A gut-wrenching, unpredictable and gleeful romp through experimental television, Lost cranks up the adrenaline early and manages to keep it flowing throughout its premiere episode (part 1 of which will air on ABC Wednesday, September 22nd at 8/7Central). With the exception of a few telegraphed moments and some minor holes in the dam that could become more troublesome if mismanaged, J.J. Abrams’ much-anticipated show lives up to the hype and poses two questions that will soon be on everybody’s lips: Will these people get off the island alive, and how long can this show keep up its intense pace?
Abrams, the mind behind Alias and Felicity (and soon, Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible 3), seems to have sucked down a few Fun Dip packets before he wrote this story of Jack (Matthew Fox), a heroic doctor who wakes up to find himself in the middle of a jungle, lying on his back. Battered and bloody, Jack gets up and runs for what seems like an hour before he bursts out onto a gorgeous tropical beach. After a momentary glimpse of paradise, the camera pans over to reveal hell itself: men, women and children in various states of death, misery and dismemberment, running frantically to find love ones amidst the flaming wreckage of an airplane that they were sitting on moments ago.
Realizing his situation, Jack takes on the role of leader and begins delegating authority. Dozens of characters are quickly introduced, some more thoroughly than others. There’s Kate (Evangeline Lilly), a beautiful Kate Beckinsale-doppelganger who is immediately attracted to Jack’s take-charge persona; Charlie, (Dominic Monaghan) a quirky wannabe-rock star who provides as much comic relief as possible given the circumstances; and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), the apparent bad-guy who may be a red herring. Out of the 48 survivors, other highlighted passengers include the big-boned Hurley (Jorge Garcia), the eight-months pregnant Claire (Emilie DeRavin), and Paris Hilton-esque debutante Shannon (Maggie Grace).
Abrams’ biggest success with Lost is bringing a sense of reality to a preposterous situation. Although the odds of any of us being involved in a plane crash, let alone surviving on a deserted island, are smaller than any scientific calculator could compute, there isn’t a single person who has ever buckled a plane’s seat belt that hasn’t at least thought about it. Tapping into that fear, Abrams shows us how some would be in denial at first, how others would hysterically run around in circles, how some might try to take charge while others would tear alliances apart. At one point a few characters build a fire, so that a rescue plane can find them; as it burns and they make small talk, sadness sets in at the realization that they’re just deluding themselves.
The tension of the situation, and the gripping Rashomon-like details learned as different characters flash back to what they saw in the moments before the crash, is more than enough to keep your unblinking eyes transfixed on your cathode screen. Unfortunately, Abrams sees fit to tinker with his already tenuous grip on reality by offering up bizarre, Godzilla-like noises of grunting and groaning as trees shake on the horizon; something is out there, our survivors realize, and it’s big.
When one character dies in a bloody attack by some sort of unseen beast that appears to have swooped down from the sky, Lost wanders uncomfortably into a Jurassic Park-Jeepers Creepers 2 realm. Eventually, when one of the monsters is revealed, its identity turns out to be more intriguing than ridiculous. However, the presence of this and whatever other creatures Abrams has up his sleeve represent the greatest danger to Lost’s continued success; he must step carefully here.
Other smaller problems also present themselves. The most annoying of these is Abrams’ tendency to undermine a dramatic moment by dropping too many hints – when the camera closes in as a character puts down a valuable transmitter before looking outside, we all know his days are numbered; likewise, when people keep wandering past the still-spinning airplane propeller, you know somebody’s about to get sliced and diced. Smaller details, like the fact that a woman in her third trimester of pregnancy wouldn’t be allowed to fly, or that two characters would be dumb enough to sit under a perilously dangling plane chunk while the whole beach is available to them, are distracting but not enough to stop the audience from enjoying what is a truly remarkable program.
The acting, from Fox’s charismatic tough guy to Monaghan’s goofy sidekick to Grace’s stuck up princess who will undoubtedly be taught some lessons, seems to offer a lot of potential. So do many of the balls that Abrams starts juggling in his pilot episode: the Asian couple who don’t speak English, the strange old man playing games on the beach, and the fact that somebody was a criminal being transported in handcuffs on the plane are all unusual storylines that pique the viewer’s attention. So is Charlie’s drug dependency, which may change his affable demeanor when he runs out of those little pills he keeps popping.
As far as the 2004 debuting series are concerned, Lost is at the top of the heap. Here’s hoping that Abrams can keep his momentum going and, like 24 before him, prove wrong the doubters who fear the show may be a one-trick pony. This island may not have a Gilligan or a Skipper or a Millionaire, but it is nonetheless a tale worth sitting right back and hearing every week.
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