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Are you ready to say goodbye to the characters on LOST? The Comedy Examiner isn't.
For the past six seasons, ABC's LOST has kept us confused, entertained, and constantly guessing. While the series isn't an overt comedy, it has comedic elements, and-- like anything else in this world-- it's just pop-culturally relevant enough to have drawn the attention of Examiner.com's own Comedy Examiner. In the following commentary, the Comedy Examiner shares some thoughts on ABC's best-show-that-isn't-According to Jim as the season-- the show's final one-- draws to a close. Read on for the snarky commentary, my gentle Examiner readers...
About a month or so ago, I decided to lay out my feelings on the final season of LOST in Examiner.com article format. That article generated a good amount of mail from readers who had their own thoughts on the series, which leads me to believe there are more than a couple LOST fans out there in the Examiner-reading crowd. Perhaps some of them fall into the category we've gathered to discuss today: freakishly fanatical, totally unreasonable, insane LOST fans. Maybe you're one of 'em. Tell me, do you see any hidden messages in this picture:
Listen, we've got just a handful of episodes left until the big series finale-- an event that's been confirmed to dominate ABC's schedule the night it airs over the course of five hours (a two-hour retrospective before the finale, the two-hour finale, followed by an hour-long special hosted by LOST geek Jimmy Kimmel)-- and it's starting to seem like the proximity to "The End" is getting LOST fans worked up into a nonsensical lather. My hope is that fans of the series will make their peace with the fact that they may not get all the answers they want/need by the time this thing comes to an end. And while the picture above doesn't have any hidden messages, many believed this one did:
That's the "Last Supper"-inspired cast photo that ABC released prior to this season's run of episodes. Fans poured over this thing like they were Robert "Ponytail" Langdon himself, hoping to discern some clues or perhaps a "DHARMA/DaVinci Code" embedded within the confines of the photo. People claimed that Locke being center-stage made him a Christ figure, which in turn meant that he'd been betrayed, or that he was all-powerful, or that he enjoyed carpentry. Others claimed that the cast members on the left would align themselves with Locke, while the ones on the right would oppose him. Still others claimed that they couldn't understand why Jeff Fahey hadn't been killed off the show yet, especially since he'd once starred in The Lawnmower Man. I couldn't help but agree. OK, now look at this recently-released pic:
As you can see around the edges there, I've had to crop the picture to fit the Examiner's brutally restrictive page width. Damn you, Examiner! How do you think Miles feels to be stricken from the record?! Anyway, this photo appeared on ABC's LOST page the other day, and some people online flew into a tizzy because they assumed there must be some signifigance to the fact that all the characters are shown as being the same height. It's at this point that LOST fans officially went off the deep end in terms of crazy conspiracy theories. They're all the same height so the picture looks flush, ya rubes, not because there's a hidden message. Get it together, for God's sake, you're embarrassing me and your mother. Side note: Has any show ever had this many cast photos taken? Go ahead and look on Google Images-- there's a bajillion of 'em. And, yeah, I counted.
LOST fanatics like to pretend like they're not as nerdy as, say, Star Trek fans, but let's just come right out and say it: we're just as bad, if not worse. At least Star Trek fans had their plotlines clarified for them episode-to-episode. There was never any huge mystery on Star Trek, such as a twenty-story alligator-headed Egyptian statue on a beach, or a giant cloud of black smoke chasing people through a polar bear-infested jungle. There was the crew, some dudes in red shirts that got killed, and some ugly-ass aliens: boom, the end. LOST is a never-ending mind-screw, and that's only perpetuated this sorta behavior.
LOST has been frustratingly short on answers sometimes, but as this final season wraps itself up, it's been more and more generous with the answers we've been looking for all along. Although, I gotta say that I'm amazed to report that a friend of mine who's just gotten into the series has been hanging out at my place, watching the first few seasons, and I've had to answer several questions he's posed to me with "Well, you'll see...but only once you get to Season Six." Point being, the biggest mysteries the show's given us-- What is Smokey? Where did the Black Rock come from? Why is Kate so annoying?-- have only recently been answered...and there are many others that may not be answered at all. Are the die-hard fanatics that follow this series going to accept that?
It's unlikely. Fan-boys are known for their ability to turn on something they love at the drop of a hat. All along, LOST's detractors have been up in the fans' faces, telling them that the writers on this series had no idea what they're doing, that they've been making it up as they go along, and that it'll all end in a big, smoldering trainwreck of a finale. The fan-boys have repudiated this line of thinking, but mark my words: if LOST's writers don't deliver the goods as far as answers go, the fanatics are going to turn on their beloved series in droves. Which, of course, is lame as hell and just goes to show how immature people really are, but whatcanyado?
Here's my suggestions on things LOST fan-boys need to do to prepare themselves for the finale to their precious show. And, yes, this includes you. You know who you are. Don't pretend like you're not involved in this like the rest of us. Have some backbone, man. And follow these very simple guidelines while preparing yourselves for the big show at the end of May:
1. WATCH TWIN PEAKS-- Remember Twin Peaks? Remember how they answered all the burning questions fans had, only to find themselves forced to introduce new, lame-ass mysteries to the show in order to keep it going? That's what woulda happened if LOST had done the same. The journey's more important than the destination, and the epic crash-and-burn that Twin Peaks gave us proves that.
2. MEET A MEMBER OF THE OPPOSITE SEX, CONVERSE WITH THEM-- You may have forgotten, but about twenty feet away from you is a front door. Outside this door are many other people, many of whom have better things to do than over-analyze frame-by-frames from a sci-fi/adventure TV show. If you talk to some of these people, you can form a friendship-- or, hey, a relationship, remember those?-- with them. This will be key to moving on after LOST wraps up (you're going to need something to do, and you and I both know "reading a book" isn't a likely option), so you may as well get started on it now, Slappy.
3. STOP TRYING TO FIND MEANING IN EVERY LAST BIT OF LOST MINUTIAE YOU COME ACROSS-- Not everything means something, Sherlock. Spending hour after hour trying to crack the code on a photo of Hurley eating peanut butter ("He's using two fingers! What does it mean?!") isn't helping you ween yourself off the LOST experience. If you accept that everything isn't going to be neatly resolved with an explicit answer from LOST's writers, you're going to be a lot more comfortable with whatever note the show decides to leave us on.
Of course, this'll all be ignored by the true LOST die-hards. I'm probably going to ignore my own advice and get all kindsa bent outta shape about the way that Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof decide to wrap this thing up. There'll be things that we're dissatisfied with, and other things that we're content with. As fans of one of the best shows that's ever aired on network television, we have to try and put all this in perspective. And, failing that, we can always storm the offices of ABC and burn that place to the frigging ground.
Stay tuned for more funny videos, news, reviews, and more from the Comedy Examiner's Office in the coming weeks, folks. We've got all manner of things to keep you distracted while you're supposed to be getting productive at work, so feel free to check back in with us often. If you're the commitment-type, hit the "Subscribe" button up top to get all Comedy Examiner articles delivered to your inbox free of charge. If that's moving too fast for you, check out one of these other recent Comedy Examiner articles:
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(photos: top-- slashfilm.com, next-- myspace.com, next--fancast.com, next-- abc.com, next-- popwatch.ew.com, next-- takehimwithyou.com, next-- givememyremote.com, next-- gamespot.com, next-- lollost815.com)
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