The Worst Episode Of Lost According To IMDb Isn't The Finale
Series showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof (who was also a "LOST" co-creator) have even talked about their dislike for "Stranger in A Strange Land." In an interview with Esquire , Cuse once said that the episode was so bad that it convinced ABC to let the showrunners start planning a conclusion for the series. "We really regretted that we had decided that was a worthy flashback story," he explained. "That story became really instrumental in convincing ABC that we needed to end the show. We were like, 'Okay, this is what flashbacks look like now so it's probably a good idea if we figure out how much longer this show is actually going to go.'" Cuse also called the episode the worst of the series in the interview, citing a corny scene where Jack flies a kite on the beach and the fact that they used Fox's real tattoos — "That's how desperate we were for flashback stories."
If "Stranger in a Strange Land" was the disaster that ended the flashbacks for good, "Fire + Water" should've been the canary in a coal mine that warned writers that the format wouldn't last forever. As a longtime Charlie Pace apologist, I would never argue against the inclusion of more Charlie flashbacks or drama, but scenes of him and his band Drive Shaft wearing diapers for a dumb music video shoot came across as less-than-vital to the story, and his fixation on "saving" Aaron was one of the show's most ill-conceived attempts at hinting that people on The Island might be able to see or change the future. It's also just really hard to see his character, who's typically as charming as he is irritating, torpedo any goodwill he'd built up in the group by kidnapping Aaron and freaking Claire out (although it's not the last bad decision he would make). Plus, "Fire + Water" gets more into the show's obsession with a Christian God than most episodes before it. At a point when the series still seemed like it could end up having a speculative science fiction explanation, the baptism angle and visions of angels likely didn't inspire faith in the show's future in its sci-fi loving fans. Interestingly, Cuse has also talked about a third "LOST" episode that was polarizing at the time of release, but that has apparently fared better in the long run judging by its IMDb rating. "Exposé," the season 3 episode that focused on love-to-hate-them couple Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) and Paolo (Rodrigo Santoro) , received mixed reviews upon release and was the butt of plenty of jokes in 2007. Nikki and Paolo appeared out of nowhere, doing very little in the background and ultimately acting like a more vapid (and mercifully unrelated) Boone and Shannon. In the span of this one episode, they killed a guy, stole his diamonds, lived through the first months of the plane crash aftermath, double-crossed one another, got bitten by killer spiders, and in Nikki's case, ended up buried alive after the survivors failed to realize she was only paralyzed. On paper, "Exposé" is a pretty cool one-off, and its reputation has perhaps benefited from fans who have binge-watched the show since it ended. But when die-hard fans were originally watching "LOST" week to week, intensely theorizing about what would happen to their faves next, it felt like an unnecessary plot interruption that lots of viewers just couldn't deal with. "It has nothing to do with what's going on in the series at this point, and the hack job of inserting these two punks into past scenes reflects lazy writing at its worst," according to a Vulture piece from 2010 . "Plus, why waste an hour with characters who won't be around in the next one?" "Exposé" currently holds an 8.0 rating on IMDb, higher than over a dozen other episodes of the series. The latter half of the show's much-debated series finale holds a 9.0, revealing what many of us suspected all along: a lot of the people who talk about hating "The End" didn't actually watch all that much "LOST." Even the bad episodes of the show have something good to offer, like Sawyer (Josh Holloway) implying he'd like to sit and name stars with Kate (Evangeline Lilly) in "Stranger in a Strange Land," or Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) asking Jack if he's "hitting that" in "Fire + Water." Honestly, that's pretty much it, though. IMDb voters are right: these episodes are really bad.