question of the day: What burning questions do you hope ‘Lost’ answers in its final season?

Burning question 1: why did people watch this show?

what was the deal with that radio transmission with the numbers that made Hurley go to Australia on the first place?

who are Adam and Eve (skeletons on the cave?

what's deal with Walt's powers?

how come all characters are related to each other in some way (Locke's father conned Sawyer's father. how come Desmond talked to Jack on the empty stadium and why it was never mentioned again)?

who are the DeGroots?

who are Magnus Hanso and Alvar Hanso and how are they related to the present events?

who was the economist that Sayid killed?

Why was the woman on the Island Hurley fell for also in the same mental facility as him, *and* also the woman who sold Desmond his yacht?

Why did Dharma set up such a bizarre containment system for the magnetic anomaly?

How did cocaine smugglers from Africa in a light plane clearly incapable of crossing an ocean end up in the Pacific?

Yeah, Mark's right, Libby is one of the biggest questions remaining but I'm afraid it won't have any answers

it's one of those instances where the writers thought it would be cool and mysterious to have her show up at the mental hospital and on the cafe to give Desmond the boat but at the time they didn't think of how it would fit on the overall story

it's just for shock value, like the ending of the second season of the terminator series, and then they have to come up with a overtly complicated explanation or a very disappointing explanation or ignore it altogether

it's making it up as they go along, JJ Abraham said that he thought of the hatch on the first season and the episode aired before they decided what would be on it

doa766 (Wed Jul 29 09, 5:19PM):

it's making it up as they go along, JJ Abraham said that he thought of the hatch on the first season and the episode aired before they decided what would be on it

This is such a horrible, immature, bullshit thing to say. All fiction is made up as it goes along. Does something you read in book form get more points because it was finished being "made up" before you got it in your hands? What about movies? Half of them are re-written during filming. Comic books? Written in monthly installments. And so on... Everything imaginary is made up at one time or another, and just because a writer gets an idea after the first episode has aired doesn't mean it's a bad one or a poorly planned one.

Sorry to jump down your throat, doa, but this is one of those arguments that is totally asinine and needs to be shut down hard. The end product is what's important, not how it was created or who thought it up and when. Maybe you don't like the story they're telling, and that's fine, but don't act like they're doing it any differently than the creators and writers of the shows you do like.

Mark (Wed Jul 29 09, 4:49PM):

How did cocaine smugglers from Africa in a light plane clearly incapable of crossing an ocean end up in the Pacific?

Don't forget, the island can move :)

Newbs, you seem to be a little confused

when you write something you eiter outline where its going or you can "fly blind" and see where it takes you, the Lost writers almost always choose the second option, but that approach always damages the final product on TV because the previous episodes already aired and they can't be re writen, on books or movies the whole thing can be re writen to make it cohesive before its made public

the writers thought it would be cool to have the end an episode of the second season by having Jack ask Ana Lucia "how long it will take to train an army?", later they decided that wouldn't be a good storyline so that was never mentioned again, the samw with that episode where Sawyer got all the guns and said he was the new sherif and thing weould be different, it was never mentioned again, that's making it up as they go along and that's two of the many many examples of this on Lost and it affects the quality of the finished product

obviously they can't plan the whole series from the beginning but they can plan for one season and they didn't do it until the fourth

this is not complicated to understand

So yeah, essentially: you don't like Lost. What is there to misunderstand? Except for why you watch it so closely when you think it sucks so hard?

It does seem odd that Ana Lucia never trained that army... I guess you're right about that. I wonder why she never got around to it?

Why would one airliner have so many blue tarpaulin's on board. I mean, they seem to be everywhere. I am sure I must have been on flights with no blue tarpaulin's, what if those flight crashed? What would I cover my hut with?

I used to like it at lot but at this point I keep watching because I know that the next one is the last season

by now the story is just about revealing mysteries and by that I mean coming up with some newly written explanation for some mysterious developments aired years ago, the mysteries are not the reason the show was so good, it was the characters

when it was about the characters it was brilliant and all the mystery was just window dressing, it made it even more interesting with some weird half sci fi/fantasy stuff on the background but the plot was firmly rooted on the characters and their relatioships

but they over did it with the mysteries and now the last two seasons are basically hours and hours of exposition to explain as much as posible, some things are better to be left vague and unexplained (Midi-chlorians) and all the old characters arcs are stalled and the new ones are not interesting

(spoiler) BTW Ana Lucia died several episodes after the "army" discussion with Jack, on the next episode after that she was alive and had already forgotten about it, and Jack as well

Newbs, probably the biggest example of making it up as they go along is something the show runners were asked during comic con: the food dropped on second season

at the time it was done so it would fit with the hatch in lockdown episode but now it makes no sense according to how they continued the Dharma storyline

so on season six they'll have to come up with an explanation and even if it makes sense it's just to "correct" up an old goof that's too big to be ignored

who the fuck is Jacob and his grumpy friend?

altho yeah the food thing defo needs to be addressed

I think the writers of Lost have a basic framework but they allow themselves to be surprised hence the great and mighty Michael Emerson as Ben

doa766 (Thu Jul 30 09, 4:07AM):

Newbs, probably the biggest example of making it up as they go along is something the show runners were asked during comic con: the food dropped on second season

If that's the biggest example you can think of, then we should be okay. I can explain that in five seconds, and so can you if you have any sort of imagination. (I'll give you a hint: the island has time travel issues.) But come on now, does this particular plot hole really need an explanation for the rest of the story story to be what you'd consider "good"? If you need every tarp and polar bear logically explained, perhaps you're expecting too much from your narratives and should stick to CSI: Miami where everything will be explained to you very earnestly every step of the way.

The problems people have with this show are such trivial quibbles... I understand the desire to have loopholes closed, but as I stated above, it's the end result that matters. You're so caught up in this "making it up" thing that even if they do answer your questions you'll probably think it's dumb because you're already convinced they don't have good answers. So why even bother with it?

It's pretty cliché of me to say this, I know, but when I don't like a show I just don't watch it.

In one of Desmonds visions in season 3, Des told Charle that he saw Clare get into a helecopter and leave the island and this prompts Charle to go down to the looking glass and eventually die. Will this end up happing? or was the vision false?

Let me know what you think?

Newbs: I'll try to explain it to you one last time even though I'm sure you won't understand

it doesn't matter if the answers are good or bad, they are separate from the questions, which where never formulated with a particular answer in mind

the finish product is the problem on Lost, the loopholes and contradictions keep adding up to a point where the show is not about the characters anymore but rather about answering questions that are not really important to begin with

it's like the briefcase on Pulp Fiction, it doesn't matter what's inside, what matters is how people react to it

it's like the briefcase on Pulp Fiction, it doesn't matter what's inside, what matters is how people react to it

There ya go! And here I was thinking you just didn't get it.

Here's the question I want answered.

I understand the writers aren't going to address some questions, for example, Libby's backstory. Or at least, they've stated as much in an interview during the prior season. Granted, they could just as easily be putting up a smokescreen for a Libby backstory reveal in the final season. Nonetheless, there may be questions that are left unanswered at the end of the series that aren't able to be left "up to interpretation" (see the ending to "The Sopranos" for an example of an ending that is best left up to intrepretation (I am pro-assassination theory)).

That having been said, I would like to know if, post-end, the writers would open up a forum for questions to be asked and answered. Not nonsensical questions like Garcia asked at SDCC "Where's the inhaler?", but actual driving ones that might not get answered like certain character motives, or backstory elements that went to the wayside.

Certainly, I expect a few may be addressed in the show (like the supposed connection between Jack's first wife and the car crash that took out Boone & Shannon's father), but others (Libby's backstory) might not and I'd like to have assurance that they might at least say something to the effect of "Yeah, we were going to go X route with that story element and reveal Y, but that wouldn't work out, so we felt it best to drop that thread".

That's what I'd like; a place to ask and get answers to certain elements once all is said and done.

I'll answer a few questions

what was the deal with that radio transmission with the numbers that made Hurley go to Australia on the first place?

That transmission came from the radio tower on the island, which later was overridden by Danielle with her warning message in French. Timeline-wise, it's the serial number of the Swan hatch as assigned by the Dharma handbook. Completely normal. It is likely that those IN the hatch simply took the numbers from outside the hatch to program the computer passcode. Additionally realizing the passcode was necessary to be replicated in event of emergency (why put a passcode in place in the first place?), the number was broadcast on the radio tower for approaching parties to use. This is the message picked up by the military people. Why the combination of numbers became "magical" at that point, and why they appear so frequently is possibly able to be chalked up to superstition and coincidence, but see my answer to Walt below.

The above is my pet theory.

who are Adam and Eve (skeletons on the cave?

That question was guaranteed to be answered in this final season.

what's deal with Walt's powers?

Standard plot-writing tactic. Walt's powers, all of which could be chalked up to instances of convenient coincidence, were revealed in the first season to establish that psychic ability EXISTED, so if the writers later decided to do something involving psychic abilities, it wouldn't be seen by viewers as some b.s. cop-out surprise element.

how come all characters are related to each other in some way (Locke's father conned Sawyer's father. how come Desmond talked to Jack on the empty stadium and why it was never mentioned again)?

Again, the coincidence theory, though the last episode where Jacob involves himself with different past iterations of our characters may show that there was some long-standing manipulation of elements in order to intersect these characters for some reason. Obviously, there is something special about this select group, and I'm sure this manipulation coming to the front in the last episode we watched will become a larger element in the final season.

who are the DeGroots?

who are Magnus Hanso and Alvar Hanso and how are they related to the present events?

Some people / scientists who helped create the Dharma Initiative. Possibly no one important; I think with the early Season ARG (the GAME) becoming non-canon, these people can be dismissed.

Magnus is theorized as the captain of The Black Rock. At best, if addressed in the final season, they are all likely involved with the third group of people that Jacob brought to the island.

who was the economist that Sayid killed?

Probably no one, maybe someone involved in some dealings with Widmore and his planting of the fake Oceanic plane underwater, or maybe someone who worked with Ben Linus / Richard Alpert that needed to be dealt with. Likely an irrelevant thread that was whacked due to the writer's strike.