Lost – The Complete Series

LOST, COMPLETE SEASONS 1-6 (Blu-ray)

Release Date: October 11th 2010
Certificate: 15

Created by: Jeffrey Lieber, J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof
Cast: Naveen Andrews, Nestor Carbonell, Henry Ian Cusick, Jeremy Davies, Emilie de Ravin, Jeff Fahey, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia, Maggie Grace, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, William Mapother, Dominic Monaghan, Terry O’Quinn, Michelle Rodriguez, Ian Somerhalder

When Lost first premiered back in 2004, no one was really sure what to make of it. In a post 9/11 world the premise seemed to offer something altogether different and a lot more puzzling that anything we’d seen before (Twin Peaks included). For the next 6 years audiences scratched their heads in bafflement not knowing where it will all lead. As one of the most highly anticipated series finales in the history of television, everyone wanted to know “How will it end?”.

Let’s look at how it began though…

Season 1

When Oceanic Flight 815 splits apart and crashes on a deserted tropical island, the surviving passengers find themselves stranded. Among them are Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Locke, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Charlie, Claire, Shannon, Boone, Michael and his son Walt. As they group together in hope of being rescued, they find the island is not as peaceful as it looks when they are attacked by another group known as “The Others”. The island proves to be a place of wonders too, containing healing powers which allow Locke to rise from his wheelchair completely healed and Jack sees his dead father. But it is also inhabited by a deadly Smoke Monster and polar bears.

Seasons 2, 3 and 4

As the seasons progressed, the group would continuously split up and reform, alliances would be made and then dissolved and no one was sure who to trust. Some wanted to stay on the island believing it to be their destiny, while others wanted desperately to leave it. As we learn more about their lives before the Oceanic crashed we see that by some grand design, they were all fated to be on Flight 815. When survivors from the other half of the plane are found (other “Others”), they also discover an old station where experiments were carried out. As the survivors learn more about the Others, they also discover more about the research on the island and the organisation known as the Dharma Initiative.

Season 5

When a freighter brings a new group of people to the island, it’s more bad news for the survivors who are caught in a war with them and the Others. But when six of them manage to escape from the island, they agree to go along with a fabricated story that they are the sole survivors of Flight 815 in order to protect their friends from other people who are searching for the island and might harm them if they are found. Those left behind find themselves living in 1974, when the island moves, it also moves through time. They infiltrate the Dharma Initiative with hopes of changing the future so that Flight 815 never crashes. The season finale is an explosive one, literally, with a nuclear bomb being setting off in an attempt to reset the timeline.

Season 6
The first two episodes from the final season deal with the effects of the nuclear bomb being set off and the tragedy which ensues. We pick up in 2004 with the island shown at the bottom of the ocean and Flight 815 landing safely. From here on we see the survivors’ lives as if the crash never happened. But there’s another timeline as well, one where the nuclear bomb fails and the survivors are still trapped on the island. In the new timeline, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Locke, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Charlie, Claire still encounter each other despite the crash not taking place. As they struggle against Locke and fight against a darkness which threatens to devour Sayid and Claire the mystery of the island and Smoke Monster is finally revealed.

While Lost might not have been the ending all fans envisioned since the show’s start, nevertheless, it is an end. As I learn how the new timeline connects with the one after the bomb I started to realise something about Lost. The show’s real power wasn’t so much in the mystery, the time travel or the supernatural, but in the connections the characters all had to each other. In those respects, the show’s ending reach a complete resolve without any loose ends as it was these characters who created a place to find each other after death. As they reconnect again in their new timeline, instinctively seeking each other out, the scenes are powerful and moving. The moments which jar their memories like a déjà vu are maximised by Michael Giacchino powerful yet tenderly orchestrated score.

As with the finale of Six Feet Under, specifically the scene where David in his old age sees his partner Keith waiting for him on the other side just before he dies, the characters of Lost have waited on the other side for each other. One last time; to remember and to let go. While recent shows like Dollhouse and Heroes never reached their finales, Lost made it through its entire run and joins the ranks of X-Files, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica and Six Feet Under as one of the few which took a dignified bow at the end of a great run.

The end is the beginning.