Review Lost (2004)

Lost is an American television drama series that originally aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) from September 22, 2004, to May 23, 2010, over six seasons, comprising a total of 121 episodes.

Lost is a drama series containing elements of science fiction and the supernatural.

It follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet, flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean.

The story is told in a heavily serialized manner.

Episodes typically feature a primary storyline set on the island, augmented by flashback or flashforward sequences which provide additional insight into the involved character(s).

Lost was created by Jeffrey Lieber, J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, who share story-writing credits for the pilot episode, which Abrams directed.

Throughout the show's run, Lindelof and Carlton Cuse served as showrunners and head writers, working together with a large number of other executive producers and writers.

Due to its large ensemble cast and the cost of filming primarily on location in Oahu, Hawaii, the series was one of the most expensive on television, with the pilot alone costing over $14 million.

The fictional universe and mythology of Lost are expanded upon by a number of related media, most importantly, a series of short mini-episodes called Missing Pieces, and a 12-minute epilogue titled "The New Man in Charge".

Lost has been consistently ranked by critics as one of the greatest television dramas of all time.

During its sixth and final season, the show averaged over 11 million U.S. viewers per episode.

Lost was the recipient of hundreds of industry award nominations throughout its run and won numerous of these awards.

Mythology and interpretations

Episodes of Lost include a number of mysterious elements ascribed to science fiction or supernatural phenomena.

The creators of the series refer to these elements as composing the mythology of the series, and they formed the basis of fan speculation.

The show's mythological elements include a "Smoke Monster" that roams the island, a mysterious group of inhabitants whom the survivors called "The Others", a scientific organization called the Dharma Initiative that placed several research stations on the island, a sequence of numbers that frequently appears in the lives of the characters in the past, present, and future, and personal connections (synchronicity) between the characters of which they are often unaware.

At the heart of the series is a complex and cryptic storyline, which spawned numerous questions and discussions among viewers.

Encouraged by Lost's writers and stars, who often interacted with fans online, viewers and TV critics alike took to widespread theorising in an attempt to unravel the mysteries.

Theories mainly concerned the nature of the island, the origins of the "Monster" and the "Others", the meaning of the numbers, and the reasons for both the crash and the survival of some passengers.

Several of the more common fan theories were discussed and rejected by the show's creators, the most common being that the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 are dead and in purgatory.

Lindelof rejected speculation that spaceships or aliens influenced the events on the island or that everything seen was a fictional reality taking place in someone's mind.

Carlton Cuse dismissed the theory that the island was a reality TV show and the castaways unwitting housemates, and Lindelof many times refuted the theory that the "Monster" was a nanobot cloud similar to the one featured in Michael Crichton's novel Prey (which happened to share the protagonist's name, Jack).



Series finale

This show started of so good. The first 3 seasons were amazing, but during the 4th it already started to go down in quality. And season 6, I just wish I could forget that ever existed.

Ben and Juliet were my favourite characters.
I never liked Jack.
Kate became really annoying.

Lost spinoff series ruled out by co-showrunner Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse also has a message for those wanting to continue the property



In a time where writers are mining completed television shows for creative ideas, one series a cult fanbase have been pinning their revival hopes on is Lost.

One of the mystery drama's showrunners, however, has poured water on potential plans for a spinoff or reboot.

During New York Comic-Con last month, Cuse was reported as saying: "Damon and I are pretty adamant about the fact that we don’t have any intentions of rebooting Lost. I know that there are a lot of shows that have been rebooted lately, but we are not on that path.“

The 'Damon' that Cuse is referring to is his co-showrunner Damon Lindelofwho co-created the series alongside JJ Abrams in 2004. Lindelof went on to oversee HBO's little-seen standout The Leftovers which drew to a conclusion earlier this year after a season many hailed as one of the greatest in recent memory. He'll next tackle an adaptation of Watchmen for the premium cable service.

Cuse now oversees Jack Ryan and Colony having ended successful series Bates Motel, a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho.

If Lost was continued, however, Cuse has some wishes.


" hope that when that happens, whoever is doing it, doesn't take the characters from the original Lost and put them in the new one. Because we worked so hard to end that show and to give [the survivors] some level of closure. I know there was some debate as to whether or not there was enough closure.

Lost changed the face of network television upon its debut in 2004 running for six seasons and culminating in what could well be the most widely misunderstood series finale of all time - one that the showrunners recently teased almost ended in an altogether more fiery manner.

Lost writers reveal alternate series ending involving volcano

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were forced to scrap the idea because of budgetary reasons



The ending of Lost could well be the most widely misunderstood series finale in television history, but it almost drew to an altogether more volcanic close.

Remember that flashback which sees Ben being taught about the island's volcano as a youngster by the Dharma Initiative? Probably not. It occurs in third season episode 'The Man Behind the Curtain' and it's now emerged it was “one of the first hints of an endgame."

Showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have spoken to EW about the scrapped plans for the first time since the series drew to a close seven years ago.

The story goes that Cuse - very much the duo's big-dreamer - got the idea of including a volcano at the end of the series after visiting Hawaii's Big Island with his family, and later envisioned it being home to the climactic showdown between Jack (Matthew Fox) and the smoke monster, incarnated as John Locke (Terry O'Quinn).


“We were always looking to cannibalise anything on Hawaii to aid in the visual storytelling of the show,“ Cuse said. ”We also thought of the island as a character on the show, so we were always looking for things that would give it more personality.”

For those who don't know (and if you haven't seen Lost, go watch it immediately), season six presented the concept that the island was a metaphorical cork bottling up some very bad things that, if unleashed into civilisation, would cause all kinds of destruction.

Lindelof - whose latest series The Leftovers returns to HBO this Sunday (16 April) - added: “The question was always, how do you basically visualise and dramatise the idea that the island itself is all that separates the world from hellfire and damnation? And the answer was the volcano.”

He continued: “The volcano had been dormant for the duration of the series but based on moving into this endgame, the island had become unstable and the volcano was going to erupt.

"We were going to have lots of seismic activity, and ultimately, there was going to be this big fight between the forces of good and the forces of evil, which ended up in the series manifesting as Jack and The Man in Black, in the midst of magma. Magma spewing everywhere!”

The volcano was later deemed too expensive by the bigwigs at network ABC forcing the writing duo to improvise (the fatal battle ended up happening on a cliff).


“ABC was like, ‘Guys, we love you, and we’re letting you end the show; we can’t let you bankrupt the network in the process',” said Lindelof.

And in case you're one of the people who misunderstood the ending, allow us to spell it out for you: they were not dead the entire time (as The Telegraph explains here).

Emmy award-winning series Lost originally aired in 2004 and drew to a natural close in 2010. Its ensemble cast included Evangeline Lilly, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell and Josh Holloway who currently stars in Cuse's latest show Colony.

I think I saw the first episode, but don't think I saw anymore and never really took to this show.

Judging by things I have heard, it seems to have been largely a colossal waste of time for many viewers?

It’s funny they call it a metaphorical cork, because there was a real cork in the bloody island.