Beth: You can't go anywhere on the Internet this week without stumbling over a blog post about the end of LOST. I guess I don't really need to contribute to the hype, but I'd like to at least share a few of my thoughts about the show's ending.
In 2004, when LOST premiered, it was unlike any other television show I'd ever seen. I didn't start watching right from the beginning; if I remember correctly, it was on at the same time as another show I watched regularly, although for the life of me I can't recall now what it was. But I was hooked as soon as I saw that group of survivors on that beautiful beach, as soon as I saw Sawyer shoot that polar bear, as soon as I saw Locke with that somehow sinister orange slice in his mouth. There are people who say that the magic of LOST is in its mythology, but I disagree. The real magic of LOST, for me, has always been in the complexity of its characters. On LOST, as in life, no one is ever all good or all bad. Rather, there are an infinite number of shades of gray. That's what kept me coming back week after week, and what has kept me hanging on to the very, final end.
It's been a 6-year journey to get to this point. LOST has had its ups and downs, and to my mind it never quite regained its footing after the giddy excitement of the first couple of seasons. I think the show suffered after JJ Abrams left, although it's still likely one of the best shows on television. Even when I've been annoyed with the show this season (for reasons I won't start to list here or I'll never stop), I've stuck around because I have been in this for the long haul. LOST has been more than just a show, it's been the medium through which I've made some wonderful friends, truly some of the most fabulous people I know. It's been the medium through which I learned something new with almost every episode; this show requires more concentration than anything I've ever watched outside of a documentary. It's been the medium through which I became part of a larger entity: the LOST nation. This is a group of fans whose attention to detail would put even the most anal retentive person to shame. And I have been proud to be one of their number since the fall of 2004.
It's been equal parts thrilling, frustrating, exhilarating, and exhausting to be a LOST fan. And by Sunday night, it will all be over. But oh, what a ride it's been.
