Not to pick bones here, but the Dharma Initiative was making supply drops because even though the project was closed, there was still a guy in a hatch pushing a button, and if they did not supply that person, he would die and they all believed it would be the end of the world. They were supplying Desmond.

And the guy in that listening station or what ever it was. And I doubt whoever was making the drops thought it was just Desmond down there...they may have thought there was still a crew down there. And don't forget about the two babes in the underwater station...the girls gotta eat.

Weren't those all Others? And, if so, given that the Others killed the Dharma Initiative people, why re-supply them?

Maybe Ben made sure the word never got back to the main land that he killed everybody so the food could keep dropping.

The better question, I think, is why didn't The Others fight for the right to the food? Why did they allow the Losties to take the food?

The alt-timeline turns out to be what their lives ended up like without Jacob's intervention (because the nuke destroyed the island). Because he nudged their destiny in certain ways to get what he wanted.

This universe never has anything to do with the other. It's just an alternate timeline. The show ends the way it did. The alt-timeline is just that, an alternate universe what-if scenario.

And toss in a little more explanation of the Whidmore vs Ben plotline (which seemed like it just kinda got dropped).

Don't ask me about some of the other stuff. The illusion of Jack's dad off of the island and the smoke alarm going off totally hinted that it was the smoke monster. But the smoke monster can't leave! Lots of things don't jive entirely with the last season.

A homemade video of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof apologizing to all the viewers.

The Losties finding a snow globe revealing that Cuse and Lindelof were actually in the snow globe the entire time and their lives are just the imaginings of an autistic Walt.

Actually, anybody who has read my theories on how the show may have ended probably have a decent idea how I would have ended the show. I think when the plug was pulled out of the island it should have offered the Losties not just a reset for the immortals on the island but a reset for their entire lives. They find a way to reset things and take advantage of it. The sideways reality was the reality created after the reset, not separate but the reality that continued after the island was destroyed (they didn't put the plug back in) and they reset their lives.

In that ending, Eloise doesn't want them to remember the island because the light that Jacob was protecting all his life turns out it can't be killed with the island so it relocates somewhere else. There are other areas on Earth that the island is connected to, so the light goes to one of those spots. Eloise is determined to not let anybody remember so the light, where ever it ended up, could be protected.

The end shows they all remember, realize they had a destiny to be with each other that was greater than their time on the island (Because in the reset they got to live happy lives without the influence of Jacob and the island) but the fact they remember the island is a Watchmen type ending...it suggests that the cycle will start again because the memory of the island/light source cannot be completely removed from human minds so it will be inevitable somebody will seek it out again.

It would leave it open to more Lost stories but our characters stories would have ended with the series. And they wouldn't be dead.

Wow, most of these endings are actually worse than what we ended up getting, which I didn't even think was possible.

The series flash forwards 60 years into the future and we get tiny snippets of how everyone's life played out.

And in the end there is a 'special thanks to Alan Ball, in the sense that we ripped you off completely' credit.

I loved the LOST take on that complete ending, it had the same effect for me as the Six Feet Under finale, though the way it was executed was very true to the way the rest of the series played out. It really reminded me of the flash-forward reveal, the way that was kind of even more powerful because of the fact we were left reeling and speculating about all the missing information.

I like this better.

Somewhere someone mentioned the idea of the Dharma Initiative still being at play. I really like that idea and to take it a step further to make it that the losties are/were human guinea pigs in a long line of experiments. That could have even helped explain the 5th season time travel in that it was another Dharma experiment.

If I were in charge of executive overseeing the series, I would have definitely made sure that the Dharma elements were more integral to the series ultimate resolution. The same with the time travel elements.

Basically with an end date three seasons in advance, I would have begun the series 'third act' no later than the middle of season 4. There would have been no Jacob and no MiB. The ultimate power play on the island would have been between Linus and Widmore. I probably would made the island a source of extra-terrestrial intelligence- possibly an eco system experiment designed to study the planets native inhabitants reactions to the introduction of alien technology and properties prior to an eventual colonization- or have the island contain a source of decaying alien technology that crashed to earth eons ago. The smoke monster would have been a security system that is now exceeding its original program parameters- possibly due to electromagnetic interference. Richard and his small band would have been what remains of the original ETIs. The fertility problems could be the result of a lingering edict prohibiting inter-breeding with the natives.

All this alien-stuff would be the architecture I would have the individual episode scribes operating under- but I don't know ultimately how much of all of it would be explicitly stated as opposed to implied and inferred. The important thing would be that the series has a overall idea in place well in advance of the finale and last two seasons work steadily toward a goal of resolving all the elements that have already been introduced (as opposed to just continuing to introduce new conflicts and complications).

I guess I always saw Dharma as just one more element on the island that Jacob used to ultimately get the Losties there to find his candidate to replace him. I think he knew bringing them there would allow the plane to crash and ultimately help him achieve his goal.

This is the best so far. Especially dropping Jacob and MiB. The fact that they were introduced so late in the series, they just didn't have have the same dramatic weight that Linus and Widmore did. A showdown between those two would have been way more interesting 'cause they aren't so blatantly good and evil and we had plenty of time to watch them and actually form an opinion about them.

While I liked LOST's ending and feel satisfied with the conclusion (well, more satisfied than most), I think the ender would have been much more powerful if the characters had re-discovered each other in an alternate timeline rather than the ending that we got. No, most of our answers still wouldn't have been given, but I think the idea of all those characters remembering and reconnecting in life (as opposed to in death) would have been more moving (in fact, the reason most of us were tearing up during those "reconnect" sequences was because we thought they were all still alive - albeit in a different timeline).

Jacob was first mentioned early in Season 3 ("I Do")...and the idea of someone running the island probably occurred much earlier than that. I think most fans aren't upset with the IDEA of Jacob as much as they are what he turned out to be (remember those days when we all thought Locke was actually Jacob? Hey, we weren't totally off on Locke's significance in everything).

Jack becomes Jacob, Sawayer becomes new MIB, and it all starts over again..., fast forward 1000 years, and they are still at it...

This has all happened before, and it will happen again.

A title screen that says "1000 Years Later" or something to that effect. Hurley and Ben are sitting on the beach. Hurley notices something out on the water. "Dude, do you see that?" As it drifts closer they see it is a raft with a human figure on it. They swim out to pull the raft in. They pull a woman out of the boat onto the beach. Her back is to us as Hurley does some sort of life saving touch that makes her cough out water and saves her life. Hurley says, "Don't worry, you're okay now." The woman sits up, and she's revealed to be Allison Janney.

Creepy horns and then -LOST

I would have had season 5's finale the incident be the ending of the series and eliminated most of the stuff from season 6. So season 5's storyline would have continued into season 6.

that woulda been a mindfuck

and people would be bitching even more

I agree, the idea of Jacob was cool but just done poorly. When we first saw what we were lead to believe was Jacob in the cabin, I was intrigued. The actual Jacob, not so much. While we're on the subject what the hell was the deal with the guy in that cabin anyway?

I like the idea of Dharma being involved more but then again I loved all of the Dharma stuff. Too bad in the end it all ended up being largely inconsequential save for Desmond activating the failsafe and also being the cause of the initial crash.

I haven't read that thread but I would imagine that any idea in that thread or this thread couldn't be worse than the actual ending.

2.5 hour finale? Conclude it any which way, I don't care. just get it done in a half hour and then have a 2 hour Q&A with the writers and producers. That's the only way the superfans would have been satisfied.