I've been dreading writing this, cause that would be admitting that it was all over. It's rare for television to move you on such an emotional and metaphysical level, territory in which we often relegate to the cinema, and I think that is why LOST is so special to a great many people. It was a show wrapped within emotion, featuring flawed, yet wonderful characters, and fascinating fantasy. It's cinematic in every way, a great opera for our times, much to how great pieces of cinema like Star Wars or E.T. were for their times. There has never been another show like it, and I don't think there ever will be.
I look back over the entire series, and I do not know what to say. The story all started with a plane crash, and the survivors finding themselves on an island far removed from the rest of the world in the middle of nowhere, where we found our flawed, but increasingly likable characters. But mystery surrounded them everywhere they turned, when they learned that this island was not your normal rock in the ocean. A mysterious monster looking like wisps of smoke prowled the jungles, where polar bears and wild hogs roamed, alongside the islands original inhabitants, the Others, and a mysterious leader of the Others that no one has truly seen, called Jacob. As our castaways, Jack, Locke, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer, the whole gang (too many to mention) tried to survive and find a way home, they went to the depths of their own moral fibers, traversing between past, present, and future (literally), till all was set right and the island was saved. Finally, it was time to move on.
While there was mystery in LOST, it was not the question as to what was the Smoke Monster or who was Jacob that really mattered in the end, but it was the characters themselves that we met that first day when the plane crashed. See, what made LOST something so unforgettable is that, yes, there was the mystery about the island, but it was the mystery involving these characters and their relationships that kept us entranced for six seasons. We grew to love them, warts and all, as if they were real people. When they died, I felt as if someone I loved had passed away. That was the true brilliance of this show. To create fictional characters that are so much like real people that we think of them as such, we feel them, and carry them with us through our daily lives. Even Jack or Kate, my least favorite characters on the show, I rooted for them to find happiness and redemption, and when they found it, I felt all warm inside.
Ultimately, LOST isn't a show about mystery or suspense, but it's a show about love and redemption, but most importantly of all... Hope. I'll never forget the finale to the first season when the castaways built a raft and Sawyer, Michael, and Jin, steered it off into the ocean, to the great unknown. That is very much how the whole show was to me. We were going to the great unknown to swelling Michael Giacchino music.
I know I'm young, but I don't know if I've ever seen television quite like this before, but I'm beginning to understand just how much of a rarity a show like this is. I will greatly miss youLOST, from the bottom of my heart. Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sun & Jin, Sayid, Ben, Locke, all of you guys. I grew up with you. You all saw me through high school, into college, through some pretty tough times, and now into times of fascination and hope for a better future where I'm no longer frightened, but can just relax and enjoy my life forever and always. Most importantly of all, it's taught me that hope never dies.
Thank you, LOST. You get an A++++!!!!!!
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