Getting Lost

When Lost first aired, it was a game changer. Nothing else on TV looked or felt like it. Planes didn’t crash quite that cinematically, smoke monsters weren’t a regular feature of primetime drama, and flashbacks weren’t yet the emotional superweapon they’d soon become. It was bold, mysterious, and utterly gripping.

Like millions of others, I was obsessed. Those first three seasons were lightning in a bottle. Smart, character-driven, and packed with enough questions to fuel a thousand fan theories. People didn’t just watch Lost; they lived it. The final seasons got trickier to follow, sure, but they were still thrilling. The story grew more ambitious, stranger, and occasionally mind-bending, but part of the fun was trying to figure out what on earth was going on.

And then came the finale.

I remember watching it the first time and feeling completely deflated. I, like so many others, came away thinking, “Wait… they were dead all along?” I felt cheated, as if years of emotional investment had been brushed aside with one confusing ending. It left such a bitter taste that I pretty much forgot everything I’d loved about the show.

Fast forward to this summer. It was the last week of my holidays, my usual shows were on a break, and I noticed Lost sitting there on Disney+, quietly waiting for me. So, I pressed play, just to see if it still had that spark.

Within minutes, I was back on the island. The chaos, the mystery, the characters, it all came rushing back, and I started falling in love with it all over again. Watching it in quick succession this time (rather than week by week with year-long gaps between seasons) made the story much easier to follow. And to my surprise, the ending made a lot more sense.

It turns out they weren’t dead all along. Everything that happened on the island was real, the crash, the hatches, the time travel, all of it. The “flash-sideways” world wasn’t a cop-out; it was a kind of afterlife where the characters could find each other again and move on once they were ready. It wasn’t a trick. It was closure. It was peace.

I think maybe I just needed a bit more life experience to appreciate it. (And, let’s be honest, Loki has definitely trained my brain to handle a few extra layers of reality-bending nonsense.)

Rewatching Lost reminded me why it was so groundbreaking. It dared to be big, weird, and ambitious. It balanced science fiction and spirituality, mystery and emotion, and it made us care deeply about a group of broken people trying to survive together. Not every question got an answer, but then again, neither does life. What matters is the people, the feelings, and the choices we make along the way.

So yes, I can proudly say it again: Lost is one of the greatest shows ever made. It’s messy, brave, and completely unforgettable. It’s not perfect, but that’s what makes it beautiful.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the point.