Everything about Lost Tv Series totally explained
Lost is an
American serial drama television series that follows the lives of
plane crash survivors on a mysterious
tropical island, after a commercial
passenger jet flying between
Sydney,
Australia and
Los Angeles,
United States crashes somewhere in the
South Pacific. Each episode typically features a primary storyline on the island as well as a secondary storyline from
another point in a character's life. The show was created by
Damon Lindelof,
J. J. Abrams and
Jeffrey Lieber, and is filmed primarily on location in
Oahu, Hawaii.
The pilot episode was first broadcast on
September 22 2004. Since then, three seasons have been aired, with a fourth season currently being aired. The show is produced by
ABC Studios,
Bad Robot Productions and Grass Skirt Productions and airs on the
ABC Network in the United States. Its
soundtrack is composed by
Michael Giacchino. The current executive producers are Abrams, Lindelof,
Bryan Burk,
Jack Bender and
Carlton Cuse. Because of its large
ensemble cast and the cost of filming in Hawaii, the series is one of the most expensive on television.
Critically-acclaimed and a popular success,
Lost garnered an average of 16 million viewers per episode on ABC during its first year. It has won numerous industry awards including the
Emmy Award for
Outstanding Drama Series in 2005, Best American Import at the
British Academy Television Awards in 2005, the
Golden Globe for
Best Drama in 2006 and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Reflecting its devoted
fan base, the show has become a part of American
popular culture with references to the story and its elements appearing in other television shows, commercials,
comic books,
webcomics,
humor magazines, a
video game and song
lyrics. The show's
fictional universe has also been explored through
tie-in novels,
board and
video games, and
alternative reality games,
The Lost Experience and
Find 815.
In May 2007, it was announced that
Lost would continue for its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons, concluding with the 117th produced episode in May 2010. These three final seasons were planned to consist of 16 episodes each, running weekly in the spring uninterrupted by repeats, though due to the
recent WGA strike season four will only be 14 episodes long, including a three-hour season finale (albeit it set over different nights not to clash with the season finales of both
Ugly Betty and
Grey's Anatomy). The fourth season premiered in the United States on
January 31 2008. ABC has decided to extend the final two seasons of
Lost by two hours.
Production
Conception
The series began
development in January 2004, when
Lloyd Braun, head of ABC at the time, ordered an initial script from
Spelling Television based on his concept of a cross between the novel
Lord of the Flies, the movie
Cast Away,
Gilligan's Island, and the popular reality show
Survivor. Gadi Pollack notes that some of "the influences of
Lost came from...the game
Myst."
Jeffrey Lieber was hired and wrote
Nowhere, based on his pitch to write the
pilot. Unhappy with the result and a subsequent rewrite, Braun contacted
J. J. Abrams, who had a deal with Touchstone (now
ABC Studios), and was also the creator of the TV series
Alias, to write a new pilot script. Although initially hesitant, Abrams warmed up to it on the condition that the show have a supernatural angle to it, and collaborated with
Damon Lindelof to create the series' style and characters. Together, Abrams and Lindelof also created a series "bible", and conceived and detailed the major mythological ideas and plot points for an ideal five to six seasons run for the show. The development of the show was constrained by tight deadlines, as it had been commissioned late in the 2004 season's development cycle. Despite the short schedule, the creative team remained flexible enough to modify or create characters to fit actors they wished to cast.
Lost's two-part pilot episode was the most expensive in the network's history, reportedly costing between
US $10 and US $14 million, compared to the average cost of an hour-long pilot in 2005 of US $4 million. The show, which debuted on
September 22 2004, became one of the biggest critical and commercial successes of the
2004 television season. Along with fellow new series
Desperate Housewives and
Grey's Anatomy,
Lost helped to reverse the flagging fortunes of ABC. Yet, before it had even been aired,
Lloyd Braun was
fired by executives at ABC's parent company,
Disney, because he'd
greenlighted such an expensive and risky project.
Episode format
Episodes have a distinct structure: following a recap of events relevant to the upcoming narrative, each show begins with a
cold open. Often a close up of a character's eye will follow. At a dramatic juncture, the screen cuts to black and the title
graphic, slightly out-of-focus, glides towards the viewer accompanied by an ominous, discordant sound. The
opening credits generally appear alphabetically by last name over the scenes that immediately follow. While there's a continuous
story arc, each episode relates events concurrently with off-island
flashbacks and later,
flashforwards, centered on a particular character. The majority of episodes end with a suspenseful
twist or
cliffhanger, revealed just seconds before a
smash cut to black and the title graphic. Others, following a plot resolution, will finish with a reflective closing scene that precedes a simple
fade to black, and in particularly tragic or heart-felt closing scenes, the booming noise that accompanies the title graphic will be silenced, amplifying the impact of the event.
Music
Lost features
incidental music performed by the
Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra and composed by
Michael Giacchino, whose score is orchestral, incorporating several recurring themes for events and characters. Giacchino achieved some of the sounds for the score using unusual instruments, such as striking suspended pieces of the plane's
fuselage.
On
March 21 2006, the record label
Varèse Sarabande released the original television
soundtrack for
Lost's first season. The soundtrack included select full-length versions of the most popular themes of the season and the main title, which was composed by series creator J.J. Abrams.
Pop culture songs have been used sparingly in the series, given the mainly orchestral score. When such songs are featured, they usually originate from a
diegetic source. Examples are the various songs played on Hurley's portable CD player throughout the first season (until its batteries died in the episode "
...In Translation"), which featured
Joe Purdy's "Washed Away", or the use of the record player in the second season, which included
Cass Elliot's "
Make Your Own Kind of Music" and
Petula Clark's "
Downtown" in the second and third season premieres respectively. In two episodes, Charlie is shown on a street corner playing guitar and singing the
Oasis song "
Wonderwall". In the third season's finale, Jack is driving down the street listening to
Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice," right before he arrives to the Hoffs/Drawlar Funeral Parlor. The third season also used
Three Dog Night's
Shambala on two occasions in the van. The only pop song that has ever been used without a source is
Ann-Margret's "Slowly," in the episode "
I Do".
In some international broadcasts, alternate music is used. For instance, in the
Japanese broadcast of
Lost, the
theme song for season one is "Here I Am" by
Chemistry, the
theme song for season two is "
Losin'" by
Yuna Ito, and the
theme song for season three is "Fire Walk With Me" by
Fantômas.
Filming locations
Lost is filmed on
Panavision 35 mm cameras almost entirely on the Hawaiian island of
Oahu. The original island scenes for the pilot were filmed at
Mokulē'ia Beach, near the northwest tip of the island. Later beach scenes take place in secluded spots of the famous
North Shore. Cave scenes in the first season were filmed on a
sound stage built at a
Xerox parts warehouse, which had been empty since an
employee mass shooting took place there in 1999. The sound-stage and
production offices have since moved to the Hawaii Film Office-operated Hawaii Film Studio, where the sets depicting Season 2's "Swan Station" and Season 3's "Hydra Station" interiors were built.
Various urban areas in and around
Honolulu are used as stand-ins for locations around the world, including
California,
New York,
Iowa,
Miami,
South Korea,
Iraq,
Nigeria,
United Kingdom,
Paris,
Thailand,
Berlin and
Australia. For example, scenes set in a
Sydney airport were filmed at the
Hawaii Convention Center, while a
World War II-era bunker was used as an
Iraqi Republican Guard installation. Extensive archives of filming locations are tracked at a repository at the
Lost Virtual Tour
.
Online distribution
In addition to traditional terrestrial and
satellite broadcasting,
Lost has been at the forefront of new television distribution methods. It was one of the first series issued through
Apple's iTunes Store service for playback on an
iPod or within the
iTunes software. Since October 2005, new episodes, without commercials, have been available for download the day after they air on ABC, for American audiences. On
August 29 2007 Lost became one of the first TV programs available for download in the UK store. Since the airing of Season 4 in the UK, episodes of Lost are available the Monday after the Sunday they air on Sky One. "Lost" was also among the first TV shows on the
German iTunes store.
In April 2006,
Disney announced that
Lost would be available for free online in streaming format, with advertising, on ABC's website, as part of a two-month experiment of future distribution strategies. The trial, which ran from May to June 2006, caused a stir among network affiliates who were afraid of being cut out of advertising revenue. The streaming of
Lost episodes direct from ABC's website was only available to viewers in the United States due to international licensing agreements. As of
May 2008, full episodes from Seasons 1–4 are available as
high-definition streaming video on the ABC website, but only to users of Microsoft and Apple operating systems. New episodes are available the day after original primetime airing. Viewers are required to view between 5 to 6 30-second advertising spots, equally dispersed throughout the episode. These spots appear as an overlay graphic ad with smaller video ad and feature high-profile advertisers.
Episodes from both
season one and
season two were available on the UK's
Channel 4's website, but have since expired. Both parts of "Pilot" were available to watch for free, and other episodes cost
GB£0.99 each. Due to licensing agreements, the service was only accessible in the UK.
Virgin Media has made the first three seasons of
Lost available on demand via their TV Choice On Demand function, allowing viewers to watch the first three seasons at any time in high-definition or
standard definition. Currently, only Season Two and Three are available. All episodes available on the service are free to Virgin Media subscribers. As of
November 25,
2006, Lost episodes were available on Sky's VOD service,
Sky Anytime. Users with the correct Sky Subscription can download recent Lost episodes for free, however, much like Channel 4's 4OD application, they expire. Users without a relevant Sky subscription for Lost can exchange prepaid credit for rental of an episode.
Other online distribution sites include: France's
TF1 website,
AOL Video,
Microsoft's
Xbox Live service, and
HOT V.O.D. service in Israel.
DVD releases
Lost: The Complete First Season was released as a
widescreen seven-disc
Region 1 DVD
box set in the USA on
September 6 2005, two weeks before the premiere of the second season. It was distributed by
Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
In addition to all the episodes that had been aired, it included several DVD extras such as episode commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage and making-of features as well as
deleted scenes, deleted flashback scenarios and a
blooper reel.
The same set was released on
November 30 2005 in
Region 4, and on
January 16,
2006 in
Region 2. The latter was titled
Lost: The Complete First Series. As has become standard for Region 2, the series was first released split into two parts: the first twelve episodes of series 1 were available as a wide screen four-disc Region 2 DVD box set on
October 31 2005, while the remaining thirteen episodes of series 1 were released on
January 16 2006. The DVD features available on the Region 1 release were likewise split over the two box sets.
The second season was released as a wide screen seven-disc Region 1 DVD box set in the USA on
September 5 2006 and on Region 2 DVD on
October 2 2006, retitled as
Lost: The Complete Second Series. Each of these releases also contained DVD extras, including Behind the Scenes Footage, deleted scenes and a "
Lost Connections" chart, which shows how all of the characters on the island are inter-connected with each other.
Again, the series was initially delivered in two sets for Region 2: the first twelve episodes were released as a widescreen four-disc DVD box set on
July 17 2006. The remaining episodes of series 2 were released as a four-disc DVD box set on
October 2 2006. The set was released in Region 4 on
October 4 2006.
Both Seasons 1 and 2 of
Lost have sold successfully on DVD. The Season 1 boxset entered the DVD sales chart at number two in September 2005, and the Season 2 boxset entered the DVD sales chart at the number one position in its first week of release in September 2006, believed to be the second TV-DVD ever to enter the chart at the top spot. First day DVD sales for
Lost Season 2 are thought to have been as high as 500,000 copies sold.
The third season was released in Region 1 on
December 11 2007. A
Blu-ray release for Season 3 DVDs was commissioned by Disney in July and cost $96.99. As with Seasons 1 and 2, the third season release will include audio commentaries with the cast and crew, bonus featurettes, deleted scenes, and bloopers. The Season 3 was released on Region 2 DVD on
October 22 2007, though this time only as a complete set and not in two volumes like the previous seasons. This box set includes 7 discs but, unlike the others, has only 4 DVD cases, making it a smaller box set.
Cast and characters
Out of the 324 people on board, there were 72 initial survivors (71 humans and 1 dog) spread across the three sections of the plane crash. The opening season featured 14 regular speaking roles, making it the second largest cast in a currently-airing American prime time television show behind
Desperate Housewives. While a large cast makes
Lost more expensive to produce, the writers benefit from more flexibility in story decisions. According to series executive producer Bryan Burk, "You can have more interactions between characters and create more diverse characters, more back stories, more love triangles."
The initial season had 14 major roles getting star
billing.
Naveen Andrews portrayed former
Iraqi Republican Guard Sayid Jarrah.
Emilie de Ravin played the pregnant Australian
Claire Littleton.
Matthew Fox acted as the troubled surgeon and protagonist
Jack Shephard.
Jorge Garcia portrayed
Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, an unlucky lottery winner.
Maggie Grace played
Shannon Rutherford, a former dance teacher.
Josh Holloway acted as con man
James "Sawyer" Ford.
Yunjin Kim played
Sun-Hwa Kwon, the daughter of a powerful Korean businessman and mobster, with
Daniel Dae Kim as her husband
Jin-Soo Kwon.
Evangeline Lilly portrayed fugitive
Kate Austen.
Dominic Monaghan acted as ex-rock star drug addict
Charlie Pace.
Terry O'Quinn played the mysterious
John Locke.
Harold Perrineau portrayed construction worker
Michael Dawson, while child actor
Malcolm David Kelley acted as his young son,
Walt Lloyd.
Ian Somerhalder played
Boone Carlyle, chief operating officer of his mother's wedding business and step brother of Shannon.
During the first two seasons, some characters were written out to make room for new characters with new stories. Boone Carlyle was the first major character to be written out, dying near the end of season one. Walt became a guest star after the events of the first season's finale, making rare appearances throughout season two. Shannon's departure eight episodes into season two made way for newcomers
Mr. Eko, a Nigerian Catholic priest and former criminal played by
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje,
Ana Lucia Cortez, an airport security guard and former police officer played by
Michelle Rodriguez,
Bernard Nadler, a dentist and the husband of Rose, from the front section, and
Libby, a purported clinical psychologist portrayed by
Cynthia Watros. Ana Lucia and Libby were written out of the series toward the end of season two.
In season three,
Henry Ian Cusick received star billing as former Scottish soldier
Desmond David Hume, as did
Michael Emerson in the role of
Ben Linus (formerly known as Henry Gale), a high ranking member of the "
Others." In addition, three new actors joined the regular cast:
Elizabeth Mitchell, as fertility doctor and "Other"
Juliet Burke and
Kiele Sanchez and
Rodrigo Santoro as background survivor couple
Nikki Fernandez and
Paulo. Eko was written out early in the season, and Nikki and Paulo were written out mid-season in their first flashback episode. Charlie was written out in the season 3 finale.
In season four,
Harold Perrineau rejoins the main cast to reprise the role of
Michael Dawson, now suicidal and on a desperate redemptive journey to redeem himself from his previous crimes. Along with Perrineau, additional new actors—
Jeremy Davies as
Daniel Faraday, a nervous physicist who takes a scientific interest in the island;
Ken Leung as
Miles Straume, a sarcastic supposed ghost whisperer, and
Rebecca Mader as
Charlotte Staples Lewis, a hard-headed and determined anthropologist and successful academic - have joined the cast.
Numerous supporting characters have been given expansive and recurring appearances in the progressive storyline.
Danielle Rousseau (
Mira Furlan), a French member of an earlier scientific expedition to the island first encountered as a voice recording in the pilot episode, appears throughout the series; she's searching for her daughter, who later turns up in the form of
Alex Rousseau (
Tania Raymonde). In the second season, married couple
Rose Henderson (
L. Scott Caldwell) and
Bernard Nadler (
Sam Anderson), separated on opposite sides of the island (she with the main characters, he with the tail section survivors) were featured in a flashback episode after being reunited. The storylines regarding the fate of Desmond Hume led to the introduction of
Penelope "Penny" Widmore (
Sonya Walger), Hume's long-time girlfriend who has been searching for him since his disappearance, and her father, corporate magnate
Charles Widmore (
Alan Dale), whose destiny seems intertwined with the island's. The introduction of the "
Others," inhabitants of the island, has featured such characters as
Tom aka Mr. Friendly (
M. C. Gainey),
Ethan Rom (
William Mapother),
Goodwin Stanhope (
Brett Cullen) and
Richard Alpert (
Nestor Carbonell), all of whom have been shown in both flashbacks and the ongoing story. The final days of the third season introduced
Naomi Dorrit (
Marsha Thomason), would-be rescuer with a mysterious freighter expedition, and
Matthew Abbadon (
Lance Reddick), apparently an employee of Widmore Industries. Jack's father
Christian Shephard (
John Terry) has appeared in multiple flashbacks of various characters, as has
Anthony Cooper (
Kevin Tighe), Locke's father and the man who conned Sawyer's parents, and many others.
Casting
Many of the first season roles were a result of the executive producers' liking of various actors. The main character Jack was originally going to die in the
pilot, and was hoped to be played by
Michael Keaton; however, ABC executives were adamant that Jack live. Before it was decided that Jack would live, Kate was to emerge as the leader of the survivors; she was originally conceived to be more like the character of Rose.
Dominic Monaghan auditioned for the role of Sawyer, who at the time was supposed to be a suit-wearing city con man. The producers enjoyed Monaghan's performance and changed the character of Charlie, originally a middle-aged former rock star, to fit him.
Jorge Garcia also auditioned for Sawyer, and the part of Hurley was written for him. When
Josh Holloway auditioned for Sawyer, the producers liked the edge he brought to the character (he reportedly kicked a chair when he forgot his lines and got angry in the audition) and his
southern accent, so they changed Sawyer to fit Holloway's acting.
Yunjin Kim auditioned for Kate, but the producers wrote the character of Sun for her and the character of Jin, portrayed by
Daniel Dae Kim, to be her husband. Sayid, played by
Naveen Andrews, was also not in the original script. Locke and Michael were written with their actors in mind.
Emilie de Ravin who plays Claire was originally cast in what was supposed to be a recurring role.
Season synopses
Season 1
Season 1 featured 24 episodes which aired on Wednesdays at 8:00 pm in the United States from
September 22 2004. 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. Their survival is threatened by mysterious entities including polar bears, an unseen creature that roams the jungle, and the island's malevolent inhabitants known as the "
Others". They encounter a Frenchwoman named Danielle Rousseau who was shipwrecked on the island over 16 years earlier and find a mysterious metal hatch buried in the ground. An attempt is made to leave the island on a raft.
Season 2
Season 2 featured 23 episodes that were aired in the
United States and
Canada on Wednesdays at 9:00 pm starting on
September 21 2005. Most of the story, which continues 45 days after the crash, focuses on the growing conflict between the survivors and the Others, with the continued clash between faith and science being thematic in certain episodes. While some mysteries are resolved, new questions are raised. New characters are introduced, including the tail-section survivors and other island inhabitants. More island mythologies and insights into the survivors' pasts are divulged. The hatch is explored and the existence of The
DHARMA Initiative and its benefactor, the
Hanso Foundation, are revealed. As the truth about the mysterious Others begins to unfold, one of the crash survivors betrays the other castaways, and the cause of the plane crash is revealed.
Season 3
Season 3 featured 22 episodes (one of which was a two-part, double-length episode) that were seen in the United States and Canada beginning on
October 4 2006 and on following Wednesdays at 9:00 pm. The series returned from hiatus on
February 7 2007 and was aired at 10:00 pm. The story continues 67 days after the crash. New crash survivors and Others are introduced, as the crash survivors learn about the Others and their history on the mysterious island. One of the Others and a new island inhabitant join the survivors while a survivor defects to the Others. A war between the Others and the survivors comes to a head, and the survivors make contact with a rescue team.
Season 4
Season 4 was planned (prior to the
Writers Guild of America strike) to feature 16 episodes, to be broadcast beginning in the U.S. and Canada on
January 31 2008.
Future seasons and end date
On
May 7,
2007, ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson announced that
Lost will end during the 2009–2010 season with a "highly anticipated and shocking finale." "We felt that this was the only way to give [
Lost] a proper creative conclusion," McPherson said.
Executive producers Lindelof and Cuse stated that they "always envisioned
Lost as a show with a beginning, middle, and end," and that by announcing when the show would end that viewers would "have the security of knowing that the story will play out as we've intended." Lindelof noted, "We're no longer stalling."
Among the show's mythological elements is a "monster" that roams the island; a mysterious group of inhabitants whom the survivors refer to as "The Others;" an organization called the
DHARMA Initiative that has placed several
research stations on the island; a
sequence of numbers that have made frequent appearances in the lives of the characters, in both the past, present and future; and personal connections or
synchronicity between the characters, of which they're often unaware.
Discredited theories
At the heart of the series is a complex and cryptic storyline that spawns numerous unresolved questions. Encouraged by
Lost's writers and stars, who often interact with fans online, viewers and TV critics alike have taken to widespread theorizing in an attempt to unravel the mysteries. Theories mainly concern 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 have been discussed and rejected by the show's creators, the most common being that the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 are dead or in
purgatory. This was specifically denied by J.J. Abrams. Furthermore, Lindelof has rejected speculation that
spaceships or
aliens influence the events on the island, or that everything seen is a fictional reality taking place in someone's mind.
Carlton Cuse dismissed the theory that the island is a
reality TV show and the castaways unwitting housemates and Lindelof, many times, has refuted the theory that the "monster" is a
nanobot cloud similar to the one featured in
Michael Crichton's novel
Prey.
Recurring elements
There are several recurring elements and
motifs on
Lost, which generally have no direct effect on the story itself, but expand the show's literary and philosophical
subtext. These elements include frequent appearances of the colors black and white, which reflect the
dualism within characters and situations; as well as rebellion in almost all characters, especially Kate;
dysfunctional family situations, as portrayed in the lives of nearly all the main characters; apocalyptic references, including Desmond's pushing the button to forestall the end of the world and the DHARMA Initiative's goal to alter the parameters of the Valenzetti Equation and prevent the end of humanity; coincidence versus fate, revealed most apparently through the juxtaposition of the characters Locke and Mr. Eko; conflict between science and faith, embodied by the leadership tug-of-war between Jack and Locke; and references to numerous works of
literature, including mentions and discussions of particular novels. There are also many allusions in characters' names to famous historical thinkers and writers, such as
John Locke (after the
philosopher),
Danielle Rousseau (after philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau),
Desmond Hume (after philosopher
David Hume),
Juliet Burke (after philosopher
Edmund Burke),
Mikhail Bakunin (after the
anarchist philosopher),
Daniel Faraday (after physicist
Michael Faraday),
George Minkowski (after mathematician
Hermann Minkowski),
Richard Alpert (the birth name of spiritual teacher
Ram Dass),
Henry Gale (after the
astrophysicist and author),
Kate Austen (after author
Jane Austen), and
Charlotte Staples Lewis (after author
CS Lewis).
Impact
Ratings
Seasonal USA rankings (based on a weighted average total viewers per episode including
reruns) of
Lost on ABC. Note that fourth season ratings are subject to change as the season is yet to be completed.
| Season |
Timeslot (EDT) |
Season Premiere |
Season Finale |
TV Season |
Rank |
Viewers
(in millions) |
| 1 | Wednesday 8:00 P.M.(September 22, 2004-May 25, 2005) |
September 22, 2004 |
May 25, 2005 |
2004–2005 |
#14 |
16.1
|
| 2 | Wednesday 9:00 P.M.(September 21, 2005-May 24, 2006) |
September 21, 2005 |
May 24, 2006 |
2005–2006 |
#14 |
15.5
|
| 3 | Wednesday 9:00 P.M. (October 4, 2006-November 8, 2006)Wednesday 10:00 P.M. (February 7, 2007-May 23, 2007)
|
October 4, 2006 |
May 23, 2007 |
2006–2007 |
#17 |
14.6
|
| 4 | Thursday 9:00 P.M. (January 31, 2008-March 20, 2008)
Thursday 10:00 P.M. (April 24, 2008–May 15, 2008)
Thursday 9:00 P.M/Thursday 10:00 P.M. (May 29, 2008) |
January 31, 2008 |
May 29, 2008 |
2007-2008 |
#22 |
13.02
|
The pilot episode garnered 18.6 million viewers, easily winning its 9/8 central timeslot, and giving ABC its strongest
ratings since 2000 when
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was initially aired—beaten only the following month by the premiere of
Desperate Housewives. According to
Variety, "ABC sure could use a breakout drama success, as it hasn't had a real hit since
The Practice.
Lost represents the network's best start for a drama with eighteen to forty-nine year olds since
Once and Again in 1999, and in total viewers since
Murder One in 1995."
Based on its strong opening,
Reuters dubbed it a "hit drama" noting that "the show appeared to have benefited from an all-out marketing blitz that included radio spots, special screenings and ABC's first billboard advertising campaign in five years." After four episodes had been aired, ABC announced that
Lost had been picked up for a full season order.
For its first season,
Lost averaged 16 million viewers, ranking 14th in viewership among
prime-time shows, and 15th among the eighteen to forty-nine year old
demographic. Its second season fared equally well: again,
Lost ranked 14th in viewership, with an average of 15.5 million viewers. However, it improved its rating with eighteen to forty-nine year olds, ranking 8th. The second season premiere was even more viewed than the first, pulling in over 23 million viewers and setting a series record. The third season premiere brought in 18.8 million viewers. The seventh episode of the series, back from a three-month hiatus, saw a drop to 14.5 million. Over the course of the spring season, ratings would plunge to as low as 11 million viewers before recovering to near 14 million for the season finale. The ratings drop was partially explained when
Nielsen released
DVR ratings, showing
Lost as the most recorded series on television. However, despite overall ratings losses,
Lost still won its hour in the crucial 18–49 demographic and put out the highest 18–49 numbers in the 10pm time slot ahead of any show on any network that season. The fourth season premiere of
Lost saw an increase from the previous episode to 16.1 million viewers, though by the eighth episode, viewers had decreased to a series low of 11.461 million.
A survey of twenty countries by
Informa Telecoms and Media in 2006 concluded that
Lost was the second most popular TV show in those countries, after .
Awards
Capping its successful first season,
Lost won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series and J. J. Abrams was awarded an Emmy in September 2005 for his work as the director of Pilot. Terry O'Quinn and Naveen Andrews were nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category. Lost swept the guild awards in 2005, winning the Writers Guild of America Awards 2005 for outstanding achievement in writing for a dramatic television series, the 2005 Producers Guild Award for best production, the 2005 Director's Guild Award for best direction of a dramatic television program, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards 2005 for best ensemble cast. It has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best drama series every year it has been eligible, and won the award in 2006. In 2005, Matthew Fox and Naveen Andrews received Golden Globe nominations for Best Lead Actor and Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series respectively, and in 2007, Evangeline Lilly received a nomination in the Best Lead Actress category. Lost did win the 2005 British Academy of Film and Television Award for Best American Import. In 2006, Jorge Garcia and Michelle Rodriguez took home ALMA Awards for best Supporting Actor and Actress, respectively, in a television series. It won the Saturn Award for Best Television Series in both 2005 and 2006. In, 2005 Terry O'Quinn won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor in a television series, and in 2006, Matthew Fox won for Best Lead Actor. Lost won consecutive Television Critics Association Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Drama, for both its first and second seasons. Consecutively as well, it won in 2005 and 2006 the Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program. Malcolm David Kelley won a Young Artist Award for his performance as Walt in 2006. In 2005, Lost was voted Entertainment Weekly's Entertainer of the Year. The show won a 2005 Prism Award for Charlie's drug storyline in the episodes Pilot, House of the Rising Sun, and The Moth. Further,
Lost was nominated for but didn't win a Writer's Guild Award and Producer's Guild Award again in 2007. In June 2007,
Lost beat out over 20 nominated television shows from countries all over the globe to win the Best Drama award at the
Monte Carlo Television Festival. In September 2007 both
Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn were nominated for an
Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, the award going to O'Quinn.
Critical reception
The series was ranked number 1 several times in the "Best of 2005 TV Coverage: Critic Top Ten Lists" by Matthew Gilbert of
The Boston Globe, Tom Gliatto of
People Weekly, Charlie McCollum of the
San Jose Mercury News and Robert Bianco of
USA Today.
Time magazine's James Poniewozik named it one of the Top 10 Returning Series of 2007, ranking it at #2. Also that year, Lost made Time's list of the 100 Greatest Shows of All Time.
Lost also came 5th on
Empire Magazine 's list of the Top 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
Bill Carter, television reporter of
The New York Times, defined Lost as "the show with perhaps the most compelling continuing story line in television history".
Fandom and popular culture
As a
cult television show,
Lost has generated a dedicated and thriving international
fan community.
Lost fans, sometimes dubbed
Lostaways or
Losties, have gathered at
Comic-Con International and conventions organized by ABC, and forums dedicated to the program and its related incarnations. Because of the show's elaborate mythology, its fansites have focused on speculation and theorizing about the island's mysteries, as well as on more typical fan activities such as producing
fan fiction and videos, compiling episode transcripts,
shipping characters, and collecting memorabilia.
Anticipating fan interest and trying to keep its audience engrossed, ABC embarked on various cross-media endeavors, often using new media. Fans of
Lost have been able to explore ABC-produced tie-in websites, tie-in novels, an official forum sponsored by the creative team behind
Lost ("The Fuselage"), "
mobisodes," podcasts by the producers, an official magazine, and an
alternate reality game (ARG) "
The Lost Experience." An official fanclub was launched in the summer of 2005 through Creation Entertainment. and
Penny Arcade and humor magazine
Mad have all incorporated
Lost references. Similarly, several rock bands have published songs whose themes and titles were derived from the series, such as
Moneen ("Don't Ever Tell Locke What He Can't Do"),
Senses Fail ("Lost And Found" and "All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues"), and
Gatsbys American Dream ("You All Everybody" and "Station 5: The Pearl").
After the episode "
Numbers" aired on
March 2 2005, numerous people used the eponymous figures (
4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42) as lottery entries. According to the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, within three days, the numbers were tried over 500 times by local players. Likewise, in the same period, over 200 people in
Michigan alone used the sequence for the
Mega Millions lottery and by October, thousands had tried them for the multi-state
Powerball lottery.
Other media
The characters and setting of
Lost have appeared in several official
tie-ins outside of the television broadcast, including in print, on the Internet, and in short videos for mobile phones.
JJ Abram's film "Cloverfield" aired the Dharma logo in its opening credits. For a few frames the logo shows up.
(External Link)
As of March of 2006, three
novelizations have been released by
Hyperion Books, a publisher owned by ABC's parent company:
Endangered Species (ISBN 0-7868-9090-8) by Cathy Hapka, released on
November 1,
2005;
Secret Identity (ISBN 0-7868-9091-6) by Cathy Hapka on
January 1,
2006; and
Signs of Life (ISBN 0-7868-9092-4) by Frank Thompson, on
March 1,
2006.
Additionally, Hyperion published a
metafictional book titled
Bad Twin (ISBN 1-4013-0276-9), written by Laurence Shames, and credited to fictitious author "
Gary Troup," who was claimed to be a passenger on Oceanic Flight 815 by ABC's marketing department.
Finding Lost: The Unofficial Guide (ISBN 1-55022-743-2) by Nikki Stafford and published by
ECW Press is a book detailing the show for fans and those new to the show.
What Can Be Found in LOST? (ISBN 0-7369-2121-4) by John Ankerberg and Dillon Burrough published by Harvest House was the first book dedicated to an investigation of the spiritual themes of the series from a Christian perspective.
Living Lost: Why We're All Stuck on the Island (ISBN 1891053027) by J. Wood, published by the Garett County Press, is the first work of cultural criticism based on the series. The book explores the show's strange engagement with the contemporary experiences of war, (mis)information, and terrorism, and argues that the audience functions as a character in the narrative. The author also writes a blog column during the second part of the third season for
Powell's Books. Each post discusses the previous episode's literary, historical, philosophical and narrative connections.
The show's networks and producers have made extensive use of the Internet in expanding the background of the story. For example, during the first season, a fictional diary by an unseen survivor called "Janelle Granger" was presented on the ABC web site for the series. Likewise, a tie-in website about the fictional
Oceanic Airlines appeared during the first season, which included several
Easter eggs and clues about the show. Another tie-in website was launched after the airing of "
Orientation" about the
Hanso Foundation. In the UK, the interactive back-stories of several characters are included in "Lost Untold," a section of
Channel 4's
Lost website. Similarly, since November 2005, ABC has produced an official
podcast, hosted by series writers and executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. The podcast typically features a discussion about the weekly episode, interviews with cast members and questions from viewers.
Sky One also hosts a podcast presented by
Iain Lee on their website, which analyzes each episode after it airs in the United Kingdom.
The foray into the online realm culminated in the "
Lost Experience", an Internet-based
alternate reality game produced by Channel 7 (Australia), ABC (America) and Channel Four (UK), which began in early May 2006. The game presents a five-phase parallel storyline, primarily involving the
Hanso Foundation.
Short mini-episodes ("
mobisodes") called the
Lost Video Diaries were originally scheduled for viewing by
Verizon Wireless subscribers via its V-Cast system, but were delayed by contract disputes.
Each video diary will run several minutes and cover events not seen in the television episodes. They will run all 13 mobisodes on ABC.com starting
November 12 2007. Every Monday a new mobisode will air.
Licensed merchandise
In addition to tie-in novels, several other types of products based on the series, such as toys and games, have been licensed for release. A video game,, has been released, developed by
Ubisoft, for
game consoles and home computers, while
Gameloft developed a
Lost game for mobile phones and
iPods. Cardinal Games released a
Lost board game on
August 7 2006. TDC Games created a series of four 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles ("The Hatch," "The Numbers," "The Others" and "Before the Crash") which, when put together, reveal embedded clues to the overall mythology of
Lost. Inkworks has published two sets of
Lost trading cards, and is slated to release the
Lost: Revelations set. In May 2006,
McFarlane Toys announced recurring lines of character
action figures and released the first series in November 2006, with the second series being released July 2007.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Lost Tv Series'.
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