The Syndicate

Happy LOST Day! Hard to believe it's been 12 years since the series premier.

Even though they tried to soften her up with her death-episode flashback, I never found myself missing Shannon after she was gone. I understand the purpose of Ana Lucia but I never liked her character either. I maybe approached empathy with her but she wasn't a character who was made to last.

I also thought that Claire and Charlie got lame. Charlie got a bit stale in Season 2 and only really got interesting in Season 3 because of Desmond's flashes. Claire was cool through Season 2. Season 3 she was just background blah. Par Avion was a lame episode in my book, at least the Claire-focused parts. I still found myself feeling meh towards her in Season 6.

I loved Jin and Sun's arc through the series. My wife and I were livid when they died. They overcame their personal failings as husband and wife and finally got their chance to live for each other but then died with each other. It sucked how they kept getting pulled apart (Season 1 & 2- the raft; Season 4, 5 & 6- the bomb/timewarp Island). I've always said that the showrunners never knew what to do with them, big picture wise. They made up but then they were kept apart. When they got back together, they weren't allowed to live happily ever after because the Island was supposed to be the most important place for everyone in the afterlife. As a father, I am sad that Jin never got to be a father to his daughter. With both of them dying, their poor little girl is probably being raised by Sun's horrible mother and father.

Someone mentioned the music from Lost earlier. I love the incidental music. Powerful stuff. Movie quality stuff. I own every season soundtrack and the two-disc set for the last couple episodes.

Because I'm a list-loving nerdball accountant, here's an article I found this weekend- they tried to rank every epsiode of lost from worst to best. I disagree with quite a bit on the list (though I agree with their #1 episode) but it might be fun to see where you guys think each episode ranks.

Has the re-watch started yet?

My wife has asked me the last three summers why we don't do a re-watch. I'll follow this thread with you guys even if we don't do it this year. Back when I ran the DarkUFO Lost Fantasy League, I pretty much had to gain a near encyclopedic knowledge of the show (unavoidable when you watch each episode five or six times in as many day week in and out). I haven't lost too much of that, so I'll reminisce along with you guys one way or another.

MovingPictures07 wrote:That said, I haven't re-watched LOST since it ended because I'm afraid to reconfront the ending, thinking I will hate it more this time rather than initially feeling good about it but gradually turning indifferent the more I thought about it in the weeks after finale.

See I'm more worried about what the last two seasons will do to my perception of the first two seasons. I loved Season 1 and was a major Locke fan until the end of Season 3. Locke was built up for so long to be this important character but later on we learn that he was nothing more than a pawn in MIB's plot. That realization crushed me hard. I think I'm worried to re-watch those early episodes and feel like they're just a waste of time. That and I will probably want to analyze every episode and character in relation to the overall plot. If nothing else, Season 6 informed us that some characters weren't all that necessary.

To me, Season 6 just seemed like an entirely different show. The showrunners kept so much of the Island mythology bottled up and then dumped it on us, beginning with The Temple and ending with Jacob & MIB's history. They should have injected a little bit more of all that starting with Season 4 to ease us into it.

The flash-sideways were a source of frustration to me because it kept the possibility of an alternate reality open for far too long. I never subscribed to the Alternate Timeline camp. I was firmly entrenched in the Whatever Happened Happened theory. That's just how I approach the theoretical concept of time travel in general. Had Desmond started his mission to "wake up" the rest of the survivors from the get-go, the flash-sideways would have had a better sense of urgency and purpose.

A few of you from the STV forums might remember that I ran the Lost Fantasy League on DarkUFO. I think by Season 6 I was getting a little burnt out from all the work that the LFL required every week. That might be another contributing factor in my attitude toward Season 6. I'm okay with the finale. I don't love and I don't hate it. Yeah, it leaves a few things dangling but I can accept the resolution it gave us.

The Constant is still my favorite episode though. Desmond rocked.