This has to be the greatest waste of my time. I'm glad I spent just a few weeks binge watching this rather than the six years devoted fans spent on it.
Lost starts out refreshing and intriguing, with a dramatic plane crash followed by the survivors quickly realising the island was "different". Then they introduced a few mysteries, like Hugo's cursed numbers and at some point I was so invested I started noticing each of the survivor's seat numbers. Spoiler alert, seat 42 was Ana Lucia, and she was largely useless for the show's progression. Which brings me to
(1)the pointless infusion of characters. These writers just kept bringing on character after character with zero payoff. Were any tail section survivors even useful (except Bernard, who was only there to be Rose's husband so both of them could be seen like three times for the rest of the show)? And that one episode they wasted on Nikki and Paolo who were random people who then ot buried alive and remained pointless anyway. I would've thought they were introduced because the diamonds they carried would end up important, but nope. They were mentioned exactly once in passing.
(2) Largely unlikeable characters. I struggled to like any of them. I know all of us have some baggage, but isn't fiction at least supposed to present you with people you want to root for? Sawyer, a conman and murderer, turns out to be the most likeable one, which is telling. Followed closely by Sayid, a torturer who, by his own admission, is not a "good guy". Everyone else is a caricature of a person. And I've seen people say that the show is really about character growth, but other than Sawyer and maybe Charlie, literally nobody else showed any growth whatsoever. Well, I would give a pass to Jin. He was alright. The only characters I could stomach were Sun, Jin, Sayid, Sawyer and Desmond; and until he died and came back as the smoke, Locke. Everyone else could have died in the first flash storm and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.
And now to the biggest flaw of all
(3) Mysteries? Really? The numbers. The origin of the first people on the island. How did it disappear that one time if all they did was time travel? How did Jacob recruit them? How were they picked out of a whole world of people? Were they picked because they were already on the plane and it happened to crash, or did Jacob orchestrate their getting on the same plane in the first place? If Desmond hadn't failed to push the button, the plane would've landed as expected, would they still have been chosen or not? There were other people on the island before flight 815. Why didn't smoke dude just get one of them to kill Jacob earlier on? The numbers. What are the numbers and why do we care about them and why do they do stuff? Why doesn't Desmond get fried by EM? Why didn't he become smoke when he went to turn off the thing at the end? And again, what's with the numbers? Locke. Was his story developed that hard just for him to be a sucker who died? Did he have a purpose or not? Was he special or not? Was his faith in the island founded or misguided? How come when Locke does it, it's pathetic but when our hero sir captain his highness Jack, saviour of the known and unknown world, has faith in the island, it is founded and real? Was it absolutely necessary for Sun and Jin to die? (That was more of a personal grievance than a problem with the plot, but still). What's with the alternate timeline? Did it happen? Did the island happen? Why is Desmond the only one with original memories from the island timeline? If Jacob's mother could make it so the sons couldn't kill each other, couldn't she make it so they couldn't kill her either? And most importantly, did we really need Jack saving everyone EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.? I mean, come on. He's a doctor, which is useful for the jungle, but how he became their demigod... blegh.
It's almost like the writers would go home and research what was hot on TV at the moment then go back and try to write it into the show. Time travel. World war. Ghost whisperers. NatGeo polar bears in the tropics (what was that even about? Never addressed ever again). I read about their interview in which they said it was meant to be only two seasons but season one did so well, the network chose to extend it, and frankly it shows.
Lost, in a nutshell, is the "all hail Jack" show, with loads of side characters and pseudomysteries with absolutely no payout. I should have painted my wall and watched it dry six times over. However this thing has an 8.3 rating is beyond me.