Lost - Seasons 1 to 5 DVD Box Set

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Lost
Season 6 DVD Box Set

RRP: £174.99

Best Price: £64.99

The 2004 pilot episode for Lost was one of the most expensive made for American TV and a huge gamble for the network ABC. Created by Damon Lindelof, Jeffrey Lieber and J. J. Abrams (who later revamped Star Trek with spectacular results), Lost quickly became one of the most original and fascinating shows on television. It’s often criticised for raising too many questions, but that also means it’s got plenty of talking points and it’s created plenty of debate on exactly what the heck is going on.

The premise sounds simple enough. A passenger plane – the eponymous Oceanic 815 – crashes and the survivors find themselves on a deserted island waiting to be rescued. But just how alone are they? It’s not long before they encounter polar bears, deadly smoke monsters, weird recorded messages and a violent tribe of people called The Others. Survival is far from easy.

The format for the early seasons is a linear plot about escaping the island with each episode focusing on one character and telling a more intimate story from their past in flashback. So we get the heroic Jack (Matthew Fox) falling out with his father, Sawyer’s (Josh Holloway) con man exploits and how the enigma that is Locke (Terry O'Quinn) was in a wheelchair before the island ‘cured’ him.

Season 3 takes a nosedive at the beginning with several of the survivors at the (repetitive) mercy of The Others but later redeems itself, largely thanks to the welcome addition of the show’s callous villain, Ben (Michael Emerson). In season 4, the show reverses its structure and starts using flashforwards to follow a handful of survivors who actually make it off the island.

But it’s season 5 that really impresses, shedding the episodic, character-driven nature of the show and tells the stories of two groups of characters still stuck on the island but in different timelines. It’s still maddeningly confounding but the show’s themes about faith versus science (embodied by Locke and Jack) are as compelling as ever.