Lost Finale: Whaaaaa?

Watching the grand Lost finale was nearly as frustrating as watching Lost (at least it's over, so there will be no more mind-bending cliff-hangers!). While some critics were satiated, most were infuriated with a weak-ass ending that left far too many loose ends. Here's a sampling (spoiler alert!):

• "Well, it was better than the Life on Mars finale," Mike Hale shrugs in the New York Times, though "forced" and "a bit of a cop-out." Hale is left wondering "What was the island? Those who have been voting for purgatory all along can make a case, though it seems highly unlikely that the creators had anything so specific in mind." The "gauzy, vaguely religious, more than a little mawkish" ending "will not sit well" with fans, he predicts.

• Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly was one of the few critics "more than satisfied" with "an emotionally draining epic that had me crying with almost every single 'awakening' and has left me mulling the true significance of the Sideways world."

• Max Read at Gawker says the Lost writers forgot what every creative writing student is taught: "Don't end your story with all your characters being dead. It is like cheating. It is worse than cheating! It is the wussiest thing a writer can do. And these smug dickheads went ahead and did it."

(More Lost stories.)