George R.R. Martin Still Hates the Ending of Lost

?If you’ve been following the recent Internet dust-up between Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin and Damon Lindelof, you may have been wondering if the two men buried the hatchet after Martin publicly claimed he felt “cheated” by how Lost ended in an interview, causing Lindelof to respond with a bunch of good-natured Twitter criticisms about Martin. Well, the situation has resolved itself. Sort of. Martin recently spoke with TV Squad about the Lost finale, and final episodes in general, to clarify his statements:

By the time we reached the finale, I was still hoping for the best, but
expecting the worst. I still think ‘Lost’ told a terrific story… a
terrific story with a terrible ending.

If the payoff had been equal to the set-up, I’d rank ‘Lost’ among the
very best series in the history of television. It didn’t, so I can’t. So
in that sense, maybe the finale did change my opinion of the show.

It certainly made me less likely to go back and watch the series again.
If ‘Lost’ had delivered an ending that tied everything together in some
brilliant and unexpected but satisfying fashion, I would have been first
in line to buy the boxed set of DVDs so I could go back and watch it
again episode by episode, exclaiming with pleasure, “Aha, so that’s what
that meant,” and, “Oho, now I see, I thought that meant X, but it
really meant Y.” Instead, I fear, watching the series over again would
give me more frustration than pleasure, and I’d find myself muttering,
“Well, that was never explained,” and “Oho, that was a great puzzle that
led nowhere,” and “Hmmm, that was kind of arbitrary.”

Admittedly, I’ve only watched the show once, as broadcast. Which makes
me a casual viewer rather than a devoted fan, I suppose. I haven’t made a
study of it, haven’t read any of the blogs or criticism, haven’t
subjected the older episodes to any kind of analysis. Maybe I need to do
a rewatch. Maybe if I did I would see that I was wrong, that the
eventual end was actually being hinted at and foreshadowed in the first
season, that all the puzzles are explained if only I looked a little
deeper. Maybe.

I have my doubts, though. Unlike Locke, I am not a man of faith. I am a man of skepticism.

In the interview, Martin goes on to say that, although he enjoyed the series as a whole, he hated the ending of Battlestar Galactica even more than the way Lost wrapped up. Oh man, it is so on.

I think at this point, the only way this whole situation is going to be resolved for good is if Martin, Lindelof and Ron Moore patch things up with a nice dinner at their local Red Lobster. That header picture is amazing. (Via Vulture)