I’ve never seen the show, but it looks intriguing. I think it’s getting ready to start its new season, so can someone give me the set up for it so I won’t be lost myself?
Basically a trans-oceanic flight from Austrailia goes offcourse and breaks apart mid-air for an as yet unexplained reason. The main passenger section and cockpit crash on a remote island several thousand miles from their expected flight path with about 40 or so survivors with no apparent connection. The tail of the plain is still missing.
There’s basically a bunch of funky shit on the island and so far there are other people/things already there.
Each episode generally includes a flashback of a persons life back in the real world, giving some insight into their character
http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index.html
Woof, that’s a trall order. Lost is a detailed and complex show, with many open mysteries. I’ll try to give a quick overview of the cast and situation.
In short, Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on a mysterious island somewhere between Austrailia and LA. 43 (?) passengers survived the crash, but there’s been suggestions that their were also survivors from the rear of the plane.
Here’s the major characters:
Jack: The doctor (brunette white guy). Was transporting his father’s body back to the states. He has a major hero complex and feels inordinately responsible for tteh otehr survivors.
Locke: Bald guy. Was a paraplegic before the crash, but has somehow regained his ability to walk. Has, or believes he has, a mystic connection to the island, and sometimes forces people into ordeals of self-revelation. Jack thinks Locke is dangerous.
Kate: Brunette woman. A fugitive. Her original crime is unknown. She’s highly manipulative, but seems to be an overall good person. Has survival skills second only to Locke.
Sawyer: Southern blonde asshole. A conman who hates himself because he’s become exactly like the conman who ruined his family. He’s been openly antagonistic towards everyone on the island, but he might be on the path to redemption.
Micheal: The Black Guy. Engineer. Recently reunited with his estranged son after his mother died.
Walt: Micheal’s son, the black kid. Over the time on the island has reconnected with his dad. May have strange powers, or it may be all coincidence. For example, he read a comic with polar bears, and then polar bears suddenly attacked on the tropical island.
Sayyid: The Iraqi Guy. Former Iraqi Intelligence officer. Currently romantically involved with Shannon.
Shannon: Blonde American. Very manipulative and shallow. Her stepbrother Boone was killed in an accident involving Locke, and she tried to kill him or have him killed.
Sun: Korean Woman. Wife of Jin. Learned English to escape from Jin in America, and kept taht knowledge secret until late in Season 1. Knows medicinal herbs and is Jack’s unofficial nurse.
Jin: Korean Man. A low-class guy who fell in love with a woman above his status, and started working for her father. Unfortunately, Sun’s father is some kind of crimelord, and Jin was pulled farther and farther into his world until he nearly lost Sun. He also planned to run away (with Sun) in America, but Sun’s father had sent watchdogs to make sure he delivers some watches. He’s since reconciled with Sun. He doesn’t speak English, but is slowly learning.
Charlie: Hobbit. Washed up rock star and heroin afficianado. He’s cleaned up, but has since discovered a huge supply in another crashed plane. In love with Claire.
Clarie: Blonde Austrailian. Had a baby during season 1. The baby may have mystic significance or she may have nearly been victimized by a fake psychic/baby trader. She was briefly kidnapped by Ethan (who has not on the plane) but somehow escaped, without her memories of the ordeal. Charlie later killed Ethan. She hasn’t returned Charlie’s affections past friendship.
Hurley: The fat guy. Won the lottery using numbers he heard in a mental hospital (he was apparently once an inmate), and has since had horribly bad luck. Hurley’s numbers have popped up again and again, in part or in whole, on the island or in the lives of the survivors.
Rousseau: Crazy French Lady. Has been on the island 16 years. Claims that the rest of her expediton was “infected”, and that her child “Alex” was taken by the “Others”. Kidnapped Claire’s baby briefly to trade for Alex. Sayyid and Hurley have good rapport with her.
At the end of the season, Rousseau shows up to warn that the Others are coming. Jin, Micheal, Walt, and Sawyer hatsily finish the raft they were building and set off to find help. Meanwhile, the rest of them use dynamite to blow open a strange hatch in the round (with Hurley’s numbers on it) to hide from the others in it. The seafarers are attacked by a ratty looking crew (the Others?), Walt is taken, and the raft burned. The Hatch is opened, revealing a dark passage leading deep into the Earth.
Wow, thanks for that thorough answer, Menocchio. Sounds like this is the kind of show that you need to watch regularly as opposed to just catching it when you can.
Really? I thought the new season started in the Fall.
I would say that it is definitely a show that you need to watch regularly. There is usually a “previously on Lost” that goes over some of the main things that will be referenced in that episode, but I don’t know how helpful they are if you haven’t seen previous episodes.
You could probably just watch the show when possible and miss some episodes, but that means that you will have a lot of “what is going on?!?!” moments in the episodes you do watch. It is an excellent show though, so I would highly recommend you watching it if at all possible.
And I think the second season is starting in September, though I’m not positive.
Plus, the 1st season DVD is coming out this fall. Hopefully, before the second season starts.
What might be a good idea is get the Season 1 DVD when it comes out, it’s supposed to come out about the same time the new season starts. That way you can catch up all in one shot.
Absolutely. It’s like watching a school of dophins racing Jacques Cousteau’s boat: the dolphins (the plot lines) weave around and over and under each other, breaking the surface occasionally (the characters’ back stories are shown to explain the characters’ present motives, actions and interactions with each other), while the plot races ahead at breakneck speed.
I recommend that people watch the previous week’s episode, watch the current episode, and rewatch it again from tape to absorb as much of the details as possible.
Yes, I am a fanatic about this show. It’s gonna be a loooooooooooooong summer.
I haven’t seen this show. Viewers are expected to believe that a mysterious, uncharted island exists somewhere between Australia and LA? 
The plane “turned back towards Fiji” and was blown miles and miles off course in a storm before crashing.
The individual show recaps on the abc website are a good place to start.
I’d take the time and read all (28?) of them.
It will take some time to get through them all but by the time your finished you should have a good grip on the show.
It may be an island, they may be in purgatory, they may have been kidnapped by aliens. That’s not important right now. 
The DVD comes out on September 6th, I believe, and Season 2 probably won’t start until later in the month–you may just have time to catch up.
24 40 minute episodes plus an 80 minute finale.
Damn, that’s over 16 1/2 hours to get caught up before season 2 starts.
Good luck!!
That’s what a lot of people think, but according to the interviews with the writers/producers, that probably isn’t true.
I don’t think that myself, I was just giving the various reasons nobody knows this island exists.
Island is mysterious. It’s not necessarily uncharted, but because the plane was 1000 miles off course, no one is looking for them anywhere near the island.
There are other reasons to think that the writers’ grasp of geography might be a bit tenuous, though. Somehow, an airplane smuggling drugs from Africa ended up on the island. You have to really be screwing up your navigation to get that lost. Similarly, a sailing vessel carrying slaves ended up on the island and there just weren’t that many slave ships in the middle of the Pacific.
You may get the impression that the writers of Lost never expected the series to run past a few episodes. :rolleyes: :dubious: 
This question has been questioned by the chracters in the show. When the four characters go off on the raft, one of them says something like “How could an island this big not be charted?”
There are lots of things that happen that stretch the boundries of logic, but it’s part of the mystery of the island.
While the backstory of the island has barely been scratched, the individual character arcs and backstories have been well-developed enough to give me faith that the writers have at least a vague plan and idea of what’s going on and what’s going to happen. That’s the real reason to watch this show, btw. Come for the mysterious island, stay for the outstanding character work. Locke in paticular is a great character, wonderfully acted.
I wouldn’t be too intimidated by all the details. Yeah, there’s a lot of it, but there’s a lot of holes and mysteries even for the most faithful watchers. I started watching about halfway through season one, got hooked immediately, and caught up on reruns and downloaded episodes. I think they’re rerunning now over the summer. You can tune in.