The first season of the television series Lost commenced airing in the United States and Canada on September 22, 2004, concluded on May 25, 2005, and contained 25 episodes. It introduces the 48 survivors of a plane that broke apart in mid-air, scattering them on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific. Forced to work together to survive, they come to realize it is no ordinary island.
The first season aired Wednesdays at 8:00 pm in the United States. In addition to the 25 regular episodes, a special, "Lost: The Journey", was aired on April 27, 2005, between the 20th and 21st episodes of the season. The season was released on DVD as a seven-disc boxed set under the title of Lost: The Complete First Season on September 6, 2005, by Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
Emilie de Ravin as Claire Littleton, a pregnant Australian.[2] Until later in the season, de Ravin is only credited for the episodes in which she appears.
Michelle Rodriguez as Ana Lucia Cortez. She makes her first appearance this season, and she becomes a series regular in the second season.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the first season scored 87 out of 100, based on 26 reviews, indicating "Universal acclaim".[6] On Rotten Tomatoes, the season has an approval rating of 94% with an average score of 8.9/10 based on 46 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Unpredictable and addictive, Lost is a new kind of TV mystery that grips as often as it guffaws."[7]
The pilot episode garnered 18.6 million viewers, winning the 9:00 pm (Eastern) timeslot, and giving ABC its strongest ratings since 2000 when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire initially aired—beaten only the following month by the premiere of Desperate Housewives.[8] Based on its strong opening, Reuters dubbed it a "hit drama" noting that "the show appeared to have benefited from an all-out marketing blitz that included radio spots, special screenings and ABC's first billboard advertising campaign in five years."[9] After four episodes aired, ABC announced Lost had been picked up for a full season order. Lost's first season averaged about 17.6 million American viewers.[10]
The number in the "No. in series" column refers to the episode's number within the overall series, whereas the number in the "No. in season" column refers to the episode's number within this particular season. "Featured character(s)" refers to the character(s) whose back story is featured in the episode's flashbacks. "U.S. viewers (million)" refers to the number of viewers in the United States in millions who watched the episode as it was aired.
Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, a commercial airliner flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, hits turbulence and breaks apart in mid-air and crashes on a deserted tropical island in the South Pacific, with forty-eight survivors of the initial crash. Mysterious roars are heard from the jungle and trees are found knocked over. Jack, Kate and Charlie set out into the jungle to find the cockpit of the airplane so they can send out a distress signal using the plane's transceiver. They also find the pilot, who survived the crash and informs them that the plane had been steered more than a thousand miles off course before it crashed, and thus any rescuers would be looking in the wrong place. The pilot is soon killed by a mysterious unseen "monster." A flashback shows Jack on the plane.
Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, Charlie, Shannon and Boone head out to take the transceiver inland in an attempt to reach higher ground and get a better signal. Along the way they are attacked by a charging polar bear, which Sawyer shoots and kills. They are unable to send a signal with the transceiver due to the presence of another (stronger) signal, a distress call (translated by Shannon) sent by a French woman that has been playing over and over for approximately sixteen years. Back at the beach, a federal marshal wakes up during his operation and asks Jack about Kate, who, in a flashback, is escorted by the marshal on the plane. In another flashback, Charlie is shown to have smuggled a small bag of heroin onto the plane.
Jack learns about Kate's past as a fugitive. The signal party returns, but decides not to tell the others about the transmission. Sawyer shoots the dying marshal, thinking to relieve him of his misery. However, this only punctures his lung, so Jack - who had earlier rejected euthanasia as murder - finishes him off. Flashbacks show Kate's life on an Australian farm, until she is captured by the marshal.
The fuselage, filled with decomposing bodies, is burned after it is raided by a group of wild boars. Locke successfully goes hunting for boar. Locke encounters the monster, but does not tell anyone about this. In flashbacks, it is revealed that he was in a wheelchair before the plane crash and miraculously regained the ability to walk after the crash.
Boone steals the decreasing water supply in a misguided attempt to help everyone, but the survivors turn on him. A sleep-deprived Jack chases after what appears to be his deceased father in the forests and eventually discovers caves with fresh water. Jack comes to terms with his role as leader. In flashbacks, Jack goes to Australia to retrieve his deceased father.
Some of the survivors move to the caves, while some stay at the beach. Locke exchanges Charlie's heroin for Charlie's guitar. Jin attacks Michael because he has Jin's father-in-law's watch. Jin is handcuffed to the wreckage. Sun reveals to Michael that she can speak English and explains why Jin attacked Michael, after which Michael frees Jin. Flashbacks show that Jin had to take a job working for Sun's father for her hand in marriage. One night, after they are married, Jin returns home covered in someone else's blood. Sun secretly plots to leave Jin (hence the secret English lessons); however, she changes her mind.
Charlie is suffering from withdrawal and asks Locke for his heroin, and Locke says that he will return the drugs the third time Charlie asks. Charlie risks his life to rescue Jack after he is trapped in a cave-in. Flashbacks show Charlie and his brother Liam leading their band Drive Shaft and, eventually, Liam getting Charlie hooked on heroin. Years later, Charlie visits Liam's house in Australia and wants him to rejoin Drive Shaft for their comeback tour but a clean Liam refuses. Charlie eventually asks Locke for his heroin for the third time, but only in order to destroy it.
Sawyer is suspected of having Shannon's inhaler when she has an asthma attack. Sayid tortures Sawyer, who reveals to Kate that he does not have the inhaler. Kate reads a letter that Sawyer always carries around, which reveals that "Sawyer" is an alias. When Sawyer was a child, a man known as Sawyer conned and slept with his mother, who was killed by young Sawyer's father in a murder-suicide. Young Sawyer vowed, in the letter, to give the letter to the original Sawyer before exacting revenge. Later, he became a con-man himself and took the name of the original Sawyer. In flashbacks, Sawyer starts to con a husband and wife but gives up when he discovers that they have a son. Sayid sets off to explore the island's shoreline in self-imposed isolation, needing time to come to terms with his actions in torturing Sawyer.
Sayid finds a cable running out of the ocean and into the jungle. While following it, he is caught in a trap and captured by Rousseau, the woman who sent out the distress signal. Rousseau tells Sayid she was part of a science team, and that they crashed on the island sixteen years ago. She identifies a group of island inhabitants she calls the "Others" as the carriers of a sickness that her companions caught, and says that the Others whisper in the jungle. Sayid escapes and while trying to find his way back to camp, Sayid hears the whispering she told him about. In flashbacks, Sayid is tasked with torturing a prisoner named Nadia, who was a childhood friend. Sayid's superior tells him to execute Nadia, but instead he helps her escape.
A badly wounded Sayid returns to camp and tells the others about Rousseau and that there are other people on the island. Claire wakes up screaming two nights in a row and insists that someone held her down and stabbed her stomach. This attack persuades Hurley to take a census of the survivors using the flight manifest, and he discovers that Ethan was not on the plane. In flashbacks, Claire finds out she is pregnant and her boyfriend leaves her. She goes to see a psychic, who says that great danger surrounds her baby and that it must not be raised by anyone except her.
After Claire and Charlie are kidnapped by Ethan, two parties of Jack and Kate, and Locke and Boone go looking for them. Jack encounters Ethan, who warns that one of the hostages will be killed if Jack continues pursuit. Jack and Kate find Charlie, blindfolded and hanging by his neck from a tree branch. Jack furiously performs CPR and Charlie comes back to life. Meanwhile, Boone and Locke discover a piece of metal embedded in the forest's ground. In flashbacks, Jack confesses to his superiors that his father had been under the influence of alcohol while operating.
While swimming, Kate finds the marshal's locked case. Jack agrees to help Kate open the case if she will show him what is inside it. There are guns inside and a toy airplane. Kate says the airplane belonged to the man she loved—and killed. Shannon helps Sayid translate some of Danielle Rousseau's maps. Flashbacks show Kate robbing a bank in order to recover the toy airplane.
Shannon's relationship with Sayid gets more personal. Locke and Boone try to get into the hatch they found. Boone wants to tell Shannon about the hatch and Locke gives him a drug that causes him to hallucinate, sending him on a mental trip which eventually helps him to let go of Shannon. In flashbacks, Boone tries to get rid of Shannon's abusive boyfriend by paying him off, only to find out that it was all a scam perpetrated by Shannon, who proceeds to sleep with Boone.
An annoyed Michael confronts Walt, who has been studying knife skills under Locke, and enlists his help in scavenging parts from the wreck to build a raft, but Walt wanders off. Michael and Locke track Walt into the jungle and find that he has been trapped by a polar bear. Michael risks his life to save Walt and they reconcile. Later, Locke and Boone find Claire stumbling out of the jungle. Flashbacks show that when Walt was only a few months old, his mother accepted a job in Amsterdam and took her child with her. She later married a co-worker named Brian when Walt was two and refused to let Michael speak to Walt. Years later, Susan dies and Brian does not want custody of Walt because the boy is "different."
Claire is back among the survivors, but still has no memory beyond the plane flight. Ethan confronts Charlie, threatening to kill the other castaways one by one until he gets Claire back. Despite security measures, Scott is murdered. With the guns from the briefcase and Claire as bait, Jack, Kate, Locke, Sayid and Sawyer set a trap and Ethan is captured. Although the plan is to keep Ethan alive, a vengeful Charlie kills him. In flashbacks, Charlie tries to get drug money by stealing from a rich girl.
A dream or flashback shows the murder/suicide of Sawyer's parents. Sawyer is awakened by a boar in his tent. Sawyer becomes obsessed with finding the boar that raided his tent and goes into the jungle with Kate to find it; however, he does not kill it when he finds it. He gives his gun to Jack, who now has all the group's known firearms in the marshal's suitcase. In flashbacks, Sawyer tracks down the man he believes to be the Sawyer who ruined his life, in Australia. Sawyer shoots him, but then finds out that he had been tricked into killing the wrong man. He later realizes that during his time in Australia he had also briefly met Jack's father.
Michael continues work on his raft, which only has one available spot left as Sawyer has bought a seat on the raft in exchange for building materials. The raft is set on fire and everyone blames Jin. Michael beats up Jin the next morning. Sun then tells him to stop because Jin did not burn the raft. Everyone is surprised that she speaks English, including Jin. Locke says that it was probably the Others. Michael concedes the raft is gone and decides to make a new one. Sun goes to see Jin, who tells her that it is too late to start over. Jin goes back to the beach and helps Michael rebuild the raft, on which he has gained a spot. Walt confesses to Locke that he burned the raft because he likes the island. In flashbacks, it is revealed that the reason Jin once showed up covered in blood was because he beat a man to save him from the death sentence that Sun's father had ordered, and that he had planned to go to America with Sun to start a new life.
Hurley finds that some of Rousseau's documents contain the repeated numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42, the same numbers which Hurley had used to win a lottery jackpot. Hurley sets off on his own and finds Rousseau, who says that she does not know what the numbers mean: only that her party had originally been drawn to the island by a radio transmission that was broadcasting the numbers. The numbers are also revealed to be engraved on the side of the hatch. In flashbacks, Hurley wins the lottery, and over the coming weeks, everyone around him suffers increasingly bad luck. He then discovers that the man who'd given him the numbers originally got them from the same transmission.
Locke discovers that he is losing sensation in his legs. Locke and Boone find a Beechcraft 18 teetering on the edge of a cliff. Boone climbs up and, using the radio, sends out a distress call, "We are the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815". A response to Boone's transmission comes back, but is broken up by static. However, it can be heard also noting "the survivors of 815". The plane falls and Locke carries a critically injured Boone back to the camp. Locke arrives at the caves with Boone and lies about how Boone got hurt. Locke disappears into the jungle. As he pounds on the hatch and screaming in anguish, the inside of the hatch suddenly becomes illuminated. In flashbacks, Locke meets his parents and his father cons him out of a kidney.
Boone reveals to Jack that he and Locke have discovered the hatch, and Locke has told him not to tell anybody else. Despite Jack's extensive attempts to save him, Boone dies. Shannon & Sayid have a candlelit dinner. Claire goes into labor and gives birth to a boy. Shannon is devastated over Boone's death. Flashbacks show Jack's wedding to Sarah, a former patient whom he had "fixed" after she was injured in a car accident.
Locke arrives at Boone's funeral and is attacked by Jack. Locke asks for Shannon's forgiveness, to no avail; instead, Shannon steals the key to the gun case from a sleeping Jack, and confronts Locke in the jungle. Sayid tackles Shannon just as she fires the gun and the bullet grazes Locke's head. Sayid later tells Locke to take him to the hatch. In flashbacks, Sayid becomes an informant for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the CIA, which has asked him to infiltrate a terrorist cell of which his old friend Essam is a member. Sayid agrees to do it in return for Nadia's whereabouts and he betrays Essam, who kills himself.
Sayid and Locke show the hatch to Jack, who believes that the hatch needs to be opened. Walt warns Locke not to open the hatch, despite not ever being told about it. Kate seeks a place on the raft, threatening to take Sawyer's spot. After Michael is poisoned, he kicks Sawyer off the raft. Sawyer reveals to everyone that Kate was the fugitive on the plane. Walt confesses to Michael that he was responsible for the fire that destroyed the first raft and, although Michael says they can stay on the island, Walt insists that they have to leave. Jack discovers from Sun that the poison was intended for Jin. In flashbacks, Kate returns to her home town to see her dying mother, and meets up with former boyfriend Tom Brennan. With Tom's help, Kate is able to be alone with her mother, who begins screaming for help upon seeing her. She and Tom try to escape, Kate crashes the car, Tom is killed and she runs.
Rousseau arrives at the beach to warn the survivors that the Others are coming, and tells them more of her own story. She was pregnant when she came to the island sixteen years ago but the Others—their arrival heralded by a column of black smoke—came and kidnapped her baby, who she has not seen since. A column of black smoke is soon seen in the distance. Jack, Locke and Sayid tell Rousseau about the hatch, and their need to open it, perhaps with dynamite. Rousseau offers to take them to the Black Rock to get some dynamite. Jack, Locke, Kate, Hurley, Arzt and Rousseau arrive at the Black Rock, a large slave ship stranded inland. Before Walt goes on the raft, he leaves his dog Vincent in Shannon's care. Meanwhile, Charlie gathers messages to put in a bottle and the raft sets sail. In flashbacks, several of the survivors are shown in the final hours before the flight.
Rousseau leaves the Black Rock, and Arzt explodes while mishandling the dynamite. They encounter the monster—a cloud of black smoke. Rousseau steals Claire's baby, whom she has named Aaron. Sayid surmises that Rousseau intends to attempt an exchange of Claire's baby, for her own child with the Others. Charlie and Sayid head toward the column of black smoke and along the way, they also encounter the drug smugglers' plane, which Sayid - unaware of Charlie's history with heroin and his recent withdrawal from it - reveals is full of heroin. Charlie stares at it, finding himself conflicted. When Sayid and Charlie arrive on the beach with the black smoke, there are no other people, just a pyre and Rousseau and Aaron. She returns Aaron and tells them that she overheard the Others saying that they were going after "the boy". On the raft, the crew encounters a boat. The boat's crew turns out to be unfriendly and demands that they hand over Walt (the voice Rousseau heard was referring to Michael's - not Claire's son). Sawyer is shot and falls into the water and Jin goes after him. As the group grabs Walt, an explosive is thrown onto the raft, destroying it, while Michael is thrown into the water. Meanwhile, Jack, Kate, Locke, and Hurley blow open the hatch, revealing a very deep dark hole with a broken ladder. The survivors' time in the airport and boarding the plane continues to be shown through flashbacks.
Home media release
Lost: The Complete First Season was released as a widescreen seven-disc Region 1 DVD box set on September 6, 2005, two weeks before the premiere of the second season. It was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. In addition to all the episodes that had aired, it included several DVD extras such as episode commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage and making-of features as well as deleted scenes, deleted flashback scenarios and a blooper reel.[37] The season was subsequently released on Blu-ray Disc on June 16, 2009.[38]
The same set was released on November 30, 2005, in Region 4, and on January 16, 2006, in the United Kingdom. For the region 2 release, the season was split into two releases, with part 1 (episodes 1–12) released on October 31, 2005, and part 2 (episodes 13–25) and the complete season set on January 16, 2006.
Lost: The Complete First Season
Set details
Special features
25 episodes
7-disc set
1.78:1 aspect ratio
Subtitles: English
English (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround) – DVD
English (DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround) – Blu-ray
Audio commentaries
"Pilot: Part 1" by J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Bryan Burk
"Pilot: Part 2" by J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Bryan Burk
"Walkabout" by Jack Bender, David Fury, and Terry O'Quinn
"The Moth" by Damon Lindelof, Bryan Burk and Dominic Monaghan
"Hearts and Minds" by Carlton Cuse, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Maggie Grace and Ian Somerhalder
