Despite LOST’s flaws - which were legion - they unwittingly cracked the code for how to make a show that everyone wants in on, everyone wants to talk about at work, and that demands audiences tune in every week. Mostly they got the balance right between character development and mystery, but it was the mystery element that made the show white hot. It’s a shame that the writers basically abused the viewers’ trust by avoiding explanations or offering silly answers to the questions. Three or four seasons it was close to brilliant. Then it became everything you hate.
In the early days on the forums the writers were adamant everything had a scientific explanation. They really wanted people to invest in the mechanics of the show. Later, when dead people came back to life, lame people walked, smoke monsters, eternal beings, alien races, time travel, nanobots, parallel dimensions and whatever other wacky shit entered the show, people had invested far too much energy to be able to accept some cockamamie horseshit like they tried to sell. Jack’s dad is dead but shows up on the island in his burial clothes, Jack suddenly has a 13 year old son, they are in a magical realm between life and death that no one — except Ben — can access, via a fecking submarine no less, where they all have to work out some things, but oh no this is not purgatory, no sir, it’s gurpatory. They had the tiger by the tail but then the tiger turned around and ate their faces.
