Lost lasted for six seasons and there are still a lot of questions about why the series ended. The show centered around the survivors of a plane crash somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, and heavily featured flashbacks and glimpses into the future that added depth to the huge ensemble. Lost's intrigue and iconic cliffhangers made it an obsession among many fans even if casual viewers didn't stick around for the entire run. In the’ two-and-a-half-hour finale, it was revealed that Oceanic Airline flight 815 hadn't crashed; the characters had been in a purgatory-like "flash-sideways" version of the afterlife.

The final scene of the show depicted the Lost characters reuniting in a church before moving into the afterlife together. The Lost series finale was interpreted in many ways, leading to varied opinions on how effective the ending was. With the mystery of Lost and the beloved characters still a huge hit going into its final season, there are still questions about why the show ended when it did and whether that was the right decision for the story.

Why Lost Didn't Return For Season 7

The Showrunners Chose To End The Show

Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse explained in an interview with The Independent there were two major issues behind the decision to end the show (via Digital Spy). First, they didn’t know how long the mythology had to last, making it difficult to write storylines incorporating intriguing sci-fi elements, such as some characters like Walt and Hurley having powers, as well as an eventual time travel twist. Cuse also shared the writers were “running out of flashbacks for the characters” during the six seasons of Lost, which were pivotal in carrying the story and its characters forward.

Choosing to end the show was a source of pride for the Lost showrunners, as they were one of the few in that era of network television to end a series on their , with what they say was an intentional ending.

A flashback of Matthew Fox’s Jack Shephard in Thailand from one of the series' most criticized episodes, season 3’s “Stranger in a Strange Land,” is cited as the moment that prompted the decision to end the series. Another showrunner, Damon Lindelof, shared that he and Cuse had to fight to get ABC to agree on a series finale date, so they could begin working toward the end of the show (via Lost’s controversial ending.

Choosing to end the show was a source of pride for the Lost showrunners, as they were one of the few in that era of network television to end a series on their , with what they say was an intentional ending. While Lost concluded with just six seasons, it remains among the best shows of all time for many viewers and critics to this day.

Throughout its 6 seasons, Lost has even garnered a new wave of fans via streaming, who are able to discover and enjoy the thrilling events that took place after Oceanic Airlines Flight 815’s crash for the first time.

Season 6 Was The Right Time For Lost To End

Many Of The Cast Was Departing The Show, Dwindling The Number Of Plane Crash Survivors

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Lost ending with season 6 made sense, and the fact that the showrunners made the call makes it hard to argue with. However, there are plenty of people who believe that Lost ended too soon, with others who think it should have ended sooner. Once the show started pulling out the flash-forwards, Lost began to feel like wheel-spinning to some fans. However, others felt that when the show started to delve into the idea of the afterlife, there was a lot more it could have accomplished to set this up better and make that controversial finale more acceptable.

There's an argument that Lost couldn't keep up for much longer. One of the big problems in the last seasons was that too many of Lost's ensemble cast had to leave the show. This meant there could be shocking deaths coming all the time because people departing. With a limited cast of the plane survivors, Lost also had to find ways to bring in people not on the plane, which kept stretching the idea of the island. The show had to end because there just weren't enough stories for the characters who didn't leave.

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Lost Still Didn't Do Justice To A Lot Of Its Stories

Too Many Mysteries Were Left Unanswered

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While season 6 of Lost felt like a good time to end the show, that is not to say the show had addressed all the lingering questions it had introduced. From the beginning, Lost cemented itself as must-watch television because it kept presenting intriguing questions that viewers tuned in to get answers for. However, one of the frustrations some viewers had with the show was that mysteries seemed to be introduced only for it to become clear that Lost didn't have an answer to them.

This led to the show attempting to answer some of these burning questions over the course of the series, leading to some satisfying answers and a lot of lazy ones. Ending Lost in season 6 also left a lot of questions still up in the air with the show seemingly forgetting about them. This includes Walt having unexplained powers, Hurley's mysterious numbers, and the reveal that Libby was in the same institution as Hurley. While these added some more temporary excitement to the show, the fact that they were left as unresolved storylines taints Lost's ending.

Could A Revival Of Lost Work?

There Are Arguments For And Against A Lost Reboot

Since the ending of the show was one of the most divisive TV finales of recent decades, there is now an extensive debate over whether the legacy of Lost could be salvaged with a revival. There are arguments for and against a revival of Lost, and whether bringing the series back to screens after over a decade would work or not entirely depends on the approach taken. On the one hand, a Lost revival could be the perfect antidote to the controversial aspects of the hit ABC show's final moments. On the other hand, the last scenes could also be the reason Lost simply wouldn't work.

When it comes to reasons a Lost survival would work, repositioning the ending as simply the midway point of a wider story is a key potential strength. There were many unanswered questions still lingering by the time Lost season 6 concluded. If a potential revival brought back characters and actors from the original run, a revival could finally wrap up these lingering mysteries. For example, Walt returned to the Island in the 12-minute epilogue "The New Man in Charge" on the Lost DVD box set. A revival featuring Walt on the Island alongside Ben and Hurely would be able to explain why he seemed to have powers, which was left unresolved after the ending.

There's also, of course, the glaring and most obvious problem a revival would have to overcome - most of the original Lost characters are dead and in the afterlife.

A revival that continued the story of Lost could also rectify some of the more unsatisfactory character arcs of the show, such the 'redemption' of Ben. Ben staying behind to work with Hurley, the new guardian of the Island. Ben was a fantastic villain on the show, and many aspects of his transformation from antagonist to protagonist didn't quite feel genuine. A Lost revival that repositioned Ben becoming a hero as simply him biding his time while he figured out how to usurp Hurley and take control of the Island for himself would definitely make for an interesting plot development.

However, there are many reasons a Lost revival might not work either. For example, a key feature of Lost was the slowly unfolding central mystery of the Island itself, which kept viewers returning each week for the next episode. This has now been resolved to an extent, so a revival of Lost wouldn't be able to anchor its many sub-plots around the nature of the Island as the original run did. There's also, of course, the glaring and most obvious problem a revival would have to overcome - most of the original Lost characters are dead and in the afterlife.

A Lost revival would either have to undo the deaths of most of its major characters, which would mean retconning more-or-less the entire point of the Island and the original show. The other option would be to introduce an entirely new set of names and faces. However, this also presents a central issue, since viewers would simply assume that a fresh batch of survivors in a Lost revival were also simply there to be judged prior to moving on to the afterlife.

Of course, all of this is hypothetical, and whether a Lost revival worked would be down to the story ABC opts for if they ever bring the show back to screens. A reboot of Lost could be a great way to salve the sting left by the divisive ending, or it could end up making the issues many viewers had with the finale even more impossible to ignore.