I'm not a big TV watcher. I keep track of 2, maybe 3, TV shows on a regular basis, and I'm not the type to channel surf for new shows to watch. Whatever I watch faithfully now, I was introduced to by other people (Alias by an old roommate, Boston Legal by way of an ex-girlfriend who enjoyed The Practice, Enterprise by family members who liked the Star Trek franchise, and that show's over with now), and it's very rare that I'll turn on the TV as a means of finding something to do on a dead evening. However, it was one such evening, over a late dinner, that my fiancee and I decided to check out a new show that we had been seeing ads for on ABC. It was about a diverse group of people stranded on a desert island, and we had heard that it was filmed on Oahu, so we figured it was worth a shot. As much as I resented J. J. Abrams for putting off Season 4 of Alias for half a year so that he could help develop a brand new show and work on Mission Impossible 3 (talk about too many irons in the fire!), I had to admit that the premise for this new show Lost was intriguing. 40-some people stranded on an island after a disastrous plane crash, and due to the primal, dangerous nature of life on the island, any one of them could be killed off at any time. It could have turned into campy horror played for shock value, but much to my surprise, what I found when I tuned in was a good slice of character drama and a seeming multitude of intertwining plot threads that rivaled the best years of Alias. It was only a few short episodes before my fiancee and I were hooked.

Well, by the time she and I finally tied the knot the following year, Lost had wrapped up its first season and achieved a lot of accolades in the process. I had gone from hooked to borderline obsessive in a few short months, and it's because of this a savvy friend decided the Season 1 DVD set for Lost would be an excellent wedding gift. It's extremely rare for me to want to have episodes of any TV show around to cherish forever... I mean, there are a few of the Star Trek series that I'd love to catch up on, but I'd never consider actually buying a full season of any of them. Lost just turned out to be one of those shows that I'd find myself even anticipating reruns of, just so I could watch the characters more closely and try to glean clues from their dialogue and their actions that I had missed the first time around. Thanks to the Internet, I knew that I wasn't alone. Forums on the Internet devoted to the show were abuzz with millions of questions: Is Locke good or evil? What's in the hatch? Does the kid have some sort of special powers? What's with that monster? What's the backstory on this character who hasn't had their own episode yet? And how could 48 people survive such a horrific plane crash, anyway? I've spent more of my free time discussing these topics with friends both physical and virtual, and I finally had to admit it - I'm an addict. Having these episodes on DVD to pore over as many times as I see fit was indeed the perfect gift.

If you've never watched Lost before, then there are some things you need to know about the show. First of all, I'll state the obvious - you'll get lost while watching it. No, it's not just you, and no, you're not stupid. J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and the rest of the creators/writers fully intend to keep viewers in the dark on several issues through several episodes, if not several seasons. Again, for anyone familiar with Alias, this won't be a problem, but it might frustrate more casual viewers who like their answers delivered at the end of every hour. There's a big, mysterious island here with some strange goings-on, whose very location is unknown to the survivors. And there are 14 principal characters to deal with over the course of 24 episodes. That means that you could get attached to a character and not see much of them for a few episodes in a row (unless they're one of the two or three who are considered the biggest stars, the lynchpins of most episodes' plots). In addition, you have to be willing to go back and forth in time a lot with these characters. Every episode uses a single character as a focal point, showing scenes from that character's pre-crash life in the form of flashbacks. These can range from heartbreaking to humorous to harrowing as we learn that often, these people are not who we thought they were just from observing their actions on the island. It's these characters, above all of the weird mysteries and mythology, that really make this show something special. The same plane crash and same island with 2 or 3 regular heroes and a few predictable sidekicks would make for a terribly dull show. Lost is, first and foremost, a drama, so if a few episodes gross you out or scare you, don't worry, because the next one could take a completely different tone. It's a somewhat dark show overall, but never to the point of total cynicism or morbidity - there are often some humorous subplots lurking about, and I think every character has both dark and light sides to them. There's even deeper meaning in some of the humor that will affect certain plot threads down the line. It's a show where few moments are wasted and the writers seem to have no shortage of ideas.

The show is almost idiosyncratic with its various trademarks, too. The cliffhanger endings with a quick cut to the show's title card will be familiar to any Alias fan. The music is much less dependent on whatever's popular at the moment than the aforementioned show, choosing instead to mostly go with instrumental scores that frequently climax in a familiar, unsettling blurting of horns going off-key. And there's that floating LOST graphic and the eerie ambient wind-chime sound that plays in lieu of an actual theme song and cast intro. Flashbacks, while already a useful plot device in many TV shows, become a defining factor in every episode, usually tying into the current island story in an ironic or poetic fashion. Some think that this limits the format of your average Lost episode, but I for one appreciate the juxtaposition between these people's "normal" lives and their day-to-day survival efforts on the islands. Themes from sources such as Stephen King and Lord of the Flies pop up from time to time, with the show sometimes playing as an interesting commentary on man in his most primal state, with no structure of government or law. At the same time, these people are all fairly modern and not too difficult to relate to, so there are going to be friendships formed and even a little romance as per the typical TV drama. It's a fine balance between classic episodic TV and truly groundbreaking writing, and for the most part, the show walks that line quite well. And just when you think you know what's going on, it'll shake you up and make you question everything. If that sounds like fun, then by all means, grab this DVD set and get caught up with the rest of us!

Now if you're already a fan of Lost and you want to know why the heck you should own the entire first season on DVD, aside from the fun of rewatching it all, then check my section on Special Features - the thing any smart DVD buyer would want to know about - at the bottom of this review. First I want to go over the characters and episodes - the meat of what this DVD set is all about.

--CHARACTERS--

Jack - played by Matthew Fox
Jack is put forth as the "hero" of the show. He's the first character we get to see spring in the action, using his selfless doctor skills to help as many people as possible escape the plane wreckage with their health intact. As time goes on, he becomes the de facto leader of the band of survivors, though somewhat reluctantly. He's generally a matter-of-fact guy, and sometimes his bossiness toward other characters can get under my skin, as can his insistence that he must be the savior of every troubled victim who comes across his path. This "hero complex" gives Jack interesting character flaws, though, and Matthew Fox brings some of the best drama to the series through that element of who Jack is.

Kate - played by Evangeline Lilly
Originally intended to be the lead character of the series (the original script had Jack killed off in the pilot), Kate is one of those ambiguous characters that audiences seem to have a love/hate relationship with. Newcomer Evangeline Lilly is one of the show's breakout stars, and at the right moments, she can bring a lot of emotional intensity to the character of Kate - a young woman who is brave but who has dubious motivations. A lot of Kate's flashbacks depict her life as a wanted criminal, and the intent behind most of her actions often isn't clear, which can lead to viewer frustration over time as her continued backstory only brings more questions. She also does the "pensive" thing a bit too much, and her continued butting into conversations and expeditions started by other characters can get annoying. Still, she's one of the characters whose backstory I'm most interested in further pinning down, even if I have a hard time with the fact that she gets a lot more screen time than the other women on the show.

Locke - played by Terry O'Quinn
Another enigmatic character, expertly played by veteran actor Terry O'Quinn, is John Locke, the man with an extreme sense of his own destiny. The character goes from a creepy background presence to a key component of the castaways' survival in a few short episodes, but becomes a bit of a troubling presence not long after that. Is his knowledge about this mysterious island beneficial, or is he just becoming the island's hapless servant? Is he trying to help other characters work out issues from their lives before the crash, or is he just trying to drive a wedge into other people's relationships and the group's authority structure? And what's with all of the lame excuses he keeps concocting? This character always keeps me guessing, and often there's a smile on my face while I'm scratching my head trying to figure him out.

Sawyer - played by Josh Holloway
The island's "bad boy" is played by another actor who went from zero to famous in virtually no time flat. A conniving pack rat who comes armed with an arsenal of hilarious nicknames for the other characters, and some serious demons from his childhood, Sawyer can be counted on to bring an unexpected mixture of drama, humor, and action to any episode in which he is prominently featured.

Charlie - played by Dominic Monaghan
Dom Monaghan was probably the most familiar face before this show became popular, due to his stint as Merry in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here, he plays a has-been rock star with a heroin addiction that he tries to keep hidden from the other islanders. Featured prominently in the pilot, Charlie's centrality to the show seems to have backed off a bit. He's alternated between being an insecure character with a need to prove his manhood, a potential love interest for one of the women on the island, and half of a rather effective comic duo. Unfortunately, his backstory thus far has been one of the weakest and most cliche, resulting in a few lackluster episodes along the way.

Claire - played by Emile de Ravin
Claire is a young and extremely pregnant single mother who was en route from her native Australia to L.A. (never mind that nobody should be flying in their third trimester!) Originally played as a very warm, affable character who can get along with just about anyone, her character paradoxically became more narrowly defined when one of the show's central mysteries started to revolve around her and her baby. These days, she's mostly written as a love interest, someone who needs protecting, and a mom whose only concern is for her child. She's a sweetie, but she needs some more development if my interest in her is going to survive through the second season.

Sayid - played by Naveen Andrews
In a bold move, Lost features an Iraqi character (never mind that he's played by a British Indian actor) who was actually a member of the Republican Guard during the Gulf War. This actually provides more potential cans of worms than the show has taken the time to explore, since most of the characters have been fairly accepting of Sayid's leadership in technical and survival-related matters thus far. This is another character that could use some more development - we see him as the go-to guy for brains and for enforcement in a lot of episodes, but he's a lot harder to get inside of on an emotional level. Still, it was an interesting casting choice and it'll be interesting to see what implications his friendship with a largely American group will have if they ever make it back to a civilization where their countries of origin highly resent each other.

Shannon - played by Maggie Grace
Shannon is the bratty, smart-mouthed, spoiled rich kid. At 20, she's an adult in name only, and she's survived thus far by using her looks and extremely fake charm to manipulate people. She's often seen being purposefully oblivious to the difficulty of others' lives around her, and getting into vicious spats with her brother Boone about her overall uselessness, but every now and then, against her own instinct, she manages to prove that she's handy to have around. This character has become more layered as the season unfolded, and given that she's one of the few whose point of view we didn't get to see for an entire episode in Season One, she's one of the ripest characters for some surprising development in the series' future.

Boone - played by Ian Somerhalder
Boone is the slightly older brother of Shannon, and these two have a love/hate relationship like you just wouldn't believe. Initially, he's mostly defined as the guy who's around to take her abuse (and give a good deal of it back) while also trying to genuinely care for her. Apart from Shannon, he's often found trying to play with the big boys and prove that he's got what it takes to be one of the heroes, too, which leads to either humor or dire consequences when he proves how utterly inept he can be.

Jin - played by Daniel Dae Kim
Unlike some of the "love-to-hate" characters like Shannon or Sawyer, Jin is one of those characters that, at the show's outset, I just plain hated. Daniel Dae Kim took a lot of flak from Asian-American audiences at the show's outset by seeming to portray the stereotypical Asian male, being extremely dominating towards his wife and uninterested in, or sometimes even hostile towards, the Westerners he became stranded with. However, each episode of Lost seems to drive the point home that not all is as it seems with his characters, and there was no character that this was more true for than Jin. He's a truly isolated man, being the only non-English speaker on the island, and even though his character is generally a very serious one, the language barrier is sometimes played for laughs at the expense of clueless people on both sides.

Sun - played by Yunjin Kim
My favorite character (yeah, I always favor the Asian woman, but it's not just because of that!), the soft-spoken Sun, is played sympathetically by the lovely Yunjin Kim (no relation to Daniel Dae Kim, but her trying out for another part actually led to the idea to create the character of Sun, which in turn led to the need for Jin to exist). At first, you hardly get a peep out of her, as she too seems to be portraying a stereotype, a submissive Asian wife. But her character starts to show a quiet strength and defiance before too long, and we soon learn that she's sneakier than those innocent eyes would lead you to believe. Once she gets a chance to interact with someone other than her husband, this character really comes alive.

Michael - played by Harold Perrineau
Another of the more serious characters (that is, used much more for drama than for comic relief) is Michael, a single dad whose main goal is to get his son Walt off of an island that he feels is no place to raise a boy. Michael is an architect with a keen mind for building stuff out of primitive elements, which proves to be very useful later in the season. But he also has a bit of a hot temper which sometimes gets him into trouble with those he doesn't see eye-to-eye with. Michael is frustratingly underused as a character at times, and much like Jin and Sun, it's a joy when we get a rare glimpse into who this person really is, as opposed to who we thought they were.

Walt - played by Malcolm David Kelly
The only underage character on the island is Michael's 10-year-old son, Walt, who sidesteps the usual child-actor method of winning everyone over by being precocious. He's just a normal kid - a bit curious and a bit defiant, but a little too old to play the "cute" card like whatever cast member they added to The Cosby Show in a given season. It's interesting to see how he doesn't always fully comprehend the ramifications of the plane crash and life on a dangerous island, and his interactions with other characters (particularly Locke) are often quite charming, since unfortunately, he doesn't share as much of an emotional connection with his dad. Like Shannon, he's still a bit of a mystery, as we don't get an entire episode devoted to him in Season One (we see Shannon's story through Boone's eyes and Walt's story through Michael's eyes), so here's hoping we get more on this kid in the future.

Hurley - played by Jorge Garcia
Last but not least, we have Hurley, whose heavyset frame is a stark contrast to an otherwise physically fit and attractive cast. Usually the fat guy is the first one to get bumped off in such a situation, but Hurley actually proves to be one of the warmest, most fun, and most genuine characters. Almost every scene he's in is a humorous one, and his tendency to be the sidekick who says "Dude" all the time almost makes you forget that this guy's got a bit of mystery to him as well. Late in the season, when that mystery is finally revealed, you'll never look at this character the same way again.

--EPISODES--

SPOILER WARNING: It should go without saying that since the plot of one episode generally depends quite a bit on events from the episodes preceding it, there could be quite a few spoilers in these descriptions for those who are new to the show. I've tried to be vague in several places, but at the same time, I wanted to discuss what makes many of these episodes so memorable... so, you've been warned.

1.1 "Pilot, Pt. 1" ****1/2
The show's opening scene, which shows Jack trying to rescue people from the aftermath of the plane crash, is one of the most intense and spellbinding things you'll ever see on TV. A lot of the characters are introduced at this point, though you don't know they'll be regulars because it seems like any of them could die at any moment, and this kind of establishes the show's uneasy balance of action, drama, and even humor. The episode mainly centers around Jack, Kate, and Charlie, and their attempt to find the cockpit of the plane so that they can use the transceiver to send out a distress call, all while hopefully avoided the mysterious thing that emits metallic sounds and knocks down trees in the jungle. If this had been my introduction to Lost, I would have written it off as a horror series in which most of these characters were doomed to an early demise a few episodes in, in order to whittle it down to a core cast of 7 or 8. Thankfully, I started a few episodes in and went back, which made it easier to get through an episode that could at times be a bit violent and disturbing. This one kinda gave me nightmares, but it's rare that TV has such an effect on me and still keeps my interest, so I have to give the episode credit for that.
Quotable Line: "I heard you yell. I heard you yell 'Jack'. My name is Charlie, by the way." --Charlie (to Kate)

1.2 "Pilot, Pt. 2" ****
Originally just the second hour of the pilot, the episode was broken into two parts on its first broadcast. It continues the introductory story of how these characters will work together in order to survive on the island, though at this point many of them are expecting to get rescued before too long. More of the characters are established here, with a few of them getting their first speaking role, and it's interesting to note that we get brief flashbacks to both Charlie and Kate in the minutes before the plane crash (in Part 1 we got to see Jack). It's not as intense as Part 1 (which comes as a slight relief, actually), and the only real bummer here is that Charlie's seeming closeness to Kate and Jack formed within those first few days seems to fall away after this.
Quotable Line: "Hey guy, you awake? Yo! There's a rescue plane, we're saved! Yayyyyyyyyyyyy! (pause) Yeah, he's out." --Hurley (to Jack, regarding the unconscious Marshal)

1.3 "Tabula Rasa" ***1/2
The first character-centric episode (in which you'll see multiple flashbacks that detail a story arc from the character's pre-island life) focuses on Kate, what she was doing in Australia, and how she got arrested by the Marshal she was seen with on the plane. Sawyer starts to get a little more fleshed out here, as he and Jack kind of end up being the proverbial devil and angel on either shoulder as she contemplates whether the suffering Marshal should be put out of his misery. Hurley is more central to this episode, being one of the few to discover Kate's secret, and despite his queasiness around blood, he proves to be a good right-hand man for Jack. The main negative points to this one are a few inconsistencies and goofs in the flashback (mainly logistical difficulties with making Hawaii look like Australia), and the blatant reuse of the same flashback scene from the plane that was used in the pilot.
Quotable Line:
"If you didn't see it, how do you know it wasn't a dinosaur?" --Hurley
"Dinosaurs are extinct." --Jack

1.4 "Walkabout" ****1/2
This episode has kind of become an early fan-favorite that really sets the bar high for what this series can do. We get our first glimpses into the life of John Locke here, and it turns out to be much more boring (though interestingly so) than what we'd have expected from who we know him to be on the island. A shocking secret is revealed about him at the end, and I think this is the moment that really got everyone talking, simply because no one saw it coming (and when you view the episode a second time, you'll kick yourself for not seeing the clues). This episode establishes Locke as the island's lead hunter, someone with leadership skills in an area where Jack can't provide them, and while the boar hunting doesn't make for such an interesting A-story, it's the flashbacks that really make this one intriguing. One difficult part to swallow is how exactly Locke survives a near-death experience in the jungle, and why he won't tell anyone about what happened after the fact. Get used to it - Locke is the king of lies and dumb excuses.
Quotable Line: "Hate to break it to you... the ocean's not gonna take your gold card." --Boone (to Shannon)

1.5 "White Rabbit" ***1/2
It's interesting that they waited until Episode 5 to flesh out more backstory for the lead character - this may be a function of the fact that Jack wasn't supposed to survive the pilot at first. This episode is a haunting one, in both the literal and figurative sense, as it starts off with Jack and Boone failing to save a crash survivor swept out to see, an extra whose face we never even get to see, and then later, Jack starts thinking he's seeing someone in the jungle who clearly doesn't belong there. It establishes that Jack has limits - he's not a superhero even though he has an extreme desire to be one. Flashbacks involving some hurtful interactions with his dad show us part of why Jack is the way he is now.
Quotable Line:
"You're in my light, Sticks." --Sawyer
"Light sticks, what the hell is that?" --Shannon
"You're in my light, comma, Sticks. Those legs of yours." --Sawyer

1.6 "House of the Rising Sun" ****1/2
This was the first episode I saw, and it was so unusual to see a prime-time show focusing on Asian characters, with a good 40 to 50 percent of the dialogue in a foreign language. Racial tension seems to be a big issue at the beginning of this one, as Jin attacks Michael and attempts to drown him for no apparent reason, which leads to Jin being handcuffed to the plane wreckage and the rest of the survivors to figure out what the hell his problem is. Sun gets to have the flashbacks here, quietly reflecting on her relationship with Jin back in Korea, how it developed into marriage and seemingly went sour not long after that. It's heartbreaking, but remember - we're only seeing her side of the story here. She's got a secret which I actually managed to call right before they revealed it the first time around - still, I think a lot of folks didn't see it coming. There's also a B-plot here regarding Jack and Kate debating over the caves that Jack stumbled across in the previous episode, and whether they'd make a better place for the survivors to settle down than the beach - in effect, this creates a split into two tribes akin to a fictional Survivor, sans the voting out of team members. There's a also a C-plot involving Locke and Charlie, and after a while, the subplots start to take away from the Sun/Jin story. The writers may have been afraid from pulling the audience away from the main characters and immersing them in a lot of subtitled dialogue too soon, but they rectify this mistake later on, so keep that in mind when viewing this episode.
Quotable Line: "If you two are done verbally copulating, we should get a move on." --Charlie (to Jack and Kate)

1.7 "The Moth" ***
This episode delves into Charlie's heyday as the bass player and backup singer for the band Drive Shaft, a one-hit wonder act blatantly modeled after Oasis and some of those "The" bands that have popped up in recent years. He even has a brother named Liam, for crying out loud. It also deals with his descent into heroin addiction, and Locke's attempt to help him overcome that. While amusing, Charlie's backstory seems to be the first of the bunch that comes across as entirely predictable, as is the show's attempt to let Charlie be the hero when Jack ends up in a cave-in. A TV critic would call some of the obvious parallels in this episode "anvils" - for a show centered largely around mysteries that untangle in surprising ways, this episode is disappointingly straightforward, leaving the true surprises for a subplot where Sayid and Kate try to set up to triangulation in order to pinpoint the source of a distress call that they heard in the pilot.
Quotable Line: "Are you trying to be a pig, or does it just come naturally?" --Kate (to Sawyer)

1.8 "Confidence Man" ****
Ah, now we're back to the good flashbacks. Sawyer, who revels in being a jerk, gets his turn to have an expose on his past, and it's one of those stories that pulls the rug out from under you at the last second. He's a wanted man on the island, simply because he's gone through people's luggage and started to hoard whatever he finds, only to barter it back to people for other stuff. Now the others believe that he's got Shannon's asthma medicine, which is urgently needed when she starts having attacks. This gets Boone and Shannon a little more involved (they're all but absent from the two episodes preceding this, and one of my main complaints about Lost is how easily some characters can just vanish for an episode or two with no explanation - this may actually be a way of managing their budget by not having to pay certain actors for certain episodes), and we get to see a much darker side of some of the "good guys" as they try various means of getting the information out of Sawyer that they want. It makes for highly dramatic television, but the episode can get a bit icky at times, particularly when Sawyer turns the tables and attempts to extort Kate to get something he wants out of her.
Quotable Line: "Baby, I am tied to a tree in the jungle of mystery. I just got tortured by a damn spinal surgeon and a genuine Iraqi. Of course I'm serious." --Sawyer (to Kate)

1.9 "Solitary" ****
After several episodes largely centered around character interaction, this one brings back a strong element of island mystery, as Sayid goes off on a solo expedition and ends up captive to a slightly unhinged French woman named Danielle, who has been marooned there for quite some time. The flashbacks to Sayid's time as an interrogator in the Republican Guard are an interesting counterpoint to his own interrogation at the hands of Danielle, and their dialogue ends up exposing a lot more questions for us to ponder about the nature of the island. In a completely unrelated B-Plot (hey, the rest of the cast needs something to do, right?), Hurley decides to play Cruise Director to Jack's Captain, and find something fun for the islanders to do, so he invents a golf course. Hilarity ensues. A few negative points here: The characters in Sayid's flashbacks are inconsistent about their language, switching to English after a few minutes of subtitled Arabic for no apparent reason (other than making it easier for an Indian actor?), and also the fact that someone else lives on the island kind of ruined the whole "Lost-ness" of it for me.
Quotable Line: "A doctor playin' golf. Now I've seen everything. What's next? A cop eatin' a doughnut?" --Sawyer

1.10 "Raised by Another" ****1/2
This episode is downright CREEPY. It's also one of the series' most talked-about episodes, playing like a good suspense film as Claire wakes up from a horrible nightmare, convinced that someone has attacked her and tried to harm her baby. Flashbacks show Claire's discovery of the unexpected pregnancy back in Sydney, as well as the deadbeat boyfriend who takes no responsibility for the child, and a suspicious psychic with a foreboding message for Claire about her impending birth. Again, this episode gives Hurley something to do (he takes a census!) and we meet a few "Redshirts" (i.e. other survivors who aren't regular cast members) in the process, reminding us that there aren't just 14 people who made it out of the plane wreckage alive. The psychic subplot requires some hefty suspension of disbelief, but with one of the all-time best surprise endings ever (trust me, you will feel compelled to bestow divinity upon fecal matter when viewing it), this turns out to be one of Lost's most memorable episodes.
Quotable Line: "I am SO not moving to the Rape Caves!" --Shannon

1.11 "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" ****
I'll admit, I thought it was kind of unfair to give Jack two flashback episodes before some of the more interesting characters even had one. But the second time around, it does make good sense for this episode to focus on Jack, as he becomes extremely driven to figure out what happened to Claire and Charlie in the previous episodes. The hunt that Jack, Kate, Locke, and Boone go on ends up having implications that will no doubt shape the rest of the series, due to what they discover and what relationships are developed here. It's great to see that Boone gets something to do apart from Shannon (and his discussion about Star Trek with Boone is both hilarious and eerily prophetic), and it's also great to see some serious drama between Jack and his dad in the flashbacks (which take place mostly before the flashbacks in White Rabbit) without resorting to more ghost stories. There's a bit of a shocker in this episode that turns out to be somewhat of a cop-out when it's resolved, so depending on how you feel about a certain character, don't get too devastated/excited.
Quotable Line: "Sounds like a p!ss-poor captain to me." --Locke

1.12 "Whatever the Case May Be" ***
Alright, now I'm going to play the "unfair" card, because in no way did Kate deserve episode #2 when I was still dying to see episode #1 for almost half the cast! I waited through the long December/January hiatus, hoping to get some dirt on a new character and an answer to what the hell it was that Locke and Boone found at the end of the previous episode, and all I got was an episode about a lousy attache case? Alright, so the adversarial relationship between Kate and Sawyer is fun here, and Jack and Kate have some dramatic scenes together in this one, too - the Unresolved Sexual Tension between these three is off the scale. But Kate's actions in her flashback - and on the island - are difficult to explain to any satisfying level of credibility, which really weakens Kate as a character. It's also frustrating that Rose, a recurring character introduced in the pilot, is never seen again after this episode - I liked her and they seemed to be setting up something ominous for her character, but alas, the actress became unavailable. Anyway, just rename this episode "Whatever" and it'd still be an accurate description.
Quotable Line: "Impact velocity. Physics, my a**!" --Sawyer

1.13 "Hearts and Minds" ****1/2
Boone and Shannon kind of get some real fleshing out here, with this episode giving some insight into their quarreling relationship from Boone's point of view. The flashbacks focus on Boone flying to Sydney to rescue Shannon from an abusive boyfriend... but it's not what you think. And even when you realize it's not what you think, it still isn't what you think. It's something much, much ickier. Back on the island, things turn a bit ugly as Boone and Locke have a disagreement over whether Boone should tell Shannon about the hatch that they found a few episodes earlier. This turns into a bit of a primal quest for Boone, testing his strength of both muscle and will. It's a creepy, difficult-to-watch episode that stands out as one of the most vivid and discussion-worthy installments of the season, but it also has its lighter moments, as found in the unexpected comic duo of Jin and Hurley.
Quotable Line: "Are you sure you don't speak English? There's a rumor that you do... Your wife's hot!" --Hurley (to Jin)

1.14 "Special" ****1/2
We get our first glimpse into the live of another pair of survivors here - Michael and Walt. Michael's history (and changing hairdo!) is traced back to the days before Walt was born... and baby Walt is just too cute for words. We learn why Walt grew up without his dad around for most of his life thus far, and how he ended up living in Australia with his mother. This is all framed in a struggle between Michael and Locke, who has developed an unorthodox friendship with Walt, to see who Walt will listen to, and it contains some highly dramatic father-and-son moments where the two of them just aren't getting along. Michael can be a hard character to like, and you'll probably feel some measure of both animosity and sympathy over the course of this one. There's also a creepy revelation about Walt (given through a Walt flashback - isn't that a bit of a cheat when this is Michael's episode?) that might just change your entire perspective about the series as a whole. The episode only stretches its credibility when Walt decides to wander off by himself into a jungle where he knows Claire was kidnapped just a week or so ago... not to mention a little bit of bad CGI.
Quotable Line: "Shannon, you've been a functioning bulimic since junior high. I figured you'd be happy to drop a size or two." --Boone

1.15 "Homecoming" ***
After being absent for several episodes, Claire suddenly makes her way back to camp, which makes for a hell of an opening, as viewers' many questions are pre-empted by the fact that Claire remembers nothing of her kidnapping... or anything about the plane crash and the people she's spent the last few weeks of her life with! Strangely, this episode ends up being Charlie-centric instead of Claire-centric, and once again I think it tries too hard to tie Charlie's past issues in with his current attachment to Claire. A lot of the plot elements in this episode are just too convenient to be believable, and I think it was an extremely frustrating episode for viewers because of how it snubbed their questions in favor of shocking everyone. It's a high-stakes premise that doesn't really pay off very well in the end, as if the writers were afraid that they were changing the status quo too much at once, so they backed off on the overall consequences of what happens here. One bright spot amidst an otherwise tedious backstory is when Charlie takes a job selling copiers... his first and last day proves to be quite humorous.
Quotable Line:
"I took this off the Marshal back in the old days. You remember him, don't you?" --Sawyer
"Yeah, I remember him. You shot him, and missed." --Jack

1.16 "Outlaws" ****
Sawyer's second episode, while doing very little to develop the island segment of the story, gives us more insight into an ambiguous character, and manages to more deftly balance humor and drama, going back and forth between Sawyer's obsession with hunting down a boar that seems to have it out for him on the island, and the vengeful reason why Sawyer was in Australia in the first place (his first flashback episode was one of the few not to reveal his reason for being on the plane). Josh Holloway just rocks this episode, and while the previews had me thinking it was going to be more lame unspoken love-triangle stuff between him, Jack and Kate, that actually isn't the primary focus. It's a character piece, and for an episode based largely around exposition through dialogue, I couldn't think of a better way to do it than Sawyer and Kate's "I Never" scene by the fire. There's just one problem here - why is Kate trying so hard to wean Sawyer of his need to kill the boar when they could really use the extra food right now? Anyway, props to the cast and crew for working so well with the boars in this one, since it can truly be a pain in the butt to get them to cooperate on camera (as you'll see in the Special Features).
Quotable Line: "That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn series." --Christian

1.17 "...In Translation" *****
As soon as this episode opened with the famous "eye shot" and I realized it was going to be about Jin, I called it. "They're going to make me like him, aren't they?" And how. Through some marital conflicts between Jin and Sun on the island, and Jin being suspected of burning the raft that Michael had been building, poor Jin gets a lot of crap thrown at him on this island, though in all fairness, his stubborn insistence on keeping his pride is part of why his life kind of sucks. Still, seeing the relationship develop in flashbacks between Jin and his cruel father-in-law, and being reminded that he and Sun were once truly in love, is enough to take us on a heartbreaking ride, especially when we learn that Jin was, in many ways, trying to do what he thought was the right thing. This is the episode where, in many ways, the fit completely hits the shan in terms of characters finding out secrets and trust being betrayed. It's one surprise after another, as well as a few tear-jerking scenes toward the end. Add in a very surprising cameo that will make you go back and pause the DVD to make sure you saw what you thought you saw, and an innovative and tense scene where everyone around Jin is speaking English, but it's backmasked so that we, the audience, understand it about as well as he does, and it's easy to see why this is my favorite episode of Lost so far.
Quotable Line: "Gross to you, dinner to me." --Locke (to Shannon, regarding a dead frog)

1.18 "Numbers" *****
Lost was really riding high at this point in the season, which was about where I realized that my strong interest was becoming an obsession. Here, we finally get to see exactly what the deal is with Hurley, Lost's extremely affable man of mystery, whose past life we knew nothing about until now. In so many ways, he's the everyman who gets in way over his head when he ends up winning the Lottery and becomes convinced that the money is cursed. This leads to a quest to discover exactly what the deal was with the numbers he used to win the Lottery, and this establishes a huge piece of the Lost mythos that fans have just been scrambling to unravel the meaning of (these numbers turn out to pop up in random places all throughout the series). This has the effect from moving Hurley out of the background and into a place central to the island's mysteries. The only downside is that Jack gets annoyingly bossy in this one, Charlie's hyperactivity is kind of grating, and one other character seems to act in a manner inconsistent from what we know of her from a previous episode. Still, it's all about Hurley, so you know this episode is just going to be ripe with hilarious situations and quotable one-liners.
Quotable Line: "You don't know?! Okay... That thing in the woods? Maybe it's a monster. Maybe it's a... p!ssed off giraffe, I don't know. The fact that no one seems to be looking for us? Yeah, that's weird. But I just go along with it... 'cause I'm just along for the ride. Good old fun-time Hurley. Well, guess what? Now, I want some FRIGGIN' ANSWERS!" --Hurley

1.19 "Deus Ex Machina" ****1/2
Just when we thought we knew what Locke's central mystery was, along comes an episode that shrouds him in even more weirdness. Were you hoping to find out exactly how the fate that we learned of in Walkabout befell him? Well, too bad, because this episode takes place well before that, at a time when he still had hair! Instead of an office lackey, he plays a Wal-Mart lackey instead (with all the knowledge this guy has, you'd think he'd have a killer resume and get better jobs!), and at the beginning of the episode, the writers set up a great "Mouse Trap" analogy that works on so many levels. Locke in present day is clearly developing a near-obsession with the island as a sort of religion, giving him visions and signs of what to do to get the hatch open, and yet, just like man often does with God, he ends up shaking this fist and questioning why the answers are eluding him. Boone gets rightfully weirded out by Locke's quest, but stays by his side in the odd father-and-son relationship they've started to develop while excavating the hatch. And just when you think some hope is shining through and some questions are about to be answered for these characters, tragedy strikes and changes the entire direction of the next few episodes. Not to be missed is a completely unrelated, but absolutely golden, subplot regarding Sawyer having to swallow his pride and go to see Jack about some headaches he's been having. For a change, Jack gets to be funny and even a little bit mean to Sawyer, though still genuine in his desire to help the guy out.
Quotable Line: "You and I both know all I'm gonna get for my trouble is a snappy one-liner. And if I'm really lucky, a new nickname." --Jack (to Kate, regarding Sawyer)

1.20 "Do No Harm" ***1/2
Another Jack episode? You have got to be kidding me. Guys, you have 14 people in your main cast. USE THEM. What about Walt and Shannon? Anyway... this episode is about Jack making every effort to be the hero and save Boone's life after the tragic accident at the end of Deus Ex Machina. Like any show centered around an ER, this one's difficult to watch if you're not that big on blood and trauma - it's not that visually disgusting, but you really get the idea that Boone is suffering and it's going to take some unpleasant measures to save him (even more so because they're on an island using whatever implements they can find). Adding insult to injury is the fact that Jack's flashbacks are all about his pending marriage to Sarah, a girl whose broken back he repaired, and who fell in love with him in the process. I get the parallel about Jack's commitment to save people, but it's a bit heavy-handed and even awkward, tying together a very morbid island plot with a fairly light and awkward backstory. Complicating matters more is the fact that Claire goes into labor not too long into this episode, with Kate forced to play midwife due to Jack being tied up in his primitive ER. The good part about these two island-with-no-hospital plot threads is how they get nearly every character involved, including Jin (who is instrumental in getting help for Claire and in keeping Charlie from being a nuisance during the delivery) and Sun (who absolutely rocks as Jack's impromptu nurse). A few bits of ironically reused dialogue that we recognize from an earlier episode add to the strength of the writing, but man, this is still a tough episode to get through, even more so when you already know the outcome of it all. And I'm sorry, but any pregnant woman should be offended that Claire, giving birth out in the middle of a muddy jungle, makes it look easier than it's ever been for any woman in a proper maternity ward. Still, despite all that unpleasantness, I have to admit I find myself on the verge of tears when that slow piano theme plays at the end of the episode.
Quotable Line: "I asked the whole sodding camp! Nobody knows their blood type! I don't know my own bloody blood type!" -Charlie

1.21 "The Greater Good" ***
The writers make another odd choice here in terms of who to center an episode around. This one really should have been about either Shannon or Claire, as the implications of the past episode kind of affected the two of them the most. Instead, the episode focuses on Sayid, giving us one of the weakest back stories yet, where the character is reduced to a stereotype as the CIA asks him to infiltrate a terrorist cell in Sydney. Not much of interest there, unless you're a fan of Alias as well and you've fantasized about him being in that show, or unless you were really dying to know how he ended up on the plane (alright, I'll admit to both, but it still isn't terribly relevant to the rest of Lost). The episode does tie up a loose end from an episode looooong ago, which is interesting, and the developing Sayid/Shannon relationship undergoes some interesting difficulties as Sayid tries to help Shannon deal with what's going on. Kate also pulls a few fast ones on Jack here that guarantee the two of them won't rebuild trust any time soon. For the most part, though, the episode is poorly timed, with Claire's role minimized as the baby becomes an excuse for more Charlie-driven comedy, and audiences still wanting something of substance to make them care what happens to Shannon.
Quotable Line:
"Hey, brought you something to eat." --Kate
"What's in it, chloroform?" --Jack

1.22 "Born to Run" ****
Again, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this episode until I rewatched it. I was sure that Kate episode No. 3 was going to be another frustrating bummer of an episode, but you know what, this is by far the strongest of the three, as the plot threads here converge to corner Kate and force her to fess up to some of the survivors about her true intentions. It's nice to see Michael in conflict with both Kate and Sawyer as they jockey for the open spot on the raft, since Michael doesn't get used as often when the story isn't about either him and Walt or Jin and Sun. It's true that the backstory is still as confusing as hell, going even further into Kate's past to try to explain what the deal is with the damn toy plane, but honestly, that's one plot thread that I'm not sure most of us care about any more. The episode also kind of awkwardly introduces the character of Dr. Arzt, a self-important science teacher who comes out of nowhere as a doomsayer to Michael and the others as they prepare to launch the raft. Extras are a tricky prospect on this show - we know that 48 people originally survived the crash, and it's hard to suspend disbelief when an extra suddenly becomes a prominent character and we're to assume that the castaways have known and interacted with this person all along. Eventually, by counting different extras used in different episodes, you're bound to come up with more than 48. But that's a minor nitpick. This is still a good slice of island drama where the characters get to interact in new and sometimes surprising ways, and for that, it's time well spent.
Quotable Line: "Okay, check this out... this is track two, it's called 'Monster Eats the Pilot.'" --Charlie

1.23 "Exodus, Pt. 1" *****
I generally expect season finales to be intense, and even to push the envelope regarding what the show can and can't do. As a result, I was kind of tense watching this one, wondering if they'd show some disturbing things on the order of the pilot episode, but instead, they took this one in a different direction. It's more of an ensemble piece, resembling the pilot in how the flashbacks peek into multiple characters' lives, including brief, rare glimpses through the eyes of Walt and Shannon. The characters are shown during the day before they flight, on their way to, or waiting at, the Sydney airport, where the doomed Flight 815 is about to depart. On the island, a departure of a different sort is imminent - Danielle surprises the group by suddenly barging into their camp, proclaiming that "The Others" are coming, and that they have three options - "Run, hide, or die". Her warning is a bit too easily believed, but this sends Jack and Locke scrambling for a way to get the hatch open and hopefully use it for shelter, and Michael, Jin, Sawyer, and Walt scrambling to get the raft launched in time. Some key questions are answered even in this first hour, and some tantalizing hints are given, though we've still got way more questions than answers at this point (get used to it). What really makes this episode fly is the inclusion of several highly dramatic scenes, including a surprisingly tender moment between Jack and Sawyer (no, not that kind of tender moment - sorry, ladies). Even the dog manages to make me tear up in this one. Darn you, Disney-affiliated Buena Vista!
Quotable Line: "Kids are like dogs. You knock 'em around enough, they think they did something to deserve it." --Sawyer

1.24 "Exodus, Pt. 2" ****
Spanning the length of two episodes, the grand finale follows up on the theme of Part 1 by giving us more glimpses into what some of the other characters were doing right before they flight, and what they are doing now to band together as they prepare for the arrival of the mysterious "Others". This part is more action-driven than Part 1, and though the producers promised answers, not very many are given, even if once again, we get tantalizing glimpses at potential answers to key mysteries. There's a sense of "Is this really happening?", simply because we've waited for some of this stuff to happen before so long, and it's truly unbelievable when Michael and his unlikely raft crew make a surprising discovery, resulting in a climax more chilling than the actual last moments from the episode. As for Jack, Locke, and the rest of the hatch-opening crew... well, come on. You all knew how that was going to end. Negative points for being so predictable with the cliffhanger, but still, I'm dying for Season 2 to start up tomorrow, so I can't complain.
Quotable Line: "Who the hell is Hugo and how did he get 160 million dollars to leave to his momma?!" --Sawyer

Oh yeah, and somebody dies during this season. I won't say who. It could be a bummer or a cause for rejoicing, depending on your attitude regarding that character.

--SPECIAL FEATURES--

Here's the part that no educated DVD aficionado would buy a product without researching - the special features. I won't sum up absolutely everything, but I'll go over the things that I think add the most value to this set.

Deleted Scenes
The true meat of any DVD set, in my opinion, lies in the deleted scenes - the stuff that they could have put in but dropped due to time or due to it distracting from the story - and also the commentaries (which I'll get to in a minute). This set provides its fair share of deleted scenes, most of them rather brief, but several of them amusing or at least somewhat insightful regarding the characters involved. Of particular interest are two flashbacks from the season finale, one involving a surprising conversation between Claire and an amusingly familiar guest star, and the other one involving Sayid (which is comparatively less interesting). The other scenes, which unfortunately don't come with any mention of what episodes they belong to (obsessive viewers will probably recognize where they belong due to many of these being extensions of scenes that did get aired, or due to mention of events from a particular episode), or any commentary on why they were cut. One scene in particular, between Charlie and Shannon, is pure comic gold, and you can even get an extended riff on this scene from the two actors if you look nearby for an Easter Egg. I'd have liked more of a look on why some of this stuff was cut (you'll hear about a few of them in the commentaries), but as it is, they provide an amusing glimpse into what ended up on the cutting room floor.

Commentaries
The only "special feature" that appears on any of the first six discs (disc one's "Script Scanner" for the pilot episodes notwithstanding), these provide insight, and often humorous remarks from the writers and a few of the actors, scene-for-scene as you watch the following episodes: Pilot Pt. 1, Pilot, Pt. 2, Walkabout, The Moth, Hearts and Minds. The major downfall here is that they didn't do this for more episodes, and that there's no commentary on anything past the halfway point of the season. I think that a lot of the truly interesting character interaction happens later on, and I'd have loved to hear what some of the lesser-known actors thought of their characters and the whole filming experience - particularly the two Kims. The pilot commentaries do feature a few cutaways to scenes from the making of those episodes, mostly to explain the more technical side of how certain effects were achieved. The other three commentaries feature the actors around which the episodes are centered - Terry O'Quinn for Walkabout (who remains largely silent as the writers prattle on about how good he is), Dominic Monaghan for The Moth (who mostly jokes around), and Ian Somerhalder and Maggie Grace for Hearts and Minds (who also don't say as much, but offer more interesting behind-the-scenes insight on how they reacted to the script and had fun with the surprising scenes they had to film, etc.) Hopefully on the DVD's for future seasons, they'll feature different actors and spend more time on interesting tidbits about the show, rather than making sarcastic comments about the beautiful actors or continually proclaiming how their sound guy is "the greatest man who ever lived" or whatever.

The Genesis of Lost
This piece consists mostly of interviews with the creators, writers, and various gurus behind the creation of the show, including the former head of ABC who pushed for such a show to be made. It details how the pilot script went from being something truly horrid to being something spectacular, but completely crazy in terms of actually putting forth the money and effort to pull it off in such a short period of time. We get a few glimpses here at the writers' original intentions for some of the characters, and how those morphed over time as they cast each part and made up new parts for some of the actors.

Designing a Disaster
This piece goes into the technical aspects of how they bought a plane, tore it apart, sent it over to Hawaii, and created the very realistic-looking aftermath of the plane crash for the pilot episode. It's pretty mind-boggling to see the work that went into it - everything happens so quickly in the first 15 minutes of the show that it's easy to forget the level of detail that went into it.

Before They Were Lost
Here the producers and writers discuss their vision for each of the 14 principal characters, and how they found the actors. Little snippets of each actor's auditions are shown. The second part of this feature allows you to actually view all of the audition tapes for the actors who got these parts, which also shows you where some of these characters could have gone if played by different actors. Both Jorge Garcia and Matthew Fox originally read for Sawyer, and Yunjin Kim originally read for Kate, and now, it's hard to picture them in those roles, but watching them attempt to play them is pretty fascinating. You also get to hear a few snippets from the original pilot script, in which Jack dies and Kate is left to lead the group on her own.

Lost on Location
This feature provided vignettes into the filming several specific episodes, including Josh Holloway's experience of working with stubborn boars that I mentioned earlier. Again, there's nothing past about 2/3 of the way through the season, which makes me wonder if they had to get these extra pieces ready for the DVD before the season was even done filming. It's interesting, but some of them only focus on a small bit of an episode that really warrants a look at the entire thing. It somewhat appeases my need for commentary on the other episodes, I guess.

The Art of Matthew Fox
A brief gallery of photos taken by Matthew Fox as the pilot episode was being filmed. The guy's fairly talented from what I can see, and it's an interesting glimpse into the new friendships being formed among the actors, as well as the odd contrast between the plane crash set and the beautiful Hawaiian beach. A familiar, somewhat sad piano piece is played during this feature - I later realized that it was that same evocative piece used at the end of Do No Harm and Exodus, Pt. 2.

Bloopers from the Set
And of course, what would a DVD be without a few flubbed lines and some general goofing off among the cast members? Most of these involve actors getting tongue-tied, forgetting character's names, or falling down in the jungle (filming in such an environment is a little demanding), so I merely chuckled through most of it, but Harold Perrineau gets in some laugh-out-loud funny outtakes that hearken back to characters he's played elsewhere. It's interesting that he's one of the funniest of the bunch when his character is one of the most straight, serious, and even angry ones to be found.

There are a few other pieces like Jimmy Kimmel's visit to the set, and a brief piece on the origin of the idea for Charlie's band Drive Shaft and their one-hit wonder song "You All Everybody", but for the most part, I've covered the major stuff here.

--PACKAGING--

It's a minor issue, but I might as well mention one beef that I have with the packaging of this DVD set. While quite attractive visually, the DVD's all come in a fold-out panel of sorts that shows all seven discs facing up at once. Discs two, four, and six are halfway underneath one, three, and five, so you generally have to pull out one to get at the other without scuffing it up. It's also easier for the little plastic pieces that hold the odd-numbered discs in place to break off, as they're only half there. Because it's one continuous panel instead of three individual DVD cases like several other more traditional DVD sets have done, I can't loan these out to people a few discs at a time like the friend who bought me this set is currently doing with me for the seasons of Alias that I'm currently catching up on. So if someone wants to watch this, I have to be willing to part with the entire set at once. Minor bummer. But at least it looks pretty, and Sun's face graces one of the discs (surprisingly, Locke's does not).

Despite the small packaging flaws, and the special features coming up a tad short, this is still a winner of a DVD set by virtue of the fact that it was a great season of TV. So, shop around for some good prices (please don't pay over $50 for this!) and pick it up if you're looking to fall in love with Lost... or to lose yourself in Lost all over again.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older