There are spoilers in this.
iO9 has a really irritating article about Lost. It’s founded on the premise that BSG’s finale was terrible. I don’t agree with that, but I’m willing to accept that not everyone agrees with me (which, sidenote, I was not willing to do on the night of the BSG finale, when I was drunk, snatched Chad Fogland’s glasses off of his face, and threw them on the ground when he didn’t agree with me).
What pisses me off is saying that BSG botched it and then going on and on about how Lost might also fall victim to such a thing and that it needs to avoid all of BSG’s mistakes.
To me, this is where Lost most clearly distinguishes itself from BSG. In his essay, Templeton says that BSG lost sight of its true goal of character development in its final episodes. Lost seems to be not only sticking to these character roots, but moving even further towards them in its final seasons.
Are you kidding me, Goldmeier? Lost is a fucking mess. I stopped caring about any of the characters around season 3. It’s constantly introducing new ones, killing them off when the actors misbehave, and just plain forgetting about people. It briefly gave us a glimpse of Rose and Bernard this season, only to say, “Uh, yeah, they, like, don’t care about what’s going on ‘cause they’re all peace loving and staying on the island. Whatever - just look away, ‘cause we don’t have time to weave them into our giant clusterfuck of mythology.” Or how about the fact that Locke is dead now? He’s dead. His whole existance up to this point has apparently only mattered so far as he is now the possessed meat puppet of someone who might be a four-toed god? Maybe? I don’t know?
It’s all well and good to have the opinion that BSG didn’t end in a way that satisfied you. It’s another to compare it unfavorably to a show that hasn’t known what it’s doing for four fucking seasons. To posit that Lost has the potential to fuck up its finale is to pretend that there’s even a base of solid storytelling to fuck up.
