Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		5.0

Lost: The Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

A mystery wrapped inside a riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a hidden disc.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 24, 2010

Note: All six seasons of 'Lost' have received comprehensive reviews on Blu-ray.com. Links to those individual season reviews are included below. This review will focus only on content exclusive to this boxed set. While the series is presented in 1080p and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, the hidden bonus disc, dealt with in this review, is presented in 1080i (and occasionally 480p) and Dolby Digital 5.1.

Back in the “olden days” Legos didn’t come in pre-defined sets and kids who had them actually had to use their own imaginations to come up with whatever structures they deigned to build. I had always been a fan of spy movies and television shows, loving the old James Bond films and reruns of series like Man from U.N.C.L.E., so my favorite buildings tended to include “secret” doorways and “hidden” hallways (pretty easy to construct since all Lego blocks looked the same back in those days), all part of my covert spy lair where I imagined a young boy had been recruited to fight the nastier elements of espionage and organized crime. Maybe that’s why part of the allure of Lost for me was its trap doors, mazes, hidden escape routes and other labyrinthine excesses which made it the bane of Johnny-come-latelies, who could never quite figure out what the frell was going on in the series, as well as people (like I was) who had stuck with the show through thick and thin from the first episode. (Ironically, most of us knew we’d never completely figure out what the frell was going on in the series). Lost suffered the slings and arrows not just of repeated time slot changes and foreshortened seasons but also, in the early seasons, crazy interpolations of reruns which made the story even more incomprehensible than usual. That made the home video releases of the show that much more appealing, as we “Losties” could relish in small plot points and the ingenious cross connections that masterminds Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and J.J. Abrams wove into the series. The slings and arrows of course also came from a lot of viewers and an increasing number of critics (the nerve!) as the show wound down in its penultimate fifth and then final sixth seasons. Abrams had already proven in his previous hit Alias that he was very, very adept at crafting questions, but less smashingly successful at providing answers, and fans wondered if that same trend would continue with the island castaways of Oceanic Flight 815. Once the sixth season got started and viewers were confused, intrigued, angered and all of the above by the series’ patently peculiar drift into the “sideways” timeline, those fears intensified, meaning, of course, that there was no unifying fan moment when the series finale aired. There was simply a whole new stratum of confusion, intrigue and anger, three reactions which will either be ameliorated or exacerbated by the recent release of the Sixth Season, given a very thorough and inciteful review by my colleague Ken Brown. Our reviews of the six previous seasons can be found here:

First Season
Second Season
Third Season
Fourth Season
Fifth Season
Sixth Season

You might get. . .well, lost in this huge set.

Like the famous Russian nesting dolls, always revealing a new subcutaneous level, Lost may have set the record for television complexity, something its Blu-ray releases have mimicked, with some of the most comprehensive supplemental features ever offered on the medium. Leave it to the Lost masterminds to give us one final confusing, intriguing and anger-provoking piece of the jigsaw puzzle in this Complete Collection boxset, one of the handsomest compilations ever assembled in the Blu-ray era and one with at least a couple of its own mysteries up its cardboard sleeve.

The Box

Lost: The Complete Collection comes housed in a relatively sturdy shipping slipcase which measures 13 ¾ w x 11 ½ h x 3 ½ d. If you’re an anal retentive type, it’s easy to preserve this outer “shell” by carefully opening the side flap and extracting the contents that way. Inside you’ll find a gorgeous recreation of The Temple which measures 13 x 11 x 4 (slightly narrower at the top as it resembles the base of a pyramid). Inside the box are several compartments (you expected anything less?), including at the bottom a small pop up section which houses a folded, weathered page from a journal, an ankh and a black light. Hint: just start shining the black light on various items in the set. At the top is another pop-up section which houses white and black stones and playing pieces for the game which Jacob and the Man in Black played through the ages. The board for this game is kept in the middle section. A cursory review of the set’s contents has yet to divulge directions for the game, but I’m sure some brilliant fan will PM me about this and I can post an update to this review at that time. (Update: The directions to the game are included as an easter egg on the bonus disc. See Sneaking Suspicion Department below for some clues). The final item housed in the middle section is a nice glossy illustrated episode guide. Don’t freak out when you notice Season One’s guide only includes six discs—the set does actually include the seventh bonus disc of the original Blu-ray release, it’s just not dealt with separately in the episode guide.

The Hidden Disc

Finding the Disc

And now for the good stuff. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you do not want to know where to find the hidden disc. Simply pick up the review at the next paragraph which will go into the disc’s contents. The Temple has a lift off flap covering the base. Turning that flap over you will notice a cool embossed map of the island, with ankh symbols at either end. Note how there is part of an ankh symbol on the actual island as well. Turn the island map (which may take some elbow grease—this element of the boxed set is not particularly well designed and my hunch is it’s not going to stand up to repeated use). When the ankh base on the island section matches the ankh head, the map will magically lift out of the cover, revealing the hidden Blu-ray disc.

Contents of the Disc

Unfortunately I am unable to provide a review of the disc's contents, as I received the odd error code 4-8-15-16-23-42 when I inserted the Blu-ray in my PS3. Just kidding.

An incredible five hours-plus of bonus content is crammed onto this Blu-ray. Some of it is more compelling than other sections, as is to be expected, but overall it presents a fun and often very informative backstage pass to the Lost cast and crew. Two minor quibbles which I’ll get out of the way right off the bat: the menu is in 1080p, while all of the supplements are either in 1080i or (heaven forfend) 480p, and while the menu sports an LPCM 5.1 track, all of the bonus content is either Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Digital 2.0. There’s the curmudgeonly complaining, now on to the contents:

Letting Go: Reflections of a Six Year Journey (39:43; 1080i) is a bittersweet assemblage of reminiscences by the cast and crew, with some fun interstitials of the gorgeous Hawaii scenery. Daniel Dae-Kim appears throughout flying around the island in a helicopter. There are also some home movies of various episodes being shot.

Artifacts of the Island: Inside the Lost Prop House (14:07; 1080i) Rob Kyker, Lost’s prop master takes us on a guided tour of the storage facility for Lost’s props, including huge Tupperware storage bins devoted to each of the major characters.

Planet Lost (11:55; 1080i and 480p) has some fun segments of Lost fans around the world waxing enthusiastic about their favorite show. There are also scenes from the series dubbed into a variety of foreign languages, as well as Cuse and Lindelof at some little geek-fest I think is called Comic-Con or something like that.

Swan Song: Orchestrating the Final Moments of Lost (13:18; 1080i) is a nice look at the final scoring session for the series, though it includes one laugh out loud, semi-patronizing comment from Evangeline Lilly. Evie waltzes onto the soundstage and congratulates the orchestral players for having as much fun on their jobs as she and the cast did on the island. Oh, yeah, sure, I bet any of those string players is just thrilled to be stuck in a soundstage for days while Lilly and her friends frolic in the tropical paradise of Hawaii.

Lost on Location is the first of two huge arrays of mini-featurettes devoted to backstage musings on various episodes. It’s split into three seasons, and includes:

Season 3 (1080i)

• Cost of Living (4:07), dealing with CGI elements and Eko’s death;
• Enter 77 (4:39), showing some nice behind the scenes footage of evil Mikhail at The Flame;
• D.O.C. (4:03), focusing on the episode where Juliet determines Sun is pregnant.

Season 4 (1080i)

• Eggtown (2:11) has Evangeline Lilly talking about the correspondence between the sudden celebrity of the Oceanic Six and her own personal life after shooting to stardom in Lost.

Season 5 (1080i)

• This Place is Death (5:05) talks about Jin’s reemergence in the series, albeit back in time with Danielle;
• 316 (5:23) depicts the incredible feat of building an airline terminal basically overnight and then tearing it down just as fast.

The Lost Slapdowns (45:06; 1080i) is one of the sillier, more useless extras included in this set, patently stupid, fitfully amusing skits featuring Cuse, Lindelof and people like Paul Scheer or Michael Emerson in what amount to nothing more than promos for the Blu-ray and DVD releases of the series.

Deleted Scenes (1:44:00; 1080i and 480p) is an assemblage of interesting, but not completely compelling, segments from seasons 3 and 5, made even less appealing by their ugly video presentation.

More from the Series is the second huge compendium of featurettes, most offering behind the scenes footage of various segments or episodes. It includes:

Season 4 (1080i)

• Regina’s Jump (1:39), showing the suicide leap off the tanker;
• Rat Maze (1:39), an interesting look at building Faraday’s maze;
• Ben’s Door (1:20), another interesting glimpse at how sets were constructed;
• Hurling Hurley (1:41), wherein our favorite lottery winner learns to heave an ottoman through a window;
• Building the Bomb (2:10) has propmaster Kyker making the C4 bomb which would provide this season’s explosive climax.

Season 5 (1080i)

• Ben vs. Desmond (3:20) is a fun excursion through the showdown scene on the pier;
• Locke’s Leg (1:50) is a gruesome expose of the prosthetic constructed for Locke’s fall;
• Rose and Bernard’s Retirement (2:12) is a fun and funny look at the castaways who just up and disappeared—evidently on purpose;
• Jeep Escape (1:16) has Evie doing her own stunt driving;
• Others’ Secrets (2:03) doesn’t really live up to its title, but details the camp circa 1977;
• Radzinsky at the Flame (2:09) has Eric Lange talking about his contributions to the series;
• Sun and Jin’s Wedding (1:04) is a nice look at how a traditional Korean wedding was depicted for the show.

The final extra is another behemoth compilation, this time audio only, entitled The Best of the Lost Podcasts. Though I couldn’t take the time to listen to each of these in toto, I did spot check all of them, and they’re often very informative and amusing. It’s also interesting to note how their format and production qualities were enhanced after the first few, as this ABC.com “exclusive” started catching on with fans. This section includes:

Season 2

• 11/8/05 Abandoned (17:54)
• 3/20/06 The Whole Truth (28:54)
• 3/28/06 Lockdown (28:10)
• 4/3/06 Dave (17:21)
• 6/13/06 Harold Perrineau and Malcolm David Kelley (15:57)

Season 3

• 2/20/07 Stranger in a Strange Land (28:09)
• 4/16/07 Catch 22 (27:08)
• 5/4/07 The Man Behind the Curtain (24:30)
• 5/11/07 Greatest Hits (27:47)
• 9/22/07 Anniversary of Oceanic Flight 815 (26:46)

Season 4

• 2/19/08 Eggtown (23:24)
• 3/21/08 Meet Kevin Johnson (26:14)
• 5/7/08 Cabin Fever (23:44)
• 5/19/08 Shape of Things to Come (25:17)

Season 5

• 3/26/09 Whatever Happened Happened (18:33)
• 4/6/09 Dead is Dead (19:11)
• 4/23/09 The Variable (22:14)
• 5/11/09 The Incident (22:25)
• 5/16/09 Michael Emerson (9:43)

Season 6

• 8/6/09 Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (19:35)
• 2/4/10 What Kate Does (23:10)
• 2/22/10 Lighthouse (19:57)
• 4/15/10 The Last Recruit (26:25)
• 5/14/10 What They Died For (32:10)

Sneaking Suspicion Department: I'll be curious to hear from any of you if you find Easter Eggs. The opening Menu screen gets very dark almost immediately (that darned Smoke Monster again), but an odd thing occurs: if you press right or left on your remote at the top selection of any given page, there's a "click" sound, but no dot indicating where the cursor has moved to. I tried repeatedly to get to the "Lost" in the upper right corner but was unsuccessful, but I have a gut feeling there's something hidden on either one or both of the Menu pages. Update: Several readers have PM'd me to indicate there are indeed Easter Eggs available on both Menu pages. I won't spoil how to access them here, other than to say my initial hunch about navigating with the directional features of your remote is correct.

Lost: The Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

1080i? How dare they? Yes, this only goes to show you how completely spoiled we've become. Though Lost was really only broadcast in 720, Blu-ray fans have come to love the show in its full 1080p glory. Though there are some who would argue with me (and believe me, they have), I still think Lost remains the touchstone for image quality in series television of the past several years. Most of this is due to the luscious locations, of course, but the series has had a filmic sweep and majesty from its first episode. Most of that sweep and majesty is presented here, albeit in 1080i via an AVC encode. The best moments are the stunning shots of Hawaii in all its glory, which bristle with detail and wonderfully well saturated color. There are some passing moments of shimmer and other very minor artifacts on items like leaves and some herringbone patterns on costumes. Otherwise this is a great looking bonus disc, putting aside the atrocious Deleted Scenes segments, which really don't serve the memory of the series very well at all.

Lost: The Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

No lossless audio wouldn't be such a bad thing if they hadn't included lossless audio on the Menu pages, for crying out loud. That said, the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix suffices just fine for this bonus disc, which is, after all, mostly talking heads. Yes, lossless audio certainly would have amped up the many snippets from the series, especially the LFE heavy moments with Mr. Smoke Monster and the like, but overall, I doubt people are going to be too upset with this standard Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The surround channels are utilized mostly in the segments from the episodes, as is to be expected, while the talking head segments present that talking front and center in a clear and crisp manner. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is also very good, but I've marked the audio score down for the bizarre decision to give us a lossless Menu but no lossless features.

Lost: The Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc itself is a cornucopia of pleasures, some more lasting than others, but the boxed set as a whole is really a gorgeous package and rates with the best of the deluxe sets that have come out over the past couple of years.

Lost: The Complete Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"What are we going to watch now?" That lament has been echoing amongst Losties for the past several months. With this impressive new boxed set, and the very cool hidden disc detailed in this review, the answer is clear. We'll all be watching Lost.