LOST

[Taem]

There was nothing that said definitively the characters of the final season were alive all the previous seasons.

They did say this though. When Jack was speaking to his father. Christian said that there was no time in the "purgatory" as you call it and that the people there had died both before and after Jack. It is also implied by the interaction between Hurley and Ben in the afterlife. They both congratulate each other for being good "number ones" and "number twos". The implication there being that they lived on past Jacks death and built a relationship while watching over the island. This also supports the explicit statement by Christian Shepard that the people in the afterlife had all died at different times.

The ending does not overwrite everything that happened before it. In Lost terms: What Happened, Happened.

LoL, you guys are funny. I already mentioned ALL OF THAT in my original post guys - a lot more about what they said about their lives on the island - along with actual quotes directly from the scenes to boot . I just assumed Chesspiece_face either didn't agree what my interpretation of the script, or simply did not care for it and choose to substitute his own thoughts into the mix, both perfectly valid in an subjective and opinionated post about The End. I don't feel his statements necessarily constitute ignorance of what was said in the script regarding their past lives on the island, merely an alternative interpretation behind the meaning of what they said. Fine by me.

To start another ball rolling, I personally was hoping that the "sideways" flashes were actually the alternate time-line in which the atom bomb detonation stopped them from ever setting foot on the island, and that Desmond figured out a way to get them (those who wanted to go with him) back to the island to live in peace for the rest of their lives. When this, what initially felt like cheap cop-out of an ending rolled by, I was dismayed and shocked, I mean, how many times has an ending like this been done before? So cliche... But then I slept on it and really gave it some thought. The more I thought about it, the more I really enjoyed the ending for what it was and can appreciate how the writers really did end it! There is no room for "do-overs" or going back to Lost... It's OVER! You gotta give the writers credit for that! While what I expected and wanted did not happen, what ultimately did happen I ended up feeling equally justified with... well, a small part of me feels cheated out of season-6, since all the flash-sideways were merely Jack's vision in his death-throes, meaning it was all completely irrelevant to the Lost storyline... oh well. I still enjoyed it!