LOST

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: sensuality, language, violence, astrology

Rated:

Unless you've been hiding underneath a rock, you've heard of J. J. Abrams' LOST. Winner of an Emmy award and boasting an enormous cast of at least twelve primary characters, the series is as much an exploration of the past as it remains an adventure in the present. It opens on an island after a plane crash. Debris is strewn for miles along the beach, survivors stumbling over the bodies to climb free. Among them are a remarkable cast of memorable characters. The doctor. The drug addict. The pregnant girl. The escaped convict. The con man. Even the family dog.

The airplane was in route from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, California when the instruments went haywire, leading them to fly over a thousand miles off course before turbulence ripped off the tail. Has-been rock and roll star Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) was hiding cocaine in the bathroom. Convicted felon Kate (Evangeline Lilly) was arguing with her arresting officer. Crashing on a tropical island, the survivors form behind the businesslike enthusiasm of the two self-appointed group leaders, Jack (Matthew Fox), a doctor in the "real world," and John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), a natural hunter, tracker, and woodsman with a dark secret. Also trapped on the island, among the forty individuals still alive, is Sayid (Naveen Andrews), a former Arab guard under Suddam Hussein's regime, quarrelsome brother-sister Boothe and Shannon (Ian Somerhalder, Maggie Grace), bad-luck magnet Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Michael and his son Walt (Harold Perrineau Jr., Malcolm David Kelley), smart-mouthed con man Sawyer (Josh Holloway), unhappily married Sun and Jin (Yoon-jin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim) and very pregnant Claire (Emilie de Ravin).

After waiting several days for rescue without success, and finding that the plane's transmitter has been broken, the survivors are forced to contend with greater dangers than being rescued. Something enormous and carnivorous ripped the pilot from the cockpit, and has been stalking them. The bodies in the plane are beginning to draw wild animals. Facing the fact that they may not be rescued anytime soon, Jack makes the courageous decision to burn the wreckage and settle in. Every individual trapped there has a secret, and the island has a way of bringing out abnormal personalities. Then comes the first succession of mysteries. Jack believes that he has seen the ghost of his father. A strange signal is picked up, a French woman crying for help. A casket in the hold is found empty. A wheelchair is without an owner. From the very beginning until the heart-pounding climax, LOST is a magnificent piece of architecture. Not only do you get to know the characters, you come to care about them as human beings.

I'm an adverse student of complex plots. The more complicated and involved it is, the better I like it. To say LOST is complicated would be an understatement. Toward the end of the season you have revisited all of the main character's past through a series of flashbacks, but still have many questions. The producer knows how to keep an audience hooked ... he has done it before, with ALIAS. I was impressed with each of the stories, proof that every human being has value and a tale to call their own. No one's life is without interest, although the most fascinating stories are those with the most adversity. Sawyer. Jin and Sun. But mostly Locke and Sayid. Involving an Arab was a risky endeavor, but he became one of my favorite characters. The most beloved relationship is between Claire and Charlie.

The show is for adults, which means that it deals in frightening sequences, and occasional content, but most of the time it maintains decency. There's a lot of violence, ranging from fist fights between survivors to flashbacks to the plane crash -- people being sucked out windows, thrown around the cabin, and crushed beneath falling debris. Gunfights ensue, both in flashbacks and modern time. The pilot is ripped out of the plane by an unseen monster and his body is found later looking as though it has been skinned. Jack performs numerous gruesome surgical procedures. There's a fair amount of blood. A man is tortured for information. Skeletons and decomposing bodies pop up at inopportune moments. Language doesn't overpower the episodes but does contain mild profanities, abuses of deity, and the occasional coarse term. There are numerous sexual references. Sawyer and Kate often physically fight with one another, usually winding up with one of them straddling the other. Flashbacks show Charlie confessing of threesomes to a priest, him in a room with a half-dressed one-night-stand, and Sawyer smooching on a married woman.

Most of the relationships portrayed in the characters' past are unmarried. Michael and his girlfriend have a son. Claire's boyfriend runs out on her after learning she's pregnant. Jack is forming a friendship with Kate, but the audience doesn't know yet if he's still married. One relationship could be taken as incestuous, despite the siblings being related only through marriage. Viewers are treated to glimpses of Charlie and his brother snorting heroine on a semi-regular basis through the first half of the series. More interesting is the general take on the supernatural. Locke is a firm believer in Fate. He is convinced the island brought them there for a purpose. Claire is into astrology, and visits a psychic, who warns her that her baby is going to be dangerous if raised by anyone else (she was considering giving it up for adoption). One woman, seen briefly, is a Christian, and she has faith in prayer, God, and that her husband somehow survived the crash. It's an interesting blend of symbolism and fantasy that will entertain most audiences and leave them craving more.