Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American science fiction adventure drama television series created by Jeffrey Lieber, J. J. Abrams, and Damon Lindelof that aired on ABC from September 22, 2004, to May 23, 2010, with a total of 121 episodes over six seasons. It contains elements of supernatural fiction and follows the survivors of a commercial jet airliner flying between Sydney and Los Angeles after the plane crashes on a mysterious island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean. Episodes typically feature a primary storyline set on the island, augmented by flashback or flashforward sequences which provide additional insight into the involved characters.
Lindelof and Carlton Cuse served as showrunners and were executive producers along with Abrams and Bryan Burk. Inspired by the 2000 film Cast Away, the show is told in a heavily serialized manner. 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 were expanded upon by a number of related media—most importantly a series of mini-episodes, called Missing Pieces, and a 12-minute epilogue called "The New Man in Charge".
Lost has regularly been ranked by critics as one of the greatest television series of all time. The first season had an estimated average of 16 million viewers per episode on ABC. During the 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, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2005, Best American Import at the British Academy Television Awards in 2005, the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama in 2006, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Series overview
Season 1
Season 1 begins with the aftermath of a plane crash, which leaves the surviving passengers of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 on what seems to be an uninhabited tropical island. Spinal surgeon Jack Shephard becomes their leader. Their survival is threatened by a number of 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 French woman named Danielle Rousseau, who was shipwrecked on the island 16 years before the crash and is desperate for news of her daughter, Alex. They also find a mysterious metal hatch buried in the ground. While two survivors, Locke and Boone, try to open the hatch, Michael, Jin, Walt, and Sawyer attempt to leave on a raft that they have built. Meanwhile, flashbacks center on details of the individual survivors' lives prior to the plane crash.Season 2
Season 2 follows the growing conflict between the survivors and the Others. The four survivors on the raft are ambushed by the Others, and they take Michael's son Walt. The survivors are forced to return to the island, where they find the tail-section survivors. A power struggle between Jack and Locke over control of the guns and medicine located in the hatch develops and is resolved by Sawyer when he gains control of them. The hatch is revealed to be a research station built 30 years earlier by the DHARMA Initiative, a scientific research project that involved conducting experiments on the island. A man named Desmond Hume had been living in the hatch for three years, activating a computer program every 108 minutes to prevent an unknown catastrophic event from occurring. To recover his son, Michael betrays the survivors, and Jack, Sawyer, and Kate are captured. Michael is given a boat and leaves the island with his son, while Locke destroys the computer in the hatch, resulting in an electromagnetic discharge. This causes the island to be detected by scientists working for Penny Widmore, and it is revealed that a similar event caused the breakup of the plane.Season 3
In season 3, the crash survivors learn more about the Others and their long history on the mysterious island, along with the fate of the Dharma Initiative. The leader of the Others, Ben Linus, is introduced and defections from both sides pave the way for conflict between the two. Time travel elements also begin to appear in the series, as Desmond is forced to turn the fail-safe key in the hatch to stop the electromagnetic event, and this sends his mind eight years in the past. When he returns to the present, he is able to see the future. Kate and Sawyer escape the Others, while Jack stays after Ben promises that Jack will be able to leave the island in a submarine if he operates on Ben, who has cancer. Jack does, but the submarine is destroyed by Locke. Jack is left behind with Juliet, an Other, who also seeks to leave the island, while Locke joins the Others. A helicopter carrying Naomi crashes near the island. Naomi says her freighter, Kahana, is eighty miles offshore and was sent by Penny, Desmond's ex-girlfriend. Desmond has a vision in which Charlie will drown after shutting down a signal that prevents communication with the outside world. His vision comes true, but Charlie speaks with Penny, who says she does not know Naomi. Before drowning, Charlie writes "Not Penny's boat" on his hand so that Desmond can warn the other survivors. Meanwhile, the survivors make contact with a rescue team aboard the freighter. In the season finale, apparent flashbacks show a depressed Jack going to an unknown person's funeral. In the final scene, these are revealed to be "flashforwards", and Kate and Jack are revealed to have escaped the island, but Jack believes that they "have to go back".Season 4
Season 4 focuses on the survivors dealing with the arrival of people from the freighter, who have been sent to the island to reclaim it from Ben. "Flashforwards" continue, in which it is seen how six survivors, dubbed the "Oceanic Six", live their lives after escaping the island. The "Oceanic Six" are Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, and Aaron. In the present, four members of the freighter arrive and team up with the survivors to escape the island, since the crew of the freighter have orders to kill everyone who stays. Meanwhile, Ben travels with Locke to see Jacob, the island's leader. Locke enters his cabin but finds Jack's dead father, Christian, who says he can speak on Jacob's behalf, and orders Locke to "move" the island. Ben takes Locke to an underground station in which time travel was researched. Locke becomes the new leader of the Others, while Ben moves the island by turning a frozen wheel, after which he is transported to the Sahara. The six survivors escape in a helicopter as they watch the island disappear and are subsequently rescued by Penny. It is then that Desmond and Penny reunite. In the season's finale, it is revealed that the funeral Jack went to in the "flashforward" was that of Locke, who had been seeking out the Oceanic Six in his efforts to convince them to return to the island.Season 5
Season 5 follows two timelines. The first timeline takes place on the island where the survivors who were left behind erratically jump forward and backward through time. In one of these time periods, Locke speaks with Richard Alpert, one of the Others, who says that to save the island, he must bring everyone back. Locke goes to the same underground station Ben went to. After moving the island himself, Locke is transported to the Sahara in 2007, as the time shifts on the island stop and the survivors are stranded with the DHARMA Initiative in 1974. In 2007, Locke contacts the Oceanic Six but fails to convince them to return. Locke tells Jack his father is alive on the island. This causes Jack to start taking flights every week, hoping to crash back on the island. Ben finds Locke and kills him. After Locke's death, the Oceanic Six are told to board Ajira Airways Flight 316 to return to the island and in order to go back, they have to take Locke's body in the plane. They take the flight, but some land in 1977, where they meet with the other survivors who are now part of the DHARMA Initiative, and others land in 2007. The survivors in 1977 are told by Daniel Faraday that if they detonate a hydrogen bomb at the Swan construction site, the electromagnetic energy below it will be destroyed; as a result, the hatch would never be built, and the plane would not crash. In 2007, Locke apparently comes back to life. He instructs Richard to speak with a time-traveling Locke and tell him that he must bring everyone back to the island. After this, he goes to speak with Jacob. The season finale reveals that Locke is still dead and another entity has taken over his form to manipulate Ben into killing Jacob. In 1977, Juliet detonates the fission core taken from the hydrogen bomb.Season 6
Season 6, the final season, also follows two timelines. In the first timeline, the survivors are sent to the present day, as the death of Jacob allows his brother, the Man in Black to take over the island. Having assumed the form of Locke, the Smoke Monster seeks to escape the island and forces a final war between the forces of good and evil.The second timeline, called the "flash-sideways" narrative, follows the lives of the main characters in a setting where Oceanic 815 never crashed. In the final episodes, a flashback to the distant past shows the origins of the island's power and of the conflict between Jacob and the Man in Black, who are revealed to be twin brothers, with Jacob desperate to keep his brother from leaving the island after he is transmogrified by the power of the island and becomes the Smoke Monster.
Jacob's machinations are revealed: everyone was pushed by fate and his manipulation to be on the Oceanic flight as many of the members of the flight were deemed "candidates" by Jacob to be the new protector of the island after his death. The Man in Black's mission since the beginning was to kill all of the candidates, thereby allowing him to leave the island once and for all. The ghost of Jacob appears to the surviving candidates, and Jack is appointed as the new protector. Jack catches up with the Man in Black, who says that he wants to go to the "Heart of the Island" to turn it off and finally leave the island. They reach the place, but after doing this, the Man in Black becomes mortal. The Man in Black is killed by Jack and Kate, but Jack is seriously injured in the process. Hurley becomes the new protector of the island. Several of the survivors die in the conflict or stay on the island, and the remaining escape in the Ajira plane once and for all. Jack returns to the "Heart of the Island" and turns it on again, saving it. Hurley, as the new protector, asks Ben to help him in his new job, which he agrees to do. Having saved the island, Jack dies peacefully in the same place in which he woke up when he arrived on the island.
The series finale reveals that the flash-sideways timeline is actually a form of purgatory in the afterlife, where some of the survivors and other characters from the island are reunited after death. In the last scene, the survivors are all reunited in a church where they "move on" together.