IMO of course. I think the show angered most people, me included, when the backstory of Jacob and the MIB was so un informative. Up until that episode, I was fairly into the whole thing. Thinking that the backstory would be the deciding factor on what I thought about Lost as a whole. But the episode made absolutely no sense to me and we found out even Jacob didn't know much. Just following a crazy lady who killed his real mother. Not really asking any questions. Once again we were led down the rabbit hole. But even Alice finally touched land and we got to see Wonderland. That episode told me once and for all. That the island mysteries would not be solved. A more interesting thought out backstory here would have saved this show IMO. It was an oppurtunity to reveal so much and yet it revealed nothing.

I don't know that it would have changed that much really, besides making Jacob a totally different, less human character.

I think what would have saved it is if they had just worked more backstory for the island in. I mean, the island was practically a character in itself, but we never learned beans about it's history.:drowsy:

I don't know that it would have changed that much really, besides making Jacob a totally different, less human character.

I think what would have saved it is if they had just worked more backstory for the island in. I mean, the island was practically a character in itself, but we never learned beans about it's history.:drowsy:

I agree. I guess I feel that this was going to be explained in the Jacob?MIB backstory. That we would get the history of the island. Maybe it was the execution of the story that bothered me the most. For me, so much could have been explained in this one episode. The nature of the Smoke could have been talked about a bit as well as the Light that was supposed to be protected. It was just all to vague. Which I'm sure was on purpose. But just a little expansion on these things would have made things a bit more palatible for me. I needed to know why these things needed to be dealt with. But Jack just stood up, accepted the role and didn't even question a thing. But that seems to be everyones reaction to the island. No questioning just following.

Yea, it's a shame that the "light" in the island basically just turned out to be an empty MacGuffin sort of thing. Everybody wants it, nobody knows why. :\

Exactly, it was a classic MacGuffin. Tales that revolve around MacGuffins can be fine dramas, but this was disappointing. Look at Raiders of the Lost Ark. It helps that we are told something of the Ark mythos, but ultimately the story isn't about the Ark.

However, Spielberg didn't introduce two ageless Ark caretakers in the last act and then switch the plot to revolve around them. The plot was always tension between the French guy/Nazis and Indy + friends.

If they wanted us to be wrapped up in the Jacob - Smokey plot, it should have come along much sooner. Instead it was held back as a big reveal -- and then, it wasn't much of a reveal. No cultural specificity, no historic context, no insight how Mother got there, no useful explanation of how light plus water moves a wheel that acts to transport someone.

No explanation as to why a woman in Roman clothing washes up on a shore in the South Pacific. It was a very Mediterranean/Aegean Sea sort of culture, and the island is in the wrong ocean for that. Same with Richard's backstory -- why would that ship from Spain end up in the South Pacific on the way to the New World? I know these people go off course, but that's a bit much.

I didn't care that much about Richard, Jacob or MIB, but did want the history of the island and some backstory connecting the Widmore/Hawking/Alpert group to the DI and Hostiles. I wanted to see the Egyptians if they built the statue.

Basically, I felt that they didn't have the budget or allot the time for either Ab Aeterno or Across the Sea to be effective episodes.

No explanation as to why a woman in Roman clothing washes up on a shore in the South Pacific. It was a very Mediterranean/Aegean Sea sort of culture, and the island is in the wrong ocean for that. Same with Richard's backstory -- why would that ship from Spain end up in the South Pacific on the way to the New World? I know these people go off course, but that's a bit much.

I always chalked that bit up to the fact that the island can move, and I'm assuming it can move anywhere there's ocean, so ending up in the Mediterranean or Atlantic wouldn't be too hard for me to accept.

But otherwise, you're probably right. I liked Jacob & the MIB as characters but yea, there were other characters that were far more central to the storyline that could've used more attention and would have been much more effective storytelling.

I know they were only ever planning on doing 5 seasons, but the ending just felt really rushed, like we missed a season in there somewhere.

Well, they did reduce the number of episodes. It used to be 23 (before writers' strike). It didn't feel rushed to me. It felt like they misused the time. Each episode of Season 6 as it went along, at the end I would go ... that's it? That's the whole deal for this week?

They would have had plenty of time without doing the fake alt, which didn't do anything really other than allow people to see the characters acting normal and make rooom for cameos, and create a senseless mystery. The alt people had zero effect on the island plot, nada.

They could have had Jack dying, cut to the church, and showed people reuniting. I'm not saying I would have liked it, but the plot lines of most of the FS were poor. The Ben and Desmond eps were kind of an exception.

See Jack develop his relationship with his non-existent son ... instead of flesh out the island story so that the connections were made.

I always chalked that bit up to the fact that the island can move, and I'm assuming it can move anywhere there's ocean, so ending up in the Mediterranean or Atlantic wouldn't be too hard for me to accept.

I know, but if a writer wants to make sense using that excuse, then he can throw in a line about how the island has existed in different oceans and seas over time. When they supposedly moved the island, it vanished but it didn't relocate to another part of the world. It was still in the Pacific.

When they don't bother to explain anything, it makes me feel like they think they are writing for teenage products of today's poor schools, who aren't so up on geography, and can't recognize a historical period based on costume. (Which they got horribly wrong in ATS, and threw together a mish mash of styles that was almost comic.)