Lost The Complete Sixth Season (The Final Season)   Starring: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Dominic Monaghan, Naveen Andrews and Terry O’Quinn Walt Disney Studio Home Entertainment RRP: £44.99 BUA0151101 Certificate: 15 Available 13 September 2010

Since its debut in 2004, Lost has engaged audiences worldwide following the Oceanic Air Flight 815 crash survivors in their quest to stay alive by working together against all odds and discovering that nothing is as it seems. Their survival is continually threatened by predators and enemies including the island’s inhabitants known only as the “Others”. Forced to depend on each other in order to stay alive, the diverse group of survivors are bound by dark secrets and complicated relationships, with the truth behind each character slowly revealed throughout the seasons. The sixth, and final season, provides the long awaited answers to the mysteries...

Over six seasons, the fans of Lost have followed the passengers of the crashed Oceanic Flight 815 as they were stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere. Never sure whether the characters are really alive or dead, the final season finally wraps everything up and we learn (sort of) what on earth has been going on.

The series has an ongoing, and complex, story arc, so jumping in here at the show's final season is not really going to make for the best viewing experience. Yes, if you've never seen the show before, you can fathom what is going on but there are so many old characters that come back throughout this season that you'll get the most out of it if you've followed the show from day one.

Season 6 constantly flips between two "realities". There's the island and then there's an alternate Earth where the plane never crashed, and each of our heroes lead very different lives (for example James Ford and Miles Straume are cop partners and John Locke and Benjamin Linus are both teachers at the same school).

If I had one criticism it's that this season stretches the material to breaking point. The episodes feel like filler material that limp towards the end revelation. A lot of the characters in the "alternate" reality are either almost totally ignored, or pop in and don't add much to the proceedings. And while, on reflection, there is a good reason for this when you know what is actually going on, it still feels a bit like sloppy writing.

I also had a problem with the episode Across the Sea. This is a flashback episode that explains Jacob's birth and upbringing and why he was placed on the island to protect it. While an enjoyable enough episode it just felt a little forced - as though the writers were trying to neatly explain what the Jacob character was all about. Sadly to me it just felt a little cliched and pointless.

Extras include audio commentaries on four episodes (although not the final one oddly enough); The New Man in Charge (11 min, 27 sec that is set after the events in the final episode. We get to see a mock information video on the Hydra facility as well as follow the new man in charge of the island); Crafting a Final Season (36 min, 58 sec behind the scenes featurette that interviews cast and crew); A Hero's Journey (8 min, 36 sec which looks at how the show borrows heavily from the hero's journey in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces - the same influence that formed the backbone of George Lucas's Star Wars); See You in Another Life Brotha (8 min, 15 sec look at the flash sideways universe); Lost on Location (four featurettes that look at the sets for LA X (6 min, 3 sec), Temple Recon (2 min, 58 sec), AB Aeterno (4 min, 29 sec) and The Candidate (6 min, 2 sec)); and Lost Bloopers (4 min, 10 sec).

So yes, the final season was well worth the wait - have a box of tissues ready for the final episode - and fans of Lost should be satisfied with how everything turns out. Of course there are still question left hanging in the air, but that makes for a more intriguing conclusion.

9

Darren Rea