would be."

    I think I would have preferred Hurley and Ben have tea with Bernard and Rose, also. At least that would have been an extra 11 minutes spent with characters we really enjoyed. And perhaps it would have provided better insight into Hurley and Ben's reign on the island. Which is what I thought the thing was supposed to do. Sigh.

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  2. What an interesting interpretation, Jess. Do you really think they were making fun of us?

    I thought they shouldn't have bothered, obviously, but I also really thought it was a serious but ultimately inept attempt to make the fans happy. Or less unhappy, at any rate.

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  3. I actually liked the epilogue, for two reasons:

    1- it confirmed many theories I had about some mysteries;

    2- you know that friend who, even if you see him/her for half an hour and you don't talk about anything interesting, it's still so great to see him/her? That's LOST for me.

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  4. I'm with Gustavo on this one. I know it wasn't anything special, but it was Lost, and I'd missed it, so I enjoyed it.

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  5. A poor and desperate attempt to increase DVD sales with promises of answers. And it delivers, albeit in an insultingly simplistic way that makes you wish you hadn't bothered for 6 years.

    I'm with Billie. If it were as easy as that, it could have come when I was still interested, during the televised episodes.

    I think Jess' interpretation - that the the producers were making fun of us - is a prime example of what held people's interest in the whole phenomenology of Lost; viewers giving the producers too much credit and looking for purpose and meaning when there is non. I doubt whomever threw this epilogue together even stopped to think of there being a hidden meaning or agenda behind it, other than the obvious, to give the fans yet more false hope and therefore a reason to buy the DVD.

    That said, my harsh and pessimistic opinion doesn't mean I didn't love the show and won't ever watch it again. I can just see it for what it is...

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  6. Oh this was 100% making fun of the fans. They moan constantly about how fans who wanted answers wern't really fans at all, "that it was about the charactors and their journey" etc etc and then have the cheek to turn round and say, "okay want some answers? Buy the DVD"
    It was obvious they were literally sticking the middle finger up to the fans when they had one of the men scream, "I WANT ANSWERS!" practically throwing a wobbler. They sold their show on mystery. Ultimately, this episode left a bitter taste in my mouth and completly undermines the ending of Lost. I'll never buy a DVD from these guys again.

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