Lost - The Complete First Season (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)It is too early to state for certain just how good LOST is compared to the great shows in television history, but by the highest possible standards its first season has to stand out as one of the great seasons in the history of the medium. Season One of LOST was not merely good but great television, and not merely great television but great narrative storytelling. But the impact of LOST goes completely beyond its aesthetic success. Along with another show on ABC (albeit one that I do not care for), DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, LOST has managed to cause the prodigiously stupid television execs to realize that there is a huge demand for quality scripted television. After years of an endless string of simply awful reality shows, all of the networks suddenly want shows that are written ahead of time and feature casts of actual actors. Although final schedules have not yet been announced, it looks as if the 2005-2006 season is going to have both a dramatic decrease in reality shows and an increase in scripted shows. The stunning success of LOST has played a major role in this sea change.
We have in recent years seen genre shows that were huge hits with critics and managed to generate a passionate cult following. Probably no show was more critically praised than BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (with hordes of high brow critics preferring it to more respectable hit series like THE SOPRANOS), but at its peak it managed only a small audience. LOST has generated critical praise almost as strong as BUFFY, a core of fans nearly as passionate, but unlike BUFFY managed absolutely stunning ratings. It is one of the few instances in recent television history where what is arguably the best show on TV also managed among the strongest ratings. In fact, LOST would be considered a cult show based on the number of websites that it has inspired and the passion of the fans, except that the ratings instead make it a mainstream hit.
Who would have thought that a series dealing with plane crash survivors on a most unusual island would have been this successful? Before it debuted I remember people joking that it sounded like GILLIGAN'S ISLAND without the humor. But it ended up matching or surpassing the most optimistic expecations, in quality as well as in ratings. The mention of ratings is not gratuitious. So many superb shows have been cancelled in recent years (FIREFLY, WONDERFALLS, DEAD LIKE ME, ANGEL) that there was even a "Save LOST" website started . . . before the show even debuted! Luckily, the ratings have made cancellation seem not only remote but impossible.
It is almost impossible to acknowledge everything that LOST does well in the space allotted here. Above all else, it is a superbly written show, not merely on an episode by episode basis, but in the way all of the episodes mesh with one another. The continuity is the best that I have seen in a long time. For instance, the first time we see one character in the show, she is rubbing her wrist. Later, we learn that she had been a prisoner of a U. S. Marshall and had obviously gotten rid of her handcuffs just before we first met her. Almost any detail like that will be dealt with at a later date. But the scripts are just as strong on character development, humor, excitement, and adventure. I do have a tiny bit of fear about Season Two: former BUFFY and ANGEL writer David Fury, who wrote many of the finest scripts of the year, including "Walkabout," which could very well win Fury an Emmy for best written episode of the year, has left LOST to work this summer on the new FOX series THE INSIDE, before joining 24 as a writer and executive producer.
My initial fear when the show started was that the central cast was perhaps too large, but it turned out to be unjustified, and the great ensemble cast is unquestionably one of the reasons for the show's success.. Yes, there are a lot of characters, and sometimes I wish some were more central than others, but the depth and power of developing the stories of a dozen characters ended up being both unique and exceptionally entertaining. Jack is the titular lead of the show, although show creator J. J. Abrams has confessed that their original idea was to have Jack assume leadership in the first couple of episodes, and then have him die off, forcing the lovely fugitive Kate become the leader for the castaways. But they quickly realized that Matthew Fox's Jack was too valuable a character to toss aside so cavalierly. If there is a second main character, it is Kate, who is performed by a remarkable newcomer, the excruciatingly beautiful Evangeline Lily, who despite virtually no prior experience (I did recently spot her in a very, very tiny role from the first season episode "Kinetic" on SMALLVILLE, where her only task is to kiss her supposed boyfriend). One of the most consistently fascinating characters is John Locke, played by Terry O'Quinn, a veteran television actor familiar to anyone who has seen shows like ALIAS, THE X-FILES, MILLENIUM, and THE WEST WING. Although he has always performed marvelously, LOST has made him a star. Every one of the major characters has his or her own set of fans. Naveen Andrews, for instance, a Londoner of Indian descent, has been a big hit playing Sayid, the former Iraqi soldier, as has Jorge Garcia as Hurley, the obese lottery winner who is as unlucky for others as he is lucky himself. And while Dominic Monaghan shared in the enormous success of THE LORD OF THE RINGS playing one of the Hobbits, he has achieved more individual success as Charlie, the heroin-addicted bass player for the fictional band Driveshaft (one hit wonders famed for their song "You All Everybody"). So rabid are the show's fans that there are websites dedicated to Driveshaft.
Structurally, the narrative shifts between the efforts of the survivors to adapt to and understand the island on which they are marooned and flashbacks that explain the personal history of each character. Some people object to this, wishing instead that they focused exclusively on the events on the island, but I think that this is wrong. If you focused merely on the events on the island, it would be only an adventure story, but through the flashbacks we learn so much about what makes the people tick that the series becomes as much a character study as an adventure. By the end of the season, we get to know the characters so well that we can anticipate how they are going to respond to even the smallest events. We learn very quickly that the island contains a host of mysteries, including invisible monsters whose location and function remain unknown until the end of the season (if we even understand them then), other inhabitants whose intentions seem both sinister and unknown, and a lone insane Frenchwoman named Danielle Rousseau. But there is not much more than we know about the island. Rousseau talks of the Black Rock, but it isn't what we expect when we finally see it. And then there is the metal doorway that Locke discovers in the middle of the jungle. How can it be opened and what lies behind the door? By the end of the season many of the mysteries are explained, but more are left open-ended.
LOST clearly has the potential to be one of the great series in the history of television. The producers are highly ambitious, but so far their execution has matched their aspirations. I read an interview with David Fury before the first episode aired in which he said they had a plot line that runs over several years, so their clearly is a well-conceived storyline. I have only one concern with the show, and that is the executive producer and creator J. J. Abrams. Although he has two prior hit shows, FELICITY and ALIAS, he has had some problems with taking his shows to higher levels. What made BUFFY so extraordinary was that each year they managed to do something new and amazing, even if some fans were disappointed by some directions it headed. But ALIAS has started to disappoint some fans by the fact that it hasn't progressed much beyond what it was in the first season. Instead of doing strikingly new things, Abrams just tends to recycle the same general storyline. And there has not been much of a payoff for all the focus on Ramaldi (for nonfans of ALIAS, a Renaissance genius whose artifacts provide much of the narrative force of the show). Abrams clearly is brilliant at conceiving and initiating great shows, but he has not yet demonstrated that he is a great finisher in the way that Joss Whedon has. I'm forever the optimist, and I believe that Abrams either will come to terms with this or the other creators and executive producers will help LOST get to a place that we will all find satisfying.
Regardless of the future, this nonetheless is one of the most remarkable rookie seasons any television series has ever enjoyed. I'll end with food for thought. THE X-FILES, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL, and FARSCAPE, to name just a few shows, were much better in their second and third seasons than their first. What if two years from now we are able to say the same of LOST?

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From J.J. Abrams, the creator of Alias, comes the action-packed adventure that became a worldwide television event. Stranded on an island that holds many secrets, 48 people must band together if they hope to get home alive. Now you can experience the nonstop excitement and mystery of every episode, from the show's stunning first minute to its spectacular finale, on a seven-disc set. Presented in a widescreen theatrical format with 5.1 Surround Sound and bursting with more than eight hours of original bonus features -- including unaired Lost flashbacks from the final episode -- Lost is a real find.

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