Lost - Complete series

Fifteen years ago, Lost started at the American channel ABC. The series eventually got six successful seasons. For that reason, my girlfriend thought it would be fun to watch the series again. I'm not normally a big fan of re-watching TV series, but being a huge Lost fan when the series first aired, I went anyway. And how glad I am about that! Because Lost is also super exciting on a second viewing and is very well put together. The series comes into its own when you watch the episodes one after the other instead of one episode a week. The so-called binging, something we had of course never heard of in 2004. Then we had to wait every week for a new episode. And let Lost be a series that comes into its own much better if you can watch the episodes one after the other. This is because of the extensive story that Lost contains. If you have to do that with one episode a week, for six years, you often forget what has already been said or exactly what happened a number of episodes or even seasons earlier.

Lost is about 48 passengers who survive a plane crash after it crashes on an uninhabited, mysterious and tropical island. The story starts right after the plane crashes. Panic everywhere, of course, because people are injured, dead or missing. For example, the entire tail section of the aircraft has already broken off in the air and ended up somewhere else. Some people don't really realize what just happened to them, while others, like Doctor Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox, Party of Five), jump right into action to get the injured people away from the burning plane and where necessary. to provide medical assistance. This first scene in Lost is incredibly well done. In a few minutes you will see many characters passing by, most of which will play an important role on the island. And that will turn out to be longer for one than for the other, as we see in later episodes or seasons.

After everyone who survived the crash is safe and waiting for help from the rescue services, things don't get any easier for them. Strange things are happening on the island. There is a 'smoke monster', we see polar bears running through the tropical jungle and is the island really as uninhabited as people thought? Meanwhile, friendships, irritations, blossoming loves and everything else that happens between people in a large group arise among the survivors.

“ If we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.

One of the things that made Lost so good right away was the great cast and the different characters and their backgrounds. The viewers were shown that background through so-called flashbacks that were intertwined with the larger story. The flashbacks gave more insight into the characters. Of course, not all the characters and their backgrounds were equally interesting, but there were a few that were incredibly well done. For example, I mention the backstory of John Locke (Terry O'Quinn, Patriot), who was confined to a wheelchair before arriving on the island. Or the bickering Korean couple Jin and Sun (Daniel Dae Kim, Hawaii Five-O and Yunjin Kim, Mistresses), who seem to understand nothing of what the other survivors are saying or doing. The strength of the series is therefore mainly in the characters, who are almost all perfectly cast. It is good that the makers have focused on this from the start and, for example, have not crammed the series with only special effects, because the smoke monster that I already mentioned is an effect made with the computer and that is just the only thing of the series that has not stood the test of time too well.

The second season introduces a ton of new characters, with Benjamin Linus (a great role by Michael Emerson, Person of Interest) being the most interesting. Emerson was actually cast for a handful of episodes, but was so impressed with him that he was added to the regular cast for the third season. On the other hand, the passengers who were in the tail section and ended up on another part of the island are a lot less interesting, except for a few. It also became very clear with this season that a character could (and would) die at any time. A good example of this is the twentieth episode of this second season. In this, two characters unexpectedly meet their end and the episode ends in such an unexpected way that it leaves you in shock. Even on a second viewing.

At the end of the third season and subsequent seasons, the flashbacks are largely exchanged for flashforwards. Here you can see which of the survivors managed to get off the island (The Oceanic Six) and what will happen to them in the future. The island also turns out to be even stranger than you thought at the beginning and the series at some point goes on the science fiction tour through time travel, for example. In the last season, the flashbacks and flashforwards have been replaced by a kind of alternate reality in which the characters meet again. I won't explain what this means exactly, but it will eventually lead to a finale of Lost that was not appreciated or even understood by everyone. I thought it was a nice, moving ending, also this second time. All in all, Lost remains a good, nice-looking series that has once again given us a lot of nice viewing hours. I genuinely enjoyed it again. Maybe do it again in ten years?