Lost, One More Time

One thing I didn’t mention was how brilliant and simple it was for the writers to turn the Man in Black back into a human being after the Uncorking. It’s something I never considered, that he could in fact become human once again, almost like a curse being lifted (same with Richard and his immortality). Lost has been brilliant in the way it brings out these simple explanations — like Desmond bringing down the plane.

That’s what I thought was missing in the last fifteen minutes. When Jack had his “I see dead people, and the deadest person of all is me” moment, I was sorely disappointed. Perhaps I was expecting more science fiction and less ethereality;  after all, my favorite season of the show was the fifth, when there was all that time traveling.

I think I would’ve been happier if the two timelines merged, or if Jack sacrificed himself so the second timeline could become reality, or something. What was finally left on the screen just didn’t do it for me.

Cuse and Lindelof tried their best. They also made it very clear that the show was about the characters and not the mysteries, but that’s where they’re wrong. Lost was about great characters in a great mystery. They absolutely knocked the character part out of the park. Not so much with the mystery.

Just to clarify: I had no beef whatsoever with the island’s mythology. It was handled nicely, all the way through, especially the Richard Alpert story. I wasn’t looking for any explanation of any kind for the light and the cork and whatever; I’m completely satisfied in that regard. It’s just the alternate timeline that was the problem, but it’s a pretty significant problem, since it was a large component of the final season.

In the end, I was just looking for something more clever to tie the two timelines together. The showrunners didn’t deliver.

The End of Lost

Take the Wrath of Khan
Add a pinch of the Sixth Sense
Lost ends, a whimper.

If only I could get a time-traveling flash now, and if it could deposit me 15 minutes before the end of the finale…and in this alternate reality, I would’ve turned off the TV (and be as smart as Ben Linus and stay the hell out of the Church of Death).

I enjoyed the bulk of it — it was amazing how they could mine the emotional power of the characters recognizing their relationships again and again, though at times, this made it almost feel like a reunion show more than a final episode.  But the showrunners never really figured out a way to reconcile the island timeline vs. alternate timeline, at least not in the way I found satisfying.  A while ago, Cuse and Lindelof were asked point-blank if the island was the afterlife, and they adamantly denied it.  So I guess this is how they get away with that promise: they make the alternate timeline a sort of an afterlife.

The speech by Christian was hokey at best.  Two and a half  hours later, I’m admiring Chase and Co. all over again.

With Lost, it has always been more the journey than the destination, and I have absolutely enjoyed the ride, but man, when the train end up in Armpit, U.S.A., it is a bit of a bummer.

Lost in Code

I try my best to keep the geeky parts of my existence out of this site, but sometimes, there’s a convergence that’s unavoidable.  Case in point: the end of Lost.  I’ve watched it faithfully since its second season, and I’m not sure if there’s ever been a TV show that has been both quarterback-cool and wedgie-worthy.  Like millions of others today, I’ll be glued to the television set, and here’s my silly contribution to the Lost universe.

The code below is written in ColdFusion, and it’s using component architecture, something I’ve recently really come to embrace.  It’s a slapdash concoction that I knocked together in about fifteen minutes, so take it for what it is, a goofy tribute to one hell of a show.  The resulting execution of these bits can be seen here:

http://www.sjwoo.cf-developer.net/lost/default.cfm

The nice indents have been removed by the blog, so it’s not so easy to read the code below.   Not that you’d want to read this, anyway.  Perhaps Daniel Faraday would be interested…

default.cfm

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN”>
<html>
<head>
<title>Lost</title>
</head>

<body>

<!— CFCs —>
<cfobject name=”IslandCFC” component=”lost.cfc.island”>
<cfobject name=”SurvivorsCFC” component=”lost.cfc.survivors”>

<h1>L O S T</h1>

<!— This scope is available as a variable —>
<p>Created by <cfoutput>#IslandCFC.creators#</cfoutput></p>

<!— crash Oceanic 815 —>
<cfset crashedPlane = IslandCFC.crashPlane(“Oceanic”,815)>
<cfoutput>#crashedPlane.message#</cfoutput>

<!— get a list of the survivors —>
<cfset arraySurvivors = SurvivorsCFC.getSurvivors(“#crashedPlane.flightName#”,crashedPlane.flightNumber)>
<p><strong>List of survivors:</strong> <cfoutput>#ArrayToList(arraySurvivors)#</cfoutput></p>

<!— summon smokey, who’ll also kill the chosen survivor —>
<cfset structSurvivors = IslandCFC.summonSmokeMonster(“#ArrayToList(arraySurvivors, ‘|’)#”,”Mr. Eko”)>
<cfoutput>#structSurvivors.message#</cfoutput>
<p><strong>Remaining survivors:</strong> <cfoutput>#ListChangeDelims(structSurvivors.newListOfSurvivors, “,”, “|”)#</cfoutput></p>

<!— summon bombOnSub, which will kill more survivors —>
<cfset structSurvivors = IslandCFC.bombOnSub(“#structSurvivors.newListOfSurvivors#”,”Jin,Sun,Sayid”)>
<cfoutput>#structSurvivors.message#</cfoutput>
<p><strong>Remaining survivors:</strong> <cfoutput>#ListChangeDelims(structSurvivors.newListOfSurvivors, “,”, “|”)#</cfoutput></p>

</body>

</html>

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