There has been a lot of rabid discussion of Lost as the TV series winds down. There are tons of articles and blog posts, but this one piece by James Poniewozik is probably a perfect distillation of the discussion. (Maybe you also want to read this long interview with Cuse and Lindelof .)
There’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed most of my life, but I seem to have become more aware of it over the last decade: People complaining about artistic works not being what they thought it should be.
Why was this new album not as upbeat as the last one? Why did she have to die at the end? You played that scene so over-the-top; wouldn’t it have been better if played in a more subdued manner?
In other words, it’s not “I didn’t like it.” Or “It didn’t work.” It’s Monday morning quarterbacking. It’s being a back seat driver. It’s wishing to control the direction of art, instead of just responding to the artist’s intentions and actions.
In the post referenced above, Poniewozik wrote:
…the whole discussion is starting to remind me if the ending days of The Sopranos, when people were basically arguing that David Chase did not understand his own show. David Chase, by definition, understood The Sopranos. He just didn’t necessarily understand the version of it that you wanted him to make.
That sounds exactly correct.
I loved the ending of The Sopranos. It was widely reviled. That’s fair; you don’t have to like it.
But as I expressed in a blog post, you were flat-wrong if you thought David Chase had betrayed the show’s fans, because that was exactly the kind of show he wanted to make and had been making for six seasons.
And therefore, my feelings are this: You don’t like it? Go watch The Mentalist.