Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Lost: Season 6

 

+++Warning, this contains minor spoilers from the prior season, but no major season six giveaways+++

The final season of Lost starts out back on the (seemingly) doomed flight that started the entire series. But, we find out that as a result of the hydrogen bomb that was detonated at the end of the fifth season, there are now two realities, one in which the plane never crashed and one in which it did. So, after doing flashbacks and flashforwards, this season does a "flash sideways" going between the alternate realities and seeing how the characters come out in each one. The season pays off the reveal of the smoke monster and basically reveals all about the supernatural aspect of the island. The end of the series works out to be a bit of a thought experiment (or at least a good discussion point) when it reveals what we are seeing in the flash sideways, and the last shot of the series is a nice bookend to the opening shot in the first season.

For those who get the Blu-Ray, the A/V quality is again stellar, with the show looking and sounding as good as pretty much any movie. For extras, there are commentary tracks on four episodes, a 40-minute making-of documentary for the final season, an 8-minute recap of the series up to season six, and a few short (under 10 minutes in length) behind-the-scenes featurettes. There is also a series epilogue which ties up a couple of things that the series finale did not. So, all in all, a good amount of bonus material if you like watching the extras.

Overall, the final season was very good. The show ran hot and cold for a lot of people, with many fans disappointed (or downright mad) at how slowly everything played out. I do think being able to binge-watch the series (whether on disc or via streaming) does help with that and makes things easier to follow and, as a result, the series makes more sense. While the ending surely did not and will not appeal to everyone, I do think it was well done, even if not every character got a happily ever after ending. It goes without saying that you definitely cannot jump right into the final season and hope to understand what is going on. The show definitely has a serial storyline that has to be watched from beginning to end. It is, in my opinion, one of the best sci-fi/supernatural thrillers to be on TV in recent memory, and is definitely worth the time to watch.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Lost: Season 5

 

+++Warning, this contains minor season four spoilers, but no major giveaways about season five+++

Season five is the second to last season of the widely popular serial show, Lost. As such, it finally begins to unravel some of the mysteries that have been set up throughout the first four seasons. This season also sees the survivors split not only in location but in time, since moving the island at the end of season four to protect it from the "freighter folk" resulted in time rips so that some characters are back in the 1950s, then in the 1970s while others remain in the present day. The show does finally start to explore the island's history, explain what the Dharma Initiative really is, reveals the 'incident' that led to having someone press a button inside a hatch every 108 minutes, explains the time travel, explains why the castaways crashed on the island in the first place, and reveals more about Jacob. Some of the reveals are ham-handed and/or eye-roll-inducing, but some of them really pay off well for the die-hard fans of the show. This season, while again a bit shorter (17 overall episodes) does contain the milestone 100th episode of the series and does again end on a cliffhanger setting up the final season.

For those who get the Blu-Ray set, as with the prior season releases, you get a good amount of bonus material including commentary tracks on a few episodes, about seven making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes, including one on the 100th episode, a starter kit which is basically a series recap of seasons 1-4, and a gag reel. So, a lot there if you like watching the bonus features.

Overall, the season is very good. It continues to be well acted and mostly (with some exceptions) well written. The writing does get a bit too clever for itself sometimes, but it does seem like the writers had almost everything planned out and were not just making stuff up on the fly. A big complaint by many fans really from the end of season two onward is that the show was not resolving the mysteries and introducing four or five new questions for every question it answered. I would not say that was the case this season. Major plot elements were explained this season, and while not everything gets wrapped up, you can definitely tell the series is winding down. You definitely need to watch the prior seasons for this one to make any sense as this show is truly a serial story that builds on itself, so if you just jump in randomly, you may enjoy it, but you will not have any idea what is really going on.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Lost Season 4

 

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from the prior season, but no major season four giveaways+++

The fourth season of Lost is a short one because of the writer's strike that occurred in the middle. Therefore, the season ends up being 14 episodes as opposed to the 24 from prior seasons. So, it was a bit more streamlined. Instead of using the flashback as a plot crutch, this season utilizes what was teased in the season finale of season three, the flashforward, showing that indeed some of the survivors made it off the island and that leaving the island was not necessarily the good thing they thought it would be. The flashforwards were one main storyline and the other was the presence of the "freighter folk", those being the people on the freighter that appeared at the end of season three, and whether they are trustworthy rescuers. The season ends on a bit of a cliffhanger this season (yet again) but it is not as big a cliffhanger as we have seen in the prior seasons.

For those who get the Blu-Ray set, there are yet again a lot of extras. There are commentary tracks on four episodes, an eight-minute series recap, a handful of making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes, a featurette that has all of the flashforward scenes in chronological order, deleted scenes, a blooper reel, and some easter eggs accessible off the menus. Even excluding the commentaries, well over two hours of bonus material. And, of course, the A/V quality continues to be great.

Overall, the season is very good. It ties up some of the threads from the prior seasons while exposing new mysteries. Again, I think it is good to be able to watch the series without interruption because you get to see how it all plays out without month-long breaks, which makes everything easier to follow. The acting and writing this season continue to be very strong, and the show does a good job balancing the very large ensemble cast. Michael Emmerson was really the standout this season with his portrayal of Ben, leader of The Others. While I still think that season one was the best season of the show, this one was very good and definitely worth watching.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Lost: Season 3

 

Season three of Lost starts out a bit slow, but definitely picks up steam toward the end of the season. The first handful of episodes deal with the capture of Jack, Sawyer, and Kate by The Others and reveals Henry's backstory. As we go through the season we learn who The Others are and why they are on the island. The show continues to tell the story in flashbacks and in the present, and answers some questions (e.g., who are The Others, how did Locke end up in a wheelchair, etc.), but also raises new questions to keep the mystery going. As has been the case in the first two seasons, there is a lot of cast turnover (both with new cast members coming on, and old cast members leaving). The season ends with a two-part episode that has yet another huge cliffhanger, involving a flash forward this time.

The Blu-Ray set again has a ton of extras. Those include commentary tracks on a few episodes, about six making-of featurettes that range from a couple of minutes to just under an hour, just under twenty minutes of deleted scenes, and a gag reel that runs just over six minutes. Then there are some featurettes that involve promotional items like toys and the video game, and then a featurette on the books that inspire some of the themes in the show. So, if you like watching the extras, there is a lot there. And, of course, the A/V quality is very good as the seasons 1 and 2 releases were.

Overall, the season is good and rebounds from what many saw as a weaker second season. I know when the show was on the air many people got mad that it took so long to reveal the various mysteries. I do think the ability to watch the show on DVD (or streaming) so you can see it all play out without having to wait between seasons makes it easier to watch. There are definitely some logical leaps in the story that do not make a ton of sense and not all of the twists work to perfection. But, even was unique for its time, not derivative of anything else, and even after all these years, there has not really been a show that caught fire as Lost did in terms of its instant popularity. It is definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of sci-fi/fantasy thrillers.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Lost: Season 2

 

+++Warning, this contains some spoilers from season one, but no major season two giveaways+++

As fans of the show know, the first season ended on a few different cliffhangers that set up the storylines of season two. The big one is what is in the hatch (which opened in the season finale). What is in the hatch is revealed and explained (at least partly) in the first few episodes. The second one is the attack on the raft and the kidnapping of Walt, which sets up the story arc of "The Others" who are a group of inhabitants of the islands who attack the crash survivors. We also learn that another group of crash survivors from the tail of the plane are on the island, and we see that their experience was much different from the "main" characters of season one. The show continues to reveal portions of the story (sometimes at a snail's pace) through flashbacks, both showing whom the characters were before crashing on the island, and revealing secrets of the island itself. The season again ends on a major cliffhanger leaving the fates of many characters in limbo.

The show again looks and sounds great on Blu-Ray, and the Blu-Rays have a ton of extras. Those include commentary tracks on five episodes, a bunch of behind-the-scenes footage, about twenty minutes of deleted scenes, a gag reel, and a "Lost Connections" chart, which shows how all of the characters on the island are inter-connected with each other (which sometimes stretches all logic in order to be clever).

Overall, the series continues to be very strong. It is well written and very well acted. The show has to balance a ton of characters (although the amount of characters is definitely in flux) and juggle a lot of storylines. New additions to the cast include Michelle Rodriguez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cynthia Watros, Michael Emerson, Henry Ian Cusick, and M. C. Gainey. Yunjin Kim and Danel Dae Kim are given a lot to work with this season with the development of their characters and really knock it out of the park. The show definitely leaves more questions open than it answers, which definitely irked many fans when it was on the air. But, I definitely think the pacing of the story was very well done and enough was revealed to keep viewers hooked and kept mysterious to keep people coming back.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Lost: Season 1

 

Lost is a series created by J.J Abrams and produced by Damon Lindelof. The basic premise is a plane flying from Sydney to Los Angeles that hits turbulence and breaks apart in mid-air and crashes on a deserted tropical island in the South Pacific more than a thousand miles off course. The series opens with Matthew Fox's character, Jack Shephard, waking up on an island. As he slowly regains consciousness, he sees the wreckage of the plane and tries to help the other survivors including Locke (Terry O'Quinn, in an exceptional performance), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Charlie (Dominic Monaghan, of "Lord of the Rings"), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Shannon (Maggie Grace). Over the course of the season, they find out that the island is not as deserted as it seems, and contains a bunch of mysteries including a smoke monster and a mysterious hatch in the middle of the woods. They also discover a distress call, in French, that has been sent from the island for years. Throughout the season multiple storylines are set up and the season ends on more than one cliffhanger with really none of the mysteries being solved.

For those who get the Blu-Ray set, the show looks and sounds great in the HD format. There are some special effects and they look pretty seamless. There are a ton of extras including commentary tracks on multiple episodes, several behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes, a featurette on the cast members, deleted scenes, and bloopers. So, a lot there for those who like going through the bonus material.

The first season is very strong. While Fox, Lilly, and Holloway are the main characters (and the budding love triangle between them is a large part of the series) the show does a good job balancing the very large ensemble cast. Along with those I mentioned earlier, the series also included Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim (who has probably had the largest post-lost career on TV of all the actors), Harold Perrineau, and Emilie de Ravin. There are a lot of twists and turns, and the show does a good job of not revealing too much too soon. It is definitely a unique show that was not derivative of anything else at the time it aired and remains pretty unique nearly twenty years later. It did air on regular network television so it was tamer in terms of sexual content (although there was some) and violence as you would see on a cable show. So, if you are looking for a show that is a good blend of mystery and drama, this is a good option.