Season 1 - 25 episodes (2004-05)
Season 2 - 24 episodes (2005-06)
Season 3 - 23 episodes (20067-07)
Rent Lost on Amazon Video
Created by: J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber, Damon Lindelof
Starring: Matthew Fox, Terry O'Quinn, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, Naveen Andrews, Jorge Garcia, Dominic Monaghan, Harold Perrineau, Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Emilie de Ravin, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Watros, Maggie Grace, Henry Ian Cusick, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell, Ian Somerhalder, Malcolm David Kelley
Rated: TV-14
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Plot
The survivors of a plane crash are forced to work together in order to survive on a seemingly deserted tropical island.
Verdict
Lost is such a fun show. With a huge cast of characters, there are plenty of stories to tell. Every character has a secret, their backgrounds slowly revealed in flashbacks. There are characters you like, dislike, appreciate, and detest. The island is full of mysteries, and the potential is never greater than in the first season. It's such a great ride. The season is addicting with each episode ending on a cliffhanger, making it nearly designed to binge. You have to see what happens next on the island, and you have to see which character's backstory we'll delve into next.
Watch it.
Review
I first saw Lost on Hulu back when everything on the site was free. I quickly binged the five available seasons. I then watched the first five seasons again ahead of the season 6 release. I'm a big fan of Lost. There are few things that weave such a fun mystery and intricate character backstory. Of course the mystery got away from the writers, but Season 1 is the best of Lost. I wasn't sure how much of Season 1 I would watch, but that ended up being the entire season.
Season 1
The season is such an enigma. It's engrossing and riveting with amazing characters. I love these characters, though I've had the privilege to run through this show a couple of times. The pilot is absolutely phenomenal. A good pilot should hook you, and this does exactly that.
It's easy to criticize many of the characters, and that's another trick. The show makes them slightly unlikable, only to reveal backstory that makes you empathetic. In a flashback you feel bad for the characters, then something even worse happens.
Sayid (Naveen Andrews) is such a great character, and I appreciate the show humanizing a man from Iraq when many people saw him as a threat. The show addresses that head on. Often Sawyer (Josh Holloway) is the character that acts as a bit of an every man, voicing crude thoughts that allows the show to address the ignorance. Sawyer is the willful deviant, looking out for himself. It's hard not to find him intriguing as he revels in being a villain, but we often see him helping in dire circumstances. His surly nature is a defense.
Sun (Daniel Dae Kim) and Kim (Yunjin Kim) are Korean and the show uses subtitles. I like that the show takes risks by forcing subtitles on the show. It adds depth to the series with the couple unable to communicate with everyone else.
Jack (Matthew Fox) is the de facto leader. He wants to be the hero, but not the leader. You can't separate it like that. Being the doctor makes him in high demand.
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| Terry O'Quinn plays Locke |
The great thing about so many characters is that there is something for everyone. The show infuses a lot of tropes into the characters and then builds from that, explaining why the characters have these traits. It's a great bit of storytelling.
There are the main characters, and then the secondary characters. There really are just too many, and the show gets meta towards the end with Ernst, a character we've never seen before, telling the main characters "you aren't the only ones here." That line is as much for the characters as it is for the viewers. A few times main characters mix up Scott and Steve. Two people we never see. For a show with so many characters, I don't know why it introduces even more.
This season creates a lot of mystery, playing fast and loose with logic when it fits. I don't blame the show for that. It's what made it so fun at the start, and later so infuriating when good answers weren't to be had.
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| Dominic Monaghan, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly play Charlie, Jack, Kate. |
That's ultimately the big criticism of the show, that the answers to the mysteries feel cheap. The defense is that the show has always been about the characters, and while that is completely true, the show didn't have to dive so deep into the mysteries or try to explain all of them. Leaving some of the questions unanswered would have helped, but these are all issues that come to a point in season six.
Just as each episode ends on a cliffhanger, so does the season. I wasn't planning to watch all of Season 1, but I did. I didn't plan to start Season 2, but I have to get the answers.What's in the hatch?
Season 2
We enter the hatch and find Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) pressing the button, entering the numbers that helped Hurley (Jorge Garcia) win the lottery. Jack and Locke argue over whether to keep pushing the button. There are also more survivors. Several people in the tail section survived, ending up on the other side of the island. We continue to see interactions characters had with each other before the island, sometimes not even realizing it.
So many shows use flashbacks or do a full flashback episode, usually to pad the runtime. What Lost did so well is tying the flashback directly to the episode's plot and giving us a basis for why characters act as they do in the present. It's a direct connection, needed insight as the plot moves forward. So many shows fail in thinking the flashback is what people respond to, using it for character history instead of development. The island drives the plot while flashbacks bolster characters.
The first episode introduces Desmond, though you wouldn't realize he's in the hatch initially. He assumes the blast to open the hatch is an assault. Jack has met Desmond before, and that helps him defuse the situation. Locke is happy to take up entering the numbers and pressing the button, but does it do anything or is it a psychological experiment? That's an ongoing debate. Locke feels like he owes the island.
Michael (Harold Perrineau), Sawyer, and Jin's escape on the raft doesn't fare well. They eventually end up back on the island. They're captured by a group that survived in the tail of the plane, though the trio initially thinks they're "the others." The tail section has a much rougher time, weathering several attacks by "the others." Episode seven shows us how they survived following the crash.
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| S2E8: Cynthia Watros, Michelle Rodriguez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Josh Holloway, Sam Anderson, Harold Perrineau, Naveen Andrews play Libby, Anna Lucia, Eko, Sawyer Bernard, Michael, Sayid |
Sayid encounters Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) who is holding a barely surviving Sawyer captive while Jack and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) play golf in episode eight. Eventually the tail section reunites with the survivors of the fuselage. This show always manages to make the emotional moments land. It gives them space and doesn't feel the need to drown it in exposition.
In episode nine we discover why Kate is on the run. In the next episode Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) reveals a connection to the plane full of virgin Mary statues. He's a priest now, but he wasn't always. The Jack, Kate, and Sawyer love triangle really heats up while Sawyer survives and recovers.
In episode fifteen, Rousseau captures a man she claims is one of the others. Jack and Locke imprison Henry Gale (Michael Emerson) in the storage room of the bunker. Sayid questions Henry, and the question is whether Henry really crash landed. When he starts sowing discord between Locke and Jack, it's clear there's more to him. Locke is pushed to trust Henry in desperate circumstances when the button must be pressed.
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| S2E11: Terry O'Quinn, Josh Holloway, Matthew Fox play Locke, Sawyer, Jack |
One of the tail section survivors, Libby (Cynthia Watros), claims to be a psychologist. Hurley begins to develop feelings for her, but in episode eighteen we discover she has a secret.
The second half of the season seems to be the quest for guns. Sawyer has them after tricking Locke and several people want them. Ana Lucia thinks Henry must be eliminated. Michael returns, claiming to have seen the others. It starts a path of chaos that leads to Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and Hurley following Michael to the others. Meanwhile, Locke realizes the button does have a purpose. Desmond inadvertently crashed Flight 815.
Of course this season ends on a cliff hanger. It's what the show does best. There are so many great moments between characters as this season deepens the lore of the island while also introducing more people. They also get a rich backstory.
Season 3
Overall it's weaker than the second season, but it sure does have a strong finish. We learn about the others through Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), but she's all but a hostage at the hands of Ben Linus (Michael Emerson). We learn how he ended up on the island, that Locke has a special connection to the island, and that "Jacob" is a mysterious force. A boat arrives that could be their rescue, but some people don't want to leave. It all culminates in the finale featuring one of the most shocking twists television has ever seen.
What propelled the mystery of this show was the wait in between episodes, providing time to come up with crazy ideas or to see what others purported online. With streaming you lose that experience because it's easy to immediately watch the next episode. The anticipation was a driving for of the show. From the beginning, but especially in this season we realize how this show only shows us parts. We can never assume anything in this show. It builds on what we think we know and the assumption only to upturn them. While this season slows down at a few different times, the conclusion is mind blowing and that's not hyperbole. It shakes the foundations and story structure we assumed with this show.
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| S3E10: Dominic Monaghan, Daniel Dae Kim, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway play Charlie, Jin, Hurley, Sawyer |
The season starts with Juliet, slowly revealing she's one of the others. They actually have a nice setup on the island, living in a neighborhood and even participating in book club. They witness a plane crash, the one that start this series, and that's when Ben sends people to the fuselage and tail to survey survivors. In the present Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are still detained.
Ben needs a surgeon, and that's when Jack falls from the sky. Ben needs Jack, and Jack has a wild plan to help Kate and Sawyer escape by holding Ben hostage on the operating table. Jack learns that Juliet is hostage on the island too. She follows Ben's orders, hoping that will eventually get her off the island.
Episode nine is the mystery no one asked for, the origin of Jack's tattoos. It's a flashback that does help the plot or do much to develop Jack.
In episode twelve, Kate wants to rescue Jack. She, Locke, and Sayid find Jack playing football with Tom. He doesn't seem to need rescuing.
The biggest fault this season is Nikki and Paulo. They were introduced early this season and appear frequently just to remind us they still exist. Every time they are mentioned, Sawyer asks who they are. The show didn't need these characters yet retcons them in. They are pointless characters that don't help the plot at all. They're a distraction. It's the primary reason they're annoying.
Locke joins the Others as they abandon the commune in episode fifteen. Kate and Juliet are left behind, forced to work together. Hurley tricks Sawyer into being a decent person. We explore the Others through Juliet, but we already know they aren't what she signed up for.
Locke wants to see "Jacob," the man in charge of the island. Ben takes him to a cottage, but we see that while Ben claimed to be born on the island, he wasn't.
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| S3E23: Evangeline Lilly, Matthew Fox, Michael Emerson play Kate, Jack, Ben |
When a helicopter pilot lands on the island in episode nineteen, we discover that Flight 815 was found in the ocean. Everyone died. The survivors think they're saved, but with this show nothing is quite what it seems. A recurring plot point is that Desmond can see the future. That's an ability from the end of season two. He time traveled for a bit, remaining on the island. He's trying to protect Charlie.With episode twenty-one, it seems like Charlie might really perish. He's making amends and saying goodbyes.
The fatal assumption is that the survivors assumed the helicopter and related boat were sent by Desmond's girlfriend Penny. In episode twenty-three the reveal is that it isn't her boat which leads to the next question, whose boat is it? The biggest moment in the season is one of the biggest twists ever. "We have to go back!" This show has always combined with present with flashbacks. This season used that assumption to set up a huge surprise.
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