There is little doubt that Lost will go down as one of the foundations of the so-called “Peak TV” era, giving viewers shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Oz, or The Wire. Despite this legacy, there are plenty of infuriating decisions from the show that continue to linger. Even great shows like The Sopranos experienced this in their later seasons, but Lost stands apart due to its home on network television. While HBO has the luxury of airing mature or explicit shows, Lost had to find some ways to bounce past it and the network censors, all while still creating compelling television that stood out from its predecessors.
But for those of us who were watching Lost as it premiered, soaking in the happenings of the island and the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, calling it a roller-coaster ride is putting it lightly. When the show soared, it soared to great heights. When the show fell flat, it could be infuriating.
We capture a bit of the feelings toward the show at the time. Not so much with a focus on the mysteries of the island or the overarching story, but more for the plot decisions that broke down the patience of many fans. So we’ve ranked seven moments that stand out as the worst from Lost’s run. It also helped to bring back some great memories in the process, which is another sign of a great show. Scroll down and see if it can achieve the same for you.
1) Charlie Goes Bad
Dominic Monaghan as Charlie was one of the original main castaways from Oceanic 815, battling his drug-influenced demons and trying to get sober while dealing with the mysteries of the island. But in Season 2, long before his memorable final moments warning Desmond about Penny’s boat, he’s a bit of a heel. He takes love interest Claire’s son, Aaron, and tries to baptize him, earning a beating from Locke (Terry O’Quinn). This then leads him to help Sawyer take the guns and heroin from the mysterious hatch, assaulting Sun (Yunjin Kim) in the process. It’s a hard left if there ever was one, all to set up his sacrifice and keep Desmond alive for his own confusing journey out of time. Charlie’s shift toward creep after being a fan favorite in the first season is disappointing, but there are other more grievous offenders.
2) Time Traveling Castaways
Anytime time travel is introduced to a story or TV series, things immediately get complicated. Unless the title of your show is Quantum Leap, you better keep the time travel at arm’s length. While it is meant to continue the show’s exploration of free will versus fate, the decision takes some wild swings with its time travel methods. After Ben Linus turns the wheel at the heart of the island in the finale of Season 4, the island demonstrates its ability to move locations. It also controls the island’s ability to go through time, revealed after the jump knocks the wheel off its axis. This causes the survivors to start being unstuck in time, and not in the way that makes the plot even harder to follow. Locke eventually fixes it himself, but it does trap everyone in 1974.
3) Paulo and Nikki
The survivor couple that got some spotlight in the third season to shed light on other survivors away from the main crew. Paulo and Nikki are con artists, with the pair making moves to continue after the Oceanic 815 crash that throws a wrench in their plan to steal $8 million worth of diamonds. What transpires is an episode outlining their actions and point of view during some of the early season’s big moments. They overhear the Others talking about capturing some other survivors, they work with Locke during their trip to the Pearl station, and they even witness the death of Mr. Eko at the tendrils of the smoke monster. The big point I remember is they were given an entire episode in the middle of what we were navigating in Season 3.
They are proven to be pointless after the pair decide to betray each other, with Paulo lying about having the diamonds and Nikki deciding to get back at him by unleashing a poisonous spider. It bites Paulo, paralyzing him for 8 hours. Nikki runs into the same fate after pushing on to kill the spider, attracting more spiders. They are discovered by the other survivors and are unknowingly buried alive with the diamonds, ending their story.
4) Flash Sideways/Flash Forwards
The show’s use of flashbacks to develop the main characters on the island helped it to stand out in its early seasons before the series eventually tried to change things up in later seasons with the use of flash sideways and flash forwards. The Season 3 finale introduced the flash forwards, following the Oceanic Six who got off the island, including Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, and Sun. While this certainly injected the series with some interesting new direction, it also cemented a lot of the bad decisions.
Once they all return to the island and we start moving to the end, flash sideways were introduced in the final season as a view into the alternate reality created by those on the island to meet after their deaths. Essentially, these would end up being undermined by the reaction to the finale and the meanings behind it compared to the lore set up from the series.
5) Locke’s End
For the first four seasons of Lost, John Locke was consistently one of the most interesting members of the original plane crash survivors. He begins wrapped in mystery, seeming to be some sort of outdoors survival expert. He was also portrayed as a man of faith, standing as the polar opposite to Jack (Matthew Fox). A reason for that is the island miraculously cured Locke’s paralysis, allowing him to walk after spending years in a wheelchair. All of it, including the development of Locke into a protector for the island and replacement for Ben Linus after he makes the island move.
Then Ben kills him, and we’re left spending the rest of the show with the Man in Black in Locke’s form and the real Locke dead. There’s some explanation, and all the bases are covered through the finale, but it was still a hard pill to swallow.
6) Juliet’s Sacrifice
Juliet started the series as a member of the Others, later revealed to be a fertility doctor recruited by Richard Alpert and undercover psycho Ethan Rom to work on the island on its infertility issues. She later becomes a member of the main group of survivors, a love interest for Sawyer, and a prospective one of Jacob’s candidates to run the island. Then a big old seed of doubt planted by her parents’ divorce motivates her to help Jack blow up the Swan station and hopefully prevent their plane from ever crashing.
It’s a hard pill to swallow because both Juliet and Sawyer had spent some real time growing close in 1974, all for her to toss it over Kate possibly sparking Sawyer’s feelings again just by showing up. It’s ridiculous, especially given Kate’s lack of any true development by the creatives on the show. So one great character dies, another is broken, and Kate is still given nothing of substance to do except confirm her love for Jack.
7) Spending Half a Season in a Cage
Speaking of Kate, her time in a cage with Sawyer as they are held by the Others is a key moment where the show started to take on too much plot weight. Not only did the cages represent another narrative curveball with the Others and the island mysteries, but it also represented a big gap in the airing of Season 3. The first six episodes of the season were in the cage and with Jack, as he was teamed with Juliet. The cages did give fans the long-awaited sex scene with Kate and Sawyer, but it was a slog overall. And pointless in light of the rest of the series.
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