Lost
is an American serial drama television
series that follows the lives of plane crash
survivors on a mysterious tropical island,
after a commercial passenger jet flying
between Sydney, Australia and Los Angeles,
United States crashes somewhere in the South
Pacific. Each episode typically features a
primary storyline on the island as well as a
secondary storyline from another point in a
character's life. The show was created by
Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey
Lieber, and is filmed primarily on location
in Oahu, Hawaii. The pilot episode was first
broadcast on September 22, 2004. Since then,
four seasons have been aired. The show is
produced by ABC Studios, Bad Robot
Productions and Grass Skirt Productions and
airs on the ABC Network in the United
States. Its soundtrack is composed by
Michael Giacchino. The current executive
producers are Abrams, Lindelof, Bryan Burk,
Jack Bender and Carlton Cuse. Because of its
large ensemble cast and the cost of filming
in Hawaii, the series is one of the most
expensive on television.
Critically
acclaimed and a popular success, Lost
garnered an average of 16 million viewers
per episode on ABC during its first year. It
has won numerous industry awards including
the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series
in 2005, Best American Import at the British
Academy Television Awards in 2005, the
Golden Globe for Best Drama in 2006 and a
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding
Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Reflecting its
devoted fan base, the show has become a part
of American popular culture with references
to the story and its elements appearing in
other television shows, commercials, comic
books, webcomics, humor magazines, a video
game and song lyrics. The show's fictional
universe has also been explored through
tie-in novels, board and video games, and
alternative reality games, The Lost
Experience and Find 815.
In May 2007, it
was announced that Lost would
continue for its fourth, fifth, and sixth
seasons, concluding with the 117th produced
episode in May 2010. These three final
seasons were planned to consist of 16
episodes each, running weekly in the spring
uninterrupted by repeats. However, due to
the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America
strike, the fourth season was shortened to
14 episodes, including a three-hour season
finale (set over different nights not to
clash with the season finales of Ugly
Betty and Grey's Anatomy). The
fourth season premiered in the United States
on January 31, 2008, and concluded on May
29, 2008. An additional consequence of the
strike has been ABC's decision to extend the
final two seasons of Lost by adding a
seventeenth episode to each remaining
season.
Season Synopses
External Links
Season 1
Season 1
featured 24 episodes, which aired on
Wednesdays at 8:00 pm in the United States
from September 22, 2004. A plane crash
strands the surviving passengers of Oceanic
Flight 815 on a seemingly deserted tropical
island, forcing the group of strangers to
work together to stay alive. Their survival
is threatened by 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 Frenchwoman named
Danielle Rousseau who was shipwrecked on the
island over 16 years earlier and find a
mysterious metal hatch buried in the ground.
An attempt is made to leave the island on a
raft.
Season 2
Season 2
featured 23 episodes that were aired in the
United States and Canada on Wednesdays at
9:00 pm starting on September 21, 2005. Most
of the story, which continues 45 days after
the crash, focuses on the growing conflict
between the survivors and the Others, with
the continued clash between faith and
science being thematic in certain episodes.
While some mysteries are resolved, new
questions are raised. New characters are
introduced, including the tail-section
survivors and other island inhabitants. More
island mythologies and insights into the
survivors' pasts are divulged. The hatch is
explored and the existence of The DHARMA
Initiative and its benefactor, the Hanso
Foundation, are revealed. As the truth about
the mysterious Others begins to unfold, one
of the crash survivors betrays the other
castaways, and the cause of the plane crash
is revealed.
Season 3
Season 3
featured 22 episodes (one of which was a
two-part, double-length episode) that were
seen in the United States and Canada
beginning on October 4, 2006 and on
following Wednesdays at 9:00 pm. The series
returned from hiatus on February 7, 2007 and
was aired at 10:00 pm. The story continues
67 days after the crash. New crash survivors
and Others are introduced, as the crash
survivors learn about the Others and their
history on the mysterious island. One of the
Others and a new island inhabitant join the
survivors while a survivor defects to the
Others. A war between the Others and the
survivors comes to a head, and the survivors
make contact with a rescue team.
Season 4
Season 4 was
planned (prior to the Writers Guild of
America strike) to feature 16 episodes, to
be broadcast beginning in the U.S. and
Canada on January 31, 2008. Due to the
writers' strike, the season instead lasted
only 14 episodes, consisting of the 8
pre-strike episodes already filmed and
aired, and 6 post-strike hours airing
beginning April 24 in the United States.
This included a 3-hour finale airing in
three parts entitled "There's No Place Like
Home." The first part aired on Thursday, May
15 10 pm ET, and parts 2 and 3 aired in a
2-hour special on May 29, from 9–11 pm ET.
This season focuses on the survivors dealing
with people from the freighter Kahana
which has come to the Island, and the escape
of the Oceanic Six (their post-island deeds
being shown in flashforwards).
Season 5
On July 26 at
Comic-Con, Lindelof and Cuse dropped some
hints about season five, and suggested that
they have come up with a new twist on the
flashbacks/flashforward narrative device.
The End
On May 7, 2007,
ABC Entertainment President Stephen
McPherson announced that Lost will
end during the 2009–2010 season with a
"highly anticipated and shocking finale."
"We felt that this was the only way to give
Lost a proper creative conclusion,"
McPherson said. Beginning with the 2007–2008
television season, the final 48 episodes of
Lost would have been aired as three
seasons with 16 episodes each, with Lost
concluding in its sixth season. Due to the
writers strike, the fourth season featured
14 episodes, and Seasons 5 and 6 will have
17 episodes each. Lindelof stated that
Lost would return in January 2009 for a
fifth season.
Executive
producers Lindelof and Cuse stated that they
"always envisioned Lost as a show
with a beginning, middle, and end," and that
by announcing when the show would end that
viewers would "have the security of knowing
that the story will play out as we've
intended." Lindelof and Cuse stated that
securing the 2010 series-end date "was
immensely liberating" and helped the series
rediscover its focus. Lindelof noted, "We're
no longer stalling."
