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10 Years of LOST - A review of the entire series

22 Sept 2014

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Hi all Losties!

As you might have heard, today it's ten years ago that LOST premiered on ABC. It's one of the greatest television series that has ever been made and it has a fanbase that's still pretty active. So naturally, we can't let this anniversary go by unnoticed. And what better way to celebrate ten years of LOST than to give a review of the entire series?

But first, in the words of Mr. Eko, "I have come to give my confession." Here's the thing: I am not an original Lostie. I binge-watched the show over the summer (yes, this past summer) and finished within three months. I started watching the show because I wanted to know what all that ado was about and because SpoilerTV wouldn't have existed with LOST. Andy Page (DarkUFO) recommended me to try the first three episodes of season 1 (Pilot, Parts 1 & 2 and Tabula Rasa), and I was already hooked within the first few minutes of the show.

Anyway, enough of my own history with LOST. I am going to divide this review into a few sections. First, I do a season-by-season review including my favourite and least favourite episode(s) of that season, best twist/reveal and favourite quote. "The End" will be discussed in a seperate paragraph. Then, I share my top 5 favourite and my top 5 least favourite characters. After that, I list the top 5 worst mistakes made by the writers because even though I love LOST, it wasn't always perfect. Finally, I will give a list with the best of LOST, with stuff like best episode, best couple, best friendship, best flashback etc.

Please note that all of the below is my personal opinion. You might have a completely different opinion and there's nothing wrong with that. I am always open for discussions in the comments (in fact, I'd love to!) so fire away with your own opinions there.

Season 1
Season 1 introduced us to the concept of LOST. A concept that sounds very basic and simple: a plane crash on an island. However, as we soon found out it was far from simple. Season 1 lay the groundwork of a show that was filled with mysteries, questions, and twists that you never saw coming.

Season 1 is probably my favourite season, although it has been some time since I have seen it so I can't remember every episode in great detail (I already need a rewatch!). But it was a great season that set up all these mysteries that would be explored much later. It made me care about a large portion of the characters, some of them who would stick around till the very end and some who wouldn't. All in all, season 1 definitely sucked me completely into this unique series.

Favourite episodes: "Walkabout", "Pilot" (Parts 1 & 2), "Exodus" (Parts 1 & 2)
Least favourite episodes: "The Moth", "Homecoming", "Hearts and Minds"
Best twist: Locke was paralyzed before the island ("Walkabout")
Favourite quote: "Don't ever tell me what I can't do, ever!" (John Locke, "Walkabout")

Season 2
This season added a few characters to the mix by introducing us to the tailies. Some of these I really liked (e.g. Mr. Eko and Libby), and there was the one character I didn't really like (Ana Lucia). This season introduced us to Desmond and his place of residence, the hatch. Sadly, seeing the characters push a button every 108 minutes wasn't all that interesting. Especially Locke suffered, who basically didn't have much of a storyline outside the hatch. The button also served as the beginning of the Jack-Locke conflict between science and faith. In addition, season 2 saw Charlie getting temporarily back to his annoying old self that he was in the beginning of season 1, and the episode "The Long Con" made my hate for Sawyer grow even bigger.

However, a big highlight of the season came with the episode "One of Them" when we were introduced to the amazing Benjamin Linus, portrayed brilliantly by Michael Emerson. Wondering whether or not 'Henry Gale' really was an Other made for the intense breakfast scene with Jack and Locke and the revelation that he was actually the leader of the Others caused a great shift in his character.

Favourite episodes: "The 23rd Psalm", "Live Together, Die Alone", "The Other 48 Days", "Dave"
Least favourite episodes: "Fire + Water", "The Long Con"
Best twist: Eko was a warlord and a killer off-island ("The 23rd Psalm")
Favourite quote: "Don't mistake coincidence for fate." (Eko, "What Kate Did")

Season 3
Season 3 is my least favourite LOST season. While it definitely had its highlights, most notably the introduction of Juliet and the further exploration of Ben, the Others and Desmond, the season had a slow pace and had several pointless episodes. In the first few episodes we only saw Jack, Kate and Sawyer with the Others, while the people back at the beach hardly had anything to do. Jack spent like 15 episodes (!) with the Others and Kate and Sawyer apparently walked at a very slow pace as they needed three episodes to get back to the beach. Throughout the rest of the season, the characters were almost always split from one another and I don't think we have seen them all at one place at one time. Of course I also couldn't wait to find out where Jack got his tattoos and I loved seeing Hurley and Co repair an old Dharma van (*cough* sarcasm *cough*). Add to this the introduction of Nikki and Paulo, the most useless LOST characters ever, and the sad death of my favourite tailie Eko and you've got my reasons why this is my least favourite season. And I didn't even mention the love triangle-turned-quadrangle!

Fortunately, the latter episodes improved a lot on the first few (thanks in part to ABC and the producers setting an end date for the show), with episodes 19 up and including the finale all standing out. And even though it is my least favourite, that doesn't necessarily make it an awful season: there are still some pretty good episodes in between the slow and pointless episodes.

Favourite episodes: "Through the Looking Glass", "The Cost of Living", "The Man from Tallahassee", "One of Us", "The Man Behind the Curtain"
Least favourite episodes: "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Tricia Tanaka is Dead", "Exposé"
Best twist: The flashback is actually a flashforward ("Through the Looking Glass")
Favourite quote: "We have to go back!" (Jack, "Through the Looking Glass")

Season 4
Season 4 continued to split time between the characters, most notably between Jack's camp and Locke's camp. As a consequence, certain characters had a lot of interaction with one another while others didn't. Before season 5 I thought we would never get a scene between Sun and Ben (although I don't know why I wanted to see the two of them in one scene together). However, I really liked the use of flashforwards to tell the stories of the Oceanic 6, which made for some suspenseful surprises. Also, the introduction of the Freighter Folk made for some fresh energy and nice characters. The war they brought to the island, led by Martin Keamy, made for thrilling action and powerful emotional scenes, with Ben watching his daughter die standing out the most.

Sadly, some other characters were shuffled to the background. Juliet didn't have much to do the entire season besides removing Jack's appendix. Also much underused was Michael, who returned to the island on the Kahana. His return seemed rather pointless as he only appeared in a handful of scenes before being killed off. Sure, it was good to see him deal with his guilt off-island, but did he really get the redemption he was looking for? Oh, and it's not like we hadn't already seen characters being manipulated by Ben into doing what he wants. In the end, blowing himself up didn't make me hate him any less.

Favourite episodes: "There's No Place Like Home" (Parts 2 & 3), "The Shape of Things to Come", "The Constant"
Least favourite episodes: "Something Nice Back Home", "Eggtown"
Best twist: Sayid works for Ben ("The Economist")
Favourite quote: "Destiny, John, is a fickle bitch." (Ben, "Cabin Fever")

Season 5
The penultimate season introduced us to yet another narritive technique: time travel. Sadly, I can't say I enjoyed the time travel very much. It was heavily confusing and I was constantly trying to figure out in what time line we found our characters in. Stuff like "we made Ben into what he is today" and "we caused The Incident" don't make much sense to me. The characters also continued to be separated, this time not on different sides of the island but in different points of time. However, one advantage of the time travel was getting to see the past of characters that didn't get their own flashback episode (e.g. Danielle and Charlotte). Another plus was the character interactions. We saw some fun character combinations that we wouldn't have seen without the time travel, most notably Sawyer and Juliet in 1977 and Sun, Ben and Lapidus in 2007. It was fun seeing how Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Daniel and Jin had built their lives in the old Dharma Initiative, and seeing Sawyer and Juliet as a couple was very believable and lovely.

Favourite episodes: "The Incident", "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"
Least favourite episodes: "Follow the Leader", "Some Like it Hoth"
Best twist: Ben saves Locke's life only to kill him a few moments after that ("The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham")
Favourite quote: " It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress." (Jacob, "The Incident")

Season 6
The sixth and final season ended with a great run of episodes. Each episode contributed to building up to this powerful conclusion of the show that we had all grown to love. As the season progressed, we learned more about the infamous Man in Black, and Terry O'Quinn did a good job of playing double duty as both Locke in the flash-sideways and the evil man desperate to get off the island. Speaking of the flash-sideways, I really enjoyed them. It was fun to see our characters in a completely different setting in another reality. They were also a great opportunity to bring back some deceased characters and make some nice references to earlier seasons and storylines.

While the Man in Black made for an intriguing storyline, I found the constant flipping of sides a bit irritating. One day Sawyer would follow Flocke and do what he says, and the next day he follows his own path. Besides that, the writers apparently didn't know what to do with Sayid: he was dead, then came back to life and walked around like a robot, then died again. Uhm, right. The stuff at the temple and with Dogen also slowed things down a bit, and I'm still not sure if I completely understand it all. I did like that Claire was more involved in the action because she was always quite busy with Aaron when he was still on the island. I would have liked to see a flashback showing what happened to Claire in the one and a half years (or three years, depending on what timeline you look at) that she disappeared.

Favourite episode: "The End", "Happily Ever After", "Dr. Linus"
Least favourite episode: "What Kate Does", "The Package"
Best twist: The flash-sideways is actually a post-death place where our characters could meet again ("The End")
Favourite quote: "I'll see you in another life, brother." (Jack, "The End")

The End
As written above, "The End" is one of my favourite episodes of season 6. The battle between the survivors and the Man in Black came to a climatic conclusion, eventually leading to the demise of the latter. Jack and Locke's series-long enmity came to a head and even though it was not really Locke, I still felt that this final fight really concluded their arc. In fact, I think all storylines got wrapped up nicely. I really had a sense of resolution after I watched the finale. Even more so, the last scene was beautiful. Having all these characters together one last time, even if it's not in this life, was just lovely to see. The scene between Jack and his father that preceded it, was probably the most honest and beautiful father-son conversation of the entire series. A near-perfect ending to an outstanding series.

That being said, I can understand some criticism on the episode. If you were looking for revelations instead of resolution, it's likely you found the finale dissatisfying. But for me, the characters were always more important so I'd prefer resolution. Also, if you consider that LOST has always asked these difficult life and death questions, science and faith, destiny and coincidence, then it's only logical that we would never get all the answers we seek. Life is, after all, full of questions we will never get an answer to no matter how hard we look. Frustrating? Oh, yes! But some things we just have to accept.

Top 5 favourite characters
Probably the most important thing about LOST were the characters. We have seen many of them, some for a short period of time and some for more than 100 episodes. Of course, not every character was as compelling as other characters. I will give you an impression of the five characters that I liked most, and the five I liked least, starting with my favourite characters. All of the other characters fall somewhere in between. Feel free to ask my opinion on any of them in the comments.

5. Mr Eko
Eko's story was the ultimate story about survival. At a young age, he was forced to kill somebody to protect his brother Yemi. Being forced to become a criminal and then later turning completely around to a priest, made Eko a brilliant character. Seeing how he brought his spirituality to the island was a delight to watch, and his interactions with Locke made for great scenes. It's really a shame that Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje decided to leave the show after only one year as there was still a lot of potential with the character (a candidate perhaps?). Even worse was that he never made a return visit, not even in the series finale.

4. Juliet
Juliet was one of the strongest women of the show. She was one of the few that didn't let herself get manipulated by Ben. She worked with Jack to have Ben killed during his surgery and while that plan backfired, Juliet at least tried to go against Ben. Even when she infiltrated the survivors' camp on Ben's orders, she just said flat out that she hated him. And even when she was one of the Others, she was also a survivor because she wanted to get off the island just like the rest did. Sadly, Juliet didn't have much to do in season 4 but returned to a more prominent role in season 5. She even made Sawyer a much more likable guy when the two of them were a couple. Her sad death marked that end of that relationship.

3. Locke
The mysterious John Locke first caught my eye when he came up with a bunch of knives in his suitcase. Who was that man? Why was he so sure he was on the island for a reason? Through flashbacks we learned he was paralyzed before he came to the island. He was crippled, both literally and figuratively, by the hunt for his father. Throughout the series, Locke's faith in the island was put to the test by Jack, the button, Ben, Jacob and the Man in Black. Locke did go very far for the island's sake and as such, lost a bit of my sympathy when he blew up the submarine and threw a knife in Naomi's back. He was a bit crazy and sometimes pathetic, but above all that, he was special.

2. Hurley
As the obvious comic relief of the show, Hurley provided laughs in dark and heavy episodes. Fortunately, he was more than just a comic relief. He has a big heart as we see when Charlie died. His relationship with Libby was cute albeit too short. Hurley really cared about other people and was one of the most calm and relaxed dudes of the survivors. I couldn't be happier to have Hurley as protector of the island, I think he would do a very good job. His pre-island story was a bit sad as he caused bad luck everywhere he went. He might have been a bit crazy, but for me, he was mostly the heart and soul of the show.

1. Ben
Ben is one of the greatest villains of all time. He was a master manipulator and a mass murderer, but he was also a father. Ben had a lot of dimensions, he would be happily killing someone one day and the next he would make Juliet a nice dinner. He always had a plan even if you think he didn't. His long-time fight with Charles Widmore made for an intriguing storyline. Ben watching as Keamy killed his daughter caused a change in the character. He realized that he had sacrificed everything for the island, for Jacob, but also knew that he had done things that could never be forgotten. It was great to see Ben at times get manipulated himself, most notably by the Man in Black convincing him to kill Jacob. Ben wasn't ready to move on just yet, something that I found very believable given the things he had done. One of the best-written characters of the show, and an always amazing portrayal by Michael Emerson, makes Ben my most favourite character of LOST.

Top 5 least favourite characters
5. Charlotte
The female version of Indiana Jones didn't impress me much. She wasn't of much use in seasons 4 and 5. I liked her in the beginning, but she was pushed to the background a bit and as such, wasn't very useful. It didn't help that I wasn't given any reason to care much about her, as she didn't have much of a backstory. I'm not sure giving her her own flashbacks would have changed things, but it would certainly have explored her character further.

4. Michael
Michael was a likable guy in season 1. He looked after his son, built a raft to try to get off the island and became friends with Jin and Sawyer. However, everything changed after Walt was kidnapped. I understand that he was desperate to get his son back, but he just went way too far for him. He killed two innocent women and he gave his friends up to the Others. He subsequently left the island with the idea to not look back and forget everything and everyone. Sure, he somewhat redeemed himself when he came back for his "friends" but that's not enough for me. Harold Perrineau did a good job though.

3. Ana Lucia
I instantly hated Ana Lucia when she shot Shannon. Sure, I disliked Shannon more than Ana Lucia but she was just becoming a bit more likable. Plus, the shooting came out of nowhere so I wasn't sure if it was an accident or not. While we see what terrible things happened to her and the other tailies later, it's not enough to make me care for her. Her constant "we have to keep moving" was annoying and made her look selfish while they had to carry a wounded Sawyer. Later, Ana Lucia wanted to start a war with the Others but that never led anywhere. Her backstory wasn't very interesting either.

2. Shannon
I'm still not sure what point there was in having Shannon on the show. She didn't have much to do during the first season and she behaved like a spoiled bitch. Sleeping with Boone was the highlight of her backstory, but they were quickly over that. She then started a romance with Sayid, which is still my least favourite couple of the series. Just when she becomes a bit more likable and we see what made her into the person she is today, she is killed off. I was a bit sorry for Sayid for seeing his lover die, but it was a good riddance.

1. Nikki and Paulo
Talk about uselessness! Nikki and Paulo were given an abrupt introduction in the middle of Locke's speech and suddenly these characters were forced upon our screens. They contributed nothing to the story in the eight episodes or so that they were in. And then an entire episode was wasted to see them get on the island and explain that they were buried alive. Oh, and apparently we are supposed to believe that they found Yemi's plane and the hatch before anyone else did? Yeah, right.

Top 5 worst mistakes
LOST has had its fair share of mind-blowing episodes, but it also had storylines that weren't that good. Some characters or storylines were overused while some were underused. Here, I sum up what I think are the 5 worst mistakes the writers and producers have ever made.

5. Not having Rose and Bernard promoted to series regulars
Rose and Bernard were a great couple and interesting characters, but their appearances were very random. One day they would all be involved in the action and the next day they were gone for months. I know that was mostly due to Caldwell and Anderson's unavailability and the writers didn't want them as regulars because it would mean some other characters were shuffled to the background. While that certainly would have been true, I would have liked to take the chance and see how it played out. Also, while we did get an episode centered on the two, it would have been nice to see them before they met one another. Would it have added much to their characters? Probably not, but it might have made for some more shocking twists and pre-island character crossovers. Rose and Bernard's separate backstories would certainly have been much more interesting than seeing how Jack got his tattoos!

4. The Sayid and Shannon romance
Putting together and an Iraqi communications officer (read: torturer) and a spoiled girl never really works out. Sayid and Shannon could not be further apart from one another as their lives were very different. On the island, he was very useful but Shannon not so much. Sayid might have really loved her, but I'm still not sure about Shannon. Maybe she was just having some fun with Sayid before ultimately jumping to another guy. I also still have the idea that Sayid is twice Shannon's age, but that age difference is probably not as big as I think it is. Seeing the two together in the afterlife was also wrong in my opinion, as Sayid should have been with Nadia.

3. Killing off Libby
There are more LOST deaths that I don't agree with (e.g. Juliet and Eko). But unlike others, Libby's death was a deliberate decision made by the writers and not the actor or actress. Everything about this death is so wrong. Killing off Ana Lucia was great, but apparently the writers noticed how bad that character was received. So they decide to add Libby for, you know, some extra shock value. Why Libby? "Oh well, the audience likes her but they haven't gotten to know her much so that saves us writing an extra backstory." Wrong, wrong, wrong! I liked her very much and would have loved to get her complete backstory in a flashback episode. The fact that we got bits and pieces later, doesn't make up for that.

2. Introducing Nikki and Paulo
Theoretically, I'm sure it sounded like a good idea. The story focussed on only 15 or so of the survivors of Oceanic 815, so why not introduce some new characters that were also on the plane? It sounds good, but somewhere along the lines something went wrong. Was it bad writing? Bad casting? Maybe a bit of both, but the primary objective was the lack of a storyline. We weren't given any reason to care about Nikki and Paulo. They had a couple of scenes here and there but didn't add much to the story. Then they got an entire episode built around them, and the writers force us to believe they have already explored the island on their own. Their deaths were gruesome, but it's not like I cried for "Nina and Pablo" because, like Sawyer, I didn't really know them.

1. The love triangle/quadrangle
Has a love triangle ever done good to a show (see also: CW shows)? I don't think so and certainly not to LOST. I'm very glad they already decided to scrap the proposed Jin/Sun/Michael love triangle in season 1, but they shouldn't have done the Sawyer/Kate/Jack/Juliet either. It dragged down their characters, only Juliet was mostly spared. Especially Kate suffered, as she was put down as a woman who apparently couldn't choose between the two men. It was one of my issues with season 3, and sadly it continued through seasons 4 and 5. Love triangles are bad enough already in real life, so there's no need for them in TV series.

The best of LOST
All-time best episode: "Through the Looking Glass"
All-time least favourite episode: "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Best romantic couple: Desmond and Penny
Best male friendship: Hurley and Charlie
Best male-female friendship: Sun and Jack
Best female friendship: Claire and Kate
Best threeway friendship: Michael, Sawyer and Jin
Best flashback: "The 23rd Psalm"
Best flashforward: "Through the Looking Glass"
Best flash-sideways: "Happily Ever After"

About the Author - Daniel
Daniel is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100 and the upcoming shows Madam Secretary, Battle Creek and Odyssey. He also enjoys Arrow, NCIS: LA, Nikita and The Blacklist. Recently gotten into LOST which he really loves. He is excited for the new shows Stalker, Scorpion, NCIS: New Orleans and a bunch of others.
Recent Reviews by Daniel (All Reviews)

68 comments:

  1. Damn I miss this show !!!

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  2. Awesome article Daniel. Brought back a LOT of great memories.

    Still my favourite show of all time.

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  3. I used to check out your LOST spoilers site every day -- that get me started with Spoiler TV.

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  4. Ha cool, to see people from those days still around here :)

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  5. Yup. So I'm definitely going to have to rewatch the series now. Kudos for watching the entire show this Summer though. That's some dedication haha! I actually thought that the time travel season was the by far the worst. It was just too far fetched (even for Lost haha).

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  6. Desmond Hume should be on best characters list too...

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  7. i really love lost. this show was and is the best ever. i want a reunion of the cast. And if they come back for the island?
    i'm just kidding! #Lost10Years

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  8. They had a 10 year reunion at Paleyfest last winter.

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  9. Lost is still my favorite show. I have been planning a rewatch for a while now...better get to it!

    My favorites are Locke, Ben, Desmond and Saywer.

    Some of my favorite episodes are Pilot, The man from Tallahassy, The man behind the curtain, Man of sience, Man of faith ect...

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  10. This is the show that after 10 minutes into the pilot i knew this was something special...and it was and still is! I have had many mini binge watches since the show aired but haven't watched the complete series at one time since it ended,but i think next summer this will be on my list.So glad you enjoyed it and through you,you gave me the same feelings i had about the show as a whole.


    And i thought i was the only one that didn't like Ana Lucia,boy i could have lived without her character very easily! Thanks for a great read,it was a terrific article and brought back many fond memories!

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  11. I hate when commenters on posts like these complain that there favorite episode wasn't mentioned...yadda yadda...so that's exactly what I'm going to do...


    How can you do a review of season four and not mention The Constant. Outside of the Pilot, which was basically a movie, The Constant was by far the best episode of the show ever. It was so well written that I couldn't care less if the physics of the last scene makes sense, if the continuity between the episode and the rest of the penny/desmond stuff makes sense, it doesn't matter. It was a beautiful, self-contained episode that was still able to move the story forward and actually gave the fans (or maybe just me) an actual feel-good episode that we so needed.


    Ok, I hope that made sense, I'm at work and I don't have time to check it over.


    Rant over

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  12. Great review. Only thing i would have included is Desmond as one of my favourite characters(behind only Ben) and i definitely wouldn't consider Charlotte as a bad character, i actually really liked her.

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  13. Yeah, i know that. but few actors attended. I want them all in one talk show, as Jimmy Kimmel did with the cast of FRIENDS.

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  14. Haha, yes I watched the pilot in May and finished somewhere mid-August. Very great to watch it! And I didn't like the time travel season either, wasn't a big fan of the confusing switching between times.

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  15. Thanks for all the kind words! And I don't think you're the only one who doesn't like Ana Lucia. I could have done without for sure! If she wasn't there, she wouldn't have been killed off and maybe that would mean Libby wasn't killed off either. Oh well, we'll never know.

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  16. Yeah. i remember after the season finale some actors was on Jimmy Kimmel. i'll love if he makes a new reunion of Lost again.

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  17. I definitely liked Desmond but he's just not part of my top 5 favourite characters. To each his own though. I didn't find Charlotte particularly bad, it's just that she didn't add much to the story. It didn't help that she didn't have her own, non-shared flashback episode.

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  18. To each his own, but I think season 4 was better than season 3. But I do think the earlier seasons were better than the last, although I really enjoyed seaosn 6 as well.

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  19. I know some characters died at different times, but what about Arron? Claire was holding him at the end in the church and he was a baby again. He was like 3 when we saw him last. Does that mean the Oceanic 5 never got off?

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  20. I disagree about Shannon. I love her character. She is one of my favorites by far, with Boone. They made a perfect duo :) (And I'm sure a lot of fans share this feeling with me).

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  21. About Ana-Lucía: I do like here character and story. I think Michelle Rodriguez is almost the same person in every movie, but I still think that it works for her (being a bad sexy girl). She was also a great name for the show, and helped increase the fans. I was very exciting with her addition.

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  22. Nikki and Paulo: I do like Nikki. She is a striking presence (even with a few episodes) maliciously like Sawyer, but very intelligent. But Paulo, I'm not sure I know him. Anyway, I think they were introduced in a wrong way, but also that people were too much worried about the mystical part of the show and it became obsessive. The hate surround the both characters came to nowhere and became a stupid trend.

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  23. Season 4 was cut down partially by the writer's strike IIRC. Quality IMO had started dropping. It was interesting but not nearly as fascinating and mysterious as the first 3 seasons. I have watched the last 2 seasons on Tv after the end. Enjoyable episodes but that feeling of disappointment which has to with the big picture and all the unanswered questions, is there . Investing too much on the show was obviously a mistake, but everyone was obsessed with it.

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  24. Man oh days do I miss this show!!!

    And all along I thought I was the only one who had Ben as my favorite character!!!

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  25. First off great article. Secondly I have a love hate relationship with the show. It was the first show I really fell in love with but I'm one of those who hated the end. Sometimes I do miss the show and reading this brought back some great and sad memories...


    Imo the best thing they ever did was killing of Ana Lucia, gosh I hated her....Plus I can't believe you didn't put Vincent as your favorite character :p

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  26. In defense of season 3, it happened during that terrible Writer's Strike and the show initially showed only 6 episodes, which were incredible (and ending with Jack shouting 'Kate dammit run!' - which was probably the only time I ever like Jack). The showrunners didn't know when the show would come back and production was halted then it returned some 5 months later with a bunch of new episodes. They did try to tie stuff up but the damage was done. Coincidentally, it is also the time when the show lost most of its followers and got even crazier.
    I miss this show so much.

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  27. The Constant was perfect and the best episode of the show, period.

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  28. Great article! But our opinions differ a lot! I re-watched the show last winter, as it stopped airing after season3 in Serbia, I never watched it till the end only read articles and what happened. The last 3 seasons weren't really my kind of game, especially season 6.

    I still hate the way the show concluded, but the first 3 seasons were more than perfect.

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  29. Great article! Ben is my favorite too and also I completely agree about Bernard and Rose they should have been made regulars since the end of season 2 as them showing up out of know where then not being seen for tons of episodes was bizarre.

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  30. What questions do you think went unanswered? I know there are a lot of questions that I thought were unanswered at first that I eventually did find the answers to, so you may be in the same boat.

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  31. Interesting review <3 Made me miss the show again :'( I'm going to have to do a rewatch!!

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  32. I'm planing on a re-watch, but can someone explain to me in which season there's flahssideaways and flashforwards cause I don't remember and I don't want to be... Lost? lol

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  33. Flashforwards were 4 and 5. Flashsideways were 6.

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  34. Thanks, a lot!!

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  35. I think the worst character was Ilana. I would prefer Nikki :)

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  36. Great article. As an avid defender of both the show and the finale, it's nice to see some like minded people! A game changing tv show that has left a gap for me that is yet to be filled!

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  37. Awesome stuff Daniel. For me:



    Favourite season: 1
    All-time best episode: 1. "Dr Linus", 2. The End, 3. Through the Looking Glass, 4. The Constant. Other favourites include: Pilot, all the finales, Greatest Hits, Outlaws (a really enjoyable Sawyer ep), I Do (not a shipper at all but that was good), LaFleur, The Variable, The L&D of Jeremy Bentham, Lockdown, Across the Sea and so many more.
    All-time least favourite episode: "Stranger in a Strange Land", Expose.

    Best character: Ben (there are no words to describe how awesome Michael Emerson is), Hurley, Charlie, Daniel (still pissed they brought him back for the 100th and then kill him), Desmond, Sawyer.

    Worst character: Nikki/Paolo
    Best romantic couple: Bernard and Rose, if not just because of the whole 'staying on the island so that Rose doesn't get the cancer back etc.', Rose's 'my husband isn't dead in the first season and that we see them so rarely that it was great to have them on-screen together. Desmond and Penny come second.
    Best male friendship: Hurley and everyone.
    Best male-female friendship: Claire and Charlie
    Best female friendship: Claire and Kate
    Best threeway friendship: Michael, Sawyer and Jin
    Best flashback: "Greatest Hits"
    Best flashforward: "Through the Looking Glass" - none of them could ever beat the original.
    Best flash-sideways: "Dr Linus"
    Best scenes: Opening scene of Pilot, Charlie finishing the list - Greatest Hits, Ben's "If I were one of them speech" - The Whole Truth, THE FLASHBACKS ARE A FLASHFORWARD OMG (disclaimer: I knew beforehand, but still) - Through the Looking Glass, "NOT PENNY'S BOAT" -TtLG, Desmond/Penny phone call - The Constant, there's a man in the hatch - Man of Science, Man of Faith, EVERY Ben scene - Dr Linus, Hurley becomes the new protector of the island + asks Ben to help him (ok, + every other scene) - The End and again, so many more.



    FFS, now I wanna go rewatch. I don't have time. Now I'm annoyed lol.

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  38. Here we are. We will never let go. :)

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  39. I miss this show so much. STV and Darkufo were a second home. - theotherslover

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  40. The writer's strike was during season 4, which is what that had fewer episodes.

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  41. I decided to put The End on in honour of the anniversary, as it's my favourite episode!

    Great review, really miss the show!

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  42. perfect show and perfect review !!!
    no one can do better than lost.

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  43. You're definitely not the only one! I know more people that have Ben as their favourite character.

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  44. Ahah, Takes A Shit Guy - that brings back some memories xD

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  45. Still haven't been able to finish cause Kate is the most annoying one of all of them.

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  46. First of all, I only included series regulars in my top 5 favourite/least favourite characters to therefore there are no Zoe or the Mother.

    Exposé was pure filler indeed. Its mostly my dislike for Nikki and Paulo that made me hate the episode, but also the fact that we are supposed to believe that they found Yemi's plane and the Pearl hatch before anyone else did. Tricia Tanaka was funny indeed, but I remember watching it and when I was 20 minutes or so into the episode, I thought "Can they get to the point already?"

    I just found season 5 confusing with the time travel. I understand your point though, thanks for clearing it up!

    The flash-sideways is something I probably will not understand either. You say it's beteen life and afterlife. But were they a consequence of the detonation of the hydrogen bomb? They had to have come from somewhere, right? And if they really occur in your dying moments, wouldn't it make more sense to see the life that you lived flash before your eyes rather than a life that you could have lived (in an alternate reality)?

    I did watch some extra material but not everything yet I believe. I have bought all six seasons on DVD so I still have quite some things to enjoy!

    Interesting points about Shannon/Sayid, Nikki & Paulo and Libby. I would have just liked for Libby to get her own flashback story and not tell her story through others. We got bits and pieces here and there but never got the full picture.

    For the shows that I watch, a love triangle usually does no good. Ditto with LOST.

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  47. Thank you! I really enjoyed The End too, in fact I watched the final few minutes again today.

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  48. Thank you! And LOST was certainly game changing!

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  49. Thank you! I understand the hatred towards the end and respect that people have their own opinions.



    And yes, I hated Ana Lucia as well! And lol, Vincent was definitely a great character, he had some great dialogue throughout the series ;)

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  50. Thank you! I say to each his own. Seasons 1 and 2 were definitely great, season 3 dragged a bit but got better near the end. I also enjoyed the last three seasons, although I find season 5 the weakest among them.

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  51. Thanks! Indeed Bernard and Rose came out of the blue and then were gone for the rest of the season before showing up out of nowhere again. I think there was a lot of potential with the characters, like maybe they could have been candidates.

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  52. Thank you and I already need a rewatch too even though it's only a few months that I watched it!

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  53. I'm not really sure how to feel about Ilana. We didn't know much about her either except that she worked for Jacob. And she was stupid enough to blow herself up.

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  54. Thanks for the great read. Still one of my favorites. My favorites characters were Juliet, Sawyer, Desmond, Richard and Locke.

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  55. Thanks, Bradley! Really nice to see your best of LOST list. Hurley really had great chemistry with everyone and I agree about the flashforward in the season 3 finale. I had read a lot of spoilers but I'm so glad I hadn't read about that one (thanks in part to you recommending me not to read them). It really took me by surprise, I should actually rewatch it and see how it is all built up. And all the scenes you mentioned are so great, I wanna rewach too (but don't have time either)!

    Btw, you consider Claire and Charlie friends? I consider them more than friends.

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  56. You're welcome, the show has definitely become one of my favourites too!

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  57. Thanks for giving your honest opinion! It's actually great to read a different opinion than my own. It shows that we look differently at the characters and the show.

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  58. Season 1 and 2 were great and their pacing was really awesome, season 3
    had it's issues but was still going strong. Afterwards things got a bit
    shaky and they were pushing in the wrong direction, at least I think so.
    I don't mean that S04-06 were bad or I didn't enjoyed them but comparing to the previous stuff it felt a bit forced for the price of trying to be different and keep the audience instead of trying to tell the stories. Especially season 5 and 6. But as you said: " to each his own "

    I will always love and enjoy Lost but for different reasons.

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  59. Ha, you've read that spoiler now I take it? And loads of the others? Tbh for me I knew the flashforward spoiler anyway. What would have annoyed me was not reading the Looking Glass spoilers, but the Greatest Hits ones and knowing Charlie didn't die because for me that would have taken away so much of the impact.


    I never considered them more than.

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  60. Re: flash-sideways - The flash-sideways universe is a realm that has most likely always existed. Think of it like the moon. It's a real place. It has existed alongside Earth for a very long time. But you can only get to it through one particular and challenging means.


    Faraday's theory about the hydrogen bomb was wrong. Maybe Faraday knew that the bomb wouldn't do anything other than fulfill the past, and maybe he lied to the survivors about it changing time because that was the only way he could think to convince them to fulfill the past by detonating the bomb, but the flash-sideways Faraday seems to also believe the incorrect theory, so it may be that Faraday was just plain wrong on this one. We know that the bomb didn't create the flash-sideways. That was just a misdirect. The writers wanted the audience to think that the bomb might have changed things and then revealed at the end that the flash-sideways was actually just a flash-forward to when the survivors' consciousnesses were between life and the afterlife, not an alternate timeline.


    Since electromagnetism in the LOST universe "downloads" the consciousnesses of everyone that comes near large pockets of it, it seems like the island (and various off-island pockets of electromagnetism) was/were responsible for the creation of the flash-sideways. It basically compiles all of these consciousnesses together in their dying moments to help them let go of their lives and move on into death and "whatever comes after", if anything.


    The flash-sideways doesn't show you the life that you lived because it wants to give people a chance to make different choices. It wants to let people learn to forgive themselves and let go of the things that held them back in life so that they can move on into death/the afterlife/whatever peacefully, without regret, and without having to do it alone.


    The flash-sideways life that you see isn't necessarily a life that you could have lived. It's a life that is specifically tailored to you and the mistakes you made in life, and the guilt you still feel in death. It exists to help you let go and move on.


    Re: love triangle - I agree for the most part. I had never seen a love triangle that actually added something positive to the show until Pushing Daisies. And outside of Wonderfalls, I've never seen a good love triangle since.

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  61. Me too!! And I wouldn't have known spoilertv if it wasn't for Lost :)

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  62. I'd totally forgotten about Zoe -- she was insufferable.

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  63. There was a lot of potential with them , the episode based solely on them was really good so I would have liked to have seen some more Rose and Bernard episodes.

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  64. Lost was and will always my all time favorite show. It's the reason why I watch as many shows(about 30-40 a week and around 80 for the entire year) as I do today. I wouldn't have found this site without in 07. I didn't really get into the series until season 3 but once I was hooked I was hooked. It was the episode Flashes Before Your Eyes episode that hooked me. Soon after that episode I went out and bought season 1 on DVD and watched it in 5 days then bought season 2 and watched that one in 4. By the time season 4 was about to start I had gotten all my friends and Dad into watching the show and we all watched every episode together from that point on. My 3 favorite characters ended up being Sawyer, Desmond and eventually Ben. As far as best episode I'd say The Constant as well as The Incident. My 2 favorite seasons were seasons 4 and 5. Thanks for this trip down memory lane. I've been planning on doing a rewatch for quite some time as it's been quite awhile since my last one especially since I now have the complete series on Blu-Ray and didn't have HD TV when Lost aired so to see how vibrant the forest and trees in the background look among other things.

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  65. I used to love your lost site , i still visit it sometimes . That's how i found spoilertv

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  66. Thanks Vasiliki. Yep, some good times over there.

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