LOSTblog Rewatch #WWLA

We’re kicking off our epic rewatch this week, with a rewatch of the two-hour pilot.  Keep an eye on this space for updates and times for group rewatches, using chatrooms, twitter, or how ever the leaders want to organize their groups.  Currently we have two times:

• Tuesday 6PM PST – follow @erinava to keep up with the times and locations.
• Saturday 8AM PST – follow @lost_boss and @cutepoison10 to keep up with times an locations

If neither of those times are good for you, take time to re-watch, and then wait for the re-caps (by @erinava and @aohora) that will post sometime on Saturday afternoon.  The main site for all the rewatches is http://lostblog.com/rewatch.  We’ll try to keep important posts up on both LOSTblog and on the Community sites.

The Pilot is one of the best television pilots to ever air, in my opinion. The show creators J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber, and Damon Lindelof we’re given a very short window to produce the pilot, and they knocked it out of the park.  They took many liberties with the story, and changed much of television because of the success of the pilot and the excellent first season.  Even so, they weren’t sure that the series would be the hit that it became.  J. J. Abrams shortly left the production team to direct Mission Impossible 3, which opened the door for Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof to continue their collaboration, and become one of the the best show running production teams ever.

Despite the success and the legacy of LOST, Lloyd Braun was fired from his job as Chairman for the ABC Entertainment group, in part because of greenlighting such an expensive and risky enterprise as this first pilot.  LOST ended up reversing the lagging ratings that ABC was suffering, so while it was one of the reasons for the Braum’s departure from ABC, it (along with Desparate Housewives, and Grey’s Anatomy) changed ABC’s fortunes.

Some of the immediate inspirations for the show, was the success of the reality show Survivor, the Tom Hanks’ movie Cast Away, and the novel Lord of the Flies.  The first script for the show wasn’t well received.  Braum brought in J. J. Abrams, who took a first cut at the script, and didn’t have much faith in how the format would work in scripted television.  A serendipitous paring with Damon Lindelof launched a supernatural aspect to the show, and enabled the pilot to focus on its intriguing characters as well as sprinkle a layer of mystical mythology clues, that have been explored throughout the show’s 6 seasons.

Enjoy rediscovering LOST through our rewatch.  Remember to enjoy each episode, one episode a week.  And join our community and join the Rewatch group.

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