Lost Season 4 DVD Review
Hit Show Gets Back to Basics
And so another season of Lost leaves viewers teetering on the edge of a cliff somewhere off the coast of Hawaii. Or Fiji. Or China. Or wherever in God's good name the island may or may not be. As anyone who’s already seen Season 4 will testify, it’s becoming increasingly hard – if not impossible – to tell.
That said, the overall Lost experience is an immensely gratifying one that leaves the viewer with a newfound optimism, with renewed hope for its befuddled team of writers, with the feeling that finally, the show is back on track. Indeed, if Season 3 strayed into a wildly unpredictable minefield of convoluted narrative lines, then Season 4 successfully hacks its way back onto the beaten track, bringing with it some of the answers that have been dangling like a fistful of Dharma initiated carrots before its long suffering audience for the last 4 years.
As always, the credibility button is pushed with such frequency that one starts to empathise with John Locke’s predicament back in Season 2. But this is Lost, a show where anything can and generally does happen. The show demands incredulity from its audience, but also demands a quiet acceptance that this is the way of the island, that in time its maze of secrets and maddening phenomena will hopefully be explained.
If a southern Baptist preacher had survived the crash, no doubt he’d be rummaging through the wreckage for throat lozenges having shouted himself hoarse with cries of ‘Praise Be!’ and ‘It’s a Miracle!’ This is, after all, the place where the wheelchair bound can suddenly feel the warm sand beneath their feet, where terminal cancer sufferers are shorn of their troublesome tumours, where rafts are built with such speed and ease that one assumes each and every survivor to be possessed with a knowledge of carpentry that would make the Big Guy proud.
Patience Rewarded
Much like the cast, the show's dwindling audience is equally deserving of the term ‘survivor’ having persevered through the recurring conundrums and convolutions of Season’s 2 and 3. But those who have grimly clung to the rusting cadaver of Oceanic Flight 815 over the turbulent course of three seasons in the hope of answers will find themselves richly rewarded for their patience. Indeed, while the broader narrative arc might remain unreachable to some, the burning questions (Who are the freighter folk? Is bug-eyed Ben one of the good guys? Why is Scots crazy-horse Desmond clairvoyant? Exactly who is in that damn coffin?) are duly answered here.
From start to finish this is an altogether darker affair. It's one that is bereft of slushy sentimentality and daft beach-scene conclusions that usually involve a panning shot of cast members offering warm smiles of reassurance to one another while night falls, a fire roars and the surf washes against sand.
Courtesy of the writer's strike it’s also considerably shorter than its three predecessors, totalling a lightweight 14 episodes as opposed to the usual 24. This apparent brevity – intentional or not – seems to work in its favour. In essence, it's dispensed with the cumbersome baggage that weighed down previous seasons. Instead, viewers are treated to a no holds barred Rumble in the Jungle, a smattering of new faces and a series of well conceived glimpses into the future.
DVD Extras
As one expects from a Lost DVD release (this one dubbed 'The Expanded Experience') the glossy packaging contains a host of extras, not least an episode commentary by cast members Evangeline Lilly and Jorge Garcia. There’s also the obligatory presence of deleted scenes, bloopers and behind the scenes footage. And for the true obsessive there’s a live performance of the Lost soundtrack by the Honolulu Symphony Pops.
To find out more about the show, check out www.lost.com
Lost Promotional Poster
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