LOST continues to be a griping and very interesting show. The plot lines continue to intrigue and baffle, the good buys and the bad guys continue to evolve, the time/space continuum continues to be in flux. LOST seems to be a universe unto itself, but the farther we dive into the life and times of Benjamin Linus, the more the show starts to look like Alais. I loved the first few seasons of Alias-but it seriously lost its way in the end. Alias’s wrap up made even less sense than the silliness of rival super secret government spy cells fighting over ancient magical machines.
LOST has always been heading down that road itself, but once it stopped being the story of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 and became the Life and Times of Ben the Rat-well, it has lost something. We now have the major story line turned into a fight between two apparently superhuman beings with unlimited power and influence-who can’t seem to be kill each other. Are Ben and Widmore the same person in slightly different time lines? As always, the great thing about LOST is that there are nothing but questions and never any answers.
The killing off of several major characters this season is both shocking and expected. After all, only six, or was it seven?, people get off the Island and return to the Real World. So either the others have to be left behind or they have to be killed before they can be rescued. It is also somewhat surprising that Ben can summon the smoke monster, which was more than a bit of a disappointment in itself. With a voice like Godzilla and that look of awe and wonder on John’s face when he first saw it-we all expected, a CGI cloud? Ranks up there with Data telling the Borg to take a nap so the Enterprise can get away.
But I will keep watching, I think LOST is the best show on TV. The big twist this season was the flashforwards, which replaced the flashbacks as the major means of filling time while our heroes wander around in the jungle. If we trust the story, then we know that at least our little core group will survive more or less in tact. Unless, of course, there are time variations at play, in which case maybe Jack will die from a rupture appendix, even though we have seen him alive and not so well in the future.
As with Alais, it is pretty much impossible for the show to end in a way that will please everyone. Even if all the countless loose ends are somehow tied up-some us won’t like the knots they used.
