'Lost' premiered 20 years ago today

The first 3 seasons were brilliant. Season 4 had brilliant moments. Season 5- they started making the shit up as they went along. Season 6 - Fuck you.

Naveen Andrews was, and remains, mighty fine.

R2 Who that is?

It all went downhill once they started with the time travel stuff. Also, the island’s electromagnetism was their answer for pretty much everything which got annoying after awhile.

Oh the Indian guy. Yeah he was great.

R4 I agree with you regarding the electromagnetism but the time travel stuff was some of its best moments and really worked well into the mystery of the island. I think what happened is they just introduced too many mysteries as they had to produce 20+ episodes a season being on network tv. The show probably would have stayed strong on a streaming platform.

HOLY SHIT Matthew Fox looks terrible! I'm seriously wondering if he's ill or something. (I know he's had struggles with alcoholism, so that could it be it as well.) Evangeline still pings my 'dar off the charts, especially with that haircut.

Naveen looks hot AF! Josh Holloway does as well, but I think that's an older photo. I saw him on TV fairly recently and he looked far more haggard than that. I know Asian guys often age well, but as for Daniel Dae Kim, most don't age THAT well! Finally, I saw Dom at a film festival last year, and he is *not* looking good – considerably worse than that not-great pic in the Deadline article. Like Fox, I have to wonder if he's using.

You can definitely tell which actors are & aren't still actively working from the pics. Matthew Fox hasn't had a major role in nine years, and Evangeline famously "retired" Gwyneth-style after "Ant Man and the Wasp." ("Retired" meaning "I'm too old / shrill / irritating / extra to get hired now.") I remember Maggie Grace from her stint on "Fear the Walking Dead," and Terry O'Quinn is one of those character actors who's in seemingly everything at some point.

I can see why some found the finale polarizing but I actually enjoyed it. Once you watch it a couple of times and understand what’s going on, it’s a pretty satisfactory ending. In a nutshell, they all die, go into the light, and “move on.”

Back in the day on DL the LOST threads were incredibly fast-moving.

I should have liked to have seen DL back in the Lost days.

Have a cluckity cluck cluck day, Hugo

If I ever buy a boat, I'm going to name it "Not Penny's Boat."

Speaking of, I wanted to fuck Desmond SO BAD as a gayling watching this show. Hot Peruvian-Scottish totty.

Don't put me through this again.

I want to see the dinosour

I've never seen a show that was so polarbearizing. You either loved it or hated it.

Did they ever explain the smoke monster?

They never fucking explained anything.

R17: The smoke monster is Jacob's brother. Jacob pushed his brother into the heart of the island and the brother transformed into the smoke monster. The smoke monster can also assume the form of dead people. The smoke monster assumed the form of Locke but Jack killed the smoke monster in Locke's body in the finale.

meh......

Which had the most disappointing final season, Game of Thrones or LOST ?

r21 All I know is it exploded and became a global phenomenon. It was HUGE in my country (the guy who ran our main Lost fansite was the first guy I ever fucked). No show until Thrones got that big.

Yes, it was some kind of security device? At that point I didn’t care it was getting so lame.

I LOVED the timey-whimey stuff. “You Are My Constant” is my favorite single episode. “Not Penny’s Boat” is the best scene. I loved so many characters and really disliked quite a few (especially right from the start Kate and her stupid airplane necklace). The Mother, Jakob, the other man, the River…ugh. The fans forums had much better ideas to explain everything.

Maybe in ten years, AI will be so good that people can create better final seasons for LOST and GoT.

R16: Like "24," Lost got more and more absurd with each season.

I think I'm the only person who liked the Nicky & Paulo episode.

Ian Somerhalder was so beautiful in Lost, just a delight to look at.

I stopped watching halfway into the second season because it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Didn’t the writers admit at some point that they had no long-range plan for the plot?

Paulo lies (paralyzed).

I liked it too, r25. It was a classy way to dispose of two widely loathed characters that the writers had been trying to shoehorn into the show.

And it was always nice to get a little Leslie Arzt in an episode before he blew up

I liked Sawyer’s comment when Paulo was shoehorned into the plot: “Who ARE you?”

Hate when that happens…

One of my all time favorite tv moments was at the end of the Walkabout episode when Locke wheels away from the Outback Trekker’s desk and yells, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” And we learn that he’s in a wheelchair. That was a definite holy shit! moment for me. Loved it.

The show creators were adamant that the characters were not dead and in some form of purgatory. "No no, it's a great idea but they are not dead. Liars.

Ben Linus is one of the greatest villains and tv characters of all time.

R27, I'm with you... the second island, that guy Henry (was that his name?) was interesting at first, but afer a while, holy shit! the writers were casting filming and showing us every idea they'd spitballed together during summer break.

They had no idea where the show was going or how to explain ANYTHING.

It's like The X Files... early on, Chris Carter said he's wrap up everything and explain all in five seasons - now there was some serious BULLSHIT.

They weren't dead on the island. They all died either on the island or afterwards. It was not purgatory.

I hated the Nicky and Paolo episode but apparently it was produced because this show had a big online presence, like shows do nowadays and fans kept complaining about what happened to the other passengers

I still remember the show fondly and have no problems with the finale. Although I refuse to rewatch it to tarnish my memories.

I loved it and thought it was brilliant when it was first on, but I tried watching again on Hulu and quit during season 2.

I cried like a fool when Sun and Jin died.

I was always bugged by the others, not the Others, just other passengers from the plane, who would occasionally wander through the background of a scene. It made no sense that the named characters only interacted with each other.

I cried even more at the finale showing Jack outside lying down with Vincent beside him. At the time, I had a yellow lab who looked the same. Uh, oh, I can't think of her now or I'll cry again. I miss you, Jessie.

I just wanted to eat Jack's ass.

[quote]Matthew Fox hasn't had a major role in nine years

He’s in the upcoming spinoff of Yellowstone, starring opposite Michelle Pfeiffer.

I hated how Dominic Monaghan brought so much deranged "prancing ponyism" to the LOST threads.

[quote]Back in the day on DL the LOST threads were incredibly fast-moving.

I want to see DINASOURS! (But yes, at the time those were the quickest-moving TV-related threads other than the Oscars, Emmys and Tonys.)

It was like Gilligan's Island. I couldn't understand why they wanted to leave.

R44, how the fuck was that Dom's fault? Blame the frauen who obsessively populated the Prancing Pony Inn & Daytime Dish for that bullshit.

The first season was the best and deserved the Emmy it won. It was downhill from there but I thought Desmond was hot.

I bet there was a bidet in The Hatch

[quote]Which had the most disappointing final season, Game of Thrones or LOST ?

Bitch, PLEASE. At least "Lost" had more than six episodes! (and only a 3-4 months wait between seasons, not TWO YEARS - and the latter trend has unfortunately caught on goddammit) I actually didn't hate the final season, and I wasn't confused (apparently unlike some here) about everything resulting before, and in, the finale.

The worst season on "Lost" BY FAR was the third season, and it was such an infamous shitfest that it prompted what HAS to be a one-and-ONLY-one-time-reaction: they reshot the majority of the season three finale, and didn't finish until two weeks before it AIRED. This would be a challenge on any given network show, but try imagine it on a show with 16 lead characters shot entirely on location in Hawaii – and the entire cast & crew had left for their hiatus.

So: in what is still a shocker of a move even today, ABC in tandem agreed to give the show three, and only three, more seasons, and also to cover the massive budget expense of bringing back together a skeleton crew and only a handful of cast members to reshoot all the off-island stuff. I still vividly remember the episode: I was confused as fuck at first, because I recognized that a bridge Jack was driving over at one point is in the L.A. area, but since that was where his character lived, I assumed they added it digitally or something – until I realized where they were filming all of his scenes set at a hospital: on the same set "Grey's Anatomy" used then. I was still in the dark until the finale, and that's still in my top three all-time "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" shock endings (meaning the reveal that it was, in fact, present day, and they'd stealthily introduced the flash-forwards the show used from then on).

Had the same trajectory as heroes. Season One Heroes was in the top five of greatest tv shows the first season. After that it was down hill. Fast.

R26, this photo told teenage me that it *wasn't* a phase.

Another BTS story about "Lost" I thought of: the show famously used Hawaii as a double for settings ranging from New York to the Outback – they filmed driving scenes in the "Outback" solely by reversing the negative, or however it's done digitally – but they had two, and only two, exceptions. One is the reshoot of the S3 finale.

The other is theatre-related, so I assume DL bitches will love it. The wonderful Alan Dale, who played Charles Widmore as a recurring character, signed on to do a West End show in London after the producers told him Widmore wouldn't be included in a later season (I think the fifth). Problem: turns out they needed him after all. Bigger problem: I forget the specific plot device, but the ONLY way to shoot the scene – back when VFX couldn't do it realistically – was for Sun to confront Widmore in person about something.

Since Mohammed couldn't go to the mountain, they brought it to him: they flew *literally* across the world to shoot a single scene (!) in London (!!) with Widmore & Sun. Now THAT is fucking devotion to the craft! (IIRC they even used London to its full advantage and shot it somewhere along the South Bank of the Thames.)

[quote]I just wanted to eat Jack's ass.

Well, who didn't? Sheesh.

The fat guy was my favorite.

[quote]I think I'm the only person who liked the Nicky & Paulo episode.

Possibly. Also, the problem with their characters wasn't that they were unlikable per se. They LITERALLY had no story! After being shoehorned into the third season premiere via digitally adding them into footage from the first two seasons, they were basically glorified extras for most of the remainder. Their ONLY full episode was both their first AND last: it's the one where they're revealed to be thieves and buried alive after very conveniently being stung with a toxin mimicking death.

What the fuck were people saying about them online? Just curious since they seemed almost like a nonentity until their one-off episode (and finale). Btw Paulo was played by hot-as-fuck Rodrigo Santoro, so I was PISSED when they literally didn't use him for anything!

I'm still laughing at the stolen kidney.

R33 - Michael Emerson was amazing in it.

[quote] [R44], how the fuck was that Dom's fault?

If you would be so kind, please point out where I blamed him.

Attractive cast for the most part.

I agree with the poster that says it’s kinda a chore to rewatch the series. There is just so much filler even during the groundbreaking first few seasons. You can tell there very much was a sizeable Frau audience more so interested in the relationships and Foxx and Evangelina falling in love/being together. Lost was like the first big prestige drama on network tv since the West Wing but with high ratings. So many melodramatic plot points served as filler in retrospect.

Michael Emerson was even better in Person of Interest which started out as a case of the week and then developed a wild overarching story.

The scenery was good.

Didn’t Matthew Fox punch a female bus driver?

R62, you are so right that Michael Emerson on Person of Interest was terrific. And that show, over its seasons was vastly superior over time to Lost. I'm sure others want me to hate the show or dismiss it because James Cavezial was the co-star, but I can't do that.

Regarding PoI, I wish Cathryn Manheim' character had joined Henry and others in the final "battle and been around at the end like Henry. She was a badass.

I've rewatched twice, but only through YouTube reactions, and obviously skipping the more boring segments/episodes. No way am I rewatching it on my own, it's not *that* great. Plus there's so much more stuff on TV than there was back then, so there's really no time.

Bad plastic alert at Ian Somerhalder.

Regarding Somerhalder, he's one of those guys – Justin Theroux chief among them – who don't seem to understand that you're supposed to go lighter with your hair as you age. A darker colour is not going to make you look more youthful and virile; quite the opposite, it's going to produce a disconcerting disconnect between your hair and your face.

The light brown tone Somerhalder has in his Lost pic is exactly the tone he should be using these days, not the shoe polish crap that makes him look like a sleazebag who's desperately clinging to his youth.

In hindsight, I think the problem was that it became a cultural phenomenon and mega hit from the get-go. The show was hyped in all the press, 20+ million viewers a week, etc. All that attention got to the cast and creatives. To keep the audiences engaged, they started coming up with more mysteries but then didn't know what to do with those mysteries.

In regards to season three, I disagree I thought it was one of the better seasons. Yes the first half was awful but the second half minus the Jack tattoo episode was great. The season three finale is one of the best finales of all time and I didn't see the flash forward twist ending coming at all.

Yes R60 one of the last Hollywood productions to actually cast attractive people.

The Bai Ling episode deserved an Emmy!

It's hard for any show to maintain a consistent level of freshness and focus.

People nowadays are used to 8 or 10 episodes in a season. Shows of yesteryear had to crank out 20+ episodes per season, but that's no excuse for bad writing and just making shit up as you went along. Decent shows would have a bible to go back to for consistency.

[quote]You can tell there very much was a sizeable Frau audience more so interested in the relationships and Foxx and Evangelina falling in love/being together.

That must've been before you were on DL. We had plenty of discussion of the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle, and not among the frauen. That said, the writers definitely "redeemed" Sawyer likely to avoid pissing off fans who wanted him to be "worthy" of Kate: IIRC Jack was supposed to end up with Kate, after a quick dalliance with Sawyer, but viewers liked both of them so they bulked it up.

No way to know if the viewers were all housewives.

You can tell the writers wanted to try some standalone episodes a la X Files but it was very challenging due to the premise and setting of this show. I’ll always say the 24 episode a season is what killed the quality of the show.

Agreed about 24 episodes. There's simply no way to sustain the quality level with that many AND that big of a cast – a lesson ABC should've learned the previous decade when they managed to totally fuck up "Twin Peaks."

Problem: we've now pivoted too far the other way. Is it REALLY too fucking much to ask to request at least eight episodes per year? Just curious, since the showrunners at "House of the Dragon" and every other effects-heavy show beg to differ, never mind their utterly obscene budgets.

With all criticism aside Lost was the last scripted show we all watched together at the same time.

Actually no I’m wrong it’s GOT, even though I personally never got into that shit.

Jack was the bottom

Television creatives these days can tell a believable and precise story in six to ten episodes. Hollywood doesn't want to go back to the days when casts and crews were working ten months out of the year to pump out twenty-four episodes.

I think plenty of Hollywood creatives, casts and crews would love to go back to ten-month TV season shoots, given the drop in income the new model has meant for them.

Actress who played the short but memorable role of Rousseau died in L.A. from complications of West Nile fever on the day Biden was inaugurated. I was taking a break from DL at the time so didn't make a DEAD TO ME thread. Not that anyone would care, given everything else going on at the time.

R76, correct that "GoT" came later, but so did "Breaking Bad" (at least the later seasons).

R82 I don’t think Breaking Bad was ever as big as its hype. Don’t get me wrong it was popular for the channel it came on but I don’t think it ever got as big as GOT or the Sopranos. GOT is the only show since Lost I would say America experienced together as cultural phenomenon. And also Stranger Things.

Only the thing is we gonna have to take the boy.

One of, if not, the best pilot episodes of all time.

"Guys where are we?"

"WE HAVE TO GO BACK!"

"I ... was wrong."

I was a huge fan and finally re-watched the whole thing in the early months of the pandemic. Some of the Jack/Kate/Sawyer stuff does feel like filler, and not every single episode hits it out of the park, but overall it held up well. Even if they struggled to keep the overstory pointed in the right direction, nearly every episode is constructed well -- lively and fast-moving, constant tension build and release, and great character beats.

Attention ladies: don't fuck on the island or you'll die.

4 8 15 16 23 42

R91, in hindsight I think that was a secret shoutout to Trump for, "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV."

R89, I admittedly haven't watched it since its original run, but what I still remember about the filler part is that it seemed to appear after the writers had already put a given character through at least two standalone episodes covering their backstory. The problem was us (the audience) not really needing to know THAT much about their backstory, especially if it has zilch to do with goings-on on the island or doesn't involve one of the better characters. I know "Lost" famously killed off numerous cast members, but OTOH I have to wonder if the reason Boone was the lone OG cast member to not survive the first season was because Ian Somerhalder is hot, but sadly lacking in gravitas.

In a similar vein, I'm guessing the writers also had no idea that Sun & Jin would not only become two of the most beloved characters, but also the ones with two of the most interesting backstories. (Not sure if this is true, but back when it aired I remember hearing that part of the writers' rationalization for the multiyear time jump in S5 was wanting to allow enough of a window for Jin to realistically learn English.)

While it may not have satisfactorily answered every question, it did a great job of slowly revealing the plot while keeping the audience interested.

Didnt never see this, but Matthew Fox actually looks even better now if you ask me, he's fine.

Naveen Andrews too.

Josh Holloway looks OK, different but time hasnt been too bad to him.

Jorge Garcia was, um, challenging to look at then and has not improved

Daniel Dae Kim has aged surprisingly for an Asian guy, but I'd still do

Terry O’Quinn didnt look great then and has not improved

Dominic Monaghan looks great, differnent but great

Ian Somerhalder has not aged well, and the dark hair is a mistake like R68 says. I reckon he's hd work done too, and it wasnt good

Harold Perrineau has aged OK, ditto the son Malcolm Kelley

No real opinions on any of the womenfolks seeing as, well Im a gay man

Never did see the show, so cant comment on the story etc