JUST FINISHED WATCHING: LOST (2004–2010)

The survivors of a plane crash are forced to work together in order to survive on a seemingly deserted tropical island.

TRIVIA: The series began development in the summer of 2003 when Lloyd Braun, then the Chairman of ABC, during a meeting of the network's executives pitched the show as a cross between the film Cast Away (2000) and the popular reality TV show Survivor(2000). "Lost" was one of dozens of ideas to emerge from the meeting that got circulated to Hollywood agencies and producers to see if any attracted any interest. A few weeks later, veteran producer Aaron Spelling said he wanted to do "Lost" and ABC ordered a pilot script from a Spelling writer. When the script arrived in December, Braun hated it. A rewrite in January was even worse. Braun then contacted J.J. Abrams, whose series Alias(2001) was a hit for the network. Although initially hesitant, Abrams gave it a go in collaboration with Damon Lindelof. Their script was greenlit, but because it had been commissioned so late in the 2004 development cycle it was under very tight deadlines. Ironically, before the pilot aired Lloyd Braun was sacked by ABC's parent company, Disney - for greenlighting such an expensive and risky project.

Jorge Garcia was the first person cast for the series.

The character of Sawyer was originally meant to be an older, slick, suit-wearing city con artist from Buffalo, NY. However, when Josh Holloway forgot a line at his audition and subsequently kicked a chair in frustration and loudly swore, the writers liked the edge he brought to the Sawyer character and decided to write Sawyer as more of a Southern, darker drifter instead.

In one early version of the script, Boone was going to be Boone Carlyle V and would be referred to as "Five". When they decided against this idea they did a "find and replace" function to change all the referenced to "Five" into ones for "Boone". This accidentally changed the dialogue when Jack and Kate first meet to him counting "One, two, three, four, Boone."

The two-part pilot episode was the most expensive in ABC's history, reportedly costing between $10 million and $14 million. The average pilot is usually in the region of $4 million.

Originally, Michael Keaton was cast as Jack. In the first draft of the script Jack was to be killed by the monster after they arrived at the cockpit. ABC told the producers that they shouldn't kill off the hero so soon in the series and the script was changed. After the change, Michael Keaton backed out of the role since he did not want to commit to a regular series.

The airline in this show that flew the ill-fated flight is called "Oceanic", a name that has been used before in films (Executive Decision (1996)) and in many other made-for-TV movies.

After the character of Richard Alpert was first introduced on the show, a furious internet debate arose about whether or not Nestor Carbonell was wearing eyeliner onscreen. Carbonell revealed on the fifth season DVD extras that not only does he not wear eyeliner, mascara, or makeup of any kind to make his lashes and eyeline appear as dark as they do, but also the makeup artists for "Lost" actually use concealer on his lashes and under his eyes to try to tone down the natural darkness of his eyeline. He also said that the unusual appearance of his eyes caused him to get teased and bullied when he was a child. The writers, amused by the intensity of the debate, placed a reference to it in the series when Sawyer, who frequently applies nicknames to various characters, calls Alpert "eyeliner."

Charlie's shoulder tattoo reads, "Living is easy with eyes closed". This is a lyric from the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles.

After Aaron is born, John Locke calms his crying by wrapping him snugly on a cloth, a practice known as "swaddling," which was done throughout the world for centuries. Locke tells Claire that young babies actually like to feel restricted. The real John Locke was actually a harsh critic of the practice of swaddling, and his criticisms actually led to its decline throughout Europe.

Harold Perrineau plays a father who reconnects with his son after not seeing him in almost ten years. In Smoke (1995), he played a son who reconnects with his father after not seeing him for over ten years.

MY VERDICT: I could have happily have gone my whole life without watching Lost. I watched the first episode when it was on but wasn’t impressed and didn’t ever watch it again. But my boyfriend has been asking me to watch it with him for years and I finally agreed. I wasn't disappointed. It wasn’t mind-blowing the way some people had had me believe but it was enjoyable watchable. I think some of it was ridiculous and in some places silly but the mysteries keep you watching and even though I could have tapped out at any point I chose not to. I had heard that the ending was polarizing, I think if I’d watched it at the time and invested a lot of time and energy into the show I might have been disappointed by the end but as it was I thought it was just okay. I don’t feel like it spoilt the rest of the show, as some sub par endings can do. I preferred the first season to the others as I liked the survivor aspect of it although my favourite character gets better as time goes on and has a great story-line all the way through, I won’t spoil who it is though. Can you guess??

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