*The Mirage leaves a lot of questions unanswered for a long time — is that intentional, or just lazy writing?
Weirdly though… it’s still kind of addictive.
How do you feel about shows with ambiguous or open-ended endings?*
Depends on the situation, if the show made it seem like we’d get an explanation I want an explanation
10
action_lawyer_comics2 days ago
+2
Reminds me of the ending to Mass Effect 3 before the patch. People weren't upset because the ending was vague and open-ended. They were upset because the core aspect of the trilogy was you could make meaningful choices, and then you get to the end and it turns out vague and open-ended.
You could save or kill people, do the right thing, or make a profit off the lives of sentient creatures. When you can see the throughline of decisions about someone seeking a refund of a faulty toaster oven, you expect that you will see a payoff for the big decisions you make. You have a shooter that ends with mysterious, improbable space magic, fine. But if you have a game that is all about making decisions, that's where you piss people off by shrugging and saying "who knows how it turned out?"
2
Crazy_Aside_13282 days ago
-3
nah depends
-3
Haikouden2 days ago
+4
The first word in their comment is "depends".
4
BleachedUnicornBHole2 days ago
+6
It depends on the type of show. A crime drama should eventually put all the pieces together and explain what happened. A sci-fi or fantasy show doesn’t really need to. It’s already established by the genre that things don’t work like you expect. As long as the show follows the rules that is established via world building, letting the audience figure things out is part of the fun of watching.
6
action_lawyer_comics2 days ago
+2
And even then, that is flexible by genre. There are writers like Brendan Sanderson where you do expect it all to make sense and work out in the end. But if I read a Conan story, I don't have those same expectations
2
waslotu1 day ago
+1
Yeah, I think genre really changes the expectation. A crime story usually has to lock the pieces into place, but sci-fi or fantasy can leave a little more room as long as the internal rules hold. That’s more or less how the show felt to me — not like a detective story that needs to spell everything out, but more like a sci-fi mystery where part of the fun is figuring out how the world works.
1
Mrmike862 days ago
+10
No. Explaining everything kills mystery and makes shows feel like homework. Some of the best shows leave threads dangling. The Sopranos, Twin Peaks, even Lost worked because you kept wondering. Ambiguity makes people talk about the show long after it ends. Lazy writing is when nothing makes sense and not in a fun way. The Mirage sounds like it's doing fine.
10
waslotu2 days ago
+1
yeah, that’s pretty much how I felt about *The Mirage* too. It leaves room for ambiguity, but it never felt like fake mystery to me. What surprised me even more was realizing it was a Chinese drama, because a lot of the setup actually does feel intentional later on. The earlier details connect, and by the end it feels more like a slow puzzle than a show just throwing things at the wall.
1
FantasticJacket72 days ago
+3
You can have a satisfying story without explaining everything but it's definitely harder to do well.
3
htp-di-nsw2 days ago
+3
Media does not need to explain everything, no. It is often enhanced by leaving some things uncertain.
However, and this is the most important part: though the audience doesn't need to be fed the answers, those answers need to exist and be known by the writers. They can't make it up as they go, they need to know the truth so that the show remains logically sound and the audience can discover what's going on and make connections.
I can't stand when it shows have Lost syndrome, when there's no actual plan and they just throw out unexplained things to be evocative and then see what the audience is guessing the truth is so they create even more shocking twists.
This kind of bullshit undercuts the whole point of mystery. It should provoke thought and lead to hypotheses that can be proven true or false and advance your understanding of the underlying truth. But when the writers don't even know, it just relies on people's weird addiction to being surprised. I am the right combination of neurospicy that makes surprise uninteresting for its own sake.
3
waslotu1 day ago
+1
Exactly. Ambiguity is fine — “the writers clearly have no plan” isn’t. That’s basically why *The Mirage* worked better for me than I expected. It doesn’t explain everything immediately, but it felt like there was an actual structure underneath it.
1
kuhpunkt2 days ago
> I can't stand when it shows have Lost syndrome, when there's no actual plan and they just throw out unexplained things to be evocative and then see what the audience is guessing the truth is so they create even more shocking twists.
Why do you make such claims?
0
diener12 days ago
+2
Leaving questions unanswered for a long time is not the same as leaving them unanswered even once the show ends. I think a show that uses mystery as a central element needs to give a satisfying conclusion that makes the puzzle pieces fit, even if it doesn't go into details about everything. It should feel like once you know the answer, everything you have seen makes a lot of sense.
A show that didn't really do this well is Lost, it seemed like the writers threw a bunch of stuff at the wall in the hopes that their future selves would figure out a way to make it all make sense. A show that does it well is Dark. I am currently watching Severance and I really hope the writers have a good idea of what the whole picture is and are just revealing it piece by piece, rather than coming up with new pieces as they go.
2
kuhpunkt2 days ago
+1
>A show that didn't really do this well is Lost, it seemed like the writers threw a bunch of stuff at the wall in the hopes that their future selves would figure out a way to make it all make sense.
What do you mean?
1
waslotu1 day ago
+1
Yeah, exactly. There’s a big difference between “not revealing everything immediately” and “never really knowing what you’re building toward.” If a mystery-driven show lands, the ending should reframe what came before, not just pile on more vagueness. That’s kind of why *The Mirage* worked for me more than I expected — it felt like it had an actual shape underneath it.
1
sebrebc2 days ago
+2
It depends. If the missing information is important to the story and there isn't enough information provided to come to a conclusion. Then yes the explanation is needed.
But if it's one of those "up to the viewer to decide" (Castaway) or the information was provided you just need to pay attention. Then no, leave it up to the viewer to piece it together.
2
RegularGuy8152 days ago
+2
The Leftovers is the perfect example of why the answer is "no"
2
Chataboutgames2 days ago
+2
A show needs to be compelling. Sometimes you need to explain things to be compelling, other times it's more compelling if you don't.
2
boomosaur2 days ago
+2
With modern literacy rates, yes.
2
CommunityDragon1602 days ago
+1
No
1
Taelonius2 days ago
+1
No, I much prefer my stories to be connect the dots.
I am also absolutely allergic to foreshadowing cause it's never actually sneaky it's so damn blatant and just completely ruins the reveal.
No, things don't need to be foreshadowed three damn times.
1
kuhpunkt2 days ago
+1
Absolutely not. Sometimes it's making it all the better. Love Evangelion and its lore... and it's rather cryptic. That's fun.
1
byharryconnolly2 days ago
+1
God forbid a show spend precious run time explaining everything.
1
PhilhelmScream2 days ago
+1
Depends on the person's media literacy. An open ended show leaves room for you to think. A fully answered ending leaves only room for auditing.
1
Platano_con_salami2 days ago
+1
It has to provide the tools to figure it out, not necessarily hitting your head with it or spelling it out, but it cant also just not provide anything under the guise of some deeper meaning or ambiguity, that to me is lazy writing.
1
Apprehensive-Handle42 days ago
+1
I think it's lazy, in the sense that many times the writers are just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, like the X-files for example.
And people come to care more about the mystery than they do structure, plot, characterization, etc etc
1
kbig224322 days ago
+1
>“Many times writers are just throwing shit at the wall”
Can you elaborate on this?
1
jesuspoopmonster2 days ago
+1
X Files had a vague idea of why the mythos was up to the first movie. Even then aspects were in flux. Gillian Anderson needed time off to give birth which led to Scully being abducted which turned into an incredibly important plot point. The details changed often. Cigarette Smoking Man wasn't a character when the show began. His original purpose was to just be in the background and look menacing and then the writers liked him so he ended up the primary antagonist.
The details of a lot of things change and shift. Part of it is because the people who know the truth are manipulators with no motivation to reveal the truth and when they do is its a partial truth or a small part of the truth. Part of it is because the show cared more about what makes a compelling episode or series of episodes more then having a coherent backstory.
After the initial alien invasion story ended they struggled to come up with something to replace it. Then David Duchovny decided he wanted to leave the show resulting in having to work around that. Ideas and characters were introduced but struggled to find footing and the series wasn't always sure how many more seasons they were going to get resulting in failing to set up long term concepts.
A lot of The X Files is based on what works in the moment and throwing out ideas but not always being able to follow up or keep things coherent
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