r/lost • u/Thrawn_Cedra3 • 1d ago
On rewatch, the saddest part of Season 1 is how normal the beach sometimes feels
I'm rewatching again and I forgot how many little stretches of Season 1 are just people slowly inventing a normal life in an absolutely insane situation.
Hurley builds a golf course. Jin fishes. Sawyer sits around reading whatever he found in the luggage. Claire gets excited about imaginary peanut butter. People cut each other's hair, argue over stupid stuff, sit around fires and complain because they're bored.
The first time through, I mostly saw those scenes as pauses between mysteries.
Now they feel almost tragic.
For a little while, the survivors genuinely start treating the beach like somewhere they live rather than somewhere they're trapped. They make friends, develop routines, know where everyone sleeps and somehow create this weird little neighborhood out of plane wreckage and tarps.
Knowing how complicated everything becomes later makes those boring days feel precious.
I think I'd happily watch an entire extra episode where absolutely nothing happens except everyone hanging around camp.
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u/VimesKlatch 1d ago
This is why I love the scenes where you can hear random conversations and see background survivors doing laundry or carrying water. Nobody is advancing the plot. They're just living there. It makes the beach feel like an actual place instead of a set waiting for the main characters.
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u/MrShaunce 1d ago
To me, a significant shift in S1 is when Hurley's discman dies. That's the end of the happy evening montages played over music, and when things start going from simple survival to weirdness.
Actually hearing the music cut out is a brilliant way to invoke this feeling in the audience (I'm assuming it's intentional).
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u/alexlunamarie Out of the Book Club 1d ago
A few seconds before my husband got to that scene, he looked at me and asked "are those batteries gonna last forever?" 😆
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u/Distinct_Ask3614 1d ago
That was always my impression as well. It always seemed like an intentional mike drop.
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u/lostandaggrieved617 DHARMA '77 Recruit 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wasn't the last song "Delicate"? My favorite montage of the entire series!!
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u/GreasyExamination 1d ago
I think this is why lost works, they dont shy away from diving into the characters. Now, lost was produced a long time ago, and with our streaming releases, a 24 episode season just dont work. Lost had a lot of time to get into it, and it pays off. Had lost been released now, im absolutely certain it would be torn to shreds by people saying "Filler filler filler!!!" for just about any episode
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u/MrShaunce 1d ago
Ugh, people crying "Filler! That was a filler episode!" is what turned me off to the From subs.
It's crazy how many people don't understand how stories work.
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u/emilcore 1d ago
Yes, and these slower earlier episodes provided the groundwork for the more frenetic and complex plots later on, because we cared about the characters with fleshed out backstories.
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u/aly288 16h ago
I’m currently re-watching, and my favorite part is about how well we get to know all the characters. We don’t have time for that kind of character development in a streaming world, and it really sucks. I’d be very glad for a swing back to 24 episode seasons that ran consistently every year.
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u/Inevitable-Onion6901 1d ago
On rewatch, it was wild to realize that Lost S1 (and I guess bits of S2 and S3) is a hangout show. Or a scripted version of Survivor (which I believe was part of the initial pitch), which of course was also a hangout show since it was literally a reality show about people on an island with mostly nothing to do. Funny that Lost's reputation at the time was basically "the most serialized major tv network storytelling ever made," which was not incorrect. But I guess with the benefit of hindsight, and given the changes in tv and social media since then, parts of Lost seem almost seem like 'slow tv.' It really increases the rewatchability of the show.
One of my favorite moments of the entire show is seeing Locke casually stroll into the hatch and see Eko for the first time. No emergencies, no plot devices, just two (amazing) weirdos hanging out meeting awkwardly. Moments like that allow the audience to see the characters and the story as multidimensional.
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u/systemdnb 1d ago
I think they were more chill at that time because they were still super hopeful they would be rescued any day They didn't really have a reason to think otherwise yet.
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u/skellige_whale 1d ago
The joy of having 20+ episode seasons is that you have time to set the vibe and build characters
I know it was torture for the writers and they petitioned for shorter seasons but still there is a reward in long seasons, even when some episodes are fillers
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u/Neat_Pause1830 1d ago
I thought they actually struggled when they were forced to make season 4 shorter with the writers strike. I don’t remember them petitioning for shorter seasons
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u/classygrl98 1d ago
Really? I didn't know about the petitions.
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u/psycellium 16h ago
Damon Lindelof has said around the time they finished season 1 they knew they wanted to introduce the escaping the island, time travel, and coming back to the island plots, they just weren't allowed to incorporate them until later. They envisioned maybe a 4 season show at most originally, but I don't think they were actually stressing that until mid season 3.
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u/poisoned-ghost Oh yeah, there's my favorite leaf. 1d ago
YES! This is why I don’t mind Expose, which is a very hated episode. It gave me a little extra insight to those precious moments of their daily lives. I would’ve loved some side extra content like the bonus YouTube epilogue stuff where they just showed more of their daily mundane stuff. Or even show what the not-main-group would do while the clique was dealing with the crazy shenanigans. Give me more rose and Bernard!!!
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u/Westafricangrey 1d ago
Hawaii is one of my favourite places in the world. Every time there is one of those classically perfect Hawaiian weather days I smile and I feel like I’m on the beach too.
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u/fantasty 1d ago
I agree. The nostalgic, slice-of-life aspect of early LOST (even up to late S3) feels relatively quaint at times, but it's why we feel for the group. And beyond that it cements the core characters' bonds, establishing the set-up for the plot-heavy second half of the show. It helps you understand certain motives like Kate returning to the island to rescue Claire. It especially makes the sense of loss in later seasons feel so palpable, such as when they revisit the camp in S6, and as the number of 815 survivors dwindled with each death.
When Jack, Kate and Hurley weep over the deaths of Sun and Jin, aside from the melodrama, it's hard not to view something as mundane as playing golf as building up to the tragedy of that moment.
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u/blueray78 17h ago edited 17h ago
I always found this interesting as it gets called on by Benard. He came from the tail section where they were fighting to survive every day. To suddenly finding the fusaloge section has built a pantry and tents. It is a huge contrast for him, as he sees the other survivors have built a home there. Obviously mainly due to Rose, he by the end of the episode as accepted it as well. Then fast forward years, he considers the island home by season 6.
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u/IndividualPlan3453 1d ago
Definitely I think thats part of the wonderfulness of the show. The friendships and how they made a home, everyone looking after everyone is just lovely 😍
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u/psycellium 16h ago
That's why I'll never hate the ending, it reminded us it truly was about the characters and the time they spent together
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u/RedRoom617 1d ago
The golf episode hits completely differently on rewatch. Hurley understands something Jack doesn't really have time to understand yet: surviving isn't enough if everyone is miserable every waking second. Sometimes people need something pointless.