About six years ago I came home one Wednesday night from band practice and saw my dad watching the season one finale of Lost.  I hadn’t seen a single episode but he had mentioned that it was interesting.  Not passing up the opportunity for a pun, I was lost.  But strangely intrigued.

When the DVDs came out I immediately bought them and watched every episode.  I knew I was watching something special.  Then when season two premiered, my dad and I sat down and watched together.  This is something that we did for the next five years every Wednesday, Thursday, Tuesday and one special Sunday until it was all over.

You see Lost has been more than just a TV show to me.  It was an experience and one that I got to share with my dad.  We never missed an episode after that point.  I was invited to numerous upon numerous events that I turned down in order to watch Lost with my dad.  Many people would ask, “Why don’t you DVR it?”  One, we don’t have DVR.  And two, this was to spend time with my good ol’ dad.  If you couldn’t understand that simplicity than you would have stood no chance with this show.

Flash forward to May 23, 2010 and the whole saga has been brought to a close.  As with any show or movie there is going to be unanswered questions.  They can’t possibly answer them all and still stick to the main story.  I know that and so should you.  I did have a few minor gripes with the finale but they are extremely minor in my opinion.

• The Man in Black’s Name – We never found out what his real name was.  Many internet rumors stated Esau for the religious connections as many things were on the show.  A single mentioning of his name would have been nice but it didn’t kill anything leaving it out.
• No Michael and Walt – One of the biggest absences from the finale were Michael and Walt.  Walt has been a question for years going back to season one.  Most specifically why he was taken and why is he so special.  None of this was ever directly answered but the fact that many other character find or develop special powers (Desmond’s time traveling, Hurley and Miles’ communications with the dead)  just kind of put’s him with the rest of the bunch.  He was just seemingly the first one to find his powers.

And at of all of that those are the only things I was missing when the finale was over.  No much at all huh?  But again not everything is going to be answered.  Some things just are they way they are and don’t need to be explained so in depth.  In Star Wars do you question what midi-chlorians are?  How exactly is a light saber constructed to be able to allow the light to stop at a certain point?  There is being a geek and there is being obsessed.  While logically yes everything has a purpose this is entertainment and a sci-fi drama at that.  You can’t expect that everything this is going to make logical sense.  Now back to the episode itself.

What it did do was complete the story that begun with the characters all coming to this island for a reason.  They were all similar.  They were at horrible points in their lives and never quite felt that they had someone in their lives.  The island gave them something to feel important about.  It allowed them to be everything that they knew deep inside that they were capable of.

Jack assumed it rightful spot as the leader and did exactly what he needed to do.  Sometimes the leader must die to be a true hero and Jack realized that.  He sacrificed himself for the survival of others.

Ben was redeemed once and for all by Hurley being what he was always good at, looking out for other people.  Hurley becoming the new protector and Ben being his number two was a very memorable moment.

Then the whole “flash sideways” timeline was the cherry on top of the sundae.  Each moment of their awakenings was more heart grasping than the last.  Seeing each character remember their lives with each other really brought you full circle on these characters you grew to love over the six years.  And it all culminated with Jack’s awakening and the over all reveal that this wasn’t really a flash sideways but was their lives after death.

The writers have been saying for years that the survivors are all very much alive on the island and they didn’t go back on their words there.  They all lived out their lives exactly how they needed to and once they were all dead they came back together to remember their times spent in life and with each other.

It only made sense that Jack was the last one to let go and realize what is going on as he was seemingly the last one to do so in life with the island.  But the moment of all these characters gathering together and smiling and being with the ones that they loved the most was a truly awe inspiring moment that was only beat out by the last scene that ended in the exact way that it started.  Jack laying in the bamboo, Vincent finds him but this time his eyes close instead of open.

Now I know some people didn’t like the finale and a lot of people didn’t like the show in general.  To me these people are just too simple minded.  So many people like their stories all neat and tied up at the end of each 30 or 60 minute episode.  Some stories are not simple to be done so.  You know what other story took six years to tell?  Star Wars.  And you don’t see all the up in arms people about that.  Maybe there are people that just like Star Wars because it was cool to do so and not because they actually enjoyed the story.

Lost’s story is right up there with the Wars in my opinion.  And if you know me you know I am all about the Wars.  They were both a story about people.  People searching for their purpose in life.  They all had bumps along the way but they ultimately got there.

Look I know everyone is not going to enjoy everything but don’t knock something you don’t understand.  So you don’t understand advanced and intricate story telling, that’s fine.  But you can’t then bash something that you’ve never truly watched.  Just say you didn’t understand.  It’s better to just be dumb in that situation that totally ignorant by then trying to say it was an awful story when you didn’t even know what it was about.  If you want to say that Lost was awful and you never even completed the story than I might as well call the Harry Potter books and movies awful as well despite I never read a single book and only saw a couple movies.  See how dumb that sounds?

I’m even fine with you just saying you didn’t like it.  Sci-fi dramas are not for everyone.  But don’t say it was bad just because you didn’t like it.  You didn’t see the whole thing.  You have no idea of the character and story progression.  To take a line from another great movie, “You’re like a little child that wanders in during the middle of a movie.”  You have no say if you only watched a few episodes.  Hell even if you watched an entire season or two.

How about you stick to your amazingly simply shows that you don’t have to rack your brain about and us that like to have more minds challenged will have our shows.  Seems fair?  Okay.

But overall it’s hard to believe the whole thing is over.  It will be odd for a while knowing it’s not coming back next January or February but it will pass.  Plus I have the DVDs to where I can always relive the story again.  But I think it was ended in a beautiful and nearly perfect manner.  And more specifically it was ended on the writers’ terms.  They weren’t rushed to try to close things up with an early cancellation.  And they were forced to try to extend it past it’s time by greedy TV execs that wanted the ratings.

The story concluded, the main characters were happy and the all is well.  It was shot and scored beautifully.  And I do feel complete in regards to the story.  It is one of the best stories I’ve ever seen and the finale will go down as probably the best I have ever seen.  Namaste.

It’s that time of year again to where TV big wigs decide what to keep and what needs to be sent out to pasture.  I am normally one of the people that is totally against some of the shows being cut because execs have no clue what real good TV is.  I will stand my ground by saying that whoever at Fox kept fucking with Arrested Development when it was on, and then ultimately killed, seriously had the IQ of an 8 year old and probably still wet his bed.  But this year there are some cuts that were a long time in the making.

• Scrubs – I loved this show.  Every character had a special place in your heart and you truly felt connected to them, even Dr. Cox.  And after a heart felt and tear inducing finale last season it felt like it was concluded int he right way.  Oh but no we get another season of Scrubs: Med School with all these new characters that just come off as annoying little rich kids.  I can’t say that I liked a single one of these characters.  Then the main characters that actually came back seemed to struggle trying to put these kids over as the new main cast.  I didn’t work.  Low and behold Scrubs is now gone but not as it should be.  This season should have never happened and I feel it hurt the absolutely brilliant finale from last year and makes it not as special.  Fuck man, Zach should have just said no.
• Heroes – Season 2 of this was cut short by the strike.  Season 3 bored me and after the first 3 episodes of this past season I gave up.  This season just plain old jumped the shark, or maybe flew over the shark.  They kept on adding more characters that really had no connection with the viewers over time.  But the biggest disappointment was the path of Sylar.  At one point he was one of the most demented and intriguing antagonists on TV and just became a shell of himself to which he never truly recovered.  He kept flip flopping between good and evil and it just pissed me off.  He was a evil mofo so he should have been left as such.

But I can’t say that there aren’t a couple shows that were canceled that I did indeed like.  I really enjoyed Better Off Ted but ABC really didn’t give it any push in advertising.  It had it’s hardcore niche viewership and that helped them get renewed for the second season but ratings just weren’t what they wanted so it was cut.  It sucks because it was a funny and witty comedy but again ABC just didn’t seem to care enough to let people know it was on.

Another one left back by ABC is the drama FlashForward.  You could tell from the start that ABC wanted to build this as the new big suspense drama to take the place of Lost, which finishes up this coming Sunday.  The first group of episodes were really good and left you with a number of questions as Lost did along with building each characters’ story.  Then it went on hiatus for a long period of time.  By the time it was brought back people lost interest or probably didn’t even know it was back.  Again ABC didn’t like the ratings so it gets hacked.

And this just brings me back full circle to what I call one of the worst moves in TV history, canceling Arrested Development.  This was one of the best written shows in history.  The actors portrayed their characters so well that I can’t look at any of them without thinking of them as Bluths.

Over it’s three seasons of life on Fox the show’s staff and actors were nominated for a number of awards, many of which it won.  But Fox in all it’s infinite power decided to play the guess which nut shell the ball is under by switching the show to numerous different nights and times.  Thus giving it no chance of establishing an audience that knew when the show was on.  Fox you really blue yourself on that one.

Damn you Fox, now you got me all pissed off.  I started this out kind of light hearted but thinking back to that all over again just grinds my gears (You know that’s another show of yours right?).

And that reminds me.  You fuck with Arrested Development but you continue to keep this American Dad and Cleveland Show garbage on?  Look I know Family Guy is your golden child, even though you screwed them over the same way before, but does Seth McFarlane have that much control over you?  Does he get daily hand jobs from Fox execs too?  You know he probably knows he’s giving you guys crap shows but you owe him so much for being wrong about Family Guy that he knows he can get away with it.

Next up from Seth McFarlane is a show about a turd in a brown bag that makes jokes.  It will be apart of the new Sunday Animation Domination next fall.  Doesn’t that sound awesome?

Look Seth we get it, you can make Fox do whatever you want.  Now just call off your dogs and release your Force Choke you have on Sunday nights.  Will it help if I say please?  I’ll even add pretty please with sugar on top.  You like sugar don’t you Seth?

So yeah, two shows placed to rest that needed to be and then two that probably didn’t need to be.  Then add anger at Fox for Arrested Development still and you have my angry little rant on TV shows entering the final weeks of the spring seasons.