It has been a few days since the Lost finale. And over those few days, I have struggled to decide how I really feel about the episode.  I didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that those last five minutes ruined the whole experience for me.  But I will admit to feeling let down.  Here are my thoughts.

The fact is… Lost was GROUNDBREAKING.  It introduced science fiction and mythology to a world that was finally ready to embrace it.  They introduced the parallel (Flash Sideways) stories in this season.  They introduced the paradox world.

In Back to the Future, when Marty McFly travels back in time, he runs over a farmer’s prized pine tree.  When he returns to the present (1985), he is no longer at Twin Pines Mall, but Lone Pine Mall.  He changed the future with actions in the past.

In Lost, during a time-travel stint, the crew detonated a bomb on the island, destroying it.  That created the sideways story where the plane lands in Los Angeles without the crash. Of course, had they never crashed on the island… they couldn’t have destroyed the island.  Hence the paradox.  BOTH REALITIES have to exist.

Though it is hard to wrap your mind around the concept, Lost fans embraced it.  They fell in love with the idea that there were two stories happening simultaneously.  One was the story of the people on the island (who have to exist to destroy the island) and the other is the story of those same people who didn’t crash on the island.  And the alternate story is slightly different, since the destruction of the island in the 1970s would have changed other elements of the future as well.

Where have we seen this before?  How about Star Trek?  JJ Abrams rebooted Star Trek using the same concept of changing the past about a generation before the time of Kirk and Spock. And the rebooted version was different that the original.

What happens is a strong feeling that fate connects people.  As we watched the sideways Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Locke cross paths, we felt that they were destined to interact.  And that was magic.  It was beautiful television.

I am a firm believer that it is ok to really love television and movies. This American Life’s Ira Glass feels the same way.  It is ok to embrace the art and beauty of television and movies.  It is almost magic when you connect with characters and stories.  I built that connection with the characters of Lost over the 6 years I watched.  And I did my part.  I talked about the story and spread the word and got friends to catch up by watching the DVDs or Hulu… so that they could share the joy that I was experiencing.  We could share it together.

When you become a regular television show watcher, you enter into a contract of sorts with the show’s creators and the network that broadcasts the show.  You watch the show and the commercials (or pay for the downloads or DVDs) and, in turn, they deliver a complete story.  The promise is understood, that they will deliver to you an entertaining story and you will be satisfied enough to continue watching.  You pay with your attention, your time, your word-of-mouth promotion (or your Amex, if you watch on DVD or downloads).

In that contract, you expect that the show will follow the standards and rules set forth by the creators over the extent of the show’s run.  And when it comes to a finale, especially one as hyped as Lost, you expect that the show will continue to follow their own rules.

What happened on Sunday’s finale broke all of the rules of Lost.  Instead of answering the questions and exploring the mythology of the show… in the last few moments, Lost explained, instead, what happens after death.  That mystery is the only one that they are completely unqualified to answer.  And their answer is totally ridiculous.

And I was let down by the final few moments of the show, which stripped all of the importance of the sideways story and the others and Dharma and almost everything else from the show.  It didn’t matter when a character died on the island or how they felt in the alternate world.  It was all for nothing.

After they die, people have a meet-up so that they can be together to enter the bright lights (read: Heaven)?

Lindeloff and Cuse disrespected the audience.  We opened our minds to the broad experience, the deep mystery, and the theoretical science. And they created a fluffy and emotional finale without one jaw-dropping moment.  In a show that left you on the edge of your seat so many times… what you ended up with was a feeling that Sawyer wasn’t the real con artist.

I don’t know how easily I will open myself up to the kind of dedication I showed Lost. I have learned that my affection might be easily tossed aside by creators who don’t care so much about how I feel.