Lost: Season 1
By: Mark Runyon | Category: Television DVD | 10/04/05 | 01:00 AM
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Grade: A | Genre: Drama
Summary: Season 1 of Lost is a can't miss. As good as the final season of Six Feet Under was, I have to agree with the Emmy voters that Lost was last year's smartest and best drama. Take the time to get Lost.
Are you one of the few who missed the plane on the Emmy winning, ABC drama Lost? For me, Alias was starting to reach the point of maximum suckage so I wasn't too keen to take on a new J.J. Abrams drama that didn't have Jennifer Garner carefully keeping it afloat. Plus, didn't Matthew Fox have a Party of Five reunion coming up with dimpled wonder Scott Wolf? Then came that nagging universal praise which I was convinced would soon blow over similar to my refusal to accept compact disks were anything more than a passing fad in high school. Well like digital records, Lost was no fad. It is the most addicting show on television with complex characters, tangled storylines and a core plot that you think is always seconds away from ending yet always spirals on, unleashing hundreds of mini-subplots. Finally for those of us who have been left out of the conversations at the water cooler, we have season 1 on DVD to get us all caught up on the goings on of our favorite castaways. Just make sure that you block off one huge chunk of time because like Lay's potato chips you can't watch just one. |
You can think of Lost as some strange brew mashing Gilligan's Island, Twin Peaks and Myst together. It basically lays out the plight of Oceanic flight 815 from Sydney to Los Angeles. After losing radio contact, the plane veers off course to make an unscheduled landing only to go down a little sooner, and quite a bit bumpier, than expected. Forty-seven improbably beautiful people survive the crash. Darwinism at its finest perhaps? They are a varied lot, each clutching tightly to their inner demons cultivated in their pre-crash life. These must be overcome to survive in their new existence. The first weeks are spent plotting ways to alert the rescue party then, when the inevitably of their situation burrows in, they wearily embrace this new destiny by setting up camp and finding how each member will contribute to the group's survival. One rather large fly in the ointment, the island is inhabited by mystical creatures. They encounter a polar bear early on in this place that might as well be Tahiti. He took a hell of a wrong turn at that iceberg. Also, there are invisible huge creatures lurking in the jungle stomping on trees, eating people and generally instilling fear into the already frazzled crash survivors. That's saying nothing of the Others who are a whole other barrel of monkeys that you don't want to wrestle today.
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| Lost: Season 1 |
| Starring: Naveen Andrews, Emilie de Ravin, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia, Maggie Grace, Josh Holloway, Malcolm David Kelley, Ian Somerhalder, Daniel Dae Kim, Yoon-jin Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Dominic Monaghan & Terry O'Quinn |
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| Buy Lost Season 1 |
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The strongest elements of Lost are its cliffhanger storylines and compelling characters. Each episode focuses on the back-story of one of our essential characters, flashing back to the life they led before the crash. These moments allow us to piece together their motivations surfacing in the present. It's a great device that only reveals as much as we need to know, introducing each person in bits and pieces, constantly rubbing out the preconceptions you've picked up along the way. It's tough to select a favorite from this diverse group. You have the couple that only speaks Japanese, the ex-Iraqi soldier, the convict, the spoiled sorority chick and the cursed lottery winner. Trying to keep this motley crew from turning into Lord of the Flies is quite an undertaking. The responsibility falls in the lap of Jack (Matthew Fox) who becomes the instant hero in the moments after the crash with his quick surgeon's instinct. Boiling hot Kate (Evangeline Lilly) becomes his resident leading lady who is surrounded by a mysterious past. She looks like she stepped out of an REI catalog every episode, impeccably gorgeous, and they strip her down to a bikini every blessed chance they get. Terry O'Quinn plays Locke, the ultra-outdoorsman who will be the group's savior or sprout horns to rotisserize them over the campfire, all depending on where you stand. Ex-hobbit Dominic Monaghan plays Charlie who is a washed up rock star strung out on heroin, trying to woo the pregnant Claire. There are about a dozen main characters we regularly interact with, and the remaining castaways seem little more than set props for the occasional sacrificial victim to the island.
This is definitely edge of your seat drama, filled with mystery and intrigue. The jungle is just spooky. You never know what mystery is going to surface around the next unexplored corner. The plots are constructed very tightly, leaving you salivating for more at the edge of each episode. The nice thing about the DVD set is instant gratification. The not so nice thing about it is the entire weekend you will unwitting lose as you become a Lost junkie, feeding your unquenchable habit. I've heard they're using heroin to try to wean people off this. Forty minute episodes, four episodes per disk, six disks (disk seven is extras), you do the math.
I have to say the new second season, spinning forth in its first two episodes, has been a bit of a killjoy. We've opened the pesky handle-free hatch and found, well, something short of Armageddon awaiting our curious crew. Truthfully, it's like that damn briefcase in Pulp Fiction. We're going to be disappointed by anything short of the devil popping out and doing an Irish jig. It feels like we're starting to pick up the pace a bit so hopefully it won't fall into those dreaded second season doldrums that afflicts so many promising new dramas. Regardless, season 1 of Lost is a can't miss. As good as the final season of Six Feet Under was, I have to agree with the Emmy voters that Lost was last years smartest and best drama. A network television show running the table on its first season -- unthinkable. If you haven't gotten hooked on the hottest drama on television, queue up this DVD box set and get Lost.
Buy or rent the first season of Lost on DVD now and catch season 2 on ABC Wednesday nights at 9/8c.
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