young doctor named Jack (Fox) opens his eyes to find himself on a deserted island. Minutes earlier he'd been flying in a passenger jet, reassuring the woman next to him that the turbulence happened all the time. As he pulls himself up and stumbles out of the forest onto a beach, he finds a nightmarish sight.
Wreckage from the midsection of the plane covers the beach. People are screaming and running everywhere. The dead lie next to the injured, and no one seems to know what to do. Except Jack. Injured himself, he sees a man pinned under debris near one of the plane's engines, which is still running. He quickly orders people around him into action, and they save the man and get him to safety.
Then it's on to a young pregnant woman who is going into contractions. Across the way, the woman who was sitting next to him on the plane isn't breathing. Somehow Jack must save everyone who needs him, and he does. When he can finally stop, he realizes he has a large gash in his side. He wants to take care of it himself, but he has to enlist the help of Kate (Lilly) to help sew up his wound.
Forty-eight people have survived the plane crash. At night, as they sit by the fire in their separate groups, they know help isn't likely to come before morning. Then they hear something in the forest. Trees bend under the force of "something" outside their view.
The next morning, Jack and Kate decide they must find the forward section of the plane so they can get the transponder and call for help. Kate has seen smoke in the distance and knows which direction to head for. After a long hike, Jack, Kate and musician Charlie (Monaghan) reach the front section and find everyone dead except the pilot.
He tells them that the radio went out during the flight and they had to change course. No one knows where they are, and searchers will be looking for them 1,000 miles away. They are lost. The group will quickly discover that help isn't going to come for a long, long time, and the "something" in the forest is only one of the many dangers and mysteries they'll have to live through if they're going to survive.
Scary, intense and mysterious
ABC's two-part premiere for Lost is one of the best pilots for a new series to come around in a long time. This fast-paced thriller is scary and tense and filled with action, but never at the expense of its large cast. As we begin to meet the characters, we see the plane crash through their unique perspectives, and it's horrifying. In flashback, as the plane breaks apart in midair, it is so realistic you may never want to fly again. But after each flashback, the action goes right back to the character and the island, giving a sense that the mysteries of the island are only part of the story here.
Yes, there's a big "something" in the forest. It's big and dangerous and always just out of sight. Producer Damon Lindelof promises it's not a dinosaur and that there are much more interesting possibilities he plans to explore. However, that's just part of this creatively charged story as the mysteries begin to develop.
J.J. Abrams and Lindelof have done such a fine job piecing this story together that it fits together perfectly, like a large jigsaw puzzle. They don't open up with the plane crash. They let us get to care about these characters before we discover how they got here. By showing each character's best and worst moments on the island, the flashbacks become moments of realization. It's the underbelly of a character that few ever expose to another living person.
With 11 cast members and another 37 who will show up now and then, it will take some time to get to know all of the characters. However, right off the bat we know that Jack is a hero despite himself, and we manage to get a sense of the other characters quickly. Some, like Kate and Charlie, we'll learn about in the pilot.
As far as the actors go, Matthew Fox has found a terrific character with Jack, and this couldn't be a better series for the Party of Five actor. He is believable as the doctor/hero who probably has secrets of his own. Especially strong are Evangeline Lilly as the levelheaded Kate and Dominic Monaghan as fading rock star Charlie. They both have secrets, too. In fact, much like J.J. Abrams' other series, Alias, Lost is a series that's all about secrets.
