Lost - The Complete First Season

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: B     Episodes: B

 

 

One of the great standard ideas that suck viewers into weekly television is the “will they ever escape/get out of there” formula.  It goes back to single episodes of the original Twilight Zone, made for one of TV’s all-time comedies hits in Gilligan’s Island, been the subject of some awful recent reality TV, been the basis of several children’s TV classics (H.R. Pufnstuf, Land Of The Lost, the underrated & animated Valley Of The Dinosaurs) and simply keeps people watching if they carte to invest themselves enough in the characters.  Feature films have also covered this, which is where Lost comes in.

 

For series television, the problem with such a show is to convince the audience that a large cast of people could be so remotely out of the way that they could sustain a TV series, especially with all the new technology today.  Some have joked Gilligan would have had less laughs with satellites and digital technology finding them sooner.  However, since much of that technology is not perfected yet, Lost is more feasible than one might expect.  It plays the story straight and serious, complete with decent writing and enough of a budget to make the visual effects as convincing as many feature films of late.

 

For one thing, the large cast is well cast, proving that a great cast of professional actors is better than manipulated non-actors being exploited any day.  Its status as a huge hit speaks to that.  It is also one of the (maybe the only) hit TV show in history to be shot in Hawaii without being able to use the glamour of the area as a selling or plot point.  Obviously, Dominic Monaghan is the best known of the actors, followed by Chris Carter (X-Files, Millennium) favorite Terry O’Quinn, but this is nicely cast and is bound to make many careers.  J.J. Abrams has brought back one of the great TV archetypes back with a vengeance and that makes the show all the more interesting.  Including the Pilot in two parts, there are 24 episodes here.

 

The 1.78 X 1 image is a little softer than expected, as if the whole show had been digitally processed.  This causes a slight lack of depth where there should not be limits, but color is consistent enough and masters used are in pristine shape.  The shaky camerawork is the weak point of the show, but it is not as in vein as some of the really bad examples we have seen recently, though still quite overdone.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is not bad, with good surrounds, but DTS would have been preferred to capture some of the interesting sound design this Dolby mix seems to have limits in delivering.  The result is a good presentation that could be a bit better.

 

Extras are many, including select commentary tracks on the different shows by Abrams, cast & crew, deleted scenes, nine featurettes, bloopers, Jimmy Kimmel on the set and a section about the actors prior to the series.  To say anymore would ruin the set and series if you have never seen it.  It does respect the audience’s intelligence and it should be interesting to see the follow-up seasons.  Lost – The Complete First Season is a nicely produced set in first-rate packaging that will make fans in particular very happy.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo