So, tell me what you think about "Lost". (spoiler alert)

[hedgehog]

With the understanding that the island was real and the sideways wasn't "real", I liked it. I can see the sideways as being a purgatory where each person must work through remaining sins/guilt to become the best person they can be. Ben remains behind because he still has a lot to atone for/leave behind (as in leave behind jealousy). Christian Shepherd indicated that time in the sideways was not linear with real time. Some of the people we see may have died off old age (Kate, Sawyer, Claire) long after Jack died on the island. I can imagine Christian living though his own purgatory to become the good person we see at the end rather than the angry alcoholic we saw in flashbacks of the real world. Perhaps his final atonement is to make up with his son.