So this Sunday, one of my favorite shows comes to an end. After Season 3 ended, ABC announced it would end the show after 3 more seasons so that the show would have a proper ending. I liked that. It gave the producers and writers the opportunity to tell the story without stalling or dragging and not having to deal with the uncertainty of when exactly the show would end.
I liked the mystery of the show. There were so many stories, so many questions about WTF was going on. Why was Locke able to walk after the crash? Who were the Dharma? Who were the Others? What the frig was the living black smoke that could rip a tree clear out of the ground? All good questions.
The problem for me now is that the 'fine detail' answers don't really matter anymore. The show went from Science Fiction (shows that try to base on-screen happenings in science) to Fantasy. Science Fiction has rules about story telling. The most important being that there is a plausible scientific explanation for everything that happens. FTL travel? We'll use hyperspace. Time travel? Even Einstein didn't rule out the possibility. Transporters? Flying Cars? Invisibility? All things that could one day be possible.
But wave my hand and make you fly against the wall? Say a few words and make a tornado land on your head? Say a few more words and open a portal to hell? Or, getting to the matter at hand, throw a man into a shinny yellow light emanating from a cave that water flows into and be transformed into a cloud of smoke that can take on forms of the dead and have all that persons memories? Turning a frozen wheel that makes an island move and transports the man who turned it to some desert wasteland? Did I mention I hate fantasies?
I don't like fantasy because the rules of a fantasy are arbitrary. There is always some deus ex machina at the end of the story that saves the day. Some little rule about a particular scenario that prevents the bad guy from conquering the world. I mean, I'm glad Aragorn had those dead guys from the mountain to call upon. Otherwise Middle Earth would have been FUCKED. Oh and its a good thing that Darth Maul couldn't use a Force Push twice in a row to send Obi-wan down the bottomless shaft, otherwise the Empire would still be reigning (more than likely anyways).
So the biggest mystery of the island has been solved. The smoke monster is not some security system. It's not a nanobot cloud, its not an energy field or some other alien technological marvel. He is a magical cloud of being that has rules. He can take on the form of the dead and retain all that dead persons memories, he can become the cloud and fly into the air, he can take bullets point blank in either form, he can see into the past of anyone he encounters AND show it to that person! But Sawyer said it best when he asked the 'Man-in-black' "What do you need a boat for? Can't you just turn into smoke and fly your ass over the water?"
"Do you think if I could do that I would still be on this island?"
"No, 'cause that would be ridiculous"
See? Stupid rules of Fantasy ruining what was a great show. I'll watch the end of course, just to see how it ends. But I'm already disappointed.
*Edit: Monday, May 24th, 1:15AM*
So it's over. I'm gonna have to send JJ a letter asking for my last 6 years back. I'm gonna do my nit-pick tomorrow (as in later today since its already tomorrow).
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