Ok, so we’ve just finished watching the final season of Lost. Admittedly, by the time we had gotten to season 3, it was mainly me pushing to watch it. That was around the time when it became painfully obvious that the writers had no clue what they were doing and were just making things up as they went along. That was bad enough, but what really ticked my wife off was the stupid back-and-forth characterization: Kate loves Jack, no, she loves Sawyer, nope, she still loves Jack. This made character development a joke and all but ensured that audiences cared not one whit for the characters.
Still, I insisted on watching for a variety of reasons. It’s worth remembering just how fantastic and promising the first season was. This was a major television series made using near theatrical-quality cinematography and high production values. It had a huge ensemble cast, some of whom gave truly stellar performances. It was a mainstream show, yet drew extensively on science-fiction and fantasy themes. And even if it ended up promising more than it could deliver, it successfully created a compelling and fascinating mythology of its own. Considering how much we’d already invested in the show, I thought we might as well see it through to the end.