Lostenfreude

lostenfreude: amusement and pity towards those who feel ripped off by the Lost ending.

i stopped watching Lost after the first season, but there was no escaping the buzz towards the end of the series. read about the finale on the rss feeds, so it was purgatory/afterlife, the fans called that years ago.

i've noticed that Lost apologists go something like, "well, it was about the characters, it wasn't really about the mysteries." hell with that. i watched season one and that was the hook: the plane crash, the polar bear, etc. and some people who liked the ending say they'd still watch the series again. but what if you didn't drink the kool-aid back when the series premiered? can the Lost faithful get new fans to sit through six (!) seasons of this shaggy dog? i don't think so. the tantalizing mirage of The Ending was the major driving force. now the jig is up.

i liked Alias more, at least it wasn't so pretentious. the outlandish and inexhaustible series of rambaldi artifacts, the rumblings about prophecy and destiny, no one took it seriously, so we could all just roll with it.

i'll never watch lost again, but if i did, i can easily imagine that whenever locke/the Others/etc. acted mysterious and knowing, it would be insufferably annoying. game's over, the emperor is naked. they just made it up as they went along, there was never any master plan unfolding piece by piece.