Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:27, 27 January 2006

This article is about the drama series. For other uses, see Lost.

Lost is an American drama-adventure television series surrounding the survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island. The series was created by J.J. Abrams, produced by Bad Robot Productions and Touchstone Television and airs on the ABC network. The music is composed by Michael Giacchino.

Lost's pilot episode was the most expensive in television history . The series became one of the biggest critical and commercial successes of the 2004 television season and, along with fellow new series Desperate Housewives, helped to reverse the flagging fortunes of ABC . Capping its successful first season, Lost won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series and Abrams was awarded an Emmy for his work as director of the pilot in September 2005. In January 2006 it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series.

Overview

Template:Spoiler

Lost's development began in January 2004, after former ABC studio executive Lloyd Braun pitched an idea about survivors of a plane crash on a remote and uninhabited island. Initially hesitant, Abrams warmed to the idea, and eventually collaborated with Damon Lindelof to create the series' unique style and characters. The development of the series was constrained by tight deadlines, as Lost had been commissioned late in the 2004 season's development cycle. Despite the tight schedule, the creative team remained flexible enough that they did not hesitate to modify or create characters to fit actors they wished to cast .

The series is structured on two interconnected elements. The primary focus of the show tracks the struggles of the survivors of the crash as they cope with life on the island. This is supplemented by the second element, which uses flashbacks to highlight choices the main characters have made in the past, as a means of illuminating their actions on the island. In most episodes, Lost follows the actions of a specific character, both past and present.

During the first season, flashbacks revealed why each character was on the doomed flight, while also beginning to explore the deeper motivations of the more central protagonists, a theme developed more fully, and for more characters, in the second season. There are exceptions to this general formula, however. Examples of these deviations in style include the pilot and the season one finale episodes, which featured flashbacks from several characters and a more generalized depiction of action on the island. In addition, the season two episode "The Other 48 Days" did not feature any action prior to the departure of the flight, instead telling the story of the tail-section survivors of the crash starting with their first moments on the island.

Each episode begins with a cold open, sometimes preceded by a recap of events that have a bearing on the upcoming narrative. At a dramatic juncture, the screen fades to black and the show's title graphic is depicted slightly out-of-focus, gliding towards the viewer. It is accompanied by an ominous, discordant sound. The opening credits are then shown over the scenes that follow.

Season synopses

Season one: 2004-2005

A plane crash strands the surviving passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 on a seemingly deserted tropical island, forcing the group of strangers to work together to stay alive. However, their survival may also ultimately depend on unraveling the mysteries of the island, including the contents of a hatch buried in the ground, the origins of a seemingly enormous creature that roams the jungle, and the motives of the unknown "Others" who may also inhabit the island.

Season two: 2005-2006

Season two began airing September 21, 2005. Several new characters appear in the new season, including Ana-Lucia Cortez, Libby, and the mysterious Mr. Eko. This season begins 44 days after the crash and also introduces The Dharma Initiative and its benefactor, The Hanso Foundation, which may be responsible for some or all of the strange occurrences on the island.

Cast and characters

• Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Mr. Eko (Season 2+)
• Naveen Andrews as Sayid Jarrah
• Emilie de Ravin as Claire Littleton
• Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard
• Jorge Garcia as Hugo "Hurley" Reyes
• Maggie Grace as Shannon Rutherford (Seasons 1-2)
• Josh Holloway as James "Sawyer" Ford
• Malcolm David Kelley as Walt Lloyd
• Daniel Dae Kim as Jin-Soo Kwon
• Yunjin Kim as Sun Kwon
• Evangeline Lilly as Kate Austen
• Dominic Monaghan as Charlie Pace
• Terry O'Quinn as John Locke
• Harold Perrineau Jr. as Michael Dawson
• Michelle Rodriguez as Ana-Lucia Cortez (Season 2+)
• Ian Somerhalder as Boone Carlyle (Season 1)
• Cynthia Watros as Libby (Season 2+)

Story elements

There are several recurring story elements on Lost, some of which drive central plot points, both on the island and in the flashbacks of the survivors, while other elements provide a deeper understanding of the story.

Black and white

The colors black and white, which traditionally reflect opposition or dualism, have frequently been featured together, particularly in regard to John Locke. This begins in the "Pilot" with John Locke's description of backgammon to Walt: while holding up a black and white piece, Locke says, "Two players, two sides — one is light, one is dark." Later examples have featured the colors in a variety of sometimes unexpected ways. In "House of the Rising Sun", Jack finds a pouch on a pair of mummified corpses, nicknamed "Adam and Eve" by the survivors, containing one white stone and one black stone, which he then hides from Locke. More ominously, in the opening sequence of "Raised by Another", Claire has a nightmare in which Locke has one black eyeball and one white eyeball, and the cards he uses for playing are black and white. Later, in "Deus Ex Machina", Sawyer's vision problems are solved by the creation of a pair of glasses by Sayid, which utilizes the frames from two different sets of glasses, one white, the other black. A recent example took place in the closing scene of "Collision," wherein Jack and Ana Lucia, ostensibly the leaders of their respective factions, stand facing each other, with Jack wearing a white shirt and Ana Lucia wearing a black shirt.

Numbers

The number sequence 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, as well as the individual numbers, appear throughout the series. This string of numbers was broadcast from the Island's radio transmitter, and it was this message that drew Rousseau's expedition to the island. Although she later changed the message after the deaths of her team, the numbers had also been heard by others, eventually making their way to Hurley, who used them to win the lottery. However, after his win, a series of misfortunes began to happen to those around Hurley, leading him to believe the numbers are cursed. His search for answers led him to Australia and, through the crash, to the island itself, where he ultimately discovers the numbers engraved on the hatch. Inside the bunker, the same numbers appear on the occupant's medicine bottles, and make up a code that must be entered into the computer. The sum of these six numbers, 108, has also become significant in connection to The Dharma Initiative. This number appears on a mural inside the Initiative's Station Three, and the full sequence of numbers must be entered into the computer every 108 minutes. These numbers also frequently appear individually throughout the lives of the survivors, both before and after the crash.

Familial dysfunction

Most of the major characters have dysfunctional parents who were either absent, reluctant, or destructive. Locke, in particular, was victim of a wretched betrayal in "Deus Ex Machina" by both his natural parents. Jack's broken relationship with his alcoholic surgeon father, Christian, was the impetus for him to travel to Australia, at the behest of his mother. Sawyer's mother had an extra-marital affair; his father killed her and then himself after finding out. Kate murdered the abusive man she previously believed to be her step-father after she discovered he was actually her biological father. She was forced into a life on the run after her mother revealed her crime to the police. The troubling parental relationships of these four individuals have been the most explored, although nearly all the characters on the show have had difficulties with their families.

Reference to philosophers

Some characters on Lost, by admission of the writing staff, reference famous philosophers through their names and connection to each other . While unnecessary to the enjoyment of the series, for some fans, these references expand the literary and philosophical subtext of the series. The two clearest examples, John Locke and Danielle Rousseau are both named for social contract philosophers who dealt with the relationship between nature and civilization. Locke shares his name with English philosopher John Locke, who believed that in a natural state, all men had equal rights to punish transgressors; to ensure fair judgment for all, governments were formed to better administer the laws. He believed all people were born with a "blank slate"— a tabula rasa, which was also the title of the second episode of Season 1. The philosopher Locke's tabula rasa concept contended humans are born without any innate knowledge or experience, and their identity is a product of their decisions and choices in life.

Similarly, Locke's father in the series is Anthony Cooper, named for Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the real-world John Locke's political mentor and patron.

Locke's follower Boone Carlyle shares his name with Thomas Carlyle, a nineteenth century essayist who spoke of the organization, structure and leadership of society; in his book Heroes and Hero Worship, he proclaimed that by necessity, heroic leaders were inevitably flawed.

Danielle Rousseau is named for Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued that man is born weak and ignorant, but virtuous nonetheless. Only after man develops society does he become wicked. His theory of the Noble Savage hypothesized that a child raised in the wilderness independent of human society and culture would be an objectively superior person with regards to a universal set of ethics.

Literary references

Literary works are frequently displayed or referenced on the show, a point of interest to many fans, who try to connect such books to the evolving mysteries of Lost.

Sawyer is shown early on reading books he finds that survive the crash— a habit which eventually leads to his hyperopia (farsightedness). In "White Rabbit" he spends time with Watership Down, an account of a group of rabbits trying to find a new warren. In the same episode, John Locke converses with Jack, who believes he may be going crazy chasing someone who is "not there." Locke refers to this as "the white rabbit" from Alice in Wonderland and makes his first declaration of the special nature of the Island, "Is your White Rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here happened for a reason?" In the later episode "Numbers", Sawyer starts A Wrinkle in Time, a children's fantasy novel with Christian undertones about a universal battle between darkness and light.

In "Special", Walt looks through the Spanish version of the comic book Green Lantern / Flash: Faster Friends, which his father takes away and throws in a fire, revealing a panel containing a polar bear; a short time later, a polar bear appears and attacks Walt.

In the second season's "Orientation", Desmond packs Flann O'Brien's novel The Third Policeman in his backpack before fleeing. Craig Wright, who co-wrote the episode with Javier Grillo-Marxuach, told the Chicago Tribune that, "Whoever goes out and buys the book will have a lot more ammunition in their back pocket as they theorize about the show. They will have a lot more to speculate about — and, no small thing, they will have read a really great book."

The dialogue between characters occasionally refers to literature, sometimes in off-the-cuff remarks, to add context the plot. Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness is referenced multiple times: by Jack, in "Walkabout"; in "Numbers", Charlie compares Hurley to Colonel Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now, which is based on Conrad's work. Similarly, William Golding's The Lord of the Flies, a novel about schoolboys stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash, is mentioned repeatedly: by Sawyer while threatening Jin in "...In Translation", and by Charlie, to Kate in "What Kate Did."

Most recently, Biblical stories and psalms have been pointedly used by Mr. Eko, such as the story of King Josiah (from 2 Kings, chapters 22 and 23), which he related to Locke in "What Kate Did", and the recitation of the 23rd Psalm in the episode of the same name.

Eyes

References to eyes appear frequently in Lost. Closeup images of an eye open many episodes, in most cases the character whose flashbacks would be featured in that episode. In "White Rabbit", John Locke hints at his experience in confronting the island's mysterious "security system" saying, "I've looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful." In a later episode, "Raised by Another", Claire has a nightmare in which Locke appears with an opaque white left eye and an opaque black right eye. Most recently, the tail section survivors discover a glass eye in The Dharma Initiative's abandoned station.

The Dharma Initiative logos

The Dharma Initiative logos resemble the Taoist symbol known as the Bagua, whose borders are associated with the trigrams of the Chinese philosophy I-Ching. This logo is prevalent across the island, appearing in the bunkers and most of their contents as well as on the tail of the shark that circles Michael and Sawyer in "Adrift".

Fan speculation

Lost's mythology is as complex as that of other shows of a similar nature, such as The X-Files or Twin Peaks. This complexity, and the unresolved questions it spawns, have led to rampant speculation and theorizing among fans, mainly concerning the nature of the island, the origins of the "security system" 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 have been discussed and dismissed by the producers, including:

• The survivors are dead and/or in Purgatory. — dismissed by J. J. Abrams
• The survivors are in a time warp. — dismissed by Damon Lindelof
• Spaceships or aliens influence the events on the island. — dismissed by Damon Lindelof
• Everything seen is a fictional reality taking place in one or more of the survivors' minds. — dismissed by Damon Lindelof
• The island is a reality TV show and the castaways unwitting housemates.— dismissed by Carlton Cuse
• The security system is a nanobot cloud. - dismissed by Damon Lindelof ; re-iterated by Javier Grillo Marxauch

Awards

Note: Awards won are not listed under nominations.

Wins

Emmys:

• Outstanding Television Series - Drama (2005)
• Outstanding Director of a Television Series - Drama, Pilot Part 1 & 2 J.J. Abrams (2005)
• Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series - April Webster, Mandy Sherman, Alyssa Weisberg, Veronica Collins (2005)
• Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series - Mary Jo Markey (2005)
• Outstanding Music Composition for a Series - Michael Giacchino (2005)
• Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series - Pilot: Kevin Blank, Mitch Suskin, et al. (2005)

Golden Globes:

• Best Television Series - Drama (2006)

Nominations

Emmys:

• Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series - Drama Naveen Andrews (2005)
• Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series - Drama Terry O'Quinn (2005)
• Outstanding Writing for a Television Series - Drama, Pilot Part 1 & 2 J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Jeffrey Lieber (2005)
• Outstanding Writing for a Television Series - Drama, Walkabout David Fury (2005)

Golden Globes:

• Best Television Series - Drama (2005)
• Best Actor in a Television Series - Drama Matthew Fox (2006)
• Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series - Drama Naveen Andrews (2006)

Screen Actors Guild:

• Ensemble in a Drama Series (2006)

Writers Guild of America:

• Outstanding Achievement in Writing - Dramatic Series (2005)

Lost in other media

In addition to the television series, the characters and setting of Lost have appeared in the following official tie-ins:

• A diary by a survivor was incorporated into the official ABC web site for the show.
• The interactive back-stories of several characters are included in Lost Untold, a section on the Channel 4 Lost website.
• The book, Lost: Endangered Species by Cathy Hapka was released in 2005. Another tie-in novel by Hapka, Lost: Secret Identity, is scheduled for release in January, 2006 and a third, Lost: Signs of Life by Frank Thompson, will be released in March, 2006.
• In early 2006, Verizon Wireless will distribute the Lost Video Diaries to its subscribers via its V-Cast system. Each video diary will run several minutes and cover events not seen in the television episodes.
• Hyperion Books will be publishing a metafictional book entitled Bad Twin, written by fictional author Gary Troup who was a passenger of Oceanic Flight 815.

References

• "'Lost' strikes a chord worldwide". Reuters. January 17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "A good season, with reason". USA Today. January 19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• {{cite AV media}}: Empty citation (help)

• "Paul Dini Gives "Lost" Spoilers". Dark Horizons. January 18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "Is 'Lost' a literal enigma?". USA Today. January 22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "Wrinkle in Time Study Guide, Chapter 4, "The Black Thing"". SparkNotes. January 22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "Lost' book mention may be good for small press". Chicago Tribune. January 18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "'Lost' Team Discusses Upcoming Death and Mysteries". Zap2It. January 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "Lost Answers are Out There". SciFi Wire. January 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "Damon Lindeloff E-Mail interview 9/21/05". Lost TV Forum. January 15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "Asking for trouble". Sydney Morning Herald. January 19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "ComiCon 2005 news". Cinescape. January 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

• "Burning Questions". The Fuselage. January 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

See also

• DVD Releases
• List of songs featured on Lost
• Oceanic Airlines
• Drive Shaft

External links

• Lost (2004-present) at IMDb

Official tie-in sites

• Oceanic Airlines; contains many hidden easter eggs about characters on the show
• The Hanso Foundation, founder of the Dharma Initiative

Production related sites

• Oceanic Flight 815 - Official LOST Website
• The Fuselage, forum sponsored by J.J. Abrams and the show's creative team.
• I Am Lost, Flash game based on the show.

Network sites

• ABC: Lost (US)
• ABC: Lost episode guide (Season One) (US)
• ABC: Lost episode guide (Season Two) (US)

• 2000s TV shows in the United States
• Best Drama Actor Golden Globe Nominee (television)
• Best Drama Series Golden Globe Nominee
• Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe Nominee (television)
• Emmy Award winners
• Lost