So I just finished rewatching Lost. Fittingly, it's been 10 years since it first aired. I was a fan of the show before and since I wasn't interested in anything else on my Netflix queue, I decided to watch the show a second time.
Wow, I'm so glad I did! It is so much better the second time! First, it was so convenient to binge-watch on Netflix sans commercials. It's still quite a commitment, as it's about 120 episodes. I think it took me about 4 or 5 weeks to complete. But, this time I could really pick up on so many clues and foreshadowing, which happens a lot. You recognize the characters more, and since there's a lot of minor characters that pop up throughout the story, I could remember them more easily.
The whole show is this amazing, complex story and study of character development. Just thinking about the creativity involved in this complex thing blows my mind. How they thought of it all, and kept it all straight, I have no idea. I used Lostpedia a lot, to read up on trivia, characters connections and to solve mysteries that I couldn't figure out on my own. But looking at that website shows you how detailed it is.
The highlights for me: The couples: Charlie and Claire, Jin and Sun. But most of all Desmond and Penny's story. Sawyer's humor. Knowing what's happening and still getting that intense thrilling feeling when watching it. The moment when Sawyer and Jin are reunited and Sawyer just giggles at him. Constantly trying to figure it out. I just love shows that make you think!
What surprised me this time: I didn't like Kate as much and really saw the flaws in her and Jack's relationship. I liked Sawyer a lot more. I ended up liking Ben and his dry humor.
The problems: the time travel-skipping episodes in Season 5 are pretty bad. It's the biggest misstep, in my opinion, of the whole show. They were the only episodes I just wanted to be over.
Introducing characters to the audience, but acting like we should have known them all along. Nikki and Paulo are the obvious examples here, but there were a few others.
Ana Lucia. Ugh, she is THE most annoying person and I'm glad when she dies. She's more annoying than Shannon, and that's saying a lot.
I know a lot of people were disappointed with the ending of Lost. I don't get that. They completely wrapped up the conflict. They killed the villain (Man in Black), stabilized the island from the people who wanted to do it harm, (MIB and Charles Widmore), got all the people rescued that could be, and the leading character, Jack, realized his destiny and could die knowing he had finally found love and purpose. What more could you ask for?
I'm guessing it's because of the flash-sideways storyline. And I'll admit, at first I was confused by it because I knew it wasn't real. But then, by the final episode, it's revealed that that was the afterlife and once Jack was ready, they could all fully die. But to be clear, the characters weren't dead the whole time, they didn't die in the plane crash. The experiences they had on the island really happened to them. They all died at different times, as told in the story. And some of them at the end, got off the island, Kate, Sawyer, Miles, Frank and Richard and you would assume, lived out some time back in the "real world." (Which would be interesting to know what happened to them).
The last point I have is just how incredible the impact Lost had on television. This was ten years ago, before the days of binge-watching. And here was a highly serialized, science fiction show on a network channel. And it was a huge success and the forerunner to all these great shows we have now.
So, I highly recommend Lost. But it comes with a warning. You have to go with it, and just let yourself believe in some supernatural explanations. Also, this is not the type of show you can watch while playing on your phone, or doing other things. You will miss a lot of details. You've got to commit to it and if you do, you'll be rewarded with, what I think is, the best show ever made for television.
I'll be ready to watch it again in a few years!
