Six years ago, Oceanic flight 815 crash landed on a mysterious tropical island.  This event was the start of a fantastic journey as her passengers not only had to learn how to survive, but they had to unravel the mysteries that the island possessed.  That journey came to an end last Sunday, as millions of die hard fans (now known as Losties) gathered around their television sets to watch the final two and half our episode. 

I was one of those Losties, a somewhat reluctant viewer who got wrapped up in the mystery of this epic television experience.  Not much has been said here about the show or its final season, but I have to believe that there are more like me here and I wanted to provide a forum for fans and non fans alike to discuss the show.  That being said I know that there are a few of us who have never watched a single episode and I also know that Hilden admitted to me that he was way behind on this final season of the show.  So I will be using the Spoiler Tag in places and I encourage those who want to post on the subject to do the same.   Type the word “spoiler” in brackets, then the text you want to hide, and follow it with “/spoiler” also in brackets. 

LOST was the brainchild of Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber and since it’s pilot in September of 2004, each episode had an average of 16 million viewers.  The two part pilot was one of the most expensive in television history, costing an average of 10-14 million (most one hour tv dramas cost around 4 million to produce).  The show received critical success and even won several emmys. 

The show had a unique way of telling its story.  In the beginning, each episode had a flashback of one of the central characters.  Here viewers would learn more about the people stuck on the island and this would create a deeper meaning and expansive mystery.  Later the writers switched this tactic and produced flash-forwards as they told the story of six people who managed to leave the island.  Finally this last season we saw the use of a flash-sideways story of a parallel time in place where none of the events ever took place.  It was this continual change of pace and the cliff hanger endings that kept viewers coming back and wanting more. 

LOST was a show that never dumbed things down for their audience.  In fact the writers did just the opposite. Many mysteries about the island, who lived there, and what was going on were revealed throughout the show. Viewers were encouraged to come up with their own answers and discuss the mystery of the island.  Many times these theories were proven wrong, and many other times viewers were left with more questions than answers. 

The show also contained several Easter eggs for its viewers to discover.  Let’s start with the names of many of the characters as they were taken from famous philosophers and scientists:  John Locke (after the philosopher) and his alias Jeremy Bentham (after the philosopher), Danielle Rousseau (after philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Desmond Hume (after philosopher David Hume), Juliet Burke (after philosopher Edmund Burke), Mikhail Bakunin (after the anarchist philosopher), Daniel Faraday (after physicist Michael Faraday), Eloise Hawking (after physicist Stephen Hawking), George Minkowski (after mathematician Hermann Minkowski), Richard Alpert (the birth name of spiritual teacher Ram Dass) and Charlotte Staples Lewis (after author C. S. Lewis).  Several mentions and throwbacks to famous works of literature were also used throughout the show, most prevalent was the Benjamin Linus referring to himself as Henry Gayle a nod to the Wizard from “The Wizard of Oz.” 
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