@TheUltimateSacrifice
I also plan on running through the show again, only now I will be able to laugh at some of the small easter eggs and such. Few, if any shows will convince you to watch over 100 hours of television again.
I have no idea if Twin Peaks is any good, but I do enjoy Fringe. The problem with watching Fringe after LOST is that it is a lot more episodic than LOST ever was. There are episodes that leave you wondering what the point was, and it isn't better than LOST for sure. It does provide the mystery and the surprise that we all got from our favourite "deserted" island. If you remember that some episodes relate to the plot and others don't, the characters, in my opinion, should turn the show into something worth watching for sure.
And I had the luxury of attemping to explain the finale to people who had only seen the pilot, Tabula Rasa and Walkabout.
"So did they all get off the island in the end?"
"Uhm..."
"So I heard they were all dead all along, right?"
"Yeah, about that..."
@Alex
I don't understand the hate either. Sure, there will always be people who get so caught up in mythological and mechanical questions like "How old is Jacob?" and "Where did Christian's body go?" that they forget the characters. But what I don't understand is the overwhelming percentage of the LOST community that didn't understand the final scene, didn't know what it meant and they just assumed that it must have been rushed or something.
Everything has been leading up to this point. All of the on-island development, the flashbacks, and the flash-forwards guided us through the lives of these people. And now we see them overcoming their problems to truly let go and die alone. At least, that's how I see the "sideways world", if you can still call it that.
If you think about the end of season one, what were your biggest questions? For me at least, it was what's in the hatch?! Yet in a blur of story that question became who's in the hatch?! It's the same thing with what's the smoke monster?! I think that's the thing we keep forgetting - it's always been about the people. It's not about where the magic box came from, it's about who's in it. In my opinion, the people who have problems with the finale are the people who haven't yet let go of all of the mechanical questions of the show and moved on to: who are these people and how have they affected each other?
I was prone to hide things because I was afraid that someone would unlock all my secrets.
I didn't realize that someone would be me.