Why Lost is such a real achievement in film
Your movie-blogger just spent a delightful several hours looking at the fifth season of “Lost”, now out on DVD.
Now in its sixth and final season, the epic sci-fi adventure, with a now-stellar cast, terrific production values, actual character-arcs, clever plot turns, good acting, and first-rate on-location special effects (overseen by local boy Archie Ahuna, now an Emmy winner).
What calls itself science-fiction on television is rarely that—-not far out enough in terms of sustained ideas, mostly just westerns or trite morality plays set in space, and wooden acting. (Battlestar Galactica is a notable exception.)
In the fifth season, some of the most “outlandish” conceits were credibly and cleverly explained (often only by visuals): the mysterious Polar bears, the “others,” the Dharma initiative, the time-shifts, the re-appearance of “dead” characters, the motivations of arch villain Charles Widmore. People who thought that Lost was making it up as it went along, painting itself into a corner, must now re-think. At least some of the shenanigans were planned early in advance.
It’s probably the most adventurous and hard-working on-location shoot in tv history, re-establishing Hawai’i, which did have a bad reputation, as a viable place for extensive filming.
In this blogger’s opinion Lost ranks as one of the three best five-plus season dramas, up there with The Wire and The X-Files.
The acting, particularly that of Terry O’Quinn (John Locke) and Michael Emerson (Ben), has been a cut above most tv series. Evangeline Lilly has improved amazingly as an actress, right up there with Gillian Anderson in X-Files, and underrated (and unnominated) Matthew Fox (Jack) has been the blue holding lots of jigsaw pieces together until the entire plotline can be revealed by end of season six.
Rather than save money by moving back to Hollywood for the last two seasons, the series stayed in Hawai’i, despite temperamental weather, and provided fresh scenic locations.
