Beware of unmarked spoilers further down the page!
Abandon Shipping: Almost everyone who was still invested in the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle jumped off the Sawyer/Kate train in favor of Sawyer/Juliet after their Relationship Upgrade in "LaFleur".
In Season 2, Shannon to those who still considered her a Scrappy. Just when she starts becoming a compelling character and growing out of being a vapid Rich Bitch, as well as getting to learn how much her Evil Matriarch stepmother crashed her dreams and broke her spirits... boom, shot in the stomach.
Also in Season 2, Ana Lucia got quite a lot of hate for her hotheaded attitude and accidentally killing the aforementioned Shannon, but she becomes more sympathetic and likable just in time for Michael, yet another disliked character, to kill her.
In Season 3, Nikki and Paulo. They are really hated, but to be buried alive (and by mistake because the Losties thought they were dead after being paralyzed by spider poison) is a terrifying fate.
Alternative Character Interpretation: This show is probably the poster child for this trope, and it can be applied to pretty much every character with an explicit grounding in the show's subtext. Keep in mind, these are just some of the major ones:
Is the universe really such a rational place, or is Jack Shepherd just interpreting it that way because of his compulsion to fix things caused by his daddy issues?
Is the Island really guiding John Locke's destiny (or sentient at all), or is he just interpreting it that way because of his compulsion to discover his destiny caused by his daddy issues?
Are the Numbers really cursed, or is Hurley just interpreting them that way after a string of bad luck like this guy because of his compulsion to blame himself caused by his daddy issues?
Is the boar in the jungle really the spirit of Frank Duckett, or is Sawyer just interpreting it that way because of guilt over the accidental murder caused by his daddy issues?
Is the world really such a hostile place, or is Ana-Lucia just interpreting it that way because of her accident and her overprotective mommy issues?
Is Sayid really in love with Nadia, or is he just interpreting his feelings that way because of his guilt and his need to be absolved?
Is Jacob a weary God-like character full of love whose hand is forced by fate? Or a callous, sociopathic momma's boy whose manipulations have caused thousands of deaths?
Is the Man In Black as much of an apocalyptic villain as Jacob says, or is he simply so desperate to escape the island that he's willing to resort to evil means?
How seriously are we supposed to take Ben's statement that the Others are the "good guys?"
Did Ben really kill Widmore in "What They Died For" to ruin his chance at saving Penny from the Man in Black, as he claimed? Or, considering that the next episode reveals his apparent Face–Heel Turn was just a ruse, was his primary motivation actually stopping Widmore from revealing crucial information that would help the Man in Black defeat the candidates, with getting his revenge being a happy bonus?
In-universe, Captain Gault speculates that Keamy's increasingly psychotic behavior is due to him being affected by the cabin fever that's influencing the rest of the freighter.
Arc Fatigue: Sun and Jin do not reunite for more than two full seasons after separating late in season 4. It's not so bad in season 5, where the two are literally separated by time and space, and the former thinks the latter is dead for half the season, but it becomes much worse in season 6, where they keep just missing one another, arriving at a location the other had just left or encountering a character who'd been with the other but doesn't know where they went, to the point that it begins to feel less like part of their tragic love story and more like an ill-advised Running Gag. And then, when they finally do reunite, they both die in the next episode.
The Man in Black's getting Mode Locked as John Locke. We never learn why, or how Ilana knows this. Basically, it was just an excuse to keep Terry O'Quinn on the show in the final season.
In Season 4, Hurley gets the ability to talk to ghosts out of nowhere, which is never explained. Even weirder, this is the same season that introduces a new character who can also talk to ghosts, so what was wrong with using him for these scenes?
Audience-Alienating Ending: The ending, if not the final season as a whole, wound up as this for those who disliked the more metaphysical angle, with several of the mysteries being unanswered.
Many in hindsight feel that Terry O'Quinn deserved to win the Best Supporting Actor Emmy for his performance in the first season instead of the third, in which his part was arguably smaller.
Similarly, most fans would cite Season 4 as Michael Emerson's most Emmy-worthy performance as Ben, more so than the fifth, for which he won. Some also feel he deserved to win for the sixth season over Aaron Paul, which is part of the reason for Youtube's minor Breaking Bad vs LOSTFandom Rivalry.
Many critics deemed Matthew Fox's performance in "Through the Looking Glass" worthy of an Emmy, with him unfortunately not even being nominated until the final season.
With the exception of Elizabeth Mitchell's guest actress nomination, none of the actresses were ever recognized by the Emmys, which is both surprising and unfortunate, since the show has so many talented actresses. Many fans were outraged by Elizabeth Mitchell not even being nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the third season, with the same being true for Yunjin Kim in the fourth. Evangeline Lilly and Emilie De Ravin also received much praise for their performances in "Whatever Happened, Happened" and "Par Avion" respectively, with many believing them worthy of nominations.
While both of them were only in the main cast for a relatively short span of time, both Jeremy Davies and Adewale Akinnoye-Abaje were widely praised by critics for their performances, but were killed off too early to get major awards recognition.
Josh Holloway was consistently praised for his portrayal of Sawyer, particularly in Season 6, but never received any Emmy nominations.
Henry Ian Cusick's performance in "The Constant" was widely hailed as one of the best performances of Season 4 and on television that year, but failed to gain any major nominations.
Ironically, despite "The Constant" being heralded as the greatest episode of the show, it failed to earn nominations for either writing or directing, making Season 4 the only season in the show's run not to be acknowledged by the writer's branch.
Played with in Locke's case. He goes back and forth from awesome to pathetic so many times that this duality becomes one of his main character traits.
Even though his badassery was only memetic, Richard Alpert could be said to have suffered from this, having spent most of Season 6 in a state of Heroic BSoD instead of actually doing anything badass. It's made worse because he BSOD'd after the first time he ever really ran into trouble. Before that, he got by on just standing around and looking badass without ever actually doing anything.
The Others. What started as a mysterious group of rogue jungle ninjas was soon revealed to be little more than a bunch of commune dwelling nobodies that played football and had a flare for the dramatic.
For one thing, you don't have to wait an ungodly time between seasons. For another, keeping up with every Continuity Nod and Call-Back—and in general, the extensive lore—is much easier.
Especially on the DVD menus of Season 2 disc two that answer one of the mysteries of The Others. Namely why they don't leave tracks. If you wait a bit at the main menu you will see their footsteps as they walk past the screen, with the last one brushing away their tracks with a palm leaf.
Points of contention include discussion of which season did the show go off the rails, those who think the writers were making it all up as they go along, and of course those who love the Kate/Sawyer/Jack love triangle and those who detest it and consider it to be the bane of the show.
The reveal about the Others. Some say it was ingenious and a great, unexpected twist, while others think it was anti-climactic and destroyed their creepiness.
The final episode "The End" was what finally broke the base clean in half. "It's all about the characters!" vs. "Where are my friggin' answers?!"
The Chris Carter Effect: As the show went on, more and more fans began to feel that it had become this, with this being the dominant image of the show in the mainstream media during its last couple of years. And it only became more contentious once the show ended. At any given time, exactly half of its fanbase believed that the show's creators were making the next Twin Peaks and had no idea what endgame they desired, while the other half argued that the threads were finally coming together, and a satisfactory revelation was all but guaranteed. In the end, it's a matter of opinion how it all turned out. The most diplomatic way to phrase it would be to say that there were two groups of fans: those who thought it was about the characters, and those who thought it was about the plot and mythology. The former seem to have generally been pleased by the ending, while the latter were generally very upset and firm believers that this trope was in effect. Generally, science fiction can have an open ending as long as the fates of the most interesting characters are resolved. Unfortunately, on Lost, a large chunk thought the island was the most interesting character.
Commitment Anxiety: Due to the show's Continuity Lockout, it was difficult for some new viewers to jump in at later seasons without seeing any of the prior episodes.
It's commonly said that the reason Ana Lucia and Libby were killed off in season 2 was that their respective actresses had both been arrested for driving under the influence and the producers wanted to write them out. In actuality, Ana Lucia was always going to be killed off during the season - Michelle Rodriguez had only signed on for a single season from the very beginning - and Libby was thrown in when Ana Lucia's low popularity meant that her death wouldn't be enough of a shock for the viewers. Both the actresses and the producers have denied these claims, yet they remain persistent today.
Nowadays, the show is known for the ending supposedly revealing that everyone on the plane was Dead All Along and nothing on the Island actually happened. Ironically, though the show doesn't solve all of its mysteries and even the ending itself has some ambiguity to it, it goes out of its way through Christian to make it clear that everything that happened on the Island was real and that it's the flash-sideways timeline that's the afterlife. Christian even mentions that while everyone did die eventually, some of them died long after Jack did, while Jack's death is the last shot of the show.
Seasons 1-3: Anthony Cooper was the father of John Locke, whom he sired with a teenager half his age, and was a notorious Con Man who formerly earned his money by having affairs with married women, scamming them out of their money, then ditching them once he had what he wanted. Flashbacks reveal that he was the man who scammed Sawyer's parents, resulting in Sawyer's father murdering his wife then committing suicide, something he's completely unapologetic about when he meets Sawyer as an adult. When he finally meets his son, John Locke, whom he had neglected before, he comes off as a kindly man and the father Locke has always wanted. In reality, it's just another scam. Cooper's kidneys are failing and the nice guy act was just a ruse to get Locke to donate a kidney to him, after which he coldly dumps his son, telling him he wants nothing to do with him. Later on, Locke is approached by a man named Peter Talbot, the son of a wealthy woman that Cooper is planning to marry for her money. When Talbot expresses a desire to stop the wedding to protect his mother, he later ends up mysteriously murdered. When Locke confronts his father on killing Talbot, his father responds by attempting to kill Locke himself, throwing him out of an eight-story-window and paralyzing him.
Continuity Lockout: Don't even think about trying to jump into the middle of this show. (Although, most fans believe the plot is better off for it.) For an especially extreme example of the kind of experience you have if you do, check out this blog, aptly titledThe Final Season of LOST as Seen by Someone who has Never Seen LOST.
Creepy Awesome: Eloise Hawking, the seemingly omniscient Time Police whose motives remain mysterious for much of the series, but who nonetheless comes across as a wonderfully creepy Iron Lady every time she appears thanks to Fionnula Flanagan's portrayal. Season 6 reveals that even in the afterlife, she's always the first person to figure out exactly what's going on.
Crosses the Line Twice: In the Flash-Sideways, Desmond running over the paralyzed Locke with his car is not funny. Desmond returning to the scene of the crime a few days later to run him over again, beating Ben to a pulp when he tries to stop him, and then casually turning himself in to the police for these actions is absolutely hysterical.
The survivor who is sucked into the plane's turbine in the Pilot had such a memorable death that he became one of the most popular background characters of the series. Fan love for "Turbine Man" led to expansions in the extra material to the series; his name is Gary Troup, he's the author of the Defictionalized novel Bad Twinnote In real life, it was ghostwritten by Laurence Shames, he may have once been in a relationship with stewardess Cindy Chandler, he intended to expose the Hanso Foundation (a goal that Rachel Blake later picked up), and he's even one of Jacob's candidates).
Another background survivor, an attractive woman who wears a revealing blue striped shirt, affectionately known to the audience as Sexy Blue Striped Shirt Girl, became popular enough for her actress to get a Lostpedia interview despite having no lines or memorable scenes whatsoever.
Epileptic Trees: One wild fan theory was the Trope Namer. Yeah, it's that kind of a show. We've a very active Wild Mass Guessing page if you've got a crazy fan theory to share.
Esoteric Happy Ending: The series finale could certainly be seen this way. Everybody from the Island remains friends in the afterlife, except for the ones you don't see for some reason. Okay, fine. But why does Sayid have to be with Shannon and lose Nadia? Why can't Locke stay with Helen? Christian Shepherd seems to have dictatorial powers over the lives of people he didn't even really know. Plus, it's implied that several of the characters who outlived Jack led long lives, yet apparently none of them formed any meaningful relationships during the intervening years—so Kate, Sawyer, and Claire all potentially spent decades mourning their respective love interests and never loving anyone else, while Aaron and Ji-Yeon apparently had such empty lives that they entered the afterlife as babies whose only bonds are with their parents. And Miles just gets abandoned and forgotten in limbo, despite his apparent devotion to Sawyer.
Estrogen Brigade: While mostly aimed at male fans, the show nevertheless has a large and vocal female fanbase due to all of the good-looking male characters. The character with the most vocal female fanbase is without a doubt Sawyer, who's played by the good-looking Josh Holloway and often loses his shirt to show off his good looks.
The fan speculation on this started early but several characters throughout the series espouse their own theories of this variety. Hurley, when they get off the island, thinks they died on the island and are in heaven because things are going well for everybody and he's seeing dead people. Richard Alpert thinks the island is hell after being disillusioned about Jacob, and because he can't die.
Most true in the flash-sideways universe, which turns out to take place after the main characters die, and they are all finding each other again and living/working through their unresolved issues before uniting to go to Heaven.
Fandom-Enraging Misconception: No, the Island was not purgatory, and the survivors were not "dead the whole time". This was only ever a very popular, admittedly somewhat credible fan theory that got so much traction that the show ended up occasionally poking fun at it ("Dave" claiming the Island isn't real, Hurley and Richard coming to believe the Island was heaven or hell) and eventually incorporating it into the show via the flash-sideways timeline in the last season, which actually was a kind of purgatory, albeit one of the survivors' making. This last point ended up causing some confusion, coupled with the end credits of the final episode playing over footage of the wreckage of Oceanic 815 with no survivors in sight but it was never the show's contention that the Island or the things that happened on it weren't "real", and you're in for a thorough chewing out for claiming the show's ending was All Just a Dream or that everybody was Dead All Along.
Heroes premiered during Lost's third season, which is widely considered to be its weakest, and Heroes pleased many fans by answering the mysteries more quickly. This angered people who were still sticking with Lost, especially since the end of Season 3 and all of Season 4 were considered to have been where Lost got its act together, making the rivalry a battle for philosophies. Heroes fans think Lost fans are faux-intellectual posers; Lost fans think Heroes fans are simpletons with short attention spans.
Head writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are generally referred to as "Darlton" or "Team Darlton".
Fenry for Ben when he was "Fake Henry," becoming "Benry"
Losties or Lostaways for the original group
Tailies and Boaties for those who arrived in the plane's tail and the freighter, respectively;
Guyliner for Richard Alpert—though he's not actually wearing any at all; Nestor Carbonell's eyes are naturally like that.
Smokey for The Monster. Sawyer eventually calls the Monster 'Smokey' in the series finale.
The Man in Black has a whole bunch thanks to having no name revealed at the beginning:
Esau
Un-Locke
Flocke
Smokey
"The Locke-ness Monster"
And of course the Muppet Dr. Chang in Lost Untangled has his own series of nicknames for everyone, several of them possibly borrowed from the fan community.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Ilana's originally-planned role as Jacob's daughter and a more prominent figure in the plot of Season 6 is something that fans feel was unwisely cut.
Fanon Discontinuity: The only thing that isn't guaranteed to fall under here for someone somewhere is early-to-mid Season 1. Beyond that, it varies massively.
Franchise Original Sin: Seasons 2 and 3, before the show got a set end date, are often criticized for being overly slow and padded. Season 1 was actually the same way, the difference being that with our just getting to know the characters, the show simply couldn't help but give us new information on them in every single episode. Once we actually had a handle on who everyone was, the pacing issues were much more noticeable.
Friendly Fandoms: With Person of Interest, both being complex, cerebral sci-fi action dramas that are co-written by J. J. Abrams and star Michael Emerson. In fact, a pretty good percentage of the Person of Interest fandom began watching the show precisely because they loved Michael Emerson's work on Lost.
Genius Bonus: In the finale, the flash-sideways universe was revealed as a bardo, or an "intermediate state", similar to what is detailed in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Spiritual guru Ram Dass famously helped LSD researcher Timothy Leary translate the book in the 1960s, but Dass didn't go by that name back then. His birth name? Richard Alpert.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Although the show is (in)famous in Korea because of its inaccurate portrayal of the country and its language, Daniel Dae Kim became very famous there because of the show and his better-than-average attempts at speaking the language constantly.
Many fans were hooked right from the outset. But the fourth episode of the series, "Walkabout", where we find out Locke couldn't walk before the crash, is the earliest episode to hint at deeper supernatural elements on the island and is remembered for having the series' first big plot twist.
After a season many agree marked somewhat of a slump in the show's pacing and quality, Jack grows a literalBeard of Sorrow in the widely acclaimed "Through The Looking Glass", signaling a return to full form for the show's last three seasons.
Harsher in Hindsight: Mysterious plane disappearances will inevitably get people thinking of the show.
In "Pilot, Part 2", Locke telling Walt a "secret" is framed in an incredibly creepy manner, playing into the Red Herring that Locke was the one in handcuffs on the plane. We later learn that the secret was the truth of his former paralysis, meaning that Walt was the first person Locke felt he could trust with the truth of his past and the Island he already loved so much.
In "Raised by Another", as Charlie tells Claire that he'd like to be her friend, he jokes that they don't have to do each other's hair. Later on, as they start getting closer with each other, Claire actually does cut Charlie's hair for him.
In "Fire + Water", Claire and Eko discuss the concept of baptism as it relates to the afterlife, with them both concluding that unless he baptizes her and Aaron, they won't make it to Heaven together. The final season, especially the Grand Finale, reveals that after all the survivors died, they all created an afterlife for themselves to reunite, meaning that Claire, Aaron, Charlie, and everyone else were always going to end up together regardless of the baptism.
He's Just Hiding: Some fans like to think that a few of the Recurring Extra survivors of the crash (Steve, Beth, Craig etc.) survive the flaming arrow attack and just never reencounter the main characters.
A lot of the early jokes in which the other survivors try to get Sun to understand them despite the language barrier become even more hilarious when we learn that Sun could understand them the whole time.
Since almost the beginning of the show, viewers have theorized, over and over, that everyone died in the crash and the Island is Purgatory, even after repeated debunking. The final revelation of the series? The flash-sideways timeline is Purgatory, or the next best thing — though the Island and all the events that happened on and/or off it in normal continuity was all real. It makes it even funnier when you realize that after being told the Island wasn't purgatory over and over again, NO ONE theorized that that's what the FS really is.
The January 4, 2011 U.S. Mega Millions lottery (worth $355 million) had a very significant amount of overlap with The Numbers, with 4, 8, 15, 25, 47 and the bonus 42. Playing The Numbers would have netted a person $150, and apparently there were 9,078 people who did just that.
It wasn't just in the United States: on 19 November 2005, the Irish National Lottery went even closer; five of the six numbers were drawn, and the sixth one was 24 instead of 42. Playing the numbers would have netted you €341 (around $374), and 298 people had done that.
Season 3's "The Man Behind the Curtain" gave us the weird scene where Ben has a conversation with a seemingly empty chair. This may have already been narmy to some, but five years later, along came Clint Eastwood...
Terry O'Quinn revealed in an interview during the first season that the direction he was given for the scene where Locke first sees the Monster was "It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen." Then during the last season-and-a-half, the Man in Black was Mode Locked as Locke himself.
In the episode "Further Instructions", Charlie claims to know how clever polar bears can be from watching "nature programs on the Beeb" while he was high. Fast forward to 2013, and the actor who played Charlie now has his own nature program, Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan, on BBC America.
For anyone who found Jacob Unintentionally Unsympathetic as noted below, Mark Pellegrino's role as Lucifer in Supernatural is basically exactly what they wanted him to be like, deliberately playing on people's sympathies to hide how evil he really was.
Compare the way Evangeline Lilly handled a love triangle on this show to The Hobbit, where she made her choice early on, and he got killed.
In "Some Like It Hoth," Miles laughs off Hurley's plan to write the script for The Empire Strikes Back with "improvements." Ken Leung ended up appearing in The Force Awakens.
In 2016, the Chicago Cubs finally won the World Series. It was their first series win in 108 years. Especially considering that the show had the Red Sox winning as a major plot point...
It is Hilarious in Hindsight how much this show cribbed from Watchmen—the flashback structure, the clash of belief systems, godlike beings with a warped view of time, the heavy use of mythological, literary, and pop cultural allusions—what with Damon Lindelof doing a live action adaptation of Watchmen in 2019.
Kate and Claire. It starts with Kate being the one to deliver Aaron. Later, they develop a very close friendship, with Claire easily being one of Kate's best female friends on the Island along with Sun and Claire choosing Kate to accompany her on her mission to find the Staff in "Maternity Leave". Kate is fiercely protective of Claire, leaping to defend her from Charlie during his creepy phase in "Fire + Water" and Rousseau when she returns to camp after her failed attempt to kidnap Aaron. Kate also raises Aaron off the Island after Claire disappears, and returns specifically to rescue her. In the finale, Kate convinces Claire to leave the Island by proposing that they raise Aaron together, and the last shot of the two on the Island is them holding hands on the Ajira plane as it takes off. Also, in the Flash-Sideways, Claire, not Jack, is the person who causes Kate to regain her memories of her life, a role that almost every other character reserves for their Love Interest.
A lot of fans interpret Jack and Sawyer's constant bickering as Belligerent Sexual Tension, or argue that they have more chemistry with each other than with Kate.
Sawyer: So, you screwing Jack yet? Juliet: No. Are you?
Hype Backlash: While Lost is still very well regarded in many respects, it's gotten some criticism over the years since it concluded over its increasingly complicated plot, the unanswered questions, and the feeling that the writers were making things up as they went along.
Speculation was that based off his nickname, "Mr. Friendly", Tom's full name was Tom Friendly. Eventually the producers confirmed this was true.
A number of fans also speculated that Tom was gay after he told Kate, "You're not my type," and the actor apparently changed his portrayal based on the fan reaction to that line. The episode "Meet Kevin Johnson" later confirmed that Tom was gay.
On a more plot-relevant level, a lot of fans, upon finding out in the Season 5 finale that post-return to the Island, Locke is not really Locke anymore, speculated that he was actually the Smoke Monster in Locke's form. Sure enough, in the Season 6 premiere...
Iron Woobie: Sayid. That man has gone through all sorts of hell before crashing on the island, including war, a tough childhood, losing his love Nadia, and physical and emotional torture.
It Was His Sled: The show's popularity and sheer number of crazy plot twists led to a lot of these, one of the biggest being Locke's pre-Island paralysis. Even to someone who hasn't finished Season 1 (or just didn't bother watching the show), it's pretty common knowledge by now that the monster on the island is made out of smoke. Lost's use of flash-forwards in the second half is also pretty well-known, despite being a huge twist when it was first revealed.
Sawyer, at least for the first three seasons. After that, the jerkass part tones down.
Shannon is a selfish Rich Bitch who cares little for helping her fellow survivors in favor of getting people to find food for her. She's also had to deal with a terribly abusive stepmother who cut her off financially while she was grieving her father's death and left her on her own, driving her to scam her own brother just to get the money she needed.
Ben. Definitely a villain, Manipulative Bastard, unrepentant liar, and murderer, yet his Freudian Excuse and the fact that the writers seem to enjoy having him constantly get the pulp beaten out of him (even though most of the time, he deserves it) have the side effect of making him somewhat sympathetic. It also helps that he was redeemed in the episode "Dr. Linus".
Locke, at times. He's not a bad guy, but he definitely comes across as one to his fellow survivors on several occasions, most notably after attacking Sayid, killing Naomi, and becoming tyrannical once assuming leadership of a group of islanders. He only does all of this, however, because he knows that the Island is special and he feels he needs to protect it at all costs. It's the first time he felt he had a real purpose, as his life before the Island was one big heap of misery.
Eloise condemns people to die based on the whims of the universe, crushes Daniel's musical aspirations in favor of his scientific abilities, encourages his experiments that leave his girlfriend catatonic, and ultimately sends him to the Island where she knows he'll die. She's also been forced into a terrible role as the Time Police and hates every second of it, having no choice but to preserve the timeline and ensre her son's death unless she wants to risk the entire world. Notably, in the afterlife, she's once again the first person to figure out the truth of the world she's in, and all she wants is to live a normal life with her son; she's even left begging Desmond not to take him away again when he's preparing his friends to move on.
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: The series is home to a wide variety of mass murderers like Martin Keamy, Charles Widmore, and the Man in Black, yet these characters are still entertaining to watch in their villainy. In contrast, by far the most hated characters in the fandom are Nikki and Paulo, who everyone wanted gone even before they turned out to be greedy murderers (largely because they showed up out of absolute nowhere and started chumming with the main characters like they'd always been there), and Susan and Brian Porter, who cut Michael out of his son's life out of selfish spite only for Brian to pawn Walt off the second he has a reason to.
Just Here for Godzilla: At least as far as season 1 and 2 went in their original run, part of the fanbase were people who simply wanted to get a modern Robinson Crusoe story or maybe a serious take on Gilligan's Island. Unsurprisingly, those were some of the first to flake out from the fandom, as the series was only ramping up mysteries and weird things, while simultaneously making the "stranded on an island" aspect virtually moot. That was perfectly summed up in the video game "Via Domus", where later on in the game, one of the NPCs on the island remarks, "Remember when our biggest concern was finding water and shelter?"
Benjamin Linus is the leader of the Others and proves himself to be an incredibly cunning and manipulative opponent. Originally appearing to just be a prisoner, he quickly turns Jack and Locke against each other with only a few words, all while locked in a cell. Upon his escape, the depths of his skills becomes clear, as he cons Sawyer into believing in his fake pacemaker, makes a deal with Jack to operate on him twice, and sends Juliet to serve as a mole within the survivors. When he's captured, he deliberately releases just enough information to ensure the survivors believe him, but keeps enough to himself that they can't just kill him, and he eventually talks himself out of captivity. On the mainland, he manipulates Sayid, who considers himself Ben's Arch-Enemy, into working as his personal hitman against Charles Widmore by manipulating his grief over his deceased wife, and ultimately works with Eloise Hawking to return the Oceanic Six back to the Island. Upon his return, he proves vital to the defeat of the Man in Black, continuing to use his lies and manipulations to serve as a mole for the survivors, and ultimately proves himself to be far more than the sociopath he initially seems to be.
Eloise Hawking quickly proves herself to be far more than the doddering old woman she appears to be. Introduced during Desmond's time flash to 1996, she proves her knowledge of the future by pointing out a man who dies just seconds later, explaining to Desmond that the universe will always course correct itself to achieve what it wants. With this concept in mind, she manipulates her son Daniel onto the path of science she knows that he's destined for, suppressing all of his interests besides science to ensure he will go to the Island and die by her hand in 1977, finally showing just how much she cares about him for the first time before he leaves. Continuing to secure the timeline, she works with Ben to send the Oceanic Six back to the Island, managing to locate the Island when even Charles Widmore couldn't, and successfully gets them back on the Island to ensure the timeline will remain stable. Despite her small number of appearances, her impact on the stability of the timeline cannot be overstated.
Desmond Hume, upon regaining his memories in the alternate timeline, begins a mission to awaken his friends and allow them to move on. After encouraging Hurley on his date with Libby, he runs Locke over with his car, and when Ben confronts him about it later, he beats Ben to a bloody pulp to make him remember as well. After turning himself in for these actions and getting himself transferred with Kate and Sayid, he makes them promise him a favor; after they agree, it's revealed that he'd already bribed Ana Lucia to let them out at a certain time and place, beginning separate plans for both of them. While Sayid is awakened elsewhere, Desmond has Charlie kidnapped and brings Kate to the charity concert, ensuring they both awaken as well. After promising Eloise that he won't take her son with him, Desmond finally gathers his friends at the church, allowing all of them to move on to the afterlife together.
Richard. Most cite his "beginning in badassery" to the episode "La Fleur", where Richard simply walks into the DHARMA Barracks compound, holding a torch, which he then slams into the ground and sits on a bench as if he owns the place. Not to mention the sonic death fence that surrounds the Barracks, which apparently doesn't harm him. Because he's Richard Alpert.
Juliet Burke has her own website all about her awesomeness.
Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Lost has become infamous in Korea, due to characters speaking Korean in immensely broken accents (Jin's is over-the-top but still recognizable; others are often much worse) and egregious depiction of their country (like a few Korea episodes taking place in jungle even though the country is strictly in a temperate climate zone; that was due to the scenes having been filmed in Hawaii). In spite of this, the show is actually very popular there, largely because it's too unintentionally hilarious to really hate it. To them, the whole series is a Fountain of Memes, and any moment someone talks in Korean results in an opportunity for Guilty Pleasures, Bile Fascination, and Memetic Mutation (for quick example, Jin-Soo Kwon's name is interpreted as "Jji-Jju Kkwa" because of how his actor says it). It's also a case of Germans Love David Hasselhoff, as Jin's actor, Daniel Dae Kim, has great reputation in Korea because of this show.
Misaimed Fandom: This review of "Left Behind" appears to miss the point that Kate's mother is meant to be seen negatively for turning her in and siding with her abusive husband, and instead claims the episode is promoting domestic abuse.
And Juliet too! Especially in the flashbacks. Just look at her Broken Smile and say with straight face that you don't want to hug her.
Ben isn't usually this, but just look at his smile in the episode "The Other Woman" when he lets Juliet into his house! "HI COME ON IN! I just need to get this ham out of the oven!" D'awwww. He's also quite frequently this in the Flash Sideways, as his afterlife persona is a genuinely Nice Guy.
Anthony Cooper crossed it when he threw his own son out of a building just for trying to reason with him, even after his son gave him his kidney to save his life.
Martin Keamy shooting Alex dead right in front of Ben.
Jonas (in Richard's flashback) crossed it when he murdered his prisoners after they get stranded on the island.
The Man in Black tricking the main characters into activating his timebomb, resulting in the deaths of Jin, Sun and Sayid.
In the flashbacks of "I Do", Kate screaming to her husband about how she hates taco night.
The sheer amount of characters who have horrible fathers. Ryan Lohner of The Agony Booth regularly joked that someone in the production team must have really despised their father as they seem to be literally unable to comprehend the possibility that anyone can have a healthy relationship with theirs.
One would argue that Michael's repeated shoutings of "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!", given their justification, come off less narmful than anybody else in the same situation.
Similarly, Claire's "MY BAY-BEE!"
The ending scene of the show. Jack's death so blatantly mirrors the opening scene that it could very easily come off as stupid, especially since Vincent pretty much comes out of nowhere to lay by his side, but a combination of the music and Matthew Fox's performance make it work beautifully.
Never Live It Down: Michael is mostly known for shouting about Walt's kidnapping and his betrayal of the survivors in Season 2, with his murder of Ana Lucia and Libby seen by many as his Moral Event Horizon. Despite getting a redemption arc in Season 4 he's still mostly disliked by the fandom.
When Lost came out, it put everything about how TV series were made prior on its head - and this was part of its mass appeal in early seasons. By the time it was wrapping up, many of the new or ground-breaking things about it were already old news, with countless copycats further eroding their appeal or originality, such as things like "one of the main character got killed and not exactly in some big, dramatic moment", "there are constant flashbacks" or "not everything is explained and there is one mystery behind another to solve". It can be harder nowadays to appreciate the series without knowing precisely how it reshaped the landscape of TV series production and their plots, since it makes Lost look derivative of the formula it pioneered. The fact that some viewers were annoyed by the influence Lost had on TV in general didn't help.
Perhaps the greatest innovation introduced by Lost was being the first mainstream show in Network television to completely abandon an episodic status quo formula and switch to serialized arcs from day one. While we had shows with serialized arcs at least since the 1990s like Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they tended to be niche genre shows. HBO also had already been doing serialized fiction with prestige series like The Sopranos, but Lost truly brought serialized shows to the masses. It was so successful that now it seems every mainstream show MUST have serialized arcs and Lost doesn't seem revolutionary in the least.
Lost also seemed to be taking point in a movement of genre fiction becoming accepted by mainstream audiences at last, and demolishing or at least blurring the boundaries of the Sci Fi Ghetto, together with Battlestar Galactica (2003), opening the way for highly-regarded and ever more openly science-fictional shows to be accepted by critics and mainstream audiences. Nowadays, SF and fantasy movies and shows are so mainstream that Lost doesn't look special anymore, and it's easier to see how the show was relatively timid and slow in introducing fantastic elements.
Finally, there is the way Lost was seen as a game changer when it comes to the way TV shows were to be consumed in the Internet age. Fans sought online recaps to see if they'd missed any details from the episodes, fans came together to speculate about the show's many mysteries and predict future directions, etc. While none of this was new, Lost seemed to be one of the first mainstream TV shows to take full advantage of the Internet. Nowadays, all of this online activity is pretty much expected of any successful show.
Despite all the Ship-to-Ship Combat, Jack/Kate/Sawyer is quite a popular option, with some seeing it as the cleanest way to resolve the Love Triangle and capitalize on the Jack/Sawyer Ho Yay.
Kate/Charlie/Claire, combining the popular canon Charlie/Claire with all the Kate/Claire Les Yay. It doesn't hurt that there's some mild Charlie/Kate Ship Tease in early season one, or that all three characters "awaken" in the afterlife together in the finale. Charlie and Kate also both act as a Parental Substitute to Aaron at different points, making the four of them seem like their own little family.
Padding: Sun loses her ability to speak English for several episodes in Season 6, which never comes close to having a point and just comes off like they had no ideas left for what to do with her.
Paranoia Fuel: The ending of Season 6, while having an uplifting mood, may be this if you apply it to real life. Here you are sitting behind your PC reading this TV Tropes article... but actually you've died long time ago, your life is just a flashback of your past on Earth, and you have to move on to the afterlife. Unlike most other Dead All Along endings, there is absolutely no way to prove to yourself that this isn't the case, since the "flash sideways" are a perfect imitation of reality.
The Problem with Licensed Games: Lost: Via Domus has the same format as the show (including flashbacks), a score by Michael Giacchino, and realistic enviroments. But the gameplay is boring (specially the recurring fuse-plugging minigame), the plot ends with one hell of a Gainax Ending, and given only Ben, Sun, Desmond, Mikhail, Tom, and Claire have the same actors, there are many terrible impressions of the show's cast.
Despite a lot of the show's criticism claiming the contrary, anyone who actually watched the show through all six seasons knows that way too many things do add up for it to all be "made up as they go along". Locke's black and white stones. Adam and Eve (though a few centuries off in their timing). The DHARMA Initiative. They planned quite a bit of everything YEARS in advance.
Even in the first couple of episodes there was Foreshadowing of the events of the last couple of seasons, including the sounds of the Monster playing on the soundtrack during the final close-up of Locke at the end of "Tabula Rasa", and Locke's dialogue about backgammon in the very pilot ("a game played between two sides, one light, the other dark").
Locke mentions seeing a bright light after his encounter with the Monster in the first season, and later tells Mr. Eko that he looked into the heart of the Island and what he saw was beautiful, referring the light he mentioned, in Season 3. Towards the end of the series, it's revealed that the Island DOES have a "heart" filled with a glowing bright light, and it needs to be protected from The Man in Black/The Monster.
The Mr. Eko centric episode "The Cost of Living" basically foreshadows the fact that The Smoke Monster is the true Big Bad of the series. There is the aforementioned conversation with Locke, in which Eko replies "That is not what I saw" in reference to his encounter with the Monster. And at the end of the episode, after Mr. Eko refuses to confess his sins and says he did all he could to save his brother Yemi from the same fate, "Yemi" responds "You speak to me as if I were your brother", revealing that he is not Yemi's ghost. When Mr. Eko asks who he really is and follows him, he sees the Monster and realizes it was the Monster posing as his brother all along, right before it kills him. In his dying breath, he whispers something to Locke, which Locke claims to be "We're next". In the Season 5 finale, we see that Locke is not really Locke (the real one having been killed by Ben after all), but The Man in Black who was seen earlier in the episode vowing to kill Jacob, and in the Season 6 premiere the Man in Black is revealed to be the Smoke Monster, and the true Big Bad of the series.
Even the brief image after Eko's death of young Eko and Yemi as children walking off happily together foreshadows the fact that the afterlife, where loved ones will be reunited, will be a factor at the end of the show.
The official story is that while the first season was written seat-of-their-pants due to the showrunner turnovernote J.J. Abrams inherited a pilot script for a Castaway-ripoff and mish-mashed it with Forbidden Planet and Twin Peaks with no idea where it was going; he then left the show in Damon Lindelof's hands, and Lindelof brought in Carlton Cuse as co-showrunner., Lindelof and Cuse mapped out the major mythology and story beats before they started work on the second season.
Both have stated that the main plot was figured out by the second season's start, but the success of the show demanded more seasons, watering out the main idea, with several storylines being brought in to fill the gap. It was partway through season three when both Cuse and Lindelof demanded that ABC set an end date for the series so they could plan out the story's conclusion.
After the pilot aired, Sawyer was said to be the character audiences hated the most, and he spent the rest of the season as a unsympathetic, antagonistic Jerkass. But thanks to character development, he became popular for reasons other than how hot he is with his shirt off.
Jack became significantly more well-liked in the later seasons due to the fact that a lot of his arrogant characteristics were noticeable downplayed; his more selfless and courageous attributes were expanded, making him a far more likable protagonist.
Kate became much more likable throughout the last two seasons ("Whatever Happened Happened" in particular is considered very good for a Kate episode). Then she had enough awesome moments in the Grand Finale to put her in this category.
The boys who played young Liam and Charlie (Zack and Jeremy Shada) would go on to be voices of Finn "The Human" Mertens and form their own band.
Jack's ex-wife Sarah is played by Julie Bowen, who would later achieve greater fame for playing Claire Dunphy in Modern Family.
Romantic Plot Tumor: The Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle took up significant story time. Became especially grating when the series committed to a definite endpoint, and every second spent on this was one less second that could have been used clearing up the show's numerous mysteries and dangling plot-threads. Also because the writers proved that they could write relationship arcs that are well done and popular among the fans (see: Desmond/Penny)... yet suddenly they couldn't do the same with the main one.
Nikki and Paulo were introduced in the third season because the producers of the show were often asked what some of the other survivors of the crash were doing. Viewers and TV critics wasted no time flaming them to hell and back.
A good amount of fans hated Ana-Lucia when she was introduced to the cast due to her bully-like attitude, but she had slowly been winning them over by showing a more sympathetic and level-headed side right before Michael (yet another disliked character) killed her.
Michael himself is hated in Season 2 for his constant shouting about Walt's kidnapping and his lack of concern for anyone else, which was worsened by his betrayal of the survivors and killing Ana Lucia and Libby as part of a deal with the Others.
Widmore's henchman, Zoe, in Season 6, is widely hated for being a pointless, annoying character who eats up valuable screen time that would be better spent on other characters. In the penultimate episode, Flocke kills her by slitting her throat quite violently, pleasing everyone who hated her.
What's known for sure is that Season 2 lost many viewers because of an overly large Kudzu Plot. The first six episodes of Season 3 (the "pod") were widely panned and turned off a lot of fans (who would then go on to miss episode 7, "Not in Portland," considered one of the show's finest, and the nearly unbroken line of incredible episodes that followed it). Fortunately, with the series' end scheduled to the sixth season years in advance, Seasons 4 and 5 started expanding the context of the story and tying together some of the various loose ends.
Season 6 suffered from this as well for a lot of viewers, mainly because of an alternate-universe subplot that was generally seen as unnecessary and uninteresting, and an increasing emphasis on mystical and metaphysical themes (which the show hadn't really embraced until that point) along with many plot elements that feel like they are there solely to fill out time (I.E. Sun inexplicably forgetting how to speak English), all culminating in an extremely polarizing series finale which answered very few questions.
During the scene in which Locke is falling out of a building after his father pushes him. The green screen/CGI is pretty blatant.
Also happens any time one of the polar bears is shown closely. They look like they were modeled on a 10-year old Macintosh. (although the first time around was almost even worse, as one pre-release commercial showed a cheesy prop bear shot from an air cannon, which before the pilot actually aired was replaced with a more convincing computer-generated one.)
A rather unfortunate submarine in the fifth season is conspicuous, especially since they usually have good or at least passable effects, especially since the entire shot may have been CG and looked like a screensaver or something. The worst part of that effect was that it was completely superfluous, and seemed to be showing off.
The freighter explosion doesn't really look that convincing, especially when watched on Blu-ray. Usually the production values are pretty high though...
Compared to other underwater scenes, the Island underwater in the Season 6 premiere looks like an old screen saver.
The blue-eyed Alex Rousseau is played by the brown-eyed Tania Raymonde. She wears blue contact lenses in the role. In one episode, the one where she is murdered, her left contact lens is visibly dislocated.
Stoic Woobie: Juliet was a brilliant fertility expert with an ex-husband who controlled her every move, and had a cancerous sister who she was helping. She came to the island because she was misled into thinking she was going to conduct experiments for a scientific company in Oregon. She found out her duty on the island was to try to prevent pregnant women and their children from dying, and she failed countless times. She then slowly became Ben's slave while her chances of leaving and seeing her sister became slimmer each year. Despite all these hardships, she maintains a stoic demeanor, but when she slips you just want to give the girl a big fat hug.
Strangled by the Red String: In the series finale, it turns out that Shannon and not Nadia is Sayid's true soul mate. Nadia doesn't even appear in the episode. The fans were not happy.
Word of God is that Paulo and Nikki's manner of death was a direct response to their Scrappy status. In Season 3:
Hurley: Dude, Nikki's dead. Sawyer: Who the hell is Nikki?
This gets a Call-Back in Season 6, when Miles rebuffs Ben's offer of a $3.2 million bribe originally from Season 4, pointing out that he's now aware of a grave containing "a couple of jabronies" named Nikki and Paulo who got buried alive with $8 million worth of diamonds. To add further insult to injury, he apparently unceremoniously dug them up shortly afterward, since he's shown with the diamonds at the end of the episode.
In the penultimate episode of Season 6, The Man in Black violently slits Zoe's throat, killing her and pleasing everyone who hated her.
Towards the end of the second season, there is a major cliffhanger where Sawyer, with help from Charlie (who had been shunned by the group after a drug relapse), steals ALL the guns the group had acquired to defend themselves. And then declares himself new man in charge, since he was the only one with the weapons the group desperately needed to fight off the Others. The plotline is flat out killed off the next episode, with Sawyer's Heel Turn being ignored and everyone effectively deciding to ignore Sawyer's proclamation that he is the new leader of the group. The closest thing to a pay-off is Hurley, who is the only member of the group who interacts with Sawyer in the next episode, calling him an asshole no one likes while engaging in an unrelated B-plot for the episode. Soon after the guns end up back in the hands of the group with zero fanfare.
Jack's idea to build up an army with Ana-Lucia in Season 2. This is introduced as a big cliffhanger after a confrontation with the Others, but nothing really comes of the "army" other than Sawyer snarking about it. Presumably with everything else going on, Jack never had time to get the whole army thing off the ground, but the writers knew at that point that Sawyer was plotting to steal the guns (see the other wasted plot mentioned above) and that Ana-Lucia would be dead by the end of the season. So what was their purpose in even bringing it up to begin with?
Walt's storyline in general could be seen as a waste, given how much emphasis was placed on his apparent psychic abilities, his tendency to appear as a vision in the middle of the jungle, the Others kidnapping him and running some sort of tests on him, etc. A lot of this was emphasized after Malcolm David Kelley was removed from the main cast of the show due to the actor aging too fast compared to the pace of the story. For the rest of the series, viewers got the occasional rare appearance from Walt (including one after a Time Skip when story time had caught up to the actor's age), and the occasional reminder that he was important from other characters mentioning him, but we never truly found out exactly why he was so "special".
Miles's ability to communicate with ghosts, and how this may or may not have had anything to do with Hurley's similar ability after leaving the island, was never really explained.
The outrigger chase, in the midst of all the time flashes in Season 5. The writers had actually penned the other side of that scene that would explain who was shooting at the Losties, but then they decided they didn't have enough time to circle back around to it later in Season 5 or 6.
In general, some viewers were upset when the show first introduced supernatural elements into the plot, as they thought a story about a group of characters trying to survive on an uncharted island was compelling enough without needing any of that supernatural stuff added in and it turned them off from wanting to watch any further. The fact that some of that supernatural stuff was never properly explained (I.E. Miles ability to communicate with ghosts mentioned above) didn't help matters.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The first major character death on the show was a legitimately heartbreaking moment, and marked the first major rift in the overall status quo. As the show progressed, however, and character deaths became more and more frequent, some people felt that the shock value began to wear off. While it did help break the taboo for TV series regarding character deaths, by the time of the later seasons when half the cast had been wiped out, it became hard to care about some of the newer characters, knowing that their chances of making it to the end of the season were slim. It doesn't help how dominating the influence of Lost was on mid-00s TV series, meaning that many other shows at that time were doing the same thing.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Man in Black can invoke this response, especially after seeing "Across the Sea." When you consider that he's been trapped on the island for thousands of years, with Jacob determined to keep him there, it's possible to see him as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who has simply lost any empathy for those who stand in the way of that goal, especially because the show never gets around to explaining why him leaving the island would supposedly cause the end of the world.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: By the same coin, Jacob can come across as this. When discussing the episode as part of the web series "Totally Lost", Mark Pellegrino basically admits that Jacob knew sending his brother into the cave would have dire ramifications for his brother's well-being. But he did not care, as he wanted revenge for the death of their mother, and since he could not kill him (and had been given a vague warning from his mom that going into the cave would have dire consequences), he chose the next best thing to harm his brother and permanently trap him on the island.
Michael during the arc Walt is kidnapped by the Others. While his fears for his son's safety are perfectly understandable considering the situation, he comes across as almost hysterical (with his screaming Walt's name considered narm to the point of Memetic Mutation) that he becomes difficult to empathize with, and his crossing the Moral Event Horizon by killing Ana Lucia (who was just starting to get Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in the eyes of the fans) and Libby (who herself just had a Relationship Upgrade with Hurley) only made fans hate him even more.
Danielle Rousseau is probably the most tragic character of all. She was forced to kill her friends including the love of her life, had her infant daughter taken away, spent 16 years as The Aloner going nuts, and when she was finally reunited with her daughter, she gotkilled off.
Hurley. The butt of many of Sawyer's fat jokes, has incredibly bad luck and possible mental instability. But the worst times were during Season 2 when Libby, the only girl on island to reciprocate love toward him, is shot by Micheal and euthanized by being given heroin. Again, in Season 3, when his best friend Charlie dies, which makes the Season 4 opener much more bittersweet when he canonballs. Also the entire Season 4 opener flash-forwards.
Flashbacks to Ben's childhood deserve special mention: a dead mother, an abusive alcoholic father, and a lonely childhood all add up to a pretty sad life. It makes what he becomes all the more awesome (if still kind of creepy). His emotional speech to Jacob asking "What about me?" helps- only to be replied with "What about you?" What Locke says about how his years of devoted service were rewarded with him getting cancer, having to watch his daughter murdered, and then being exiled from the island. He gets beat up a lot on the show, too, to the point where you can't help but feel sorry for him.
Daniel Faraday is one of the woobiest characters on the show, especially when Charlotte dies in his arms, and later on when he gets shot and killed by his own mother.
Charlie Pace has his moments too. Thankfully, he also has some moments of real lightness and joy, which either balance it out or make it worse.
The Man in Black was pretty Woobie before he got all smoke-ified. His mom landed on the island and gave birth to him and his brother Jacob. Mom is then promptly killed by a woman on the island, who takes MiB and Jacob and raises them as her own children, never telling them about their real mother, so they could take her place as protectors of the island. Then MiB gets a vision of his birth mother and tries to get his brother to run away with him to a tribe of people on the other side of the island, and Jacob refuses after beating the crap out of him. So MiB runs away and only sees his brother every once in a while for the next thirty years. In that time he's been building a way to get off the damn island, which is all he's ever really wanted. Fake!Mom shows up and, after luring him into a false sense of security by hugging him and telling him she's sorry, knocks him out, destroys his machine, and kills every single one of the people he lived with for the past thirty years. He finds his Fake!Mom and kills her in a fit of revenge, immediately regrets it, and then Jacob finds him and beats him up (again) and drags him through the forest to the heart of the island. Jacob tosses him in, dooming him to a fate worse than death. All this because the poor kid just wanted to go home.
because of his compulsion to blame himself caused by his daddy issues?
