Disney / Buena Vista | 2004 | 1070 mins | Not rated
It almost embarrasses me to admit this but prior to watching the first season of Lost on Blu-ray, I hadn’t seen any of those episodes. For some reason, I was late to the party and didn’t start watching the show on a regular basis until midway through the second season. Created by Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber, the show was a huge success from the start, averaging 16 million viewers and garnering 12 Emmy nominations. If you’re like me and missed the ‘flight’ when Lost originally aired, the recent release of seasons one and two on Blu-ray is a great way to get up to speed.
Lost was born from an order by the then head of ABC, for a script based on his concept of a cross between the novel Lord of the Flies, the movie Cast Away, the television series Gilligan’s Island, and the reality show Survivor. A tight close-up of a dilating eye, the harsh rustling of some trees and the faint crackle of a down airplane are the first images and sounds viewers saw, when Lost debuted premiered on September 22, 2004.
324 passengers boarded Oceanic Flight 815 from Australia to Los Angeles. A terrible accident would leave only 48 of them alive. Of those 48 men and women who had to make their way out of the fiery wreckage, 14 of them played major roles in the storyline of season one. Surgeon (Jack Shephard), is a gifted but troubled man, haunted by his relationship with his father, Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), was a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard that routinely tortured people, lottery winner Hugo Reyes (Jorge Garcia), loner and con-man James “Sawyer” Ford (Josh Holloway), a pregnant Australian woman named Claire Littleton, fugitive Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), former “Drive Shaft” guitarist and junkie Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan), married couple Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun Kwon (Yunjin Kim), struggling father Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) and his gifted son Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), bickering step-siblings Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace) and Boone Carlyle (Ian Somerhalder), wise elder Rose Henderson (L. Scott Caldwell) and of course survival enthusiast and man of faith, John Locke (Terry O’Quinn).
Without giving away major details that might detract the 1000 or so viewers that haven’t seen Lost’s first season, it’s easy to see why the show was an immediate success. The mystery of the show never lets up and the writers and producers always create some sort of question that resonates with viewers week after week. Weaving flashbacks and back stories with each person’s experiences on the island, has created some of the most intriguing characters on television. While I found the use of so many flashbacks off-putting at first, I soon realized that creative decision was a marvelous one. It allows the writers to reveal things about each of the characters in small doses; that way, the story still feels fresh and the writers have left themselves an opening to change things as they see fit.
While much of season one deals with character, plot and place development, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 face some significant obstacles: an unseen monster responsible for the death of their co-pilot, cope with a tribe of people known as “the Others,” among a multitude of other things.
With a main cast of 14 actors, it would be reasonable to assume that some characters wouldn’t matter as much as others. However, everyone in the cast of Lost matters equally and no one is forgotten. While six of the characters do a lot of the heavy lifting at the beginning of the series, the remaining characters are introduced and have fleshed out storylines by season’s end.
Lost: The Complete First Season is some of the best television available on Blu-ray. From start to finish, the series is a nonstop ride of intrigue, excitement and questions both answered and unanswered. Whether you’re watching the show for the first time or revisiting it, sit back and enjoy the ride.
Lost looks amazing in 1080p; presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the AVC/MPEG-4 transfer is a solid one, with bold and luxurious colors (the show is shot in Hawaii) and detail that’s very sharp and pristine without appearing overprocessed. Some of the lighter background scenes aren´t as sharp as the fourth season I reviewed on Blu-ray, but it´s still an impressive looking release that should please fans of the series.
The soundtrack is awesome! Packaged with a English PCM uncompressed 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit) track, it’s hard to imagine the series sounding any better than it does here. Additional soundtrack options are English and French Dolby Digital 5.1, and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0. Subtitles are in English SDH, French, and Spanish.
Lost: The Complete First Season is loaded with special features:
• Audio Commentaries: First up are five commentary tracks that offer a thorough overview of the series, development, and its creators’ dealings with the network, as well as the show’s structure, characters, storylines, flashbacks, and musical score. The two-part “Pilot” episode boasts a pair of informative discussions with executive producers J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Bryan Burk; “Walkabout” boasts a commentary from writer David Fury, director Jack Bender and John Locke himself, Terry O’Quinn; Lindelof and Burk welcome actor Dominic Monaghan into a chat about “The Moth”; and “Hearts and Minds” boasts the commentary of writers Carlton Cuse and Javier Grillo Marxuach as they try to get something out of actors Ian Sommerhalder and Maggie Grace.
• The Departure (SD, 106 minutes): Disc seven’s first batch of featurettes and documentaries include The Genesis of Lost, a nine-minute look at the concept’s beginning and its eventual development into a series for network television; Designing a Disaster, an eight-minute glimpse into the pilot episode’s plane crash sequence; Before They Were Lost, a twenty-three minute documentary that takes us through the casting process and the reasons behind each actor’s selection; Welcome to Oahu, a thirty-three minute, behind-the-scenes piece that takes a candid look at the two-part pilot episode; The Art of Matthew Fox, a six-minute recreation of the photo scrapbook Fox gave to his castmates at the end of the season; and Lost at Comicon, a two-minute featurette that follows several cast members to a comic convention.
• Lost on Location (SD, 44 minutes): This eight-part disc seven documentary looks at the design and production of several episodes. The Trouble with Boars is about the particular animals used in the series; House of the Rising Sun examines various scenes with Jin, Sun, and Charlie; Confidence Man digs into an emotionally draining sequence; All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues focuses on fight choreography; Whatever the Case May Be explores Kate’s story; Hearts and Minds looks at Shannon and Boone; Special investigates a confrontation between Michael and Locke; and Exodus references the season finale.
• Additional Features (SD, 56 minutes): Here is where you’ll find the traditional type Blu-ray features: two Flashbacks that were cut from the finale; fifteen minutes of Deleted Scenes; a collection of Bloopers; a clip documenting the cast’s visit to the Museum of Television & Radio; a quick look at the series’ Flashbacks and Mythology; a clip with Jimmy Kimmel; and a Backstage with Drive Shaft short.
• Season Play: With this option, viewers won’t lose track of where they are while watching the first season’s twenty-five episodes. This sort of feature should be required to appear on any TV series released on Blu-ray.
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