Lost: The Complete First Season takes us back to the beginning with Oceanic Flight 815 inexplicably tearing apart and crashing on a strange island that allows some people to see their dead friends, is inhabited by a people known only as "The Others" and seems to have a monster in the jungle. Needless to say, these passengers going from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles are having a pretty bad day.
This season not only introduces the show's main survivors, but it also introduces viewers to the show's unique format and it starts asking many of the questions of Lost (several of which have yet to be answered). For the benefit of readers who haven't seen the show, I won't reveal any twists, deaths (because if you can say one thing about Lost, it's that they don't have a problem killing off main characters), or resolve any of the mysteries. Most of Season One focuses on a dozen or so main characters. Each episode focuses on one of these characters in a way that is unique to Lost. Not only does that character get more screen time, but the on-island story is paired up with a series of off-island flashbacks to that character's life off of the island. Most of Lost: The Complete First Season focuses on who these characters were before the accident and why they were in Sydney (or for those from Sydney, why they were going to Los Angeles).
These main characters include a spinal surgeon named Jack (Matthew Fox, previously of Party of Five note), who becomes the survivor's de facto, and unwilling, leader and Locke (Terry O'Quinn) becomes the hunter of the group who provides them with fresh boar early in the season. This season just touches on the future conflicts that these two characters have. As the series progresses, Jack's scientific mind and Locke's faith in the Island clash over and over again.
Sawyer (Josh Holloway) takes advantage of the apparent community property situation that the dead's belongings represent as he quickly hordes as many supplies as possible, while Kate (Evangeline Lilly) becomes a strong female character and ends up becoming somewhat of a love interest for both Jack and Sawyer to create the requisite love-triangle. But Kate isn't the only female survivor, Claire (Emilie de Ravin) is a pregnant woman who is only a month or so away from her due-date, while Charlie (Dominic Monaghan from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy), the bass player of a one-hit-wonder band "Drive Shaft," starts to fall for the expecting Australian. Sayid (Naveen Andrews) is a former Iraqi Republic Guard and "Communications Officer," while Hurley (Jorge Garcia) becomes the group's comedic relief.
But not everyone on the plane traveled alone. There are a few pairs in the survivors as well. Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun (Yunjin Kim) are a Korean couple who end up watching many of the events from the outside because of the language barrier (something that erodes as the show progresses), Michael (Harold Perrineau) and Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) are father and son who have been apart for most of Walt's young life only to be forced to live together on the Island, while Shannon (Maggie Grace) and Boone (Ian Somerhalder) are brother and sister, both very rich and while Boone tries to help out around the island, his sister spends most of her time sun-bathing and simply waiting for the rescue boat that they all quickly realize simply won't come.
Unfortunately, short of these brief character descriptions, I can't go into much more detail without revealing early mysteries for those who aren't already indoctrinated into Lost. Mysteries like who the sky marshal was escorting, or what exactly led to Locke being such a great hunter are all pivotal parts in the characters' development but should be revealed in the slow and purposeful manner that J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof intended.
This Blu-ray re-release not only comes with all of the special features the DVD version had when it came out in 2005, but also a few extras like The Art of Matthew Fox, as well as the ever-popular Season Play. If you haven't gotten any of the other seasons on Blu-ray, you don't know what your missing. Season Play is a feature that is like the "Play All" option found in most TV show releases, but this one not only lets you go from episode to episode within a disc, but also seamlessly eject the current disc and put in the next one to start up the first episode in that disc without having to go to the menu screen. This feature will also save to your Blu-ray player exactly where you were in the show in case you want to watch something else. This time around though, Season Play has the added functionality of letting you create multiple profiles on the same player. This way, if you and your roommate don't have time to watch the +1000 minutes of the show together, the two of you can simply create different profiles and watch them at your own pace without worrying about losing the other's place on the disc.
Much like the Blu-ray versions of the other seasons, Lost: The Complete First Season is simply a superior product. The problem comes in how your current collection looks. If you've stuck with the DVD versions even though the Blu-ray releases were coming out at the same time, then going back and buying this season and the subsequent ones might be a little hard on the pocketbook, but if you made the switch to Blu-ray despite having the first two seasons on DVD already, then this purchase might just be worth it. Heck, give the first two seasons on DVD to a friend and get them hooked.
