The Show
If you'll forgive me, I believe the show became a little lost in its sophomore season, almost as if the writer/producers wanted to keep their newly christened genie inside the bottle as long as possible, sometimes spending almost an entire episode on the minutiae of a character's personal life instead of the broad, satisfying strokes we'd come to expect in Season One. By necessity, the castaways received an infusion of fresh new characters, starting with The Tailies, survivors from the rear of the plane that broke off before the unexpected landing, their ranks including a bad cop (Michelle Rodriguez) and a bad priest (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); and The Others, a dangerous cult-like group residing on the island before the crash, led by the trust-'im-as-far-as-you-can-throw-im Ben Linus (Michael Emerson).
For good measure, there's also Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), the guy who's been living inside the hatch built beneath the island, driven crazy by loneliness, stress, and the fact that he must enter a series of numbers into a computer every 108 minutes, lest something really bad happen.
The season was dark and violent as hell, with some really great weekly installments. One of the best condenses the entire parallel saga of The Tailies into a single hour, while the flashbacks of the new arrivals can be extremely moving. All 24 episodes are here, including the two-part season finale.
The Picture
The colors are lush and accurate in the 1.78:1 frame, although I found myself distracted by high levels of noise this time around, perhaps owing the high instances of night-time or shadowy interior scenery. Out-of-focus foregrounds can be difficult here as well. The show remained wonderfully ambitious in terms of its use of movie-caliber digital special effects, while Blu-ray now offers a better-than-ever look at the cryptic black-lit map/messages scribbled on the walls of the hatch in the notoriously TiVo'd/freeze-framed episode "Lockdown," with much of the text clearly legible.
The Sound
Don't expect any compromise in the audio, either, as the DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack gives us plenty of gunshots and explosions and even a whole new perspective on the fateful plane crash that stared it all. Michael Giacchino's wildly original musical score seems turned up a notch too, with solid bass. We're titillated with some new effects, like the whispering voices of the island in surround, plus an interesting quasi-muted experience when a shell-shocked Charlie wanders the hallways of the hatch. Of course, late in the season, all hell breaks loose as we finally learn what happens if the every-108-minutes appointment with the button is missed.
The Extras
Somewhat disappointingly, absolutely everything here is in standard definition, Some of the individual episodes are adorned with audio commentaries from producers, writers, directors and co-stars, while Disc Seven is all bonus material, broken down into three distinct "Phases," in the style of the Dharma Initiative training reel. Phase 1: Observation goes deep with a 32-minute making of "Fire + Water," and over an hour about filming "LOST: On Location" for 13 different episodes. Phase 1 ends with the quick, amusing "The World According to Sawyer," highlighting con-man Josh Holloway's most sardonic moments and witty catchphrases.
Phase 2: Conditioning is comprised of The LOST Flashbacks, a few extra bits from two episodes, three-and-a-half minutes total; 19 deleted scenes running 23 minutes; four minutes of LOST Bloopers; plus a very cool, very stylized one-minute Channel 4 U.K. Promo clip directed by David LaChapelle. This last item would have really benefited from HD presentation.
Phase 3: Conclusion is a tad more involved. LOST connections explores the "six degrees of separation" concept with an interactive component we can further probe via the remote control. It's a bit of a commitment and somewhat time-consuming, and I'm not even 100% certain it worked right, as I didn't get very far. "Mysteries, Theories and Conspiracies" (ten minutes) embraces the complex fan and professional postulations alike regarding some of the more curious elements of the story. "Secrets from the Hatch" (16 minutes) delves into all aspects from building the set to what the heck the writers decided to put down there once the story goes below ground. I also stumbled upon three brief, light Easter eggs.
Final Thoughts
Released day-and-date with the recent Lost Season One Blu-ray set, this fine little box is further indication that ABC/Walt Disney Studios wants us all to find ourselves in high-definition. I wouldn't mind at all if more labels followed this lead and went back to reissue older seasons of prime TV shows on Blu-ray.
Where to Buy:
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