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This article is about the currently produced television series. For the short-lived reality series, see
Lost (2001 TV series).
Lost is an American serial drama television series that follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a 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.[1] The pilot episode was first broadcast on September 22, 2004.[2] Since then, three seasons have 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 incidental music is composed by Michael Giacchino. The current executive producers are Abrams, Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Jack Bender and Carlton Cuse.[3] Because of its large ensemble cast and the cost of filming in Hawaii, the series is one of the most expensive on television.[4]
A critical and popular success, Lost garnered an average of 16 million viewers per episode on ABC during its first year, and won numerous industry awards including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2005,[5] Best American Import at the British Academy Television Awards, also 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 staple of American popular culture with references to the story and its elements appearing in other television shows,[6] commercials, comic books,[7][8] webcomics, humor magazines 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.[9]
In May 2007 it was announced that Lost will continue for its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons, concluding with the 117th produced episode in May 2010. These three final seasons will consist of 16 episodes each, running weekly in the spring uninterrupted by repeats.[10][11] The fourth season will premiere in the U.S. on January 31, 2008, moving from Wednesday to Thursday at 9 p.m.[12]
[edit] Production
[edit] Conception
The series began development in January 2004, when Lloyd Braun, head of ABC at the time, ordered an initial script from Spelling Television based on his concept of a cross between the movies Lord of the Flies, Cast Away and the popular reality show Survivor. Jeffrey Lieber was hired and wrote Nowhere, based on his pitch to write the pilot.[13] Unhappy with the result and a subsequent re-write, Braun contacted J. J. Abrams, who had a deal with Touchstone (now ABC Studios), and was also the creator of the TV series Alias, to write a new pilot script. Although initially hesitant, Abrams warmed up to it on the condition that the show have a supernatural angle to it, and collaborated with Damon Lindelof to create the series' style and characters.[14] Together, Abrams and Lindelof also created a series "bible", and conceived and detailed the major mythological ideas and plot points for the show's run.[15] The development of the show was constrained by tight deadlines, as it had been commissioned late in the 2004 season's development cycle. Despite the short schedule, the creative team remained flexible enough to modify or create characters to fit actors they wished to cast.[16]
Lost's two-part pilot episode was the most expensive in the network's history, reportedly costing between US $10 and US $14 million,[17] compared to the average cost of an hour-long pilot in 2005 of US $4 million.[18] The show, which debuted on September 22, 2004, became one of the biggest critical and commercial successes of the 2004 television season. Along with fellow new series Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, Lost helped to reverse the flagging fortunes of ABC.[19] Yet, before it had even aired, Lloyd Braun was fired by executives at ABC's parent company, Disney, because he had greenlighted such an expensive and risky project.[14]
The world premiere of the pilot episode was on July 24, 2004 at Comic-Con International in San Diego.[20]
[edit] Episode format
Episodes have a distinct structure: following a recap of events relevant to the upcoming narrative, each show begins with a cold open. Often a close up of a character's eye will follow. At a dramatic juncture, the screen cuts to black and the title graphic, slightly out-of-focus, glides towards the viewer accompanied by an ominous, discordant sound. The opening credits generally appear alphabetically by last name over the scenes that immediately follow. While there is a continuous story arc, each episode relates events concurrently with off-island flashbacks and later, flashforwards, centered on a particular character. The majority of episodes end with a suspenseful twist or cliffhanger, revealed just seconds before a smash cut to black and the title graphic. Others, following a plot resolution, will finish with a reflective closing scene that precedes a simple fade to black, and in particularly tragic or heart-felt closing scenes, the booming noise that accompanies the title graphic will be silenced, amplifying the impact of the event.
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Lost features incidental music performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra and composed by Michael Giacchino, whose score is primarily orchestral, incorporating several recurring themes for events and characters. Giacchino achieved some of the sounds for the score using unusual instruments, such as striking suspended pieces of the plane's fuselage.[21]
The opening theme played as the fuzzy out-of-focus, off-axis Lost logo spins into view is taken from the preset "Armenian Sun" on the Spectrasonics Atmosphere software synthesizer.[22]
On March 21, 2006, the record label Varèse Sarabande released the original television soundtrack for Lost's first season. The soundtrack included select full-length versions of the most popular themes of the season and the main title, which was composed by series creator J.J. Abrams. Varèse Sarabande released a soundtrack featuring music from the second season of Lost on October 3, 2006.[23]
Pop culture songs have been used sparingly in the series, given the mainly orchestral score. When such songs are featured, they usually originate from a diegetic source, meaning that they are usually generated by an action of one of the characters. Examples are the various songs played on Hurley's portable CD player throughout the first season (until its batteries died in the episode "...In Translation"), which featured Joe Purdy's "Wash Away", or the use of the record player in the second season, which included Cass Elliot's "Make Your Own Kind of Music" and Petula Clark's "Downtown" in the second and third season premieres respectively. In two episodes, Charlie is shown on a street corner playing guitar and singing the Oasis song "Wonderwall". In the third season's finale, Jack is driving down the street listening to Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice," right before he arrives to the Hoffs/Drawlar Funeral Parlor. The only pop song that has ever been used without a source is Ann-Margret's "Slowly," in the episode "I Do".
In some international broadcasts, alternate music is utilized. For instance, in the Japanese broadcast of Lost, season one's theme song is "Here I Am" by Chemistry and season two's is "Losin'" by Yuna Ito.
[edit] Filming locations
Lost is filmed in 35 mm, on Panavision cameras, almost entirely on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The original island scenes for the pilot were filmed at Mokule?ia Beach, near the northwest tip of the island. Later beach scenes take place in secluded spots of the famous North Shore. Cave scenes in the first season were filmed on a sound stage built at a Xerox parts warehouse, which had been empty since an employee mass shooting took place there in 1999.[24] The sound-stage and production offices have since moved to the Hawaii Film Office-operated Hawaii Film Studio,[25] where the sets depicting Season 2's "Swan Station" and Season 3's "Hydra Station" interiors were built.[26] Various urban areas in and around Honolulu are used as stand-ins for locations around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Iowa, Miami, South Korea, Iraq, Nigeria, England, France and Australia. For example, scenes set in a Sydney airport were filmed at the Hawaii Convention Center, while a World War II-era bunker was used as an Iraqi Republican Guard installation.[27] Extensive archives of filming locations are tracked at a repository at Lostvirtualtour.com.
[edit] Online distribution
In addition to traditional terrestrial and satellite broadcasting, Lost has been at the forefront of new television distribution methods. It was one of the first series issued through Apple's iTunes Store service for playback on an iPod or within the iTunes software. Since October 2005, new episodes, without commercials, have been available for download the day after they air on ABC, to American audiences only (restriction based on credit card billing address).
In April 2006, Disney announced that Lost would be available for free online in streaming format, with advertising, on ABC's website, as part of a two-month experiment of future distribution strategies. The trial, which ran from May to June 2006, caused a stir among network affiliates who were afraid of being cut out of advertising revenue. The streaming of Lost episodes direct from ABC's website was only available to viewers in the United States due to international licensing agreements.[28][29]
The UK's Channel 4 has also allowed access to the series online.[30] Both parts of "Pilot" were available to watch for free, and other episodes cost GB£0.99 each. Season two installments are made available two weeks after their Channel 4 debut, and the episodes expire after several months. Due to licensing agreements, the service is only accessible in the UK. Channel 4 have now teamed up with Virgin Media's On Demand function, allowing viewers to watch episodes from Season One and Season Two at any time in HD. A 24-hour rental costs £0.99 per episode. They are also available in Standard Definition as part of a subscription to the TV Choice on Demand Service.
As of third quarter, 2006, France's TF1 has allowed online access to the French version of Season Two; episodes cost €1.99.[31] Each episode is issued online just after being broadcast.
Since August 6, 2007, Virgin Media have all of Season 1 available for viewing on its On Demand service, available to all Virgin TV subscribers.[32]
On the August 29, 2007, Lost became available for download from the iTunes Stores in the United Kingdom.[33] Unlike the Channel 4 episode downloads, these downloads do not expire.[34][35]
On September 21, 2007, ABC announced that Lost would be available for download on AOL Video along with several other ABC shows.[36]
[edit] DVD releases
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Lost: The Complete First Season was released as a widescreen seven-disc Region 1 DVD box set in the USA on September 6, 2005, two weeks before the premiere of the second season. It was distributed by Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
In addition to all the episodes that had aired, it included several DVD extras such as episode commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage and making-of features as well as deleted scenes, deleted flashback scenarios and a blooper reel.
The same set was released on November 30, 2005 in Region 4, and on January 16, 2006 in Region 2. The latter was titled Lost: The Complete First Series. As has become standard for Region 2, the series was first released split into two parts: the first twelve episodes of series 1 were available as a widescreen four-disc Region 2 DVD box set on October 31, 2005, while the remaining thirteen episodes of series 1 were released on January 16, 2006. The DVD features available on the Region 1 release were likewise split over the two box sets.
The second season was released as a widescreen seven-disc Region 1 DVD box set in the USA on September 5, 2006 and on Region 2 DVD on October 2, 2006, retitled as Lost: The Complete Second Series. Each of these releases also contained DVD extras, including Behind the Scenes Footage, deleted scenes and a "Lost Connections" chart, which shows how all of the characters on the island are inter-connected with each other.[37]
Again, the series was initially delivered in two sets for Region 2: the first twelve episodes were released as a widescreen four-disc DVD box set on July 17, 2006. The remaining episodes of series 2 were released as a four-disc DVD box set on October 2, 2006. The set was released in Region 4 on October 4, 2006.
Both Seasons 1 and 2 of Lost have sold successfully on DVD. The Season 1 boxset entered the DVD sales chart at number two in September 2005,[38] and the Season 2 boxset entered the DVD sales chart at the number one position in its first week of release in September 2006, believed to be the second TV-DVD ever to enter the chart at the top spot.[39] First day DVD sales for Lost Season 2 are thought to have been as high as 500,000 copies sold.[40]
The third season was released in re
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