Lost Finds Itself in Season Four
By Nathan Cone

Season three of the television program Lost was a bit of a disappointment.  An eight-episode arc at the beginning of the season took way too long to complete, and the show stumbled with the introduction of two new castaways (which were later killed off).  However, another new character, Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell), was a terrific addition.  Juliet, a doctor whose slippery allegiance to "The Others" always kept me guessing what her angle was, brought intrigue and fresh emotion to the show.  And so while season three faltered at the beginning, it ended strong, with our castaways' first contact with someone off the island.  I entered season four of the popular show last January with high hopes that the show's writers could pull off a winner.

Between seasons three and four of Lost, two important real-world events took place.  First, the creative team behind Lost negotiated with ABC an end date of 2010 for their series, giving them a goal to shoot for.  Secondly, a WGA (Writers Guild of America) strike meant those same writers would have to hustle to squeeze a lot more narrative into a truncated season four.  The result?  Season four of Lost is chock full of action, mystery, and island intrigue.  More importantly, it doesn't skimp on the careful character development that's been a hallmark of the series.

The addition of the "flash-forward" device to the show's signature flashbacks now adds an extra dimension to the program.  We learn that at least six of the characters make it off the island, and their fates in the future are informed by everything that's happening in the present time on the island (present time being 2004 on the show).  The series hero, Jack (Matthew Fox), and fugitive Kate (Evangeline Lilly) become lovers, Hurley (Jorge Garcia) lands back in a mental institution, Sun (Yunjin Kim) is a powerful executive, and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) begins working for a man who was once his enemy.

The flashback device is also used to fill in the more recent history of some characters, for example to explain when the traitor Michael (Harold Perrineau) makes a startling return to the series after leaving the show at the end of season two.  In one episode that's the highlight of the season, Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) leaps back and forth in time from 2004 to 1996, struggling to hold on to his beloved Penelope (Sonya Walger).  That episode, "The Constant," exemplifies the best of what Lost is, utilizing the trippy sci-fi narrative of the program in the service of a storyline that leads to a great character-driven emotional catharsis.

Meanwhile, instead of throwing new characters willy-nilly into the narrative, the show's creators crafted an organic way to bring new blood onto the show.  As season four opens, our castaways make face-to-face contact with folks from the outside world.  A freighter is descending upon the island's location.  On board are physicist Daniel Faraday (a twitchy, terrific Jeremy Davies, seemingly channeling his character from Steven Soderbergh's "Solaris"), ghost whisperer Miles Straum (Ken Leung), and archaeologist Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader), who just may have been on the island before.  The freighter brings new hope to the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, but it unfortunately also brings a troupe of mercenaries bent on finding the man that may or may not be the mastermind behind the whole series, Benjamin Linus.

Ben begins season four in captivity, but soon manages to bargain his way into collaborating with some of the castaways.  And it’s a testament to Michael Emerson's acting that by the end of the season, despite all of the suffering Ben has inflicted upon so many innocent souls, you feel some level of sympathy for him after he goes through his own personal tragedy.

Despite the strike-shortened season, the DVD set of Lost: Season Four manages to include six discs, two of which are filled with special features.  Among the standard interviews, deleted scenes, and commentary tracks, two features stand out.  One focuses on the music of the show, written by Michael Giacchino.  Lost is one of those rare television programs that uses an actual studio orchestra on its soundtrack, just like a great Hollywood film.  Giacchino's music adds an extra layer of depth to the series as he takes the Wagnerian idea of the leitmotif to the characters, themes, and emotions of the show.  A special feature on disc 5 follows Giacchino and other musicians as they perform excerpts from the score with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra.

The other truly "special" feature is "The Oceanic Six: A Conspiracy of Lies."  This faux documentary is edited similarly to a typical expose program you might see on cable, or something like the infamous internet film that supposedly debunks 9/11 as an inside job, "Loose Change."  A parade of experts testifies that there's no way the found wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815 could be the actual plane that crashed, and that the "Oceanic Six" are involved in an immense cover up.  "The Oceanic Six: A Conspiracy of Lies" is so good that it could even be entered into "Lost" canon as a set up for what 's sure to come in season five.

Season four of Lost met all my expectations and exceeded them.  The truncated season led the writers to hustle to cram as much exposition as possible into fourteen episodes rather than twenty-two (as in Season Three).  It's been terrific to revisit the season again on DVD, and I'm once again ready to head back to the island to get "Lost" again.

NOTE: Season Four of “Lost” is also available in the high definition Blu-Ray format.

1/20/09

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