Lost and found

Lost season four ended last night and brought to the close another series of outstanding episodes mixing drama, action, mystery, well-rounded, developed characters with extremely good writing and high-quality entertainment. The show now has flash-forwards as well as flashbacks so you know who gets off the island, although in a way, they don’t get off the island, the island just goes from them…but this doesn’t explain half of what the show has now become anyway and it would just be impossible to do so.

The show, admittedly, suffered from a slow first season and the ridiculous amount of adverts that interrupted its showing on Ch4 which has meant it became somewhat sidelined. People still say, who don’t watch it, based on incorrect knowledge, ‘they’re just making it up as they go along’, which is an incredible asinine thing to say – especially given what has happened in the last two seasons.

The rise of DVD boxsets is not a new subject now, but a show like Lost, could, maybe should, become an example of a beneficiary of this. While people may not have the patience to follow it from 2004 -2010 (which expressed like that is rather shocking) there is a chance once the entire show is on DVD and can be watched at the viewers choice it will suddenly find a new, second, audience who ignored it the first time around.

Lost is in many ways like a novel. A long, detailed set up, full of little moments of intrigue and interest, characters developing slowly, revealing their motivations and traits as they go. Now in season four, as the ‘novel’ heads towards a conclusion, large dramatic set pieces are being played out, literary, historical and scientific references are dropped in, and important questions are answered, while still bringing in more and leaving you desperate to see the next instalment.