LOST - Smoke monster's name finally revealed. Oh, and Cuse & Lindelof openly shit on you.

The only solution to your frustrations (which I share) is too never watch another of their shows.

I thought that was really funny, but I still like Lost and didn't feel betrayed by it's finale so apparently I'm in the minority.

There are pretty vocal camps on both sides, actually... the lovers (including most mainstream critics) tend to laud the show and act as if it can do no wrong ("who CARES about the silly MYSTERIES anyway?  You're MISSING THE POINT"), while the haters feel that the ending completely guts the entire series.

I tend to fall somewhere in the middle.  I thought the finale was largely satisfying, on a trite emotional level, if a bit mawkish and repetitive (how many times can we watch the same "two characters hold hands and suddenly remember each other" scene anyway?), but on a mystery/mythology level, they basically screwed the pooch.  I don't really blame the final episode for that, though... it wasn't the job of a single (albeit near-miniseries-length) episode to tie up every loose thread that the show as a whole failed to address. 

It's just hilarious to me that Cuse and Lindelof spent FIVE YEARS saying "The answers are coming" in every interview or podcast they ever did, only to

A) Change their tune and start whining during the last season, and

B) Have the temerity to act put out and offended when people didn't like the ending.  The guys are narcissists, and that's all there is to it.  (Lindelof more than Cuse, I think).

The thing is, they're good writers... there's no denying that.  The scene above is well and cleverly written (if aggravating and insulting to a large portion of their fanbase).  They just got WAY too fond of inserting WTF moments into every other episode, and I don't think they can blame a big part of their viewing audience for expecting that we might actually get some EXPLANATIONS for a few of those moments, eventually.

I mean, call me a purist (or even simplistic in my thinking), but if I'm reading a murder mystery, I expect to find out whodunit by the end.  Not be slapped in the face and laughed at for daring to ask the question.

You know, I would have respected the show more if that had actually been in the final season.  lol.

Seriously, I thought LOST was the greatest show I'd ever seen for 5 seasons, and then the 6th season just made me hate it and everything associated with it because I felt like they dropped the ball.  Its cool that they can recognize how much they fucked up and laugh at it, but still, D&C shoulda known better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Myers 

 It is probably not meant to be canon (is it?), just as a joke

You really wonder?

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Love Machine 

The only solution to your frustrations (which I share) is too never watch another of their shows.

Yeah! That'll learn 'em!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spike Marshall 

I thought that was really funny, but I still like Lost and didn't feel betrayed by it's finale so apparently I'm in the minority.

It's hard to say. The bitter people tend to be louder.

I didn't really care for the 'sideways' flashes, only because they felt like filler. That wasn't nearly enough to counter all the great and exciting moments the show had.

As for the ending, I found it to be pretty anti-religious and thought they answered the vast majority of the bigger questions, so I guess I'm in the true minority. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyB79 

but on a mystery/mythology level

 

I mean, call me a purist (or even simplistic in my thinking), but if I'm reading a murder mystery, I expect to find out whodunit by the end.  Not be slapped in the face and laughed at for daring to ask the question.

You used the key word there: mythology.

You thought you were reading a murder mystery, when in truth you were reading a story about how people investigate crimes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

 

You used the key word there: mythology.

 

You thought you were reading a murder mystery, when in truth you were reading a story about how people investigate crimes.

 

No, some of us thought for a while we were watching something well thought out and intelligent when in the end it was just a whole lot of nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

Forget it, A-Pathetic. We're all just bitter assholes because we happened to believe what the producers spent the first five seasons saying about the show.

That video made me realise how numb I am to Lost now. I didn't find it cute or funny, nor did I find it irritating.

Lost was a collossal part of my life and for the first 4 seasons I was insufferable, constantly harping on about how exciting it will be to watch the season from the beginning to see how all these things were planned from the beginning. "They know what they are doing!" I cried in my Dharma overalls. "You'll see! You'll all see!"

I have not watched it back.

My issue with the show is not the heaven/purgatory ending (although boy-howdy do I have issues with it) it's just the drastic decline in quality during the sixth season. Ab Aerteno (sp?) aside it was a different show. Sayid's sickness, Claire's behaviour it was all nonsense that just wasted time.

Regarding the ending, it just completely nullifies everything. They travelled back in time, set off the bomb and it did jack shit, they died years later, but for an entire season we are led to believe in this alternate universe where love conquers all. (Fuck, I've started now) And you know what the biggest crime was? That fucking drowned foot!

What's funny is that a major theme of the show was how easily people can create their own elaborate mythology to explain a mystery, and how often the truth is much simpler than the myth. It seems that some people were living that theme out while watching the show, much to their own disappointment and anger.

LOST started off with ghosts, miracle healing and a monster made of smoke. If you didn't think a supernatural element was even possible, I'm not sure what you were watching. And for the record, each of those mysteries was answered, and none of the answers (or the ending) contradict a scientific (sci-fi) explanation.

Frankly, naming a thread like this one makes me think you might need to just let it go.

I was fine with the "magic" and the island being a "cork" explanation. It was the only way to make actual sense of what was happening. But that's kind of the issue really - the writers clearly created a bunch of mysteries without thinking up what they meant, so that when they finally sat down in the writers' room to tie everything up, the only possible solution WAS magic. They'd lead people to believe that they knew what was going on when that wasn't even vaguely the case. And that's not to mention all the dangling plotlines. This is the sort of show people should want to watch again, just so that they can see how cleverly things fit, but instead all a rewatch would inspire is an inordinate sense of cockteasing.

They teased and teased and teased and then, with three episodes to go, they ran out of time and crammed as much half-baked mythology as they could into those final shows. All while wasting half the season's runtime on an alternate universe that existed solely so the cast could all get together one more time and reassure the obsessive fans that yes, Sayid and Shannon were soulmates, and yes, Charlie and Claire will live happily ever after. It's horrifically lazy, uninspired, LCD stuff, and the fact that it has intelligent people defending it is baffling. For large stretches LOST was awe-inspiring TV, but it didn't just fail to stick the landing, it crashed onto its head and broke every bone in its body.

Andrew is just about spot on

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike's Pants 

Andrew is just about spot on

Yes, he is. It's not just that the final episode sucked. It's that the entire final season sucked. And that's coming from someone who loved seasons four and five.

I don't care that they didn't solve every little mystery the show ever presented. I do care that the entire mythology of the show was tossed in favor of mushy spiritual hokum.

Time and time again they told us that it was really about the characters, and I sometimes agree with that, but feel like they were more interested in pulling a rug out from under us than giving us satisfying resolutions to the character developments.

Half of Season 6 was a waste of time with the Flash-Sideways stuff when it was revealed that these moments didn't mean anything. I wish we could've just spent more time with the real characters and not their afterlife facades.

I only accept the finale because it felt more like a funeral for the show itself...complete with video montage moments of all your favorite scenes.

It's like they knew that they had peaked in Season 1 (my personal fave is Season 3) and they threw a bunch of "remember how great we were then" references in....all those reappearing characters that had died off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

What's funny is that a major theme of the show was how easily people can create their own elaborate mythology to explain a mystery, and how often the truth is much simpler than the myth. It seems that some people were living that theme out while watching the show, much to their own disappointment and anger.

 

LOST started off with ghosts, miracle healing and a monster made of smoke. If you didn't think a supernatural element was even possible, I'm not sure what you were watching. And for the record, each of those mysteries was answered, and none of the answers (or the ending) contradict a scientific (sci-fi) explanation.

1) If the main point of the show was that the answers to life's great mysteries are bound to be disappointing because they all ultimately boil down to nonsensical rules arbitrarily laid down by capricious deities, then that's fine, I guess.  It doesn't resonate with me personally, but it's their show and it can be about whatever they want.  But as the show's reigning deities, Lindelof and Cuse should have foreseen that this would engender a lot of frustration and resentment towards them by the rabble that was creating their own mythology, and not whinged about how mean the haters were or made mealy-mouthed excuses about it "always being about the characters" when the inevitable occurred.   Of course it's about the characters.  All stories are, fundamentally.  But GOOD writing manages to service both the characters and the plot, the latter being particularly important in a mystery story. 

Stuff like this indicates that they're getting better about completely blaming the audience for the audience's reaction, but the show is still the show.

2)  I can accept that the magic light falls into the realm of psuedo-science (electro-magnetism mumblemumble...sure, that can cure cancer.  Also make smoke monsters, time fluxes, magic seeing mirrors, whatevs), but ghosts?  Heaven? Immortality?  Walt?  What's the sci-fi explanation for any of that? 

Agreed, the execution of the final season was awful. The lighthouse that was just there, the sickness that was incurable until it suddenly wasn't, whatever the hell Claire was doing. It was terrible.

I actually thought the final shot was perfect, in and of itself. It's how we got there that irritates me to no end. Like others here, I own the DVDs, and have yet to rewatch them.

EDIT: Also, these self-deprecating videos were hilarious when I thought the creative team had confident command of their story. Now I'm just annoyed.

I thought this was hilarious and I like seeing Cuse and Lindelof acknowledge that seasons five and six were mostly nonsensical bullshit.  I like that they're able to poke fun.  No hard feelings here.  I love the show, warts and all, and it was a hell of a ride.  

I will never understand what they were thinking when it came to that final heaven twist.

"Let's get all the season one cast in a room for a dewy-eyed photoshoot moment. Except Michael, because who likes Michael?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by fuzzy dunlop 

 No hard feelings here.

That's the problem. I think there are still very hard feelings on Lindelof/Cuse's part, as evidenced by Lindelof's reaction to George Martin's opinion and their continuing inability to be honest about the fact that they royally ballsed up the biggest dramatic TV event in recent memory.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

That's the problem. I think there are still very hard feelings on Lindelof/Cuse's part, as evidenced by Lindelof's reaction to George Martin's opinion and their continuing inability to be honest about the fact that they royally ballsed up the biggest dramatic TV event in recent memory.

Yeah I remember Lindelof getting all pissed off about Martin saying he didn't want to "pull a Lost". But this video makes it seem like hes loosening up a bit.

The dude still needs a thicker skin though.  Heaven help him if Prometheus somehow ends up being terrible. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schwartz 

but ghosts?  Heaven? Immortality?  Walt?  What's the sci-fi explanation for any of that? 

 

A lot of people with a scientific background and no religious beliefs sincerely hope that consciousness can survive without the body. 

Their 'afterlife' was a construct of their own minds.

There are already organisms that are essentially immortal (they do not age).

Walt is a black kid. Science fiction explained those long ago.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evi 

I will never understand what they were thinking when it came to that final heaven twist.

If you accept that the show had a running theme of people constructing elaborate myths to explain things they don't understand, including both the characters trying to grasp things like Smokey and the Hatch and the audience trying to theorize about the show, then the ending fits perfectly. What bigger mythologies are there than the ones we use to explain our existence?

Many people rolled their eyes at the religious symbols in the church, assuming they meant, "All religions are right! Let's hold hands and sing!" But if you actually think about it, that church was a creation of the castaways and their own beliefs, and with all of those complicated belief systems pertaining to an afterlife, the truth ended up being a source of energy in a cave on an island. That's hardly an affirmation. It seems much more like the deconstruction of yet another myth.

Also, the argument that,"I'm not going to rewatch LOST and look for links, because I know no links exist!" is some really piss-poor reasoning.

That's some torturous logic right there. Sometimes an orange is just an orange. And a sundappled church full of soft-focus lighting and people hugging is just a cheap cop-out buttonpusher of an ending, not a profound statement on the mythologies we use to explain the mysteries of life.

"But if you actually think about it, that church was a creation of the castaways and their own beliefs, and with all of those complicated belief systems pertaining to an afterlife, the truth ended up being a source of energy in a cave on an island."

These two things are never connected, and links are ever established. There's the island and its cave, then there's Magical Communal Afterlife In Which We All Live Happily Ever After. Even if we take your Herculean stretches to explain this as gospel, it's still horribly conveyed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

These two things are never connected, and links are ever established. There's the island and its cave, then there's Magical Communal Afterlife In Which We All Live Happily Ever After. 

Wow, you missed a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

 

A lot of people with a scientific background and no religious beliefs sincerely hope that consciousness can survive without the body. 

 

Their 'afterlife' was a construct of their own minds.

 

There are already organisms that are essentially immortal (they do not age).

 

Walt is a black kid. Science fiction explained those long ago.

 

1) I sincerely hope that one day Gordon Ramsay will make me a four-course meal, to be served on Kat Dennings' chest.  Science says this a long shot.

2) Huh?

3) Is Nestor Carbonell one of them?  I ask somewhat sincerely, the guy doesn't seem to have aged an hour since Suddenly Susan.

4)  That is dumb.  But I still laughed, so point Farsight.

Why is Christian Shepherd the guy who ushers people into heaven?  

If you like the ending, thats fine.  But lets not pretend that its tied to the overall narrative in any logical way.  Its an arbitrary means to get all our favorite characters into a room and give them a teary-eyed send-off.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

If you accept that the show had a running theme of people constructing elaborate myths to explain things they don't understand, including both the characters trying to grasp things like Smokey and the Hatch and the audience trying to theorize about the show, then the ending fits perfectly. What bigger mythologies are there than the ones we use to explain our existence?

 

Many people rolled their eyes at the religious symbols in the church, assuming they meant, "All religions are right! Let's hold hands and sing!" But if you actually think about it, that church was a creation of the castaways and their own beliefs, and with all of those complicated belief systems pertaining to an afterlife, the truth ended up being a source of energy in a cave on an island. That's hardly an affirmation. It seems much more like the deconstruction of yet another myth.

 

That doesn't even go one inch towards explaining what that entire Sideways universe had to do with the larger plot of the show or why they'd introduce it in the final season when things are supposed to ramp up. Honestly, It felt to like they were using it as a way to complete character arcs and give everyone a happily ever after (since they'd gone so far in fucking over characters like Locke and Sayid) while the plot was being wrapped up in the actual universe. But the entire conceit simply made whatever revelations there were seem hollow.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

Wow, you missed a lot.

What did I miss? When was it establised that the afterlife was directly linked to the power of the island? The people in the afterlife were (well, some had tenuous links, another silly plothole), but the afterlife itself being a product of the island? Didn't happen.

Also, your condescending response is a big reason why a lot of people roll their eyes when people start defending season six. It basically always boils down to "you just didn't get it, maaaan".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

Also, your condescending response is a big reason why a lot of people roll their eyes when people start defending season six. It basically always boils down to "you just didn't get it, maaaan".

 

And yet, sometimes it's true. I don't know a kinder way to put it. And with the dismissive attitude of your posts, I can't really be bothered to think of one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fuzzy dunlop 

Why is Christian Shepherd the guy who ushers people into heaven?  

 

If you like the ending, thats fine.  But lets not pretend that its tied to the overall narrative in any logical way.  Its an arbitrary means to get all our favorite characters into a room and give them a teary-eyed send-off.  

I actually don't like the ending (well, I don't love it). But in a show that featured ghosts from the very beginning, I don't think an ending that includes the afterlife is out of left field. In a show that examined myths and how they are created to fill the emptiness of ignorance, I don't think an ending that references religion was a random choice.

The execution was far from perfect, but that doesn't mean that everything was random and arbitrary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schwartz 


1) I sincerely hope that one day Gordon Ramsay will make me a four-course meal, to be served on Kat Dennings' chest.  Science says this a long shot.

 

2) Huh?

 

3) Is Nestor Carbonell one of them?  I ask somewhat sincerely, the guy doesn't seem to have aged an hour since Suddenly Susan.

 

4)  That is dumb.  But I still laughed, so point Farsight.

 

1) Science fiction deals in long shots constantly... So I'm saying there's a chance!

4) I try. :)

I did end up really liking how Walt was left (once the DVD epilogue was included). It is ambiguous, but we're basically being told that his story was part of another era on the island, just as there were eras before the castaways arrived. As for his powers, I do think there were implicit explanations.

No, I get it. Iunderstand what you think LOST is about. I'm saying that, even if that WERE their intentions - which I'm not sold o, by the way - they did an awful, shitty job of conveying them and wrapping up the show in a satisfying way. But please, continue to be a smartypants dickhead about it all. It looks so good on you.

I really liked where season 5 went, and it had one hell of a great final twist and season ending, then season 6 had the sidewaysverse. I still liked season 6, but it would have been even better to be bold and finally give us a complete season that had no flashbacks/flashforwards/flashsideways, except of course for us to know about Richard, Jacob, and The Smoke Monster, and just give us a full on season that was set in the present time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

But please, continue to be a smartypants dickhead about it all. It looks so good on you.

I'll try. You make it so easy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rene (Mr.Eko) 

I really liked where season 5 went, and it had one hell of a great final twist and season ending, then season 6 had the sidewaysverse. I still liked season 6, but it would have been even better to be bold and finally give us a complete season that had no flashbacks/flashforwards/flashsideways, except of course for us to know about Richard, Jacob, and The Smoke Monster, and just give us a full on season that was set in the present time.

I'd agree with that. Perhaps just focus on side characters (Claire, Dogen, Jacob, Richard). Perhaps have the flashes be to the time after the finale (an episode with Ben n Hurley and a few cryptic references to those who died). Or even stick to the sideways flashes, but be less concerned with tricking the audience and more concerned with alterna-life stories that further develop the characters (Ben's was a rare success in that department... Jack's worked pretty well also).

I liked all the on-island stories in season 6 and its resolution. I even like the concept of the sideways stories - but the execution was hollow. Lots of wheel-spinning. I wish they'd been brave enough to end episode 3 or 4 with alterna-Desmond screaming, "WE'RE ALL DEAD!" so they could have moved on without the burden of the twist.

That said, it's still a great show, and I'm fairly certain no one has shat on me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

 

That said, it's still a great show, and I'm fairly certain no one has shat on me.

Agree with this completely. I think the finale worked, even if they didn't stick the landing but I get why people were frustrated by it (even if I think they fed into the meta-narrative a little too much). But to suggest that this is some great, veiled, insult and you've been shat on by the shows producers is just insanely petulant.

I loved season six all the way up until the last 15 minutes or so.  I'm pretty sure waaaaaay back around 15 minutes into the pilot (or maybe it was the first commercials for the show...) people predicted "purgatory", and everyone and their brother was told by the creators, "Nope, not purgatory.  Try again."  Even that doesn't make me hate the show though, not even a little bit. 

Really liked Rene's thought about how season six could have been about the present. 

Fuck the finale six ways from Sunday. Talk about taking a giant shit on the people who watched the show and made it into the phenomenon it eventually became.  Good job on completely invalidating a cult show with the laziest, most predictable ending ever.

The guys who wrote that should have their hands fucking broken with claw hammers so they never stink up a TV screen with their mediocre shit ever again.

Of all the theories about how the show would end, I don't recall seeing "They end up in a magical church" listed once. I wasn't crazy about that part, but I sure as hell didn't predict it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teitr Styrr 

I loved season six all the way up until the last 15 minutes or so.  I'm pretty sure waaaaaay back around 15 minutes into the pilot (or maybe it was the first commercials for the show...) people predicted "purgatory", and everyone and their brother was told by the creators, "Nope, not purgatory.  Try again."  Even that doesn't make me hate the show though, not even a little bit. 

See, I think season six suffered a huge downturn in quality throughout the run.  I'm willing to accept that my nerdy OCD-ish tendencies caused me to come down too hard on the failure of the mythology to cohere (although Jesus Christ did they fail on that level), and that the horrible load of fanwanky cheese that was the sideways-universe worked for a lot of people.  Fine.  It's their story, they were never going to be able to please everyone, and in this case I'm one of the folks who got left in the cold. 

But the show also fell apart completely on an action-adventure level, where it had always excelled in the past.  We spend so much time with nobodies like Dogen, Ilyana, or NotTinaFey.   We're told a bunch of shit about major characters being "infected" but we never learn what it means and they just sort of snap in and out of sanity from scene to scene.  The absolutely pathetic treatment of Widmore, the primary antagonist of the last 2/3 seasons.  Devoting a plus-sized episode to Richard's backstory, when he does absolutely nothing to affect the story.  The stupid and arbitrary rules about suicide deflating the stakes and making a muddled mess of sequence that kills several beloved characters. The Big Bad being an invulnerable, flying shape-shifter, but oh yeah, he's magically forbidden from laying a finger on any of our heroes.  The heroes who have to stop him from escaping the Island at all costs, because if he does...  ....  ...?

The Island stuff may not be the conceptual bust that the Limboverse (imo) is, but it was executed abysmally compared to the tight, rollicking adventure stories of seasons 1-5.

Absolutely, Schwartz. Even without the issues of the sideways flashes, the on-island stuff in Season 6 wasn't even constructed very well. Even when the show faltered at times during its run, it never felt lazy, but S6 was aimless and devoid of momentum in a way the show wasn't in the past. I would have been fine if Season 6 had been "predictable" if the storyline has been well-told. It's almost like they were so committed to defying expectations that they decided to stop making sense. Put it this way: More than any other season, the final one, for me, was the one where I felt the "they're making it up as they go along with no sense of direction" complaint.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schwartz 


The heroes who have to stop him from escaping the Island at all costs, because if he does...  ....  ...?

he will have destroyed the source of power that allows human consciousness to exist sans body (ie the afterlife).

This was heavily implied by everything from Jacob's monologues, to all the references to Anubis/Cerberus/etc, to how the energy created Smokey (a consciousness without a body), to the proliferation of spirits on the island, to Desmond's ability to interact with the afterlife after exposure to the island's power, to Smokey needing a 'real' body before corking the energy source, to Jack being able to kill Smokey once the cork had been placed, and probably other ways I'm forgetting.

Like much of LOST it's not an explicit answer, but it seems as strongly implied as possible without a character just blurting it out to the camera.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

he will have destroyed the source of power that allows human consciousness to exist sans body (ie the afterlife).

 

This was heavily implied by everything from Jacob's monologues, to all the references to Anubis/Cerberus/etc, to how the energy created Smokey (a consciousness without a body), to the proliferation of spirits on the island, to Desmond's ability to interact with the afterlife after exposure to the island's power, to Smokey needing a 'real' body before corking the energy source, to Jack being able to kill Smokey once the cork had been placed, and probably other ways I'm forgetting.

 

Like much of LOST it's not an explicit answer, but it seems as strongly implied as possible without a character just blurting it out to the camera.

We're talking about the basic stakes of the conflict around which the entire SERIES revolves.  Blurting it out to the camera would be a start, but in any case it should have been made very, repeatedly explicit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Farsight 

 

I'll try. You make it so easy!

I'd agree with that. Perhaps just focus on side characters (Claire, Dogen, Jacob, Richard). Perhaps have the flashes be to the time after the finale (an episode with Ben n Hurley and a few cryptic references to those who died). Or even stick to the sideways flashes, but be less concerned with tricking the audience and more concerned with alterna-life stories that further develop the characters (Ben's was a rare success in that department... Jack's worked pretty well also).

 

I liked all the on-island stories in season 6 and its resolution. I even like the concept of the sideways stories - but the execution was hollow. Lots of wheel-spinning. I wish they'd been brave enough to end episode 3 or 4 with alterna-Desmond screaming, "WE'RE ALL DEAD!" so they could have moved on without the burden of the twist.

 

That said, it's still a great show, and I'm fairly certain no one has shat on me.

Very much in agreement with you. Ben's flashsideways arc was the only really interesting one for me, and all the on-island stuff was great.

The season didn't live up to expectations, but it's certainly not the abomination a lot make it out to be. I'll also give them credit for not lingering at The Temple and only being there for a short while.

Season 6 should have went all Dark Tower and made Cuse and Lindelof actual characters in the sideways-verse; two troubled writers, struggling to come up with an ending to their little tale about castaways stranded on a mysterious magical island!  Then at least it would have been hilarious-bad.  Instead of boring-bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rene (Mr.Eko) 


 I'll also give them credit for not lingering at The Temple and only being there for a short while.

Wait, what???

They spent a quarter of the season there. For no reason.

To be fair, they are only at the Temple for like 3 episodes.  Granted, it FELT like an eternity, but the one where Sayid and the smoke monster come in and kill all the stupid new characters is like the 4th or 5th ep of the season.

Sixth episode. So it's actually a third of the season, given that it's introduced in LA X.

Even at half the length, it would've been far too long, because nothing happens.  Sayid takes a dip and we never understand what happens to him or why it's important.  It was the worst type of wheel-spinning, I award the writers no credit, and may God have mercy on their souls.

I will give season 6 one thing... The flashback ep of Jacob and his brother was pretty great, even if the way they tied that into the Adam and Eve skeletons was hamhanded.