Lost is an American serial drama television series. It follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a commercial 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, though other time-related plot devices change this formula in later episodes. The pilot episode was first broadcast on September 22, 2004, and since then five full seasons have aired. The show airs on the ABC Network in the United States, as well as on regional networks in many other countries.
Due to its large ensemble cast and the cost of filming primarily on location in Oahu, Hawaii, the series is one of the most expensive on television. It was created by Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber and is produced by ABC Studios, Bad Robot Productions and Grass Skirt Productions. The score is composed by Michael Giacchino. The current executive producers are Lindelof, Abrams, Bryan Burk, Jack Bender, Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz and Carlton Cuse.
Critically acclaimed and a popular success, Lost garnered an average of 16 million viewers per episode on ABC during its first year. It has won numerous industry awards including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2005, Best American Import at the British Academy Television Awards 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 series has become a part of American popular culture with references to the story and its elements appearing in other television series, commercials, comic books, webcomics, humor magazines, a video game 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 .
Lost will conclude in its sixth season with its 121st and final episode airing in May 2010. Season six will consist of eighteen episodes. Episodes from the first four seasons of the series have begun airing in off-network syndication in the US, distributed by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, on G4 and Syfy.
Production
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 novel Lord of the Flies , the movie Cast Away , the television series Gilligan's Island , and the popular reality show Survivor . ABC had also premiered a short lived series about plane crash survivors in 1969 called The New People with the opening episode by Rod Serling. Gadi Pollack notes that some of "the influences of Lost came from...the game Myst ." Jeffrey Lieber was hired and wrote Nowhere , based on his pitch to write the pilot. Unhappy with the result and a subsequent rewrite, Braun contacted J. J. Abrams, who had a deal with Touchstone Television (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 the idea on the condition that the series would have a supernatural angle to it, and collaborated with Damon Lindelof to create the series' style and characters. Together, Abrams and Lindelof also created a series "bible", and conceived and detailed the major mythological ideas and plot points for an ideal five to six season run for the show. 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.
Lost' s two-part pilot episode was the most expensive in the network's history, reportedly costing between US$10 and $14 million, compared to the average cost of an hour-long pilot in 2005 of $4 million. The series debuted on September 22, 2004, becoming 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. Yet, before it had even been aired, Lloyd Braun was fired by executives at ABC's parent company, Disney, partly because of low ratings at the network and also because he had greenlighted such an expensive and risky project. The world premiere of the pilot episode was on July 24, 2004 at Comic-Con International in San Diego.
The aircraft used as Flight 815, although described as a Boeing 777-200ER, is actually a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, formerly flown by Delta Airlines as N783DL. The plane was bought by ABC/Touchstone and was broken up, and all except the tail was shipped to Hawaii, fearing that the viewers might recognize the real identity of the aircraft, since the L-1011 was a tri-jet. However, when they plane broke up, it was seen as a Boeing 767-400.
Episode format
Most 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 (in certain episodes, the credits run before the title as the cold open runs long). While there is a continuous story arc, each episode features 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.
Music
Main article: Lost Original Television SoundtracksLost features an orchestral score performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra and composed by Michael Giacchino, incorporating many recurring themes for subjects such as events, locations and characters. Giacchino achieved some of the sounds for the score using unusual instruments, such as striking suspended pieces of the plane's fuselage. 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. A soundtrack for the third season was released on May 6, 2008, with the fourth season soundtrack released on May 11, 2009.
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. 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 Damien Rice's "Delicate", 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, and in the parallel scene in the fourth season's finale he arrives listening to "Gouge Away" by Pixies. The third season also used Three Dog Night's Shambala on two occasions in the van. The only two pop songs that have ever been used without a source (i.e. non-diegetic) are Ann-Margret's "Slowly," in the episode "I Do" and "I Shall Not Walk Alone", written by Ben Harper, and covered by The Blind Boys of Alabama in the episode "Confidence Man". Alternate music is used in several international broadcasts. For instance, in the Japanese broadcast of Lost , the theme song used varies by season; season one uses "Here I Am" by Chemistry, season two uses "Losin'" by Yuna Ito, and season three uses "Lonely Girl" by Crystal Kay.
Filming locations
Lost is filmed on Panavision 35 mm cameras almost entirely on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The original island scenes for the pilot were filmed at Mokulē'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. The sound-stage and production offices have since moved to the Hawaii Film Office-operated Hawaii Film Studio, where the sets
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