Ten Top Reasons To Get LOST

90 hours of TV is a serious time investment. So why bother? It's a fair question. And here are some answers:

Really, really good writing and very, very fine acting bring this intricate ensemble of characters to life. And THAT’s what you’re really investing in… them. Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Locke and Hurley and…

Too many people to keep up with? Not really. The first season’s chapterrific formula deftly introduces all the people we need to care about. And care about them you do. Because – for the most part – they look, feel, act and sound real.

Which is certainly why they’re capable of the most staggeringly poor decisions at times – because that’s what people do; that’s what we’d do (we instinctively know this to be true and we didn’t need thousands of hours of reality TV shows to prove it).

A mega-budget per episode means that the show always looks fabulous, and the serpentine storyline is crafted with more questions than answers, but the ride we take with this (probably) random group of fascinating people is the thing.

And it's a ride that does reach a conclusion, you won't be left high & dry by a cancelled series. At the halfway mark, at the end of Season Three, LOST turns for home. It remains loaded with twists, turns and about-faces, of course, but these latter three seasons are all shorter, and they're moving unstoppably, inextricably, towards The End.

Here are ten more reasons to get lost in LOST...

Top 10

10. Bad Robot Productions

JJ Abrams’ company is synonymous with clever, rewarding and really entertaining TV (Alias, Fringe) & movies (Star Trek, Super 8). Abrams helped create LOST, but swiftly handed on to showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse – intelligent writers who assume that we, the audience, are intelligent too.

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9. The First Episode

Just watch the opening 7 minutes. Stunning, ground-breaking stuff. Dropping us onto a strange island, without a star-name safety net or the anchors of (overly) neat episode wrap-ups. In fact, the first season itself also refuses to wrap-up, climaxing with not so much a cliff-hanger as a well-dangler…(!)

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8. The Hatch

Backing up Reason #9, this is the first major bombshell. After an entire season of mystery, character secrets and ‘what’s going on?’ moments, comes the first (of what turns out to be many) 'what the hell is THAT?!' dead-stops.

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7. Sawyer

All the survivors harbour secrets, and none more so than Sawyer, whose character arc through the show is little short of epic. It doesn’t hurt that this conflicted, sarcastic hunk of man-oak ups the eye candy quite a bit too.

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6. Flashbacks Galore

Before roaring off into a jungle of plottery, Season One devotes its first half to the main characters, revealing their pre-island lives via delicious and tantalising flashbacks. It becomes rapidly apparent that even when a bunch of strangers are dumped on a deserted island, histories have a habit of squirming to light.

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5. You Actually Want To Be There…

...Even If You’re Just One Of The 30-Odd Survivors We Never Really Learn Much About. The island is the ultimate get- away-from-it-all destination, with a tropical combo of beach, sea, lush greenery and soaring mountain wonder. Plenty of fresh fruit and exercise. And maybe the world’s best links golf course.

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4. You Don’t Know Jack

He was going to be Michael Keaton (and he was going to be dead by the end of the second episode). Thankfully, a rethink on all fronts delivered Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard: enduring, square-shouldered, and resolutely heroic even when dragged repeatedly through the wringer.

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3. Power Through The Slow Bits

Ah, the "yeah, but it gets bit crap and slow in...(insert point where accuser bailed)" line. OK, so a. no, they’re wrong, and b. having the entire story on tap means that when a character-heavy episode leaves you thirsting for a bit of action, you can just crack straight on with the next one.

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2. (Bermuda) Love Triangles

Whatever the specific MacGuffin may be - 24-hour real-time or 1950s ad agency or weird island or... etc - the real reason we get hooked on these shows is the characters, especially their love lives, and even more especially if they're tangled and triangular.

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1. John Locke

Brought to life by the excellent Terry O’Quinn (promised a REALLY tasty part while jobbing for Abrams in a supporting role on Alias), John Locke is the driving force, the x factor, the key: protagonist, antagonist, complex and magnetic. Don’t ever take your eyes off him. Ever.

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Darren Bignell