I am not a television watcher.  Not a normal one anyways.  I watch maybe half a dozen channels if I am not turning it on for one thing in particular.  One thing that I don’t do is watch a series consecutively.  I just don’t have the time or the drive to make sure to be home at a specific time and day every week.  Of course this is getting much, much easier now that we have DV-R, TiVo, and every season of every show, regardless of how crappy (Touched by an Angel, the complete first season.  Who the hell is buying Touched by an Angel?)  Not that I’m complaining about my entertainment being accessible.  I’m simply saying that the average person with a halfway decent income has no reason to be home for the 8 o’clock show every week because they can get it from a dozen different sources.  Lucky for yours truly, the fine, fine, perhaps finest television program to grace network TV in years is on DVD.  Yup, I’m talking about America’s Next Top Model.  Errr, I mean Lost.  That’s right kids, it’s time for The Crow to weigh in on the phenomenon that is Lost.

There is of course a stellar cast, and they’re all sorts of famous.  The most notable being Dominic Monaghan who was in a trilogy you may have seen. His role in Lost is Charlie, the washed up one hit wonder with heroin problem.  Harold Perrineau from the last two Matrix… uh… “movies” is a lousy (though learning) father to our third cast member to have already been seen on the big screen, Malcolm David Kelly.  Kelley plays Walt to perfection.  Wait until you meet Walt!  OH man.  The rest are regular TV faces for the most part.  Ex Party-of-Who-Gives-a-Damn star Matthew Fox leads the survivors as Jack.   The rest of Season 1’s cast are chocked full of kind of kind of familiar faces.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d wager my favorite gun on any of the cast’s acting skill.  They have been perfectly cast and every one of them believes in their characters.  A person can see when an actor is simply going through the motions like when a sitcom runs too long.  The actors get tired of their characters and the show suffers.  Oh baby, not on Lost.  These actors are as dedicated to the show as you will become and Lost shines because of it.

SO what the hell is it about?  I didn’t know up until a month ago myself.  I’d heard there was a plane crash and some people were “lost” on an island.  Well, surprise, essentially it is about that.  But ohhh, oh man, it’s so much more.  The two part pilot does start off with the survivor’s only minutes after the crash.  From there the show establishes a basic formula that serves it extremely well in every episode to follow.  They always open with a sucker punch.  You can count on the first 5 minutes or so of nearly every episode to have a mini cliff hanger right before the coolest opening TV has seen in a while.  Check it out:

That’s it, just 10 seconds then its boom, right back into it.  From there we have an episode that centers generally on one characters history.  We begin to learn who these survivors are.  Their stories are amazingly intricate with constant overlapping paths and seemingly meaningless details that will come back and give you constant moments of wonder and just pure enjoyment.  This doesn’t just happen every once in a while, it’s every episode!  Of course while we get to know the principal players we also see the goings on of the survivors.  Their day to day life is filled with equally as much mystery.  Like what you ask?  The Hatch, the Others, the Raft, the Button, polar bears.  It doesn’t mean much now but just wait!  There is so much going in any given episode of Lost that you will not want to miss a single one.  Prove me wrong once you see Walkabout.  It’s technically the fourth episode as the pilot is a two parter.  If you have any impressions or conclusions about the show before then you will at least rethink them if not discard them after it.  You’ll also understand why you don’t want to miss a single episode.  This is your new addiction.

Ok, so you get that it’s a good show, but why should you buy it?  There’s a few reason’s but one in particular comes to mind like a Swiss army knife does when you think most useful thing ever.  That being: no commercials.  Oh the beauty of no commercials is something that everyone needs to experience before they condemn shelling out the $59.00 for the DVD’s.  It keeps you immersed and I promise is the absolute best way to watch it.  Another reason being is that this show, as I said above, is heavy on detail and when it hooks you it hooks you.  That being the case you won’t want to miss a single word.  I imagine, faithful reader, that you like Old Max here will be rewinding to catch that quiet line you just missed being uttered in the jungle.  Trust me; you won’t want to miss a single thing.  It says a lot for any form of entertainment when you can’t stand to not hear or read or play even the most miniscule portion.  That’s the case with Lost.