Lost: It'll all be over soon

This is the last post before the series finale of Lost. I'm not suggesting I plan to write about the show here; I'm merely acknowledging it as something that came to mind when I was sitting here trying to think of what to type.

But while we're on the topic...

I have no theory about how it will end. I have no idea what would even make for a satisfactory ending. However, I can say this: When the final episode is done, we'll finally have an end to the incessant coverage that has dominated the media for weeks.

It's not unlike how the sports media beat to death the subject of the Super Bowl in the weeks before the game; it's a test of the audience's ability to not be burnt out on the topic before the event that's the source of the coverage even begins. However, I suppose die-hard fans are pretty much the same regardless of the specific area of fandom; those who follow pro football seriously can discuss the Super Bowl ad nauseum, so it's probable that Lost fans, who have (and have had) myriad outlets for obsessing about the show do not consider all the recent attention from the media to be something that detracts from the pending finale.



I've noted in the past about how I was not on the Lost bandwagon at first, and how I only got into watching the show because my wife became excited about it after discussions with co-workers who were avid fans of the show. I was never a die-hard, nor will I ever be a die-hard, but I can say that it was a good show. It was groundbreaking in some of what it proved could be done, structure-wise, on network TV. However, as I thought a couple years ago (when we were watching the DVDs of the first four seasons frantically to be caught up before season 5 started) whether it will be regarded as a great show will depend largely on how it ends.

That's not suggesting the producers need to answer all the questions raised during the series—frankly, that almost certainly would be bad, as part of the appeal is figuring out the puzzle, and some bits need to be left for fans to debate for as long as there are people who remember the show—but they need to come up with something great to justify all those groundbreaking elements, and not make it a show that was weird for the sake of being weird. Not that there's nothing worthwhile to a show being weird for the sake of being weird, but that doesn't make it great, in and of itself; there needs to be some larger payoff than that.

So we'll see.

Well, sort of. Those who watch will all see the same show, but whether the ending proves satisfactory will vary from viewer to viewer. Those who have high expectations probably run the highest risk of being disappointed by the end of the day. Just sayin'.

Expectations or not, there's one type of viewer who will have it the worst: the one who, for whatever reason, cannot watch the show when it airs live. Presumably that viewer will be recording it, but let's face it: come 11:30 tonight the internet and TV news will start buzzing about how it ended; there won't be enough times for someone to say "spoiler warning" to keep something big from sneaking past. So anyone who wants to be surprised, to have a genuine reaction to the ending—whatever it is—but who isn't in front of a TV tuned to ABC come 9:00 will have to avoid every conceivable media outlet until he can watch the recording. It will be on par with trying to avoid finding out who won the Super Bowl the day after the game.

And with this, you just know some thoughtless "friend" will go out of his way to make his Facebook status the ending as soon as the end credits roll. (Forget privacy stuff. That is probably reason to quit the site.)

Of course, at least the Super Bowl is aired at the same time to both sides of the country. Given the time difference, the West Coast feed won't even commence until after the East Coast has already seen the final moments. So over here in our time zone we'll be avoiding the internet and any channels other than our local affiliates from 6:00 our time until 11:00. Our phones will be off. Heck, we may even unplug the land line just so none of our friends in the Eastern time zone don't get tempted to call us at 8:30 our time and spoil anything.

In the past one merely needed to avoid the guys talking around the water cooler at the office the next morning to escape overhearing a spoiler. Now it's a matter of turning oneself into a complete media hermit as well.

Our modern advances are not always what they're cracked up to be.

You know what would be the best place to be to avoid having the ending spoiled? An island. Hmm... let's see if Oceanic has any flights...