LOST (ABC) (Final Episode)
I don't have much to say. On the ho-hum side. I was expecting and hoping for something more. The show seems to have satisfied some viewers and really aliented another batch. I'm somewhere in between. The 2 1/2 hour finale didn't really bother with most of the nagging questions posted by long time Lost addicts, like the Dharma Initiative, why the women were losing their babies, etc. Instead focusing on a silly fight between the Locke Monster and Jack. I guess I was okay with the sideways world being a sort of purgatory, but the episode actually begged more questions than it answered. Was the island real at all? Was the entire thing a dream? Or just the sideways world part? Is Ben choosing to be a ghost the rest of his life? I mean - I'm not kidding. There are literally hundreds of questions I have, but I'm sure they're all explainable. Did this have an emotionally satisfying ending? I guess it did. The Sopranos might've left a lot of loose ends, but for the most part, you knew where the central relationships stood. This was like...I don't know. I had settled in for a fantastic night of mind-bending television and thought this was one of the weaker episodes in a way than many I'd seen before it. It relied so heavily on the super-natural that I'm not sure I quite connected with it. I am a TV geek and sure I could do 9 pages on this, but the finale left me so cold, I think I'm just kind of over it.
Grade: I have no idea. I don't know what to make of it. I liked the series so much for the most part, I guess in time I might have a different take on the finale. For now, I'm kind of frustrated with it. I suppose in some ways it makes sense even though the show broke most of the rules it had set up itself....and the last shots suggested that there was no Island life, yet someone said that you saw the shelters they had built....so, again. I guess my grade is just a sigh and a shrug.
That said, I loved a lot of what I saw these last few seasons, and I think sometimes the momementum and forward motion of a show is far better than its conclusion. At no point would I suggest this was bad like the Seinfeld finale (the worst of all time perhaps) but this was more of a big fat mediocre disappointment. I keep saying I'm done and writing more, because I think this one of those debates best left in cyberspace to the real Lost-heads. For me, as someone who has seen every episode, I was hoping for something that moved me and blew my mind, I didn't get that here, but there was some closure and the dog lived. So I guess...I'm just going to stop. I really don't know what to say. I just know this, great final episodes make you re-evaluate a series and want to go back and watch the whole thing again. The Sopranos did that. Cheers did that. Prison Break did such a good finale that it redeemed any negativity about the final season. That Lost would enter that group of fine endings seemed a foregone conclusion.
It's funny, the other night when Evangaline Lilly went on Letterman the other night, Letterman said the only ending that would make him happy would be one in which the whole thing was declared a dream. An appalled Lilly (who also announced she doesn't watch tv - what an intellectual!) said "That is the least imaginative thing I've ever heard." Was she trying to send a message to her producers, or was she watching a different show?
Either way, Lost provided us with years of good television, and some of the hours were ridiculously good. I just think the final batch of episodes being a match between a smoke monster (who you can apparently kill by throwing him on a rock) and Jack, because they were fighting over...a light in the island under the rocks I think....I don't know.
Moving on.
UPDATE: I wrote that last night in the heat of dissapointment. Now that the ending has sunk in somewhat, I'm much more forgiving and started looking at Lost as a whole series instead of one episode.
That said, Lost really was a breathrough network show. There may never be anything again like it, and while I might not have liked all the choices they ultimately made, I still think the ambition here is not to be ignored and will probably never be duplicated. The truth was, I think we all wanted an emotional ending and not something caught up in answering every question posed along the way. I'm not sure I'm really...moved by the answer, and I have some burning questions I would like answered that I felt could've been resolved last night, but I wonder with this final piece of the puzzle how Lost will eventually settle in my mind.
I'm withholding a final grade till I get a chance to see it again.
THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE (ABC)
This was a pretty good year. We all know who won and if you don't, you can look it up. Sufice it to say that I thought while the wrong person won, it was clearly a case of the popular thing happening. It seems like the audience wrote the ending. And what the fuck was Cyndi Lauper singing? Could she have picked anything more obscure? Brett was fantastic on the show, but I don't think Holly Robinson could've been beat by anything but Brett becoming a national hero, which is exactly what happened. It was no accident that Snapple gave both winners the exact amount of money.
Grade: B
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