Average Movie Enjoyer

can you fucking believe. They introduce Desmond in season 2. and the A Plot cast mostly ignores him. while he’s actively having visions of the future. and literally having his own time travel subplot. just ON THE SIDE

I talk a lot about how you shouldn’t introduce time travel into your story if it’s not a story explicitly ABOUT time travel but ABC’s Lost provided us with something much funnier in season 3 and 4: ONE guy in your main cast can explicitly time travel and he ONLY uses it for personal reasons and no one else even cares that much or even knows about it. As a SUBPLOT

why did they make a B character the islands super special chosen Seer princess who’s canonically Chosen by the island as its special failsafe key. what is happening. Desmond Hume Most Character Of All Time

Rewatching LOST, and I gotta say, I don’t think this show gets enough credit for how socially aware it is (in some ways, and considering the time it was created!) Take Sayid for example. Sayid is a man originally from Iraq, who served in the Republican Guard. LOST started in 2004, just a few years after 9/11, and, considering it’s a show about a plane crash, it was bold for LOST to tackle the discrimination that anyone of middle eastern descent might face in the U.S.A. The majority of the survivors are white people with English as their native language. Some of them are wary initially about Sayid after learning about his time in the Republican Guard. Sawyer even accuses him of being a terrorist, and cites how Sayid was pulled aside by TSA (his intention is to use this as evidence to back up his claim, but he’s really just proving the discrimination against people from the Middle East). However, Sayid proves to be one of the most caring, patient, and genuine characters on the show. Like many citizens of any nation who join any military force, Sayid had good intentions, and got more and more tangled in the complicated, morally questionable (to say the least) web of war. He escaped, and felt immense guilt for his involvement in both sides of the war (he ended up also helping the Americans, after they convinced his to interrogate and torture his own commanding officer). During his time on the island, he is generally a helpful, benevolent man. Ultimately, his past doesn’t matter - and neither does anyone else’s. They’re all on the same team once they crash on the island. And then there’s the other bold choice - to have him romantically involved with a blonde, white woman (Shannon). Having an Iraqi man and a white, American woman as a couple on TV in 2004 was groundbreaking. I don’t think Sayid as a character, or Naveen Andrews as an actor, gets enough credit.

It wasn’t even just Sayid either, LOST also tackled mental health (specifically psychosis/hallucinations) with Hurley who was one of the kindest and harmless people on the island. He was never villainized for his struggle, only dealt with with kindness and sympathy (except isolated incidents with jack in later seasons which are framed as unnecessary and mean); Not to mention that Hurley is also fat and though he gets much more flack for that from other characters, he pushes back and makes them feel bad for poking fun. It’s later revealed that his eating habits are a coping mechanism, and Libby (for her short term run on the show) helps Hurley to deal with that productively.

They also dealt with Charlie’s drug problem in a more nuanced way than some shows deal with it NOW in modern times. It’s shown as a vice certainly, but he is never shown to be a bad person for it- in fact he’s shown to be an honest and earnest person despite it.

And the women on the show (mostly) have a lot of agency and plenty of flaws that don’t boil down to their sexuality or how pleasing they are to men. Kate is the most main character of the women and she’s a criminal! She killed her abusive stepfather and GOT AWAY with it! She was badass and instrumental in almost every major mission on the island. She was also kind and sweet and had a conscience. She didn’t shy away from taking care of Claire’s baby and becoming an even more badass mother. Becoming a mother did not change her fundamentally into a “better” person either.

And all of that doesn’t even TOUCH on Sun and Jin!! Their relationship and character developments are top tier! Sun is one of the strongest, smartest women on that island!

This! I absolutely agree, thank you for the addition. I was thinking of doing a part 2 on Sun and Jin, particularly about how the show tackles the language barrier and the culture shock of being stuck with almost entirely English-speaking westerners.

John Locke is another good one. I know the island takes away his paralysis, but I never get the feel that they’re saying he’s “complete” without it or anything like that. It’s not a “reward” to make him able bodied, it’s the island’s way of keeping him loyal. The series doesn’t shy away from the challenges he faced as a person in a wheelchair, and puts a lot of emphasis on the lack of accommodations for people in wheelchairs.

Sawyer is also worth mentioning. A lot of shows have the unlikable character who becomes likable after some character development, but they’re usually soft on the unlikable part. I really hated Sawyer for a while. His arc was gradual, and not always linear. As common as that trope is, I thought LOST’s portrayal is one of the most realistic portrayals of a bad character becoming good.