"Lost" at an End

Ok, I'm a little late to the party on this one but we just finished watching "Lost" this past week.  I actually never saw a single episode while it aired on TV but when we got Netflix instant play on the PS3 not too long ago we found it there and began watching it.  Let me tell you all that this is the way to watch a television series.  You don't have to wait til the next week to find out what happened and you don't have to wait months between seasons.  You can watch at your own pace ... which we did seeing the first season in about a week.

Before I get into the actual series I might as well mention a couple of things.  We will probably be watching a bunch of shows on Netflix on demand and going forward I'll probably recap at the end of seasons.  This one I will recap as a whole since I wasn't blogging until into the 6th and final season.   I won't blog after individual shows as that is a bit much, but if something prompts me to make an exception I certainly will.  Now on to "Lost"...

From the first episode we were hooked.  There were a number of reasons for this.  The situation itself was intriguing ... a plane crashes on a remote island and the survivors have to find a way to live.  Also the characters were interesting and enjoyable and seeing their interactions was fun. 

I loved the way characters were developed and told about throughout the series, with each character getting their history focused on with flashbacks while the rest of the story went on also focusing much on that character.  The show also did a good job with bringing in more characters throughout the entire series.

As the years went on the show introduced the "others" as well as other factions, and later on went into a "time jumping" plot line which while not bad wasn't great either.  Playing with time is something that is touchy and the show did a pretty decent job of it but didn't always feel right.  The show was at its best before that, but it certainly was great throughout.  In the end there was a split between the people being on the island still and what would have happened if they hadn't crashed (actually if the island would have blown up 30 years prior).  It was interesting to see how their lives would have played out in that case and how they were all weaved together even then.

The final episode eventually revealed that the characters had never survived the crash to begin with and that all of those people were dead from the start.  Everything that happened through the 6 seasons were those characters helping each other come to terms and prepare for moving on.  Kind of an odd ending but in a way it worked.  Overall an excellent, excellent show that I'm glad I watched and recommend to others especially now that you can watch the entire thing without the month long cliff hangers between seasons.

A recap of some of the things that I loved about this show...

• The characters (nearly all of the main characters outside of a few) were great.  They were developed well and you began to know them and know if you liked or hated them.  I loved most of the main characters so I can't really name my top few, but needless to say strong characters were one of the top reasons for watching.
• The mystery built in with some of the plots was great.  What was in the jungle in the beginning?  Who were the others and what were they doing?  Etc, etc, etc...
• The show flowed well and had plenty of exciting moments and plot lines.  Very rarely was there an instance where it felted bogged down or forced, even during some of the "time travel" type moments.
• The characters ... and I know I've said it once already but for me strong well developed characters is important in stories and this one had it...

All in all ... watch it.  It's well worth your time...