108 things I’ll miss/I loved/ thoughts about Lost:
1. Maybe this will be repeated, one way or another in this list, it was nice to have a show that made the audience look for more. It was a difficult show all the way.
2. Hurley. Jorge Garcia has that kind of best friend look to him that is truly endearing.
3. Having a show that pulled off time travel in multiple ways, multiple times.
4. Ben Linus. I just remember when he first came on and thinking, “Jesus, that guy is slimy.” I wanted him dead. As always:
5. That this show rarely gave viewers what they wanted, and we were better for it.
6. The actors. Not to sound shallow, but so many of them were really good looking. Evangeline Lily and Emilie de Ravin for the guys, Josh Holloway for the ladies…
7. Mr. Eko. Yeah, he’s been gone for 3 seasons, but off all the ones who didn’t make it, I think I miss him the most.
8. Having my head hurt when thinking about the show. That’s a good thing.
9. Daniel Faraday. I have always loved Jeremy Davies; loved having a physicist interested in time travel as a character on a major network show.
10. Speaking of Faraday, one of my favorite episodes: “The Constant.” One of those, “My god what a great effin episode!” that Lost was capable of delivering 3 times a season.
11. “The Constant” worked as a drama and a time travel tale, while other greats worked as action episodes while others worked as horror. Gotta love the versatility of this show.
12. More on “The Constant:” Desmond would be my favorite of the “hero” label. He’s the most pure of all the characters.
13. I love the fact that Desmond was arguably the central character to connect the island with the mainland, the alt with the post bomb timeline, and he was not properly introduced until the second season.
14. I liked how they killed characters without mercy in the first few years. Looking back it seems like a stupid gimmick, but man, did it keep you on your toes in the early years.
15. Speaking of… other than Eko, I don’t miss any of those who went early, say before the halfway point of S3. From that point on, save one or two, the deaths were hugely impactful.
16. Hey, if you are trying to avoid Spoilers, you shouldn’t be reading something about Lost. That said, even knowing the outcome, the show had a real elegance in foreshadowing, and re-watching always had payoffs.
17. The cartography. I remember looking at a freeze frame of the map on the hatch emergency door from the second season and thinking “my god this show has so much info!”
18. Trying to explain the show to newbies or friends listening to two or more Lostie’s ramble on about the show. It’s like trying to explain algebra to toddlers.
19. Speaking of math: The numbers. 6 years on and I am still geeked out.
20. Hurley’s first flashback from season one, while he’s going to look for Rousseau. It sums up Hurley best: He would rather have love than money; which is why he was happier on the island and everyone liked him.
21. Midway through the season 3 finale, I remember saying to myself… this is the future!
22. Along with that, I loved how the creators flipped the central conceit of the show on its head halfway through. For years it was “Are they getting off the island,” and then suddenly the question was, “should they go back.”
23. I can’t stress it enough, though I’ll try, the creators really loved giving questions instead of answers. The show was good to start, but it’s this why it’s great.
24. The temple episode from Season 5, "Dead Is Dead.” Watching live, it was one of the best produced and most exciting in the run.
25. Watching it again, or re-thinking about it, the whole episode takes a new level of meaning after knowing about season 6 and the man in black.
26. Re-watchability. While Lost isn’t perfect at this, there are a great number of episodes that are exceedingly rewarding to watch again knowing what the creators were driving to.
27. John Locke. A great, elegant, admirable character of faith, for TV, this is no small feat. Without pounding a Bible or quoting the Koran, or coming off didactic he was the shows main proponent of believing in something bigger.
28. Walkabout, the 4th episode of the series. I’d argue the creators of the show only knew what they were doing with Locke, Sayid and Hurley from the beginning in terms of endgame/overall plan. Other characters changed, some were retconned to make more sense, some were removed all together. This is the key hour to knowing Locke, and they nailed it 4 shows in.
29. While a good episode helps a show, it takes most shows five good episodes to have the spike in viewer interest as that of Walkabout’s great reveal… which was: Locke was fucking handicapped before the island.
30. Seriously, the show had a guy who was in a wheelchair suddenly able to walk. TV was never this cool. Movies, comics, and Sci-fi books, yeah, but in my lifetime, not TV.
31. Richard, played by the awesome Nestor Carbonell.
32. For having such interestingly strange ancillary characters Richard was more vital, but I’ll miss him and other characters like Artz, Mikhail Bakunin, to name a few.
33. For the Ab Abterno Episode. And while I’m at it, I’ll list some of my favorite episodes, in no particular order (Those aforementioned excluded)
34. The Pilot – Cost 7 million. Totally worth it
35. The Long Con – We’ll get to Sawyer later, but ep best shows his ability to swing one way fully. This time evil, with
36. Recon – We see him go good. It’s been said, but a Sawyer/Miles spinoff cop show wouldn’t be terrible.
37. Ji Yeon – Just when you think the show is going to be predictable, Jin is given a flashback while Sun is given a flash-forward, all the while thinking the two are intertwined. The end switcheroo payoff for Jin was doubly sad with the trick.
38. The Shape of Things to Come – Ben in the real world! And he gets there via a… wormhole, or something. Witmore v. Ben is always a plus; the whole island keeps getting bigger.
39. Speaking of the show had some great rivalries.
40. Losties vs. Others
41. Losties vs. Tailes
42. Others vs. Dharma
43. Temple vs. Smokie
44. Ben vs. Widmore
45. Ben vs. Locke
46. Sawyer vs. Jack (in leadership and for Kate)
47. And now the biggies: Locke vs. Jack
48. Jacob vs. MiB; i.e. Good vs. Evil
49. Science vs. Faith
50. Live Together or Die Alone.
51. That last one, Live Together, Die Alone. Aside from being the name of the second series finale (more on that in a sec) it’s the great unofficial theme of the show. Those who live for ones self fail; those who live for the group survive. It’s the good of the group vs. the individual. The group always wins out.
52. The Series Finales. Every one of them is, depending on the grading scale, an A- or 9 or above. The creators really put their focus on telling a story arc for the season, as well as making it fit into a larger overall arc. Just as they were seemed about to close one, they always managed to re-open it with far sweeping implications. In order
53. Exodus – Just when you think they might be leaving or might be learning about the island, the rug comes out from under the viewers and everything is changed. Walt is kidnapped, the boat- and any hope of leaving the island-is destroyed, the hatch is merely a tunnel, and nothing, absolutely nothing is answered. 5 years on, it’s almost comical that millions of people actually expected answers to the show.
54. Also in that finale, Arzt’s death. Probably the best kill for shock value the show did. Dark, dark humor... can't believe it did't become a bigger meme.
55. Live Together, Die Alone – Also in my top five episodes. The 4-toed statue, we figure out why the Losties got on the island, "I think I crashed your plane," why Desmond is there, more of his back story, introduction of Penny, etc. Of all the episodes, this one changed the show the most. Lock, Jack, Kate go with the others, Michael and Walt leave, Locke has his crisis of faith, the sky goes purple, Ben is shown as the leader of the others. Even for a 2 part Lost Episode this was jam packed. Just awesome.
56. In S2’s finale… the countdown finishes! And what a payoff!
57. Through the Looking Glass – Bam! They got off the island. That game changer is all anyone wants to talk about because it very nearly saved the show from tediousness /cancellation with its bravado. It’s a legitament point, but lest we forget there is a great episode there too. Locke vs. Jack, Charlie and Desmond reach the end of their season long adventure. I said it earlier that I figured it out (Jack taking pills didn’t make a bunch of sense given his past) but I was still amazed the show went through with it.
58. In S3’s finale… “Not Penny’s Boat” Everything great in Lost is encapsulated in that moment, pick a great feature of the show and it’s in that moment.
59. There’s No Place Like Home – The island moves! Jack meets Ben, off the island. Jin and Sun separated. Probably the weakest of the 5 season finales, but still awesome.
60. In S4’s finale… Sawyer’s jump. Live together, you survive… and wasn’t his S5 all the better for it? I’m telling you, this is one of the key themes.
61. Before we get to season 5’s finale, I’m going to talk about the season before it, my favorite, not because any one episode, but moreso because almost every episode was exceptional, week in and week out. I already miss that season & can’t wait for repeats.
62. The time-shifts. This was Lost’s ultimate cocksure nerd/intelligence run. The creators figured out a way to change the shows setting from 2004, to 2007, and then to 1977. Any run of the mill show can do a flashback to a past decade type show, it takes serious smarts to move it back 30 years. It’s no wonder why the American version of Life on Mars failed; the same network was doing the same premise on a working TV show. PS, I loved the BBC version.
63. During the jumps in LaFluer, when they cut to the Statue of Taweret sometime way in the past, my nerd engine went into permanent high RPMs. It answered one of the shows biggest mysteries (where did the foot come from) and yet it posed even more questions.
64. The source of the timeshifts, the wheel… the energy pocket it harnessed, the history of its construction, and as a bonus, it transports the user to Tunisia. Nerd Overload.
65. Jughead and the plot associated with it.
66. Season 5 nearly had every out-there, mind blowing Sci-Fi concept you could imagine, and they were all working in harmony. Time Travel, dead people, atomic bombs, ancient cultures… with the exception of aliens, this was a SF wet dream of a season.
67. Speaking of aliens, Hurley trying to write Empire Strikes Back was one of the better gags of the show. The writers were able to nail Hurley in function in S5, using him as a liason to the viewer, asking questions about time travel, continuity, etc.
68. Also in S5, Miles entered the “I wish they used more of him” zone for the show. Of all the characters who were brought in past season 2, it was Miles (speaks to the dead), Faraday (time travel) and Eko (Faith vs Corruption) who really added a depth to the show as a whole. These were the characters that really enhanced the world.
69. The S5 finale, The Incident. Like all other seasons, the finale revolved around a central premise of the season, this time Jughead and Faraday’s theory about cancelling the future. It reveals Jacob in full, as well as introduces the Man in Black. It has Jacob’s death, introduces Fake Locke by effectively killing real Locke for good, and it ends on the biggest cliffhanger of all:
70. What happened when the bomb went off? For all the audience knew, the show had effectively killed off every character. I would have been hopeless if not for that inverted Lost card, black text, and white background, instead of the usual white on black.
71. Speaking of, the title card. It’s five seconds long, it only has a single word going in and out of focus, and it’s accompanied only by a sound effect, yet it’s perfect. No theme song, no recycled intro…just that five second clip. I loved that about the show; more time for the good stuff.
72. I’m going to list some of the locations I loved in the show. Most shows, sitcoms especially take place in only a few areas (think Friends, there were a few apartments and a coffee house and only a few places more).
73. The Other Island (Hydra Island). One of my favorite bits… who says there has to be only one island?
74. Eggton. The great reveal of season 3’s first episode, there are houses and a whole community already on the island.
75. The Cave with the names of the candidates. If you are on an island, and there is a windswept cave on the edge of a cliff, accessible via old creaky ladders, it’s a big plus.
76. The Lighthouse. A S6 entry, I wish they used it more, because I loved the “mirrors” concept.
77. The Beechcraft on the cliff. One of the major S1 locales, it was the cause of the first death (Boone) and added more mystery to the show than thought possible at the time.
78. The Black Rock. From the French on the radio in the early episodes to the out of nowhere discovery of S1, one of the best early wow moments/ideas.
79. The Hieroglyphs and Egyptian references, just one of my favorite, as of yet, unresolved questions/mysteries. There is only the finale left when this will be published, so I’ll list the ones I can think of and cross them off if they are answered by shows end.
80. What is the Man in Black’s name?
81. What can Widmore do for the island?
82. Walt and Aaron’s “powers.” Do they fit into the endgame? What are they?
83. How does the sideways timeline fold in with the island?
84. What is the “source” and will they find it again?
85. What exactly are the healing properties?
86. Why are they all there? Is there a bigger reason, or is it with the candidates’ issue? If so, that better be a good reason.
87. Who is Eric Cartman’s father? Just wanted to see if you are paying attention. And it was Scott Tenorman’s father. He’s half ginger, but he’s also half Bronco… which is cool.
88. Enough with the mysteries… I’m going to miss the DVD’s and side projects they released via the web and other media. While every show tries to have viral marketing, I really liked the way Lost did it. Viewers wanted more Lost and the creators figured out ways to build their world outside of the TV show.
89. Speaking of, I am going to miss knowing there is a show that just has pages and pages of extra material that explains some of the mysteries of the show. I know they left tons of the ideas out of the show for space. That is a good thing.
90. I loved that even the bad episodes of the show (pick one from season 2 or 3) were worth watching because of the mythology. Sure X-Files had bits of this before Lost, but those were small. Lost could have a clue or monster or hatch that made even the worst of episodes manageable. They may not be re-watchable, but they weren’t total wastes of time.
91. As of May 2010, there are no planned sequels or side projects. This is good. How can we miss it if it won’t go away?
92. Jimmy Kimmel’s hardcore crush of the show. Has there ever been a more perfect guy in a hosting position to be the highest profile fan of a show? This is like Johnny Carson liking a comic times 1000. Even if he wasn’t on the same network I’m sure he’d pimp the show non stop.
93. The Dharma Uniforms. They make great costumes for Halloween.
94. Alan Dale as Charles Widmore. He’s a guy who can come of as grandfatherly one moment and the next, he seems like a baddie out of the 1980’s cinema. He’d make a great snooty professor or needlessly evil judge.
95. Doc Jensen’s 7 page write ups where every little detail of the show examined. This was one of the best parts of the after episode experience, a guy--- who knew what he was talking about--- explaining some of the coincidences, connections, and out there references the show used. A true “can’t miss” read, even if he seems completely over the top.
96. The Onion’s AV Club write-up. One of the better week in review sites (hey, PA only went up a few months ago) with a dynamite comments section (monitored but never overly censored).
97. Lost Parodies. My favorite is still Olde English’s skit of the writers room: http://www.oldeenglish.org/podcast/writers-of-lost
98. Looking over debunked theories that were proven incorrect. It’s still fun at the end to remember what we thought this show was once upon a time.
99. Here’s a good link of those: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/05/the_ten_greatest_debunked_lost.html#
100. I’ll miss having a show that, in a written outline looks like the least plausible success ever known in entertainment.
101. I’ll miss too, watching that show week in and week out for six years, never knowing what exactly would take place. Murder, time travel, a rock star seeing visions of a blonde in an alternate life? All took place.
102. The cinematography. Really, the show never gets enough credit for being acutely shot for TV and for DVD. Everyone knows the iris opener, but the show never gets credit for artfully conveying tons of information in non-friendly environments. For my money, season 5's Dead is Dead was the best of the run cinematography wise.
103. The music, specifically, the score.
104. The music, specifically, Drive Shaft and Geronimo Jackson.
105. The underlying theme that there is something bigger at stake with the island, something beyond the casual understanding of everyday life. And by osmosis, that this show was more interesting, more meaningful than 95% of other shows.
106. That lack of “everyday life” in a network TV show. Between 2004 and now we have had 3 CSI’s, 4 Law and Orders, 2 NCIS, a Jay Leno 10pm show, countless doctor, lawyer, and cop shows all succeed. Of the network shows, of the truly big hits, Lost stands alone among the shows about real life. Come 2010-11, it’s back to cable for the fans of this special breed of television.
107. Part of the fun of Lost was that it was on a big network and had tons of casual fans. This was the uniting show for nerds, geeks, & Sci-Fi extremists with the rest of the viewing audience. I hope people who came into Lost stopped watching simple, predictable shows like CSI, Two and Half Men, Etc because they found a show that demonstrated what a good piece of TV can provide. We’ve had The Prisoner, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Star Trek (pick your version), Doctor Who (pick your Doctor), and a slew of others, but none of them had the cultural relevance at the time that Lost enjoyed. I’m going to miss that feeling that there is one show out there, that while it may not be the best on, it’s one that I can talk to a bunch of people about instead of just one or two.
108. I’ll miss all of this, mainly because this Lost was perhaps the last great event serial TV show--not to be mistaken with miniseries, reality competitions, or events. Nothing about the shows' history hints that it’s able to be reproduced. This isn’t catching lighting in a bottle; it was catching lighting in a bottle, letting the lightning out, getting the lightning back in, and then destroying the bottle and putting the lighting into two distinctly separate but eerily familiar bottles and having them exist right next to each other. In a culture where all TV programming has to avoid American Idol or reality show because that’s where the ratings go, it was nice to have a literal island in the midst of formulaic TV. It’s going to be sorely missed, what ever happens in the finale.
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