If not, here's a NY TIMES review, in case anyone wants to get a discussion started.

I understand what the NY Times review was saying, and I agree that the episode did leave the question did any of what happened on the island really matter. Did they save the world by keeping Smokie from leaving? Was it important for Jack to save the island other than saving the lives of the few people left there?

I thought the alternative reality world was going to show that it was important that they went to the island either on a global scale or at least in their own lives. But obviously I was wrong.

But if they hadn't gone to the island, they never would have known each other or at least grew to love each other in a really profound way, which I thought was clearly demonstrated in the church scene.

So what I took away from the show was the idea that what we do in this life isn't as important as who we love. And that idea really resonated with me, but then I am kind of a sappy person.

I am curious to see what others took away from the show.

I had a number of issues with the finale, but, overall, I thought it was ok. I try not to think about the finale too much because the more I think about it, the more the plot holes and inconsistencies anger me. But...like I said, while I was watching it, I thought it was done well. Only a few eye-rolling moments.

Edited to add: Just read the Times article. I agree with it 100%.

The show was always a fusion of fantasy and the ultimate reality. As soon as they started killing off main characters, I realized that this show was dealing with death. But the fantasy (the island) kept me going - it was the constant. The flashbacks, flashforwards, and flash sideways were about the mysteries of the characters, but the greatest mystery was always the island. The mysteries of the characters were usually solved, but the island's mysteries just continued to go deeper.

If everyone was dead, then they had to have died when they blew up the hydrogen bomb. That's when the sideways timeline started (in 1975 or 2004 depending on the passengers' perspective). The flash sideways episodes presumably happen in 2004 within a week or two of the original flight. Jack's island death (in the present) in this episode should have had very little to do with his awakening.

If this is some convergence of time and people like the NYT suggests, then why is Hurley there in 2004 in the first place, or even Kate and the other island escapees for that matter. This wasn't all about Jack. Each of the remaining characters had their own episodes this season. I don't buy that Hurley lived for years and years on the island with Ben and suddenly ended up back on the original flight with island amnesia.

One of the reasons readers read is to experience a satisfactory story and a story is not as satisfactory if the resolution doesn't work. So if writers can learn from the plot holes and inconsistencies of the ending of LOST, then the purpose of this topic is to provide a place for writers to learn from them.

I can appreciate the preference to not dwell on things that made the ending not work, because it's frustrating to invest so much time and creative energy in an ending that doesn't resolve a story satisfactorily.

I suppose the fans will have to live with what they've got...which strikes me, an outsider to the whole thing, as more than some shows have gotten when they came to an end.

(Happens all the time...I was a loyal viewer of the sitcom "Benson," right up to the last episode...Benson and the Governor were both running for the Governor's office...they were watching TV together and it was announced, "...and the winner is..." and then it was TO BE CONTINUED. Only it never was, that was it, the series was canceled, and I was so mad about the lack of resolution that I've only watched an episode here and there.

What if somehow they had made it so all the flashbacks had not really happened?

What if they had made it so all the flashforwards had never happened?

We all would have felt robbed. Why? Because what happened off the island was something we could trust was true.

This ending negated the whole final season in my mind.

I had anticipated two endings - one happy, one sad - one good, one evil - one happily ever after, one painful and somber - two timelines separated by personal sacrifice. I feel this would have matched the dichotomy of the structure and theme of the story better than what we saw. Instead, the flash sideways was only a ruse.

I do agree with the "lazy writing" charge. To wit:

I didn't like that the "light" was nothing more than a big bathtub, and I'm still not sure WHY they had to drain that big bathtub. What exactly was that supposed to do again? And why was Desmond so important to everything? It certainly wasn't so he could drain the big bathtub 'cause Jack didn't seem to have any problems putting the cork back in.

Which leads to the whole "cork in the bottle" metaphor. Everything in Lost seemed to point to some good vs evil showdown that never really materialized. Jacob and the Man in Black were nothing more than humans, and neither one was particularly good or evil (I'll blithely skip over the matricide 'cause Mommy Dearest did try to kill the dude.) So what was the deal with the good vs evil? As far as I could tell, the Man in Black would've just opened up a porn parlor, or maybe he might've just been a deadbeat, if he ever got off the island.

And I'm skipping over the physical implausibilities that the last episode had: a plane that still had fuel, and a hydraulic problem solved with duct tape; Ben trapped underneath a tree, and everyone unable to move the tree off him..and literally the very next scene he's up and about; Fake Locke being shot in the back when we've been shown that he's a badass that bullets can't touch...

I think what really bothers me is that the writers didn't actually have a beginning, a middle, and an end, as they said in numerous interviews. They had a beginning, and had no clue as to where to take it so they took the easiest way out with "white light", and a church that apparently catered to all denominations.

I'm not particularly a spiritual person, but I would've been fine with the Island as the Garden of Eden, with Jacob and the Man in Black as cherubim left to guard it. Then one of them getting bored with the duty so he causes a plane crash in the hopes to get off the Island.

Instead we're treated to some vague mystical mumbo-jumbo, and what basically amounts to a half-assed Jacob's Ladder. (Or, if movies aren't your thing, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge".)

I think whether or not the finale of Lost worked depended on your expectations. I can see that if you were most intrigued by the mystery of the island, that this ending would be disappointing.

I never expected the island to be explained, and I really couldn't think of an explanation that wouldn't be a little silly. I only cared about the characters and watching their complex relationships evolve by the unexpected challenges that the island threw at them. So for me, the ending with all of them reunited in death was very satisfying.

I think all of this goes back to the promises made at the beginning of stories, and the responsibility of the author to keep those promises.

If you start the book action-packed but end it with a sappy family drama, the readers are going to feel betrayed.

I think the flaw in Lost was in the beginning not the end. I think Lost made two promises. It definitely presented a very character-focused story, but it also presented a very interesting mystery in the secrets of the island. The audience that was more interested in the characters got their promise, but those who wanted the mystery were left hanging.

I just wanted to counter KDW's negative reviews with one positive review. There may be some strong language here, but I thought it was funny and insightful.

http://jezebel.com/5546559/lost-finale-recap-case-closed

ETA: I just had to address this one point that Rich made.

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I didn't like that the "light" was nothing more than a big bathtub, and I'm still not sure WHY they had to drain that big bathtub. What exactly was that supposed to do again? And why was Desmond so important to everything? It certainly wasn't so he could drain the big bathtub 'cause Jack didn't seem to have any problems putting the cork back in.

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Only Desmond could pull the cork out because the pool was filled with water. And whatever the light was, it seemed to behave like electricity. Since water conducts electricity, Desmond was essentially being electrocuted as he entered the pool of water to pull out the cork. Anyone else would have died in the water before they could pull the cork out.

When Jack put the cork back in, there was no water in the pool, so he could enter the pool without being electrocuted.

I think it was a book on writing that Kathleen recommended some time ago (can't remember which one) that said the beginning of a story is like a tree trunk, and there are multiple ways the story can branch off, and again branch off of that. But once you've finished the story and you look back at the twists and turns, you see that the path that the story took was the only path it could have taken. The ending was inevitable because of what came before.

In the case of Lost, I am not looking back over the past six years and seeing that this particular ending was inevitable.

The show changed course so many times. First it was about getting off the Island, then about the Others, then about the Dharma Initiative and getting back to the Island, then about Jacob and the Man in Black. The overall story didn't travel up just branch of the tree but many branches. The plot was messy and complicated, which made it near impossible to resolve.

So, they didn't try. If they writers of Lost had focused one overall goal for the show -- i.e. let's get the hell off this rock -- the resolution would have been simple. But maybe when the writers saw that they could not tie up their messy plot with a neat little bow, that is when they decided to go for an emotional resolution instead. If you want to look back to season 1, they chose to follow through on the main character theme: "If we don't live together, we die alone."

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bshapiro/2010/05/28/lost-finale-best-show-in-television-history-comes-to-the-end/#more-354038

I bet one of them is M*A*S*H.

Okay...I'll throw out my three choices, in alphabetical order: "Barney Miller," "Gilligan's Island," and "I Love Lucy." (Close on them for fourth is The Show I Don't Name, the one I wrote Internet Fan Fiction for but don't want to be seen promoting that questionable-but-fun activity by naming it.)

I watched The Matrix today, and found that this would be a better example of my disappointment in the ending of Lost. The first movie was pure genius. The second movie was great visually, but introduced what I call "cotton candy" philosophy - all big and sticky with very little substance. The third movie was OK, but it became so convoluted that I was glad for the trilogy to be over. Lost seemed to have something profound to say, but instead ended with "Ha, the island wasn't purgatory, the flash sideways was! Fooled ya."

I think the most satisfying beginning to a show was "The Cosby Show" pilot (which happened to be on a local channel this morning when I got up), fun and funny all the way through and a compelling bit involving Theo, Monopoly money, basic economic facts, and the idea of "regular people."

(You may gather from my choices that I'm an aficionado of the half-hour sitcom, filmed or animated---which is definitely my preferred choice of television entertainment. There are a few hour-or-longer shows I like, but not a whole lot compared to the sitcoms---"Andy Griffith" included.)

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Did "Lost" start well? Did the ending live up to the beginning?

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