Flashsideways-free or flashsideways end

[sidious618]

A pre-afterlife realm is not real.

It's definitely not real when it just gets used as a way to create anything the writers wanted because anything really was possible in that celestial waiting room.

Uh, yeah, it was real in the context of the LOST universe. All the characters experienced those events so it was real and important for us to witness them.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Then you'd be fine with an episode of Trek where Picard travels back in time and fights Kirk on the original Enterprise, killing him and then someone says at the end of the episode "End program" and we find out it was a simulation.

It's all semantics, the stuff in the sideways timeline was not really happening.

And just because the characters were great (especially in the flash sideways where they meet up again. That was incredibly touching and well-acted) doesn't make up for the ride much of the audience was taken on with that part

 

[scorpius1701]

To me, the sideways universe is a lot like the Jar Jar Binks of the Lost world. Its better if you just fast forward through those parts.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I would prefer they hadn't ended the show with them all being dead. From the very first episode I had been afraid they were going to pull the "but wait-- they're all dead" card and lo and behold they really went and did it, though not in quite the way I expected it. We've since learned in interviews that this had apparently been JJ's plan from the start. I feel kind of let down that they went for the obvious ending. People had been guessing it was purgatory since the first episode. (Yes, the island isn't purgatory, but I see this as a mere technicality, the show itself did end in a kind of afterlife ...)

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It's not a technicality. People were suggesting that what was happening on the island wasn't "real". The ending said it was very much real and the most important part of their lives.

Hell, the purgatory wasn't the island, it was Los Angeles.

 

[RoJoHen]

the show itself did end in a kind of afterlife

Yes and no. One storyline of the show ended in the afterlife, but we still got to see the Island story end. We saw Jack die and others get rescued on the Ajira plane and learned that Ben and Hurley would take over running the Island. If anything, I'd say the Flash-sideways were like an extended Epilogue that happened to be woven into the main story. That doesn't mean they ignored or failed to resolve the primary story.

 

[sidious618]

Then you'd be fine with an episode of Trek where Picard travels back in time and fights Kirk on the original Enterprise, killing him and then someone says at the end of the episode "End program" and we find out it was a simulation.

It's all semantics, the stuff in the sideways timeline was not really happening.

Your analogy is terrible and doesn't work at all. What happened in the afterlife is what happened to those characters after they died. If you don't like the ending that's fine but don't make shit up just to bash it.