Lost – Nostalgia Central

2 0 0 4 – 2 0 1 0 (USA)
121 x 45 minute episodes

Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 tears apart mid-air and crashes on a mysterious, uncharted tropical island in the South Pacific

The surviving passengers quickly discover they are not alone and that the island harbours polar bears, bizarre, supernatural elements – including a “smoke monster” (a terrifying, roar-emitting security system made of black smoke that stalks and kills inhabitants) – and a hostile, deeply manipulative group of violent survivalists (“the Others”) already residing on the island, led by the calculating Ben Linus (Michael Emerson).

The island also contains remnants of a 1970s scientific research project (the DHARMA Initiative) that built underground bunkers (or “hatches”) across the island to study its unique electromagnetic anomalies.

The survivors find a man named Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) living inside, who explains that a sequence of numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42) must be typed into a computer every 108 minutes to prevent a catastrophic electromagnetic buildup on the island.

Dr Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), a dedicated yet troubled spinal surgeon, reluctantly assumes the role of the survivors’ leader.

Other prominent characters included Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly),  a fugitive criminal who was being escorted back to America in handcuffs when the plane crashed; James “Sawyer” Ford (Josh Holloway), a cynical, quick-witted con man who forms a central love triangle with Jack and Kate; John Locke (Terry O’Quinn), a man mysteriously healed of his paralysis by the island, who develops an intense, spiritual obsession with its destiny; Hugo “Hurley” Reyes (Jorge Garcia), an incredibly lucky yet cursed lottery winner who serves as the emotional heart of the group; Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), a highly intelligent former Iraqi Republican Guard communications officer, and a married Korean couple named Sun-Hwa (Yunjin Kim) and Jin-Soo (Daniel Dae Kim) who struggle through a fractured relationship and severe language barriers.

Episodes paired events on the island with flashbacks to the characters’ lives before the crash. Later seasons shifted to flash-forwards showing what happened to certain characters after escaping the island. The final season introduced a parallel-timeline structure in which Flight 815 never crashed.

The ABC show kept its obsessed followers on their toes by introducing one fantastical plot device after another. As the story unfolds season by season, the show shifted from a traditional island survival story into a complex sci-fi epic involving time travel, corporate conspiracies, and a mythological war between good and evil.

The series finale, “The End,” remains one of the most talked-about finales in television history. Jack ultimately sacrifices his life to save the island from destruction, passing leadership over to Hurley, while the parallel universe is revealed to be a purgatory-like afterlife.

Because the bonds they formed on the island were the most important of their lives, the characters’ souls wait in this space after they die (whether they died during the crash, years later on the island, or decades later of old age) so they can remember each other and move on to the afterlife together.

Dr Jack Shephard
Matthew Fox
Sayid Jarrah
Naveen Andrews
Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes
Jorge Garcia
James ‘Sawyer’ Ford
Josh Holloway
Jin-Soo Kwon
Daniel Dae Kim
Sun-Hwa Kwon
Yunjin Kim
Kate Austen
Evangeline Lilly
John Locke
Terry O’Quinn
Claire Littleton
Emilie de Ravin
Ben Linus/Henry Gale
Michael Emerson
Walt Lloyd
Malcolm David Kelley
Boone Carlyle
Ian Somerhalder
Desmond Hume
Henry Ian Cusick
Dr Juliet Burke
Elizabeth Mitchell
Charles Widmore
Alan Dale
Penny Widmore/Hume
Sonya Walger
Martin Keamy
Kevin Durand
Charlie Pace
Dominic Monaghan
Danielle Rousseau
Mira Furlan
Jacob
Mark Pellegrino
Man in Black (Smoke Monster)
Titus Welliver