Sixth Season
- Drama
- 2010
- Buy the Blu-ray
All photos © ABC
Reviewed by Jim Washington
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o it’s been a few months since the sixth season of “Lost” and the entire mind-bending series concluded and…what was all the fuss about again? Oh yes, that’s right. “Lost” was one of the best shows on TV there for a while, if I recall. And then it sort of fell off a cliff, or out of the sky, or down a hatch, what have you.
The final season of “Lost” has recently been released on Blu-ray and DVD, along with a mammoth set featuring all six seasons and Dharma drops full of extras. With the perspective of a bit of time we can now look back on the series as a whole, and the final season in particular. The verdict is mixed.
I should say up front that I watched “Lost” from the very first episode and ever since have been of the opinion that at its best it was one of the finest shows on TV. The mysteries, the myths, the monsters – I loved it. And the sixth season was supposed to wrap everything up in a nice little package and send us on our way with an awed smile.
Of course we all knew that wasn’t going to happen. Around the time of the finale, everyone involved with the show was quoted with some variation of the immortal words of Ricky Nelson – “You can’t please everyone.” True enough, but I still wish the “Lost” folks had tried a little harder to please their hardcore fans in the last season.
There was plenty that I liked about Season Six, such as Richard Alpert’s back story, the badassedness of Locke/Smokey, most of the Man In Black and Jacob relationship, the return of Charlie, the charm of Desmond, the initial zombification of Murderin’ Sayid (it got a little boring after that), and the redemption of Ben, to name a few. And I actually liked the flash-sideways world until I found out what it was, you know, purgatory or whatever.
Things started out pretty strong, with the Big Bang having apparently caused some kind of split in the old time/space continuum, and one version of the Losties still on the island and another version in a parallel universe where the plane didn’t crash. As the season went on there were some extremely strong episodes, such as “Dr. Linus,” where Ben’s conniving skills are tested in his parallel universe job as a high school teacher, and “Ab Aeterno,” featuring Alpert’s really, really long back story.
But too much of the season took place in the Temple, a cheap-looking castoff from the set of an Indiana Jones movie, which I just never cared about, even with the awesome John Hawkes running around, apparently just to say he had been on “Lost.” Ditto my not caring about the dirty-looking Claire, and the whole Widmore intrigue. Really, what was the point of it all? Not to sound like a spoiled child, but I wanted answers, damnit, or at least some cool suggestions of answers. And I didn’t get near enough of either.
Of course, after six years of investment in these characters I got choked up when people died (except the girl who blew herself up, that made me gasp, then chuckle). And I will give them props on an absolutely perfect final shot of Jack’s eye closing. I really wish that the flash sideways universe storyline had been building to something better, because it was pretty great watching these folks we had known for six years start to remember each other.
Count me among those underwhelmed by that explanation, and with the vaguely religious mumbo jumbo at the end. I’m sure, for instance, that all the people whose lives Dr. Jack saved would be interested to know that his time running around on the island was the most important of his life, as his father Christian lets on near the end.
But I could live with all the speechifying and golden lights and earth mothers and what look like wedding receptions in the afterlife if there were some more satisfying explanations to all the cool stuff we saw over the years, like the polar bears and time travel and mind control and Dharma Initiative films and pushed buttons and hatches.
In other words all the stuff that made the show so damn great.
Special Features: Like every season before it, the five-disc Blu-ray release is jam-packed with bonus features including the highly anticipated “The New Man in Charge” epilogue starring Michael Emerson, audio commentaries on “LA X,” “Dr. Linus,” “Ab Aeterno” and “Across the Sea,” and an excellent retrospective on filming the final season (“The End”). Rounding out the bonus material is a featurette on the show’s various types of heroes (“A Hero’s Journey”), a look at the flash-sideways storylines (“See You in Another Life, Brotha”), a series of episode-specific production featurettes (“Lost on Location”), the “Lost in 8:15” recap video, bloopers and deleted scenes.
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