The Biggest Mistakes "Lost" Made - A Look Back at 6 Years

TV’s history is littered with tons of examples of different risks that have played out in many ways. A singing competition with a sometimes-cranky British judge? Good idea. Jay Leno at 10:00PM? Bad idea. With Lost about to sign off, speculation has reached a fever pitch about how the finale will play out and whether it will give justification for many of the plot points the producers have asked us to believe based on faith alone for the past 6 years. The jury is still out on how the flashsideways storyline, Jacob/Man in Black connection, and lots of other unresolved plot points. However, we can certainly evaluate the risks the show has taken in the past 6 years and decide which worked and which didn’t. Considering we don’t have much else to go on, it may be the only indicator of what we can expect from “The End.”

No one cared about their "Expose" via Tubular

 

THE WORST DECISIONS

5. The Dharma Initiative (?) – Right now, this is simply ranked at #5 because it’s still pending. Beginning with the discovery of the hatch at the end of season 1, it became clear that the island’s past would be the key to the castaway’s (and the show’s) future. Some of the most thrilling moments in Lost history came from the slow revelation of details about the Dharma initiative (remember watching the Swan Orientation film for the first time?). However, as the show increasingly reveals that the true heart of the series is the relationship between Jacob and the Man in Black, the Dharma back story has fallen to the wayside. If they are the real heart of Lost, why did producers distract us with Dharma for four seasons and not even introduce Jacob until season 5? What a waste of time.

4. Bai Ling – Season 3′s “Stranger in a Strange Land” may be the show’s ultimate nadir of fan morale. After a choppy seven-episode run in the fall, the show returned in February after a long break. As expected, fan anticipation was high for the show to regain its mojo. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t come until later in the season and we were forced to sit through pointless storylines such as Jack’s flashback romance with Thai prostitute Achara (unfortunately portrayed by “actress” Bai Ling). Both Jack and the show hit a true low point that night.

3. Going out of control with time travel – With so many storylines, flashbacks, flashforwards, and characters existing at different points in the island’s history, viewers knew the show would eventually have to explain the island’s past to tie the plot together. How did it do that? By sending the castaways on a confusing, frustrating, and (still) semi-unexplained trip through time. When travelling back on Ajira flight 316, why did the survivors end up at different points in time? Why did they get nosebleeds from the time travel? And why did a donkey wheel somehow stop this all? Those are all good questions, and ones the show probably didn’t ever need to create.

The top two mistakes the show made here . Do you agree?

http://thesmogger.com/2010/05/17/looking-at-lost-five-bets-the-show-shouldnt-have-made/