lost

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It was twenty years ago tonight – September 22, 2004 – that arguably the greatest television series of the new millennium premiered.

Lost was an instant sensation and for six seasons its tale of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 gripped the world’s consciousness.  ABC’s hit broke all the rules, subverted expectations, and cooked long-held tropes like so many White Castle hamburgers.  Lost was television of the highest order of storytelling.  Yes, its story ended without every mystery getting a solid answer… and many maddeningly unresolved.  But some things should be left to the imagination and Lost certainly provided viewers with fresh new enigmas seemingly every week to ruminate upon.

I think that Lost wasn’t so much about the riddles as it was about the characters.  That was the greatest ensemble cast assembled in the modern history of the medium and they brought ...

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It seems like an entirely other world ago now.  When the wait between new episodes could be not just weeks but months away.  There was no “binging” a series on a regular basis.  And streaming television was still yet to come.

I was in a different place also.  Still reeling from a divorce.  Wrestling with the worst symptoms of manic depression.  Alone.  Confused.  And, well… lost.  Looking for a purpose, as John Locke was.

There had never been a television series like Lost.  And there never will be again, ever.  At least, there never can be for me.

The medium has changed too drastically.  Viewer expectations have become too impatient.  The audience demands definitive answers, when once upon a time such a thing as “exercise for the reader” was a treasured virtue.  To be sure, some series – such as The Walking Dead and Game Of Thrones – followed ...

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It’s been ages since anything Lost-related has appeared on this site. Someday I’ll try to write up an essay that’s been percolating for a year or two: how the answers to everything we’d been looking for really, honestly were revealed or explained by the time of “The End” in 2012. Including how the Island could move (there’s a scientific theory for that!).

Until then, it’s nice to see that Lost still resonates. Enough so that CollegeHumor.com explored the notion: “What if Lost was a computerized role-playing game?” Sorta in the style of Dragon Warrior running on a Super Nintendo…

There may be spoilers if you haven’t watched Lost, so viewer beware. For those who held on to the very end, this is a pretty hilarious video....

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Am enjoying it right now. This is by far the most intimidating behemoth of a box set that I have ever added to my personal library. I mean, you not only get a whole heapin’ bunch of Blu-ray discs (or DVD discs if that is still your flavor) but also a touchy-feely relief map of the Island, a Senet board with black and white playing pieces, a cryptic note, and an even more mysterious DHARMA Initiative pen-sized dark light that can be used to illuminate the box (and finding hidden… stuff, with it).

Watching Season 6 at the moment. Am pleased to report that picture and sound quality is amazing. But the absolutely first thing that I had to watch was “The New Man in Charge”: the 12 minutes-long “mini episode” that follows up on the events of the series finale. And in twelve minutes we get to see ...

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First of all, and I don’t know if anyone else has made note of this but this final season of Lost borrowed a lot from Marvel Comics’ Earth X trilogy that Alex Ross and some others did about a decade ago. If you’re not familiar with the series, a big part of the story (which consisted of Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X) was about an “afterlife” that the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe were stuck in, unaware that they were dead and because of that, unable to move on. The Kree hero Mar-Vell winds up getting himself re-born in the real world even as he’s still in the realm of the dead (much like Desmond was working in the real timeline and the “alternate” timeline). In the end heroes and villains alike realize their state and get to “let go and move on” ...

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…and I am still stunned and numb by how powerful and poignant that was.

I don’t mind sharing this at all: the closing minutes of the series finale of Lost, very beautifully articulated many of the hopes that I have come to have across my life.

If you want to know what Chris Knight’s image of Heaven is like, that final scene inside the church is pretty darned close: reunions, reconciliations, rejoicings… and moving on together.

This finale hit me in places that I didn’t realize needed hitting upon. Lost on the morning after, and somehow I’m feeling more appreciative. More thankful. More hopeful.

This was only the second television series that I’ve followed this intently in my life. The first was Babylon 5. And in the end both of these shows brought me to tears for all the right reasons. But I don’t know if anything ...

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Dear Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and everyone who has been involved with Lost during the past six years:

That was time well spent. All of it.

And in “The End”, you brought it to a perfect, astounding and beautiful conclusion.

The greatest praise that can ever be given a story is the sense that the reader or the viewer is coming away from it a better person than he or she was before picking up the book, or tuning in to the show. And that the story now belongs on the shelf with the others, to be brought out again and enjoyed many more times in years to come.

Lost made me think a little more, cry a little more, laugh a little more… and it’s leaving me a better person. And I shall certainly enjoy rediscovering this story and these beloved characters many, many more times during the rest ...

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It was during Jacob’s little campfire get-together that the image of a key came into mind. And that key went into the lock (or perhaps “Locke”) in the door of six seasons’ worth of mystery on Lost… and began to turn.

Can you see it? Could you feel it too, watching “What They Died For”? That all the threads are coming together in the tapestry that is Lost. The sense that this has been a well-orchestrated symphony of mythic storytelling, even during those times when some of us had doubt (witness the reaction many had to last week’s “Across The Sea”, which tonight’s episode tremendously heightened appreciation for).

Everything has come full circle at last. Seeing our heroes on the beach, watching Jack crudely suture-up Kate just as she did in the very first episode, and then realizing that Jack is assuredly not that man of science any ...

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One week from tonight, the story of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 will draw to a close as the final episode of Lost airs on ABC.

I do not know if there will ever be another television series that has so captivated me. That has compelled me to tune in as Lost has. I am not much of a television viewer at all: a show has to sincerely earn my attention and respect, for me to devote my time toward it. And that, Lost has done.

“What They Died For”, the last regular episode, airs two nights from now. There’ll be a two-hour recap next Sunday followed by the two and a half hour “The End”.

And some dude/dudette in London has spliced together this spellbinding trailer for Lost‘s series finale. It’s so entrancing that none other than Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof Twitter-ed about it earlier this ...

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This is probably the most mythos-packed episode of Lost, ever. And I’ve no doubt that many might not care much for that aspect…

…but I thought that “Across The Sea” was a very strong entry that answered bunches of questions while simultaneously not answering some that I was expecting and in fact added at least one big new question (with three and a half hours left to wrap up the tale of Lost and its myriad of mysteries).

“Across The Sea” was also the longest flashback episode in Lost history: the entire chapter takes place an indeterminate amount of time in the past, and that’s bugging me. Is this meant to be pre-ancient Egypt? The hieroglyphics we’ve seen at the Temple and that this is apparently before the Statue of Tawaret was built would suggest it. That potentially places “Across The Sea” more than four thousand years before the ...

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