LOST (TV SERIES) - Blu-ray review

Every now and then a television show comes along that so thoroughly grabs the attention of viewers that it becomes an event, a happening, a phenomenon. An average of 16 million people watched "Lost" its first season, and it quickly became the hottest water cooler topic since "Seinfeld." The popular TV drama earned 12 Emmy nominations that first year, winning for Outstanding Drama Series, Casting, Directing, Music Composition, Single-Camera Picture Editing, and Outstanding Special Visual Effects. And if you missed hopping on the Oceanic Flight 815 bandwagon, the June 16 release of Seasons One and Two on Blu-ray is the perfect chance to finally get up to speed. Without the commercials the one-hour drama is even more riveting, and you can quickly work your way through the episodes and become "Lost" literate so you won't have to skulk in corners when everyone you know starts talking about the show.

"Lost" was filmed in High Definition and it looks superb in Blu-ray, with gorgeous Oahu locations and every out-of-place hair looking sharp as a bamboo splinter. Created by Damon Lindelof, J.J. Abrams, and Jeffrey Lieber, "Lost" is such a phenomenon that it's already spawned board games, video games, alternative reality games, webcomics, humor magazines, and all sorts of product tie-ins.

So what's the big deal? Well, just watch the first episode and you'll see. If you're remotely like anyone else who's given this show a chance, it quickly grows on you. The characters are distinctive. The actors, though unknowns, have the kind of charisma and screen presence that would make them big-screen stars as well. The scenery, as I said, is straight out of a travel brochure. And the high concept? Given how America flipped for "Survivor" and the whole idea of what would it take to make it on an island, it seemed a natural to have a plane flying from Australia to Los Angeles disappear somewhere in the Pacific, crashed on an island that turns out to be every bit as mysterious and creature-infested (a polar bear?) as Jules Verne's.

The creators drew heavily from a number of recognizable sources, among them William Golding's Lord of the Flies, which had British schoolchildren crashing on an island and gleefully realizing that only the adults were killed, leaving them to form a civilization from the ground up. They split into two camps, several of them were hunters who pursued "the boar," and anyone who's ever read the Golding classic will see a number of similarities. The only thing missing is the conch shell.

What makes the show work is the combination of "Survivor," "Mysterious Island," "Lord of the Flies," and a good old-fashioned murder mystery. So who's been murdered? Well, we learn very soon that a French woman is the only survivor of her kind, so someone was on this deserted island before them. But who were her kind, and who killed them all? We're also introduced to a supernatural presence on the island, with characters hearing whispers and a roaring monster that no one seems to see. Compasses are slightly off on this island, and what's up with one of the crash survivors who was in a wheelchair on the plane but can walk on this island?

Teasers and unanswered questions are important to the show's success, but so are the characters and their backstories. There are beautiful people of both sexes and interesting character types. Most intriguing is Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), who was a member of the Iraqi Republican Guard that routinely tortured people. Another Dr. Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), whom we learn very early was estranged from his father for good reason. He made a very tough ethical decision that had a negative impact on the old man. Then there's Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia), a large fellow who calls everyone "Dude" and who appears to have spent a lot of time playing video games in his basement. The rascal among them--the bad boy that women are always drawn to--is Sawyer (Josh Holloway), an opportunist who pilfers and hordes everything he collects from the airplane wreckage and tries to hit on the women. Then there's Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), who was being escorted by a law enforcement officer when the crash occurred, and now she's unexpectedly free. A half-brother and sister (Maggie Grace and Ian Somerhalder) have some issues to work out, and not all of them are Platonic. A reluctant father (Harold Perrineau as Michael) finds that the island makes it hard to get to know the son he just picked up after the boy's mother's death. But everyone has their own problems. There's a pregnant woman (Emilie de Ravin as Claire), a has-been rock star junkie (Dominic Monaghan as Charlie Pace), a Korean couple who don't speak English and aren't exactly in a blissful state of marriage (Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim as Jin and Sun Kwon), and the man who rose like a phoenix from the ashes of his wheelchair: John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who's the most mysterious and rugged among them, and the most evocative of those hunters from Lord of the Flies.

This Blu-ray comes with "Season Play," a feature that requires you to create a name/account and then when you pop the disc it automatically starts where you left off. Now, in theory it's a good idea, but ABC-TV and Disney really need to augment the feature with a good old-fashioned list of episodes SOMEWHERE on the set. As it is, there's no guide included anywhere. Season Play didn't work for me because I couldn't remember what disc I watched last. It would have helped jog my memory to have the episode list printed somewhere.

Twenty-four episodes are included on seven single-sided discs, with additional bonus features on the seventh one:

Pilot, Pts. 1 & 2
Tabula Rasa
Walkabout
White Rabbit
House of the Rising Sun
The Moth
Confidence Man
Solitary
Raised by Another
All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
Whatever the Case May Be
Hearts and Minds
Special
Homecoming
Outlaws
. . . In Translation
Numbers
Deus ex Machina
Do No Harm
The Greater Good
Born to Run
Exodus, Pts. 1 & 2

There isn't a weak episode among them, and the information reveals are nicely strung out to create maximum tension and interest. Season One has frequent flashbacks to backstories for each character, and while I've heard some people complain that the back-and-forth is a little momentum-breaking, I found that it adds depth and gives the writers more room for invention.

Video:
"Lost" is amazing in 1080p. The AVC/MPEG-4 transfer is a good one, with bold and luxurious colors, and detail that's astoundingly sharp and pristine without appearing overprocessed. Some of the lighter background scenes aren't as flawless as the other season I reviewed on Blu-ray, but it's still an impressive looking release with a real sense of 3-dimensionality. "Lost" is presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio.

Audio:
I love PCM, and this English PCM uncompressed 5.1 (48kHz/16-bit) soundtrack rocks! Like the picture, the sound is so pure that you can't imagine it streaming any clearer or more precise than it is here. Additional soundtrack options are English and French Dolby Digital 5.1, and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0. Subtitles are in English SDH, French, and Spanish.

Extras:
Fans who already own "Lost" Season One on DVD have two enticements to upgrade to Blu-ray. First, all of the bonus features from the DVD are included here, so there's nothing lost (ahem). And second, you can save $20 by mail when you upgrade to Blu-ray between now and next June.

Five commentary tracks are included. "Pilot" Pts. 1 & 2 feature producers J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Bryan Burk. "Walkabout" has a track by executive producer Jack Bender, co-executive producer David Fury, and actor Terry O'Quinn. "The Moth" features Lindelof, Burk, and actor Dominic Monaghan. And "Hearts and Minds" offers executive producer Carlton Cuse, supervising producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and actors Maggie Grace and Ian Somerhalder.

As in the DVD, the features are divided up into sections. The first, The Departure, includes six short ones: "Welcome to Oahu: The Making of the Pilot" (33 min.) takes you behind the scenes to show how the series got off the ground. "The Genesis of LOST" (9 min.) has the creators reminiscing about how they came up with the blueprint for the show. "Before They Were Lost" (23 min.) is a fascinating collection of audition tapes and personal stories from the cast. "Designing a Disaster" (8 min.) gives insight into the production design, especially as it relates to the crash scene and beach camp. "The Art of Matthew Fox" (6 min.) shows the photo scrapbook the actor gave fellow cast members. And "Lost at Comicon" offers the briefest glimpse (2 min.) of the cast at the Con.

In a second series of bonus features, Lost on Location, we get shorter snippets that total just over 40 minutes. "The Trouble with Boars" zeroes in on the show's use of actual wild boars used on the set. Other short features are on specific episodes: "House of the Rising Sun," "Confidence Man," "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues," "Whatever the Case May Be," "Hearts and Minds," "Special," and Exodus."

The third series runs close to an hour, but it's more of a potpourri. You get things like bloopers, a comic bit "On Set with Jimmy Kimmel," previously unseen flashback scenes that were cut from the last episode plus another 15 minutes of deleted scenes, a clip of the cast at the Museum of Television & Radio, and bits on the show's mythology and flashback structure.

All in all, it's a very nice bundle of bonus features that should satisfy even the most hungry fans.

Bottom Line:
Blu-ray ought to make everyone a "Lost" fan. The hit TV series is even more compelling in HD.