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Lost - The Complete Third Season
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment // Unrated // December 11, 2007
List Price: $96.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
"They're good people. They're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but eventually, they're going to need some answers."
-Jack
"Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell is going on."
-Kate
Lost's first season was an instant phenomenon, entrancing untold millions of viewers as they followed the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 on a remote, seemingly mystical island. That momentum quickly dragged to a screeching halt as the attention to characterization, any persistent sense of
dread, and the pervasive, uneasy mysteries that riddled the island faded away in the series' second season. I have to admit to becoming so disillusioned with Lost's drastic downturn that I dropped the show altogether shortly before the second season finale. With Lost's third season now making its bow on Blu-ray, I opted to give the show another chance, and it's clear that showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have taken fans' criticism to heart.
The season opens with the island in tatters. The hatch that had been such a central focus in the series' sophomore season is a smoldering hole in the ground, and its implosion has caught Locke and a transformed Desmond in its wake. Turnabout being fair play and all, the erstwhile Henry Gale -- now comfortably returning to the name of Benjamin Linus -- returns the favor after suffering through savage beatings while locked in a closet last season, holding Jack, Kate, and Sawyer prisoner in one of the Others' research outposts. Not offering much of any other meaningful use to the Others, Sawyer and Kate are thrown into a couple of polar bear cages, periodically dragged out to crush rocks in a field as part of some sort of construction project. Jack, on the other hand, is of considerably more value to Ben, who sets out to systematically shatter the surgeon's will. This leaves the remaining survivors stranded on the beach without a strong personality to take the reins, exposing their vulnerable underbelly to harm.
The first leg of the season is entirely focused on exploring this dynamic. I can see why many fans may have been frustrated by these first six or seven episodes when they aired, with the story continually shifting perspectives and slowly advancing week after week. Rather than juggle these disparate storylines, Lost devotes the first two episodes solely to Jack, Sawyer, and Kate's imprisonment. The third episode, "Further Instructions", returns to the beach, shrugging off the Others entirely, but most of the ensemble remains on the sidelines. The storylines are somewhat better balanced from there, but it's still dominated by one central plot and just a handful of characters. I'm sure this balancing act was frustrating when these episodes were first broadcast, where weeks could go by without catching more than a passing glimpse of someone like Claire or Sayid, but the first arc plays well in quick succession with a marathon viewing on video. Quite a bit happens in these first few episodes; there's a long-overdue development in the stagnant love triangle between Kate, Jack, and Sawyer, and one of the most intriguing additions to Lost's cast last season falls to the destructive forces of the island.
The season really roars to life from there, starting with "Not in Portland". In the same way that Lost's first season focused on the concept of these unwittingly interconnected
strangers carving out a new life for themselves on the island, followed by a sophomore season that turned its attention to the survivors of the tail-end of the plane and the unrelentingly brutal Others, season three is almost entirely about the struggle between the two warring factions. One of the central figures -- and the only character introduced last season that gets any meaningful screentime this year -- is Benjamin Linus. Ben is the driving force this season, oozing with a sort of overconfident charm that gradually devolves into visible frustration as he sees his increasingly tenuous leadership of the Others start to slip from his grasp. One of the newest additions to the Others' ranks is Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), a fertility doctor who grudgingly agreed to join the other researchers on the island but, several years later, is as much their prisoner as the castaways they've kidnapped. Part of what makes Juliet so engaging is that she holds her cards so tightly to her chest, masking whatever her true intentions are with an ambiguous smile. She wields a strength and intelligence that matches any of the men on the island, and yet there's a vulnerability bubbling under the surface. The questions swirling around Juliet's loyalties are handled deftly, letting viewers draw their own conclusions as some of the characters in the background bicker about her. The Others as a whole step out of the shadows, better fleshing out characters like 'Mr. Friendly' who are shown to distinct personalities and are plagued by their own sets of fears and concerns.
The Others may be humanized somewhat, but they don't pose any less of a threat. It becomes increasingly clear to Jack and the other survivors of the plane crash that they can't cower from them anymore. It's not their island, and no matter where they go or what measures they take, there is no refuge from the Others. There are only two routes to any sustainable sense of safety, and since escape from the island has continually proven to be so elusive, the castaways steel themselves for battle. What I find so compelling about the conflict isn't the barrage of betrayals or the lengths each faction goes to in order to protect its people, but the moral certainty on both sides. Moustache-twirling villains can be kind of fun in small doses, but honestly, evil is boring. Ben, on the other hand, knows he's ultimately doing the right thing. What his end goal is remains elusive, but it's important enough that Ben's willing to take drastic actions to protect his plans, and seeing the steely confidence in his eyes degrade into desperation as the season progresses makes him that much more compelling an antagonist.
One of the most frequent gripes aimed at Lost is that it keeps introducing new questions without bothering to answer the ones it's already dangled in front of viewers. That ranks fairly low on my list of priorities, personally, but this is a misstep that season three takes pains to correct. Much of the series' mythology is explored throughout these 23 episodes, including an extended look at the final days of the Dharma Initiative on the island as well as why so many of the group's stations are in such a state of disrepair. Numerous plot points from the first season are finally addressed, including a long overdue reunion of mother and daughter, an explanation of just how Locke was paralyzed, several questions of parentage, and a brutal revelation about the swindler who gave Sawyer his name. Season three answers many more questions than it poses, and many of the unresolved gaps are anchored around characters and their motivations rather than such meaningless iconography as last season's four-toed statue.
Lost's writers have clearly acknowledged
many of the complaints about the series' second season, even winking to fans with quippy bits of dialogue about plot conveniences and how no one outside a core, select group of the castaways ever bothers to go anywhere or do much of anything. One of my biggest gripes about season two was the Hatch. Instead of forcing the survivors of the plane crash to eke out a difficult life in an inhospitable jungle, they suddenly had a bed, a warm shower, and a stockpile of food at their fingertips. Locke, once a rugged outdoorsman, had been almost completely neutered, reduced to washing dishes and obsessively punching numbers into a computer keyboard. The destruction of that bunker in last season's finale empowers Locke to rediscover his backbone, bringing back both his more brutal side as well as his cold compulsion with the island's secrets. Although a fair number of the flashbacks are thin and continue to reiterate some of the same character traits that have bludgeoned viewers over the head for three seasons now, some of them are particularly revealing, most notably the extended glimpses into the pasts of Ben and Juliet.
The second season too frequently failed to capitalize on any momentum it built. The most glaring example is when Sawyer engineered the kidnapping of one of his fellow castaways to secure a cache of guns, ominously declaring that there's a new sheriff in town as the episode drew to a close. This was an exceptionally memorable moment, and how does Lost follow up on it...? Sawyer spends the entire next episode digging through the jungle looking for a noisy tree frog. Even at the series' creative peak, Lost's writers have been accused of making it all up as they went along, but season three feels so much more tightly woven by comparison. This is where a marathon viewing on Blu-ray really shines; some of the same imagery and references subtly appear again and again, and they carry much more impact when these episodes are viewed in quick succession and are fresh in viewers' mind rather than separated by entire months.
There really aren't any out and out disappointing episodes this time around. There are two that stand out as considerably weaker than the rest of the lot, but "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Further Instructions" are still quite a bit more tolerable than the lowest points of the two seasons before them. After a pair of episodes focusing entirely on the three captives being held by the Others, "Further Instructions" awkwardly returns to the beach to catch up with the remaining castaways. Locke's flashback to his days on a communal, heavily-armed farm is forgettable, but it's his drug-induced hallucination that really made me cringe. Admittedly, I'm apparently one of the only people in the free world with a working Internet connection who wasn't enthralled with his vision in the homebrew sweat lodge, which has Locke strolling around bare-chested through the Sydney airport in his wheelchair, with other folks on the island either manning the counters, working security, or traveling. It's supposed to be eerie, I think, but the whole vision comes off as hokey and cartoonish.
Of all the dangling plot points from earlier seasons, I think I can safely say the one I was the least interested in seeing answered was the mystery of Jack's tattoo. "Stranger in a
Strange Land" devotes itself entirely to that question, devoid of any charm, any intriguing character moments, or, really, anything of any value whatsoever. With a terrible premise and an abysmal guest star, "Stranger in a Strange Land" is easily the lowest point of the season.
The number of standout episodes easily trounce the season's weaker moments, though, thanks in large part of the strength of the cast. The flashbacks may be relating less and less to what the survivors are being forced to endure in the here and now, but they draw out some marvelously intense performances, such as Naveen Andrews' turn in "Enter 77" as Sayid is forced to confront of the darker moments from his past and Josh Holloway in "The Brig" as a confrontation Sawyer has spent a lifetime waiting for finally arrives. There's a deft balance of humor with the inescapable drama, with quite a bit of the comedy unexpectedly using Sawyer as a springboard, from an ill-fated ping-pong tournament to his giving Jin an English lesson on the only three phrases he'll ever need to say to a woman to his weak attempt at trying to curry favor with a camp he's sneered at and exploited for so long. Although Lost is still anchored around a core group of characters, the season does give the ensemble more screentime as it goes along, dialing down the excessive emphasis on Jack that overwhelmed season two. Even Charlie -- a character that's long been fairly bland and underused -- starts to become compelling again in "Greatest Hits", with its set of flashbacks woven together to reveal more about the man rather than rehashing the same struggles with sobriety and his drug-addled brother that we've seen time and again. Evangeline Lilly's acting chops are much improved this season, but she's still more than willing to let viewers leer at her, even game for a handcuffed catfight in the rain.
One of the most universally loathed episodes this season wound up being one of my favorites. Two other survivors -- jiggly twentysomething Nikki and her Brazilian boytoy Paolo -- pop up early in the season, with the writers pretending they're as integral a part of the ensemble as mainstays like Claire and Hurley. It's a joke seemingly engineered purely to lead into "Exposé". Aside from sporting the single best cold open of any episode from the entire run of the show, "Exposé" replays many of the landmark events and key discoveries from throughout Lost's three seasons, cleverly weaving these two self-serving bastards into the tapestry of its mythology through a series of flashbacks while a lightweight murder mystery is unraveling in the present. The episode's a blast from start to finish, from having a chance to see familiar faces like Shannon, Boone, and Artz again to the telegraphed but still effectively chilling twist at the end.
Maybe it's the presence of Deadwood writer/producer Elizabeth Sarnoff continuing to hold some of the reins on Lost that several of the actresses from the HBO western migrate to the island. Kim Dickens returns as Sawyer's swindled protégé, advancing their tangled history together as well as lending Kate a hand as she tries to reconnect with her estranged mother who remains under the watchful eye of federal marshals. Other Deadwood alums briefly featured throughout the season are Paula Malcomson and Robin Weigert, guest starring as one of the Others and Juliet's cancer-ravaged sister, respectively. Among the other guest stars are Wishmaster badnik Andrew Divoff as a gunslinging, cycloptic Soviet ex-pat who refuses to stay dead, Billy Dee Williams in a quick but hysterically memorable turn, Firefly's Nathan Fillion popping up for some steamy Canuck-on-Canuck action, and...why not? Cheech Marin. It's a strong slate of guest stars, with only the baffling casting of Bai Ling managing to drag an episode down. Ling takes a weak stab at making up for her inability to act by exposing as much cleavage as Standards and Practices would let slink by and violently flicking her tongue down Jack's throat. Just a few years after her stint on Angel made for the worst episode of the entire run of that series, Ling is part of the reason why "Stranger in a Strange Land" is the weakest episode on this set.
As much as this season as a whole rekindled my love for Lost, it's the feature-length finale that really brought me back on-board for the fourth season. All of the scheming and anguish throughout its first 21 episodes culminate in "Through the Looking Glass", an engaging and exceptionally well-written finale. The construction of
its flashbacks caught me completely off-guard, and rather than close on another of the usual cliffhangers, its final moments promise to take Lost in a direction I would never have expected.
I was deeply impressed by the third season of Lost. It not only redeemed a show I'd abandoned a year earlier, but once I've had a chance to sit down and re-evaluate the series as a whole, I wouldn't be surprised if I prefer this season over the first. The central season arc builds a tremendous amount of momentum that's maintained for a spectacular finale, and one that has me eagerly awaiting season four. Better than I ever could've hoped for and very Highly Recommended.
Video: Thanks to its glossy cinematography and the natural beauty of its lush, tropical setting, Lost is among just a small handful of television series that demand to be seen in high definition. Its release on Blu-ray is a marked improvement over the already outstanding broadcasts, accompanied by a boost in resolution to 1080p and encoded at a considerably higher bitrate with the more efficient AVC codec.
I was frequently startled by just how crisp and clean the 1.78:1 image is, and the presence of fine detail and overall sense of definition throughout this boxed set are easily in the same league as a polished feature film. Close-ups are particularly revealing, with each and every pore and bit of stubble seeming clear and distinct. Textures that'd fade away even in a first-rate high definition broadcast are rendered smoothly on this Blu-ray release. One of Lost's greatest strengths is that the series is filmed on location in Hawaii, making for absolutely breathtaking shots such as the glimpse of the island at dusk that opens "Not in Portland". The skies are dazzlingly bright and blue, and the greens of the lush foliage leap off the screen. Not quite as attractive but every bit as striking are the purples and sickly yellows around the bruises and welts of half the cast.
Lost's photography is frequently grainy -- particularly pronounced under low light -- and even though the AVC encode isn't at the same stratospheric bitrate as most of Buena Vista's releases on Blu-ray, the ample film grain never spirals into any artifacting. There were moments where faint ringing was visible around some edges, which is unfortunate, but at least those sorts of edge haloes remain unintrusive. The glossy sheen of Lost's tropical cinematography would shine on any format, but the series looks truly exceptional on Blu-ray, and here's hoping its first two seasons aren't too far behind.
Audio: Lost's audio is also dramatically improved on Blu-ray, taking advantage of the format's more expansive capacity by including a set of 16-bit,
uncompressed PCM 5.1 soundtracks. The increases in clarity and the distinctness across the different channels thoroughly outclass the original broadcasts on ABC, immediately evident from the first strains of Michael Giacchino's outstanding score. The overwhelming majority of the television series I've heard in 5.1 still seem like traditional stereo tracks that lightly bleed into the surround channels and are reinforced by a meager low-end. The sound design of Lost, on the other hand, really sounds as if it was created first and foremost with high-end home theater rigs in mind.
The extensive use of the surrounds -- usually an afterthought for a TV show -- is particularly pronounced. The rear channels play an integral role in establishing the tone and atmosphere throughout many of these episodes, from hushed whispers that encircle and stalk the viewer to the worn, creaking metal of the aging seacraft and decrepit Dharma outposts. The separation across channels manages to outclass most feature films. Even some of the ambiance makes discrete use of the six-channel sound design rather than just seeming like background noise. For instance, there's a flashback early in the season that places Mr. Eko inside of a Nigerian church, and an off-screen car can be heard parking outside, seamlessly panning from the right surround channel to the front of the soundscape. This sort of color is immersive and enveloping, and I doubt I've ever seen a television series that was made so much more engaging through the use of clever sound design.
Lost boasts a powerful low-end as well. Between the crates of dynamite lifted from the Black Rock, a Dharma failsafe hinging on a few megatons of C4, the resonant, low-frequency pulse of the Others' security system, and a meteor that careens to the earth, season three's colossal explosions make for no shortage of deep, substantial bass.
The series' dialogue is generally rendered cleanly and clearly, but there are spots where the quality is somewhat erratic. "One of Us" suffers the worst, with some stretches sounding more like they're buzzing through a low-rent transistor radio rather than a shiny new Blu-ray disc. Those sorts of flaws are sparse and easily shrugged off, considering how overwhelmingly impressive just about every other moment of the PCM audio is.
Along with the uncompressed soundtrack, the third season of Lost also offers the original English audio in Dolby Digital 5.1 and plain jane stereo. A 5.1 French dub and a 2.0 Spanish track have been included as well, alongside subtitles in English (SDH), French, and Spanish.
Extras: This boxed set marks the first time Buena Vista/Disney has issued a season set of one of their television series on Blu-ray, and the attention to quality is evident even from a quick glimpse at the packaging. Lost arrives in a sturdy, Velcro-sealed slipcase that opens to reveal a note from
producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who gush over the improved presentation of these 23 episodes and smirk about "the poor suckers" missing out on the extras exclusive to this Blu-ray set. The first disc also opens with a brief introduction by Lindelof and Cuse about how spiffed up this Blu-ray release is over the DVD edition.
That introduction, like all of the extras on this set, is presented in high definition. It's worth noting that although all of the extras are in 1080i or 1080p, a fair amount of that footage is upscaled from standard definition or seemingly shot with dodgy HDV camcorders, so the quality doesn't consistently sparkle the same way the series itself does. The excerpts from this season's episodes and most of the talking head interviews are in pristine high definition, though.
The featured extra on this set -- one that's exclusive to this Blu-ray release -- is "Access: Granted". Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse promise to provide definitive answers to some lingering questions about Lost: What caused Oceanic flight 851 to crash? Does Walt have psychic powers? What is Mittelos Bioscience, exactly? Which of the many, many characters we've seen knocked off over the past three seasons are actually dead? What do the hieroglyphics in the countdown timer mean? The two of them field just over twenty questions like these, although they're mostly confirming fan speculation or shoring up what was implied in an episode rather than just pulling answers out of the air. The interface for this feature is based around one of the observation terminals, and fans can toggle between several different monitors for each 'file'. This reveals relevant excerpts from the series for each question, along with comments and speculation from writers for Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Lost: The Official Magazine, and...oh, why not? Jimmy Kimmel. The interface is a little tedious to wade through, though, and none of the producers' responses are likely to catch fans off guard.
Also exclusive to the Blu-ray set is a set of "Blu-Prints", offering viewers a sixteen minute tour of five of the sets. These include the design and construction of the polar bear cages that Sawyer and Kate were imprisoned in for the first leg of the season, actor Michael Emerson hinting how the set design of
Ben's bungalow could play into the series' fourth season, the mindset behind the design of the operating theater, and...well, a couple of particularly memorable sets that veer too far into spoiler territory to fully describe here.
The last of the Blu-ray exclusive features is a "Season Play" option that lets the player track which episodes viewers have watched and pick up where they've left off.
The set's deleted scenes are broken up into two chunks. There are three additional flashbacks, including Locke watching an arrest from a safe distance in "Further Instructions", an extension with Jin in the final moments of "The Glass Ballerina", and a peek at how Nikki and Paolo reacted to the tumultuous finale of the previous season in "Exposé". The second batch of deleted scenes includes nine scenes and runs just over seventeen minutes in total. Among them are a longer take on Jack stalking his soon-to-be-ex-wife, an earlier explanation why Sawyer and Kate were forced to break and move rocks in a field, Hurley trying to suss out whether or not Locke has superpowers, and a stroll at night confirming the questions about one character's parentage. There's really only one memorable scene in there, though, as Nikki has a hysterically uncomfortable chat about sex with Claire. Also included are a fairly straightforward blooper reel (7 min.) and the bunny-induced chaos of the full instructional film for the Orchid facility (2 min.). The 4x3 instructional film is deliberately rough-hewn, naturally, but the other snippets of footage are sub-DVD quality, despite being upscaled to high-def.
The extensive look behind the scenes begins with the hour-long "Lost: On Location", a collection of featurettes delving into ten individual episodes. Mixing candid fly-on-the-wall footage during filming with comments from the cast and crew, "On Location" touches on the considerable amount of stunt work that goes into the series, air-brushing of tattoos for extras while shooting in a working prison, using digital effects to flesh out a bustling British downtown, coordinating a second tour through Lost's standout moments for "Exposé", Dominic Monaghan showing off a tip he picked up from Leonardo DiCaprio for swimming underwater, the cast and crew not having a chance to rehearse a downhill jumpstart, the construction of one of the massive vehicles the Others use to stay mobile, and some of the more dramatic moments from the season finale. I really prefer this approach to behind the scenes material than the usual making-of puff pieces, and fans will probably find the teases about season four to make "On Location" even more worth setting aside the time to watch.
"Lost in a Day" takes a
much more intensely focused view of how frenzied the production of the show really is. Camera teams were dispatched to Los Angeles and Hawaii to follow the cast and crew for one day, showing hour by hour the work being done on the seven episodes in various stages of production at that time. There's at least a glimpse of just about everything: wardrobe fitting, building sets, dressing a house to look a bit more Scottish, mixing the audio, transporting film to be processed, writing, mulling over reshoots, visual effects, editing, scoring, principal photography...everything all the way down to craft services putting together a breakfast spread and Foley artists stomping around in a sandbox filled with crunchy leaves.
There are scores of other featurettes, including a charming introduction by Evangeline Lilly to the many folks who toil around behind the camera (7 min.), a mostly uninsightful recap of "The World of the Others" (14 min.), and a quick knife-throwing lesson by Terry O'Quinn (2 min.). "Lost Book Club" (8 min.) touches on the relevance of some of the books shown and referenced throughout the series, from Stephen King to Ayn Rand, as well as likening the structure of Lost to Dickens' serialized writing. "Cast in Clay" (5 min.) delves into the process of Todd McFarlane's team creating the Lost action figures, from photographing the actors to tweaking computer-aided sculpting to the line's showcase at Comic Con. "The Next Level" (4 min.) feels a lot more like an extended commercial by comparison, relentlessly plugging Ubisoft's upcoming Lost game. The preview does include a brief look at the modeling and motion capture work as well as a quick note or two about its amnesia-driven storyline.
Four of the season's episodes are accompanied by commentary tracks, beginning with the premiere. The audio commentary for "A Tale of Two Cities", which pairs Damon Lindelof with actress Elizabeth Mitchell, doesn't give fans much to gnaw on, though. They spend pretty much every moment of the 43 minutes and change riffing on the premiere, everything from quoting Nelly lyrics to poking fun at how Dharma takes care to brand its boxes of mac & cheese. It's fun but pretty lightweight, with some of the only meaty notes including a nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jack ditching a friendly rubber prop in favor of something a little nastier when holding one of the Others hostage, and rattling off some of the conversations that had been trimmed out of the episode.
The commentary on disc two's "I Do" opens with producer Carlton Cuse quipping about its "lack of insight", but the conversation with Cuse and actors Evangeline Lilly and Josh Holloway is a lot more substantial. The track skews towards notes about the acting, as Cuse asks Lilly and Holloway about how they usually prepare for an episode. Holloway admits early on to not really being sure how to tackle an audio commentary, but Cuse and Lilly are able to carry the track pretty much on their own. Some of the highlights include Lilly accidentally knocking over Cap'n Tightpants, the difficulty projecting intimacy from across two sets of polar bear cages, Holloway joking about Sawyer's shoddy aim since the pilot, and how quick fits of exposition tend to be trimmed out and rewritten for later episodes.
The only audio commentary in the set without an actor in tow is "Exposé" with writers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis. They're really keen on the show-within-a-show, mentioning that they've broken a full twenty episodes of Exposé, and they're geeked out enough on Star Wars to give guest star Billy Dee Williams a pimp hat in Lando colors. One of this episode's biggest hooks is seeing how Nikki and Paolo have
been woven into Lost's mythology, replaying some of the key scenes throughout the series with the two of them scheming on the sidelines. Horowitz and Kitsis spend a good bit of time talking about how this process of seamlessly blending familiar footage with the newly-filmed material was tackled, as well as how many other nods to earlier episodes had been trimmed out of the final cut.
The last of the commentaries is for "The Man Behind the Curtain". As you could probably guess by the Wizard of Oz-inspired title, the track features actor Michael Emerson, who's joined by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Benjamin Linus is as much the focus of the commentary as he is the episode as a whole, with the writers noting how they originally created the character in reverse and likening the relationship between Locke and Ben to that of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. Some of the other particularly memorable comments include a largely unseen character visible for a couple of frames for those fans determined enough to seek him out, how Emerson reacted to lines that were scripted but went unheard, how the pages in Ben's journal weren't expressly scripted but wound up being perfect just the same, and the Oedipal mess of casting Emerson's real-life wife as Ben's ill-fated mother. There are also several hints about what viewers may be able to expect from season four, by the way.
Somewhat unexpectedly, there isn't a commentary for the feature-length season finale. I really enjoyed all four of the audio commentaries on this set, even if the track for "A Tale of Two Cities" is featherweight compared to the rest. It's worth noting that these commentaries are teeming with spoilers for episodes later in the season, so if this is your first time tearing through season three, hold off on giving them a listen until the very end.
The sixth and final disc in the set also includes high definition trailers for Dan in Real Life, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and The Game Plan.
A small booklet with a synopsis of each episode and an explanation how to use the "Access: Granted" feature is tucked inside the case. It's also worth mentioning that each disc includes its own unique set of slickly animated menus, with the fourth disc particularly standing out as a couple of characters walk in front of the menu options.
Conclusion: Lost rebounds from its sophomore slump for a third season that's every bit as addictive and compelling as the series was in its earliest episodes. The glossy sheen of Lost's tropical cinematography dazzles on Blu-ray, bolstered by a tremendous lossless soundtrack and an impressively extensive set of extras. Highly Recommended.
Related Reviews: das Monkey usually fields the Lost coverage for DVD Talk, including DVD reviews of the first two seasons as well his own write-up of this Blu-ray set.
The images scattered around this review are promotional stills and aren't meant to represent the way the series looks in high definition.
-Jack
"Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell is going on."
-Kate
Lost's first season was an instant phenomenon, entrancing untold millions of viewers as they followed the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 on a remote, seemingly mystical island. That momentum quickly dragged to a screeching halt as the attention to characterization, any persistent sense of
dread, and the pervasive, uneasy mysteries that riddled the island faded away in the series' second season. I have to admit to becoming so disillusioned with Lost's drastic downturn that I dropped the show altogether shortly before the second season finale. With Lost's third season now making its bow on Blu-ray, I opted to give the show another chance, and it's clear that showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have taken fans' criticism to heart. The season opens with the island in tatters. The hatch that had been such a central focus in the series' sophomore season is a smoldering hole in the ground, and its implosion has caught Locke and a transformed Desmond in its wake. Turnabout being fair play and all, the erstwhile Henry Gale -- now comfortably returning to the name of Benjamin Linus -- returns the favor after suffering through savage beatings while locked in a closet last season, holding Jack, Kate, and Sawyer prisoner in one of the Others' research outposts. Not offering much of any other meaningful use to the Others, Sawyer and Kate are thrown into a couple of polar bear cages, periodically dragged out to crush rocks in a field as part of some sort of construction project. Jack, on the other hand, is of considerably more value to Ben, who sets out to systematically shatter the surgeon's will. This leaves the remaining survivors stranded on the beach without a strong personality to take the reins, exposing their vulnerable underbelly to harm.
The first leg of the season is entirely focused on exploring this dynamic. I can see why many fans may have been frustrated by these first six or seven episodes when they aired, with the story continually shifting perspectives and slowly advancing week after week. Rather than juggle these disparate storylines, Lost devotes the first two episodes solely to Jack, Sawyer, and Kate's imprisonment. The third episode, "Further Instructions", returns to the beach, shrugging off the Others entirely, but most of the ensemble remains on the sidelines. The storylines are somewhat better balanced from there, but it's still dominated by one central plot and just a handful of characters. I'm sure this balancing act was frustrating when these episodes were first broadcast, where weeks could go by without catching more than a passing glimpse of someone like Claire or Sayid, but the first arc plays well in quick succession with a marathon viewing on video. Quite a bit happens in these first few episodes; there's a long-overdue development in the stagnant love triangle between Kate, Jack, and Sawyer, and one of the most intriguing additions to Lost's cast last season falls to the destructive forces of the island.
The season really roars to life from there, starting with "Not in Portland". In the same way that Lost's first season focused on the concept of these unwittingly interconnected
strangers carving out a new life for themselves on the island, followed by a sophomore season that turned its attention to the survivors of the tail-end of the plane and the unrelentingly brutal Others, season three is almost entirely about the struggle between the two warring factions. One of the central figures -- and the only character introduced last season that gets any meaningful screentime this year -- is Benjamin Linus. Ben is the driving force this season, oozing with a sort of overconfident charm that gradually devolves into visible frustration as he sees his increasingly tenuous leadership of the Others start to slip from his grasp. One of the newest additions to the Others' ranks is Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), a fertility doctor who grudgingly agreed to join the other researchers on the island but, several years later, is as much their prisoner as the castaways they've kidnapped. Part of what makes Juliet so engaging is that she holds her cards so tightly to her chest, masking whatever her true intentions are with an ambiguous smile. She wields a strength and intelligence that matches any of the men on the island, and yet there's a vulnerability bubbling under the surface. The questions swirling around Juliet's loyalties are handled deftly, letting viewers draw their own conclusions as some of the characters in the background bicker about her. The Others as a whole step out of the shadows, better fleshing out characters like 'Mr. Friendly' who are shown to distinct personalities and are plagued by their own sets of fears and concerns. The Others may be humanized somewhat, but they don't pose any less of a threat. It becomes increasingly clear to Jack and the other survivors of the plane crash that they can't cower from them anymore. It's not their island, and no matter where they go or what measures they take, there is no refuge from the Others. There are only two routes to any sustainable sense of safety, and since escape from the island has continually proven to be so elusive, the castaways steel themselves for battle. What I find so compelling about the conflict isn't the barrage of betrayals or the lengths each faction goes to in order to protect its people, but the moral certainty on both sides. Moustache-twirling villains can be kind of fun in small doses, but honestly, evil is boring. Ben, on the other hand, knows he's ultimately doing the right thing. What his end goal is remains elusive, but it's important enough that Ben's willing to take drastic actions to protect his plans, and seeing the steely confidence in his eyes degrade into desperation as the season progresses makes him that much more compelling an antagonist.
One of the most frequent gripes aimed at Lost is that it keeps introducing new questions without bothering to answer the ones it's already dangled in front of viewers. That ranks fairly low on my list of priorities, personally, but this is a misstep that season three takes pains to correct. Much of the series' mythology is explored throughout these 23 episodes, including an extended look at the final days of the Dharma Initiative on the island as well as why so many of the group's stations are in such a state of disrepair. Numerous plot points from the first season are finally addressed, including a long overdue reunion of mother and daughter, an explanation of just how Locke was paralyzed, several questions of parentage, and a brutal revelation about the swindler who gave Sawyer his name. Season three answers many more questions than it poses, and many of the unresolved gaps are anchored around characters and their motivations rather than such meaningless iconography as last season's four-toed statue.
Lost's writers have clearly acknowledged
many of the complaints about the series' second season, even winking to fans with quippy bits of dialogue about plot conveniences and how no one outside a core, select group of the castaways ever bothers to go anywhere or do much of anything. One of my biggest gripes about season two was the Hatch. Instead of forcing the survivors of the plane crash to eke out a difficult life in an inhospitable jungle, they suddenly had a bed, a warm shower, and a stockpile of food at their fingertips. Locke, once a rugged outdoorsman, had been almost completely neutered, reduced to washing dishes and obsessively punching numbers into a computer keyboard. The destruction of that bunker in last season's finale empowers Locke to rediscover his backbone, bringing back both his more brutal side as well as his cold compulsion with the island's secrets. Although a fair number of the flashbacks are thin and continue to reiterate some of the same character traits that have bludgeoned viewers over the head for three seasons now, some of them are particularly revealing, most notably the extended glimpses into the pasts of Ben and Juliet. The second season too frequently failed to capitalize on any momentum it built. The most glaring example is when Sawyer engineered the kidnapping of one of his fellow castaways to secure a cache of guns, ominously declaring that there's a new sheriff in town as the episode drew to a close. This was an exceptionally memorable moment, and how does Lost follow up on it...? Sawyer spends the entire next episode digging through the jungle looking for a noisy tree frog. Even at the series' creative peak, Lost's writers have been accused of making it all up as they went along, but season three feels so much more tightly woven by comparison. This is where a marathon viewing on Blu-ray really shines; some of the same imagery and references subtly appear again and again, and they carry much more impact when these episodes are viewed in quick succession and are fresh in viewers' mind rather than separated by entire months.
There really aren't any out and out disappointing episodes this time around. There are two that stand out as considerably weaker than the rest of the lot, but "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Further Instructions" are still quite a bit more tolerable than the lowest points of the two seasons before them. After a pair of episodes focusing entirely on the three captives being held by the Others, "Further Instructions" awkwardly returns to the beach to catch up with the remaining castaways. Locke's flashback to his days on a communal, heavily-armed farm is forgettable, but it's his drug-induced hallucination that really made me cringe. Admittedly, I'm apparently one of the only people in the free world with a working Internet connection who wasn't enthralled with his vision in the homebrew sweat lodge, which has Locke strolling around bare-chested through the Sydney airport in his wheelchair, with other folks on the island either manning the counters, working security, or traveling. It's supposed to be eerie, I think, but the whole vision comes off as hokey and cartoonish.
Of all the dangling plot points from earlier seasons, I think I can safely say the one I was the least interested in seeing answered was the mystery of Jack's tattoo. "Stranger in a
Strange Land" devotes itself entirely to that question, devoid of any charm, any intriguing character moments, or, really, anything of any value whatsoever. With a terrible premise and an abysmal guest star, "Stranger in a Strange Land" is easily the lowest point of the season. The number of standout episodes easily trounce the season's weaker moments, though, thanks in large part of the strength of the cast. The flashbacks may be relating less and less to what the survivors are being forced to endure in the here and now, but they draw out some marvelously intense performances, such as Naveen Andrews' turn in "Enter 77" as Sayid is forced to confront of the darker moments from his past and Josh Holloway in "The Brig" as a confrontation Sawyer has spent a lifetime waiting for finally arrives. There's a deft balance of humor with the inescapable drama, with quite a bit of the comedy unexpectedly using Sawyer as a springboard, from an ill-fated ping-pong tournament to his giving Jin an English lesson on the only three phrases he'll ever need to say to a woman to his weak attempt at trying to curry favor with a camp he's sneered at and exploited for so long. Although Lost is still anchored around a core group of characters, the season does give the ensemble more screentime as it goes along, dialing down the excessive emphasis on Jack that overwhelmed season two. Even Charlie -- a character that's long been fairly bland and underused -- starts to become compelling again in "Greatest Hits", with its set of flashbacks woven together to reveal more about the man rather than rehashing the same struggles with sobriety and his drug-addled brother that we've seen time and again. Evangeline Lilly's acting chops are much improved this season, but she's still more than willing to let viewers leer at her, even game for a handcuffed catfight in the rain.
One of the most universally loathed episodes this season wound up being one of my favorites. Two other survivors -- jiggly twentysomething Nikki and her Brazilian boytoy Paolo -- pop up early in the season, with the writers pretending they're as integral a part of the ensemble as mainstays like Claire and Hurley. It's a joke seemingly engineered purely to lead into "Exposé". Aside from sporting the single best cold open of any episode from the entire run of the show, "Exposé" replays many of the landmark events and key discoveries from throughout Lost's three seasons, cleverly weaving these two self-serving bastards into the tapestry of its mythology through a series of flashbacks while a lightweight murder mystery is unraveling in the present. The episode's a blast from start to finish, from having a chance to see familiar faces like Shannon, Boone, and Artz again to the telegraphed but still effectively chilling twist at the end.
Maybe it's the presence of Deadwood writer/producer Elizabeth Sarnoff continuing to hold some of the reins on Lost that several of the actresses from the HBO western migrate to the island. Kim Dickens returns as Sawyer's swindled protégé, advancing their tangled history together as well as lending Kate a hand as she tries to reconnect with her estranged mother who remains under the watchful eye of federal marshals. Other Deadwood alums briefly featured throughout the season are Paula Malcomson and Robin Weigert, guest starring as one of the Others and Juliet's cancer-ravaged sister, respectively. Among the other guest stars are Wishmaster badnik Andrew Divoff as a gunslinging, cycloptic Soviet ex-pat who refuses to stay dead, Billy Dee Williams in a quick but hysterically memorable turn, Firefly's Nathan Fillion popping up for some steamy Canuck-on-Canuck action, and...why not? Cheech Marin. It's a strong slate of guest stars, with only the baffling casting of Bai Ling managing to drag an episode down. Ling takes a weak stab at making up for her inability to act by exposing as much cleavage as Standards and Practices would let slink by and violently flicking her tongue down Jack's throat. Just a few years after her stint on Angel made for the worst episode of the entire run of that series, Ling is part of the reason why "Stranger in a Strange Land" is the weakest episode on this set.
As much as this season as a whole rekindled my love for Lost, it's the feature-length finale that really brought me back on-board for the fourth season. All of the scheming and anguish throughout its first 21 episodes culminate in "Through the Looking Glass", an engaging and exceptionally well-written finale. The construction of
its flashbacks caught me completely off-guard, and rather than close on another of the usual cliffhangers, its final moments promise to take Lost in a direction I would never have expected. I was deeply impressed by the third season of Lost. It not only redeemed a show I'd abandoned a year earlier, but once I've had a chance to sit down and re-evaluate the series as a whole, I wouldn't be surprised if I prefer this season over the first. The central season arc builds a tremendous amount of momentum that's maintained for a spectacular finale, and one that has me eagerly awaiting season four. Better than I ever could've hoped for and very Highly Recommended.
Video: Thanks to its glossy cinematography and the natural beauty of its lush, tropical setting, Lost is among just a small handful of television series that demand to be seen in high definition. Its release on Blu-ray is a marked improvement over the already outstanding broadcasts, accompanied by a boost in resolution to 1080p and encoded at a considerably higher bitrate with the more efficient AVC codec.
I was frequently startled by just how crisp and clean the 1.78:1 image is, and the presence of fine detail and overall sense of definition throughout this boxed set are easily in the same league as a polished feature film. Close-ups are particularly revealing, with each and every pore and bit of stubble seeming clear and distinct. Textures that'd fade away even in a first-rate high definition broadcast are rendered smoothly on this Blu-ray release. One of Lost's greatest strengths is that the series is filmed on location in Hawaii, making for absolutely breathtaking shots such as the glimpse of the island at dusk that opens "Not in Portland". The skies are dazzlingly bright and blue, and the greens of the lush foliage leap off the screen. Not quite as attractive but every bit as striking are the purples and sickly yellows around the bruises and welts of half the cast.
Lost's photography is frequently grainy -- particularly pronounced under low light -- and even though the AVC encode isn't at the same stratospheric bitrate as most of Buena Vista's releases on Blu-ray, the ample film grain never spirals into any artifacting. There were moments where faint ringing was visible around some edges, which is unfortunate, but at least those sorts of edge haloes remain unintrusive. The glossy sheen of Lost's tropical cinematography would shine on any format, but the series looks truly exceptional on Blu-ray, and here's hoping its first two seasons aren't too far behind.
Audio: Lost's audio is also dramatically improved on Blu-ray, taking advantage of the format's more expansive capacity by including a set of 16-bit,
uncompressed PCM 5.1 soundtracks. The increases in clarity and the distinctness across the different channels thoroughly outclass the original broadcasts on ABC, immediately evident from the first strains of Michael Giacchino's outstanding score. The overwhelming majority of the television series I've heard in 5.1 still seem like traditional stereo tracks that lightly bleed into the surround channels and are reinforced by a meager low-end. The sound design of Lost, on the other hand, really sounds as if it was created first and foremost with high-end home theater rigs in mind. The extensive use of the surrounds -- usually an afterthought for a TV show -- is particularly pronounced. The rear channels play an integral role in establishing the tone and atmosphere throughout many of these episodes, from hushed whispers that encircle and stalk the viewer to the worn, creaking metal of the aging seacraft and decrepit Dharma outposts. The separation across channels manages to outclass most feature films. Even some of the ambiance makes discrete use of the six-channel sound design rather than just seeming like background noise. For instance, there's a flashback early in the season that places Mr. Eko inside of a Nigerian church, and an off-screen car can be heard parking outside, seamlessly panning from the right surround channel to the front of the soundscape. This sort of color is immersive and enveloping, and I doubt I've ever seen a television series that was made so much more engaging through the use of clever sound design.
Lost boasts a powerful low-end as well. Between the crates of dynamite lifted from the Black Rock, a Dharma failsafe hinging on a few megatons of C4, the resonant, low-frequency pulse of the Others' security system, and a meteor that careens to the earth, season three's colossal explosions make for no shortage of deep, substantial bass.
The series' dialogue is generally rendered cleanly and clearly, but there are spots where the quality is somewhat erratic. "One of Us" suffers the worst, with some stretches sounding more like they're buzzing through a low-rent transistor radio rather than a shiny new Blu-ray disc. Those sorts of flaws are sparse and easily shrugged off, considering how overwhelmingly impressive just about every other moment of the PCM audio is.
Along with the uncompressed soundtrack, the third season of Lost also offers the original English audio in Dolby Digital 5.1 and plain jane stereo. A 5.1 French dub and a 2.0 Spanish track have been included as well, alongside subtitles in English (SDH), French, and Spanish.
Extras: This boxed set marks the first time Buena Vista/Disney has issued a season set of one of their television series on Blu-ray, and the attention to quality is evident even from a quick glimpse at the packaging. Lost arrives in a sturdy, Velcro-sealed slipcase that opens to reveal a note from
producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who gush over the improved presentation of these 23 episodes and smirk about "the poor suckers" missing out on the extras exclusive to this Blu-ray set. The first disc also opens with a brief introduction by Lindelof and Cuse about how spiffed up this Blu-ray release is over the DVD edition. That introduction, like all of the extras on this set, is presented in high definition. It's worth noting that although all of the extras are in 1080i or 1080p, a fair amount of that footage is upscaled from standard definition or seemingly shot with dodgy HDV camcorders, so the quality doesn't consistently sparkle the same way the series itself does. The excerpts from this season's episodes and most of the talking head interviews are in pristine high definition, though.
The featured extra on this set -- one that's exclusive to this Blu-ray release -- is "Access: Granted". Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse promise to provide definitive answers to some lingering questions about Lost: What caused Oceanic flight 851 to crash? Does Walt have psychic powers? What is Mittelos Bioscience, exactly? Which of the many, many characters we've seen knocked off over the past three seasons are actually dead? What do the hieroglyphics in the countdown timer mean? The two of them field just over twenty questions like these, although they're mostly confirming fan speculation or shoring up what was implied in an episode rather than just pulling answers out of the air. The interface for this feature is based around one of the observation terminals, and fans can toggle between several different monitors for each 'file'. This reveals relevant excerpts from the series for each question, along with comments and speculation from writers for Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Lost: The Official Magazine, and...oh, why not? Jimmy Kimmel. The interface is a little tedious to wade through, though, and none of the producers' responses are likely to catch fans off guard.
Also exclusive to the Blu-ray set is a set of "Blu-Prints", offering viewers a sixteen minute tour of five of the sets. These include the design and construction of the polar bear cages that Sawyer and Kate were imprisoned in for the first leg of the season, actor Michael Emerson hinting how the set design of
Ben's bungalow could play into the series' fourth season, the mindset behind the design of the operating theater, and...well, a couple of particularly memorable sets that veer too far into spoiler territory to fully describe here. The last of the Blu-ray exclusive features is a "Season Play" option that lets the player track which episodes viewers have watched and pick up where they've left off.
The set's deleted scenes are broken up into two chunks. There are three additional flashbacks, including Locke watching an arrest from a safe distance in "Further Instructions", an extension with Jin in the final moments of "The Glass Ballerina", and a peek at how Nikki and Paolo reacted to the tumultuous finale of the previous season in "Exposé". The second batch of deleted scenes includes nine scenes and runs just over seventeen minutes in total. Among them are a longer take on Jack stalking his soon-to-be-ex-wife, an earlier explanation why Sawyer and Kate were forced to break and move rocks in a field, Hurley trying to suss out whether or not Locke has superpowers, and a stroll at night confirming the questions about one character's parentage. There's really only one memorable scene in there, though, as Nikki has a hysterically uncomfortable chat about sex with Claire. Also included are a fairly straightforward blooper reel (7 min.) and the bunny-induced chaos of the full instructional film for the Orchid facility (2 min.). The 4x3 instructional film is deliberately rough-hewn, naturally, but the other snippets of footage are sub-DVD quality, despite being upscaled to high-def.
The extensive look behind the scenes begins with the hour-long "Lost: On Location", a collection of featurettes delving into ten individual episodes. Mixing candid fly-on-the-wall footage during filming with comments from the cast and crew, "On Location" touches on the considerable amount of stunt work that goes into the series, air-brushing of tattoos for extras while shooting in a working prison, using digital effects to flesh out a bustling British downtown, coordinating a second tour through Lost's standout moments for "Exposé", Dominic Monaghan showing off a tip he picked up from Leonardo DiCaprio for swimming underwater, the cast and crew not having a chance to rehearse a downhill jumpstart, the construction of one of the massive vehicles the Others use to stay mobile, and some of the more dramatic moments from the season finale. I really prefer this approach to behind the scenes material than the usual making-of puff pieces, and fans will probably find the teases about season four to make "On Location" even more worth setting aside the time to watch.
"Lost in a Day" takes a
much more intensely focused view of how frenzied the production of the show really is. Camera teams were dispatched to Los Angeles and Hawaii to follow the cast and crew for one day, showing hour by hour the work being done on the seven episodes in various stages of production at that time. There's at least a glimpse of just about everything: wardrobe fitting, building sets, dressing a house to look a bit more Scottish, mixing the audio, transporting film to be processed, writing, mulling over reshoots, visual effects, editing, scoring, principal photography...everything all the way down to craft services putting together a breakfast spread and Foley artists stomping around in a sandbox filled with crunchy leaves. There are scores of other featurettes, including a charming introduction by Evangeline Lilly to the many folks who toil around behind the camera (7 min.), a mostly uninsightful recap of "The World of the Others" (14 min.), and a quick knife-throwing lesson by Terry O'Quinn (2 min.). "Lost Book Club" (8 min.) touches on the relevance of some of the books shown and referenced throughout the series, from Stephen King to Ayn Rand, as well as likening the structure of Lost to Dickens' serialized writing. "Cast in Clay" (5 min.) delves into the process of Todd McFarlane's team creating the Lost action figures, from photographing the actors to tweaking computer-aided sculpting to the line's showcase at Comic Con. "The Next Level" (4 min.) feels a lot more like an extended commercial by comparison, relentlessly plugging Ubisoft's upcoming Lost game. The preview does include a brief look at the modeling and motion capture work as well as a quick note or two about its amnesia-driven storyline.
Four of the season's episodes are accompanied by commentary tracks, beginning with the premiere. The audio commentary for "A Tale of Two Cities", which pairs Damon Lindelof with actress Elizabeth Mitchell, doesn't give fans much to gnaw on, though. They spend pretty much every moment of the 43 minutes and change riffing on the premiere, everything from quoting Nelly lyrics to poking fun at how Dharma takes care to brand its boxes of mac & cheese. It's fun but pretty lightweight, with some of the only meaty notes including a nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jack ditching a friendly rubber prop in favor of something a little nastier when holding one of the Others hostage, and rattling off some of the conversations that had been trimmed out of the episode.
The commentary on disc two's "I Do" opens with producer Carlton Cuse quipping about its "lack of insight", but the conversation with Cuse and actors Evangeline Lilly and Josh Holloway is a lot more substantial. The track skews towards notes about the acting, as Cuse asks Lilly and Holloway about how they usually prepare for an episode. Holloway admits early on to not really being sure how to tackle an audio commentary, but Cuse and Lilly are able to carry the track pretty much on their own. Some of the highlights include Lilly accidentally knocking over Cap'n Tightpants, the difficulty projecting intimacy from across two sets of polar bear cages, Holloway joking about Sawyer's shoddy aim since the pilot, and how quick fits of exposition tend to be trimmed out and rewritten for later episodes.
The only audio commentary in the set without an actor in tow is "Exposé" with writers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis. They're really keen on the show-within-a-show, mentioning that they've broken a full twenty episodes of Exposé, and they're geeked out enough on Star Wars to give guest star Billy Dee Williams a pimp hat in Lando colors. One of this episode's biggest hooks is seeing how Nikki and Paolo have
been woven into Lost's mythology, replaying some of the key scenes throughout the series with the two of them scheming on the sidelines. Horowitz and Kitsis spend a good bit of time talking about how this process of seamlessly blending familiar footage with the newly-filmed material was tackled, as well as how many other nods to earlier episodes had been trimmed out of the final cut. The last of the commentaries is for "The Man Behind the Curtain". As you could probably guess by the Wizard of Oz-inspired title, the track features actor Michael Emerson, who's joined by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Benjamin Linus is as much the focus of the commentary as he is the episode as a whole, with the writers noting how they originally created the character in reverse and likening the relationship between Locke and Ben to that of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. Some of the other particularly memorable comments include a largely unseen character visible for a couple of frames for those fans determined enough to seek him out, how Emerson reacted to lines that were scripted but went unheard, how the pages in Ben's journal weren't expressly scripted but wound up being perfect just the same, and the Oedipal mess of casting Emerson's real-life wife as Ben's ill-fated mother. There are also several hints about what viewers may be able to expect from season four, by the way.
Somewhat unexpectedly, there isn't a commentary for the feature-length season finale. I really enjoyed all four of the audio commentaries on this set, even if the track for "A Tale of Two Cities" is featherweight compared to the rest. It's worth noting that these commentaries are teeming with spoilers for episodes later in the season, so if this is your first time tearing through season three, hold off on giving them a listen until the very end.
The sixth and final disc in the set also includes high definition trailers for Dan in Real Life, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and The Game Plan.
A small booklet with a synopsis of each episode and an explanation how to use the "Access: Granted" feature is tucked inside the case. It's also worth mentioning that each disc includes its own unique set of slickly animated menus, with the fourth disc particularly standing out as a couple of characters walk in front of the menu options.
Conclusion: Lost rebounds from its sophomore slump for a third season that's every bit as addictive and compelling as the series was in its earliest episodes. The glossy sheen of Lost's tropical cinematography dazzles on Blu-ray, bolstered by a tremendous lossless soundtrack and an impressively extensive set of extras. Highly Recommended.
Related Reviews: das Monkey usually fields the Lost coverage for DVD Talk, including DVD reviews of the first two seasons as well his own write-up of this Blu-ray set.
The images scattered around this review are promotional stills and aren't meant to represent the way the series looks in high definition.
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