WHAT IS IT?
"Lost" tells the story of 48 survivors of a tragic plane wreck that has them stranded on what seems to be a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The tragic Oceanic Airlines flight 815 out of Sydney destined for Los Angeles suffered some sort of malfunction and is torn apart in mid-air and falls to the beach below.
The survivors begin to take on a "Survivor" mentality and make camp and hope for rescue, which is when things take a turn for the worse. The island makes its presence known thanks to what seems to be a monster lurking in the jungle, a mysterious hatch, a 16-year-old transmission and a heard rumor of "others."
Season one lasts for 24 episodes beginning with it's two-hour pilot episode and each and every installment introduces you to one new piece of the island along with several flashbacks giving you further insight into the characters populating the island, which leads me to my critique on the show itself.
"Lost" is made up of a perfect cast of actors all completely overtaking the roles they have been assigned especially such names as newcomers Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly and Jorge Garcia as well as Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings) and Terry O'Quinn ("Harsh Realm," "Alias"). Fox and Lilly, along with Josh Holloway make up the island's love triangle as well as the show's most likely candidates for magazine cover stories along with Maggie Grace. Personally the best piece of casting is Terry O'Quinn whose performances on other shows and films have always seemed so forced and over the top, while on "Lost" he seems more relaxed and invested in his character of John Locke. His acting is subtle and quiet, which make his occasional outbursts that much more attention grabbing, not to mention his character is certainly the most intriguing and human character of the group.
Beyond the acting this show unfortunately has a laundry list of problems, and I honestly don't understand how it has done so well. As a DVD set this show works well, but not as great as the buzz would lead you to believe. In my opinion there are three things that can ruin films and TV shows, those things are too much narration, dream sequences or flashbacks and this show relies heavily on the latter of those three even goes so far as to include two additional flashbacks in the special features. The show idea itself is intriguing enough without all these flashbacks and it gets to a point where I don't care any longer about who these people were before they crash landed, I just want to know what they are going to do about their current situation and that damned monster.
Flashbacks aside, the major issue I have with this show is that nothing really happens, and when it does it takes so damn long for it to occur. As I said before, this show has an intriguing premise and the island's mysterious nature is extremely attractive, which is why it is so maddening they delay the storyline each week. Luckily on DVD you are able to rush through it, but I am still confused how people can tune in each week for 60 minutes when nothing really happens for 50 of those minutes.
THE DVD:
Packed with all 24 episodes from the "Lost" first season this seven disc set is sure to enthuse any "Lost" fan as it delves deep into the creation of the series with an emphatic concentration on the pilot episode. The special features in this set are designed around the "Lost" fanatic and the fans who wished they had seen the show and now love it after seeing it on DVD.
Four of the episodes come with commentary tracks (Pilot, Walkabout, The Moth, Hearts and Minds), the commentaries are laid down by executive producers J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Bryan Burk, producer Jack Bender, co-executive producer David Fury, and Terry O'Quinn, Dominic Monaghan, executive producer Carlton Cuse, supervising producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and actors Maggie Grace and Ian Sommerhalder. The commentaries are insightful and interesting, but the one that really stands out is the commentary on the pilot as J.J., Damon and Bryan stop the show in mid stream and take you behind-the-scenes as they show you how several of the beach scenes were done with a focus on the special effects surrounding the plane as the engine explodes and wing falls.
On top of that, the pilot episode also comes with a script scanner track allowing you to read the script as the episode plays on your compute and allows you to directly interact with it as you go. Pilot themed features continue with a large making-of feature and then a look at the set design for the entire show with, you guessed it, a particular eye on the debris from the plane crash in the pilot episode.
The rest of the features appropriately surround the development of the show especially a look at everyone's audition tapes, an entire featurette on how the show came to be, a look at the "Lost" ComiCon panel and a feature designed around the plane crash itself and how the scenes on the plane were created.
The features don't stop there with a couple of scenes cut from the season finale (the flashbacks I mentioned earlier), 3 more deleted scenes, a blooper reel, pictures taken by actor Matthew Fox on set along with his running commentary, and a look at the special appearance by the crew and cast as they are celebrated at the Museum of Television & Radio's 22nd Annual Paley Festival.
Once you have gone through all that, be sure to do a diligent search for the Easter Eggs you can find on the seventh disc. They include a blooper reel and an alternate look at the opening sequence. The best way to tell you how to find them is to simply tell you to push right and left a lot on each menu you see on the seventh disc, the bonus disc.
OVERALL:
On a whole this DVD set is very impressive, but it will only appeal to those that can handle the torture of storylines left hanging. Over the course of the first season several plotlines are left lingering for several episodes and the dream sequences are used far too often, which really seem to be used as a crutch more than an actual storytelling tool with the flashbacks fit right into that category as well.
"Lost" is entertaining, but I feel it will be far more intriguing once all seasons are on DVD and the story can be played in its entirety. There is no way I could tune into this show on a weekly basis just waiting for a tiny little nugget of information each time, and sometimes not even getting that.
Once each and every season is on DVD this will be the collection to own, but for now it is simply a means to get caught up on stuff you may have missed or just the beginning of a collection that needs a lot of holes filled in before it will truly be complete.