The finale, in and of itself, wasn't Lost's problem. The problem was that spent the entire sixth season on those pointless "flash-sideways" episodes instead of using that screen time to reveal the history and purpose of the island, The Others, Dharma, et al. (And not the half-assed explanations for the monster, whispers, and others that we got.)

They could have done the "heaven" thing by only showing the "sideways" stuff in the pilot and the finale and it would have been just as effective.

Lost was the kind of program that needed to wrap up everything with a bow, since it had spent years building up a mythology, and then, in the home stretch, it just said "Fuck it."

For all of the blather about how it was really about the characters and their journey, the characters weren't that compelling.

Where the final season really went off the rails was when they started revealing actual answers, with about five episodes to go. That whole flashback to the Island's "beginning" with the children and cave of light was one of the most out-of-leftfield explanations I've seen in fiction. They should have gone with aliens as an explanation or something further related to time travel.

That episode was worse off because it was episode 15 of 17.

The other thing is I saw the finale a while after it aired, and all the venom had my expectations lowered.

I liked that some got off the island, some didn't, and didn't mind the flash sideways purgatory explanation. The island stuff that episode was kind of lame like all season, the finale was no different, but I was entertained, and at least they spent the entire final season setting you up for an out-of-left-field ending, and didn't go all scientific and go with that same ending. It wasn't the answer I wanted, and the show definitely didn't live up to its potential, but at the same time it's no Matrix Revolutions.

Felt it was an good enough though not fantastic or classic, definitely a bit silly. And I'm glad there was no real "twist" at the end ("It's all a dream!", "They were really in Detroit.").