I know-I am sort of behind the times with this show. I dont watch a whole lot of TV, but I got a free Netflix subscription for a month, and figured now is the time to watch this show.
First off, its VERY entertaining-I have to admit, I am sucked into it. I just started season 3 last night (PLEASE dont ruin this for me!!!), and understand that this is the weird season. BUT, thats not why I started this thread....
One observation of mine, and I am sure this has come up before, is that, after 60+ days on the island, they are still living in essentially lean-tos. No one has improved their living conditions. I know its hollywood, but this seems odd. If I, and I am sure, most of you, were stuck there more than a couple of days, I would be looking to erect something more permanent-and off the beach. Sand fleas & crabs crawling all over you at night alone would make me move!!
Second-where the heck did they get all the tarps??? Everyone has one-which would mean that everyone packed one! Which, we ALL know didnt happen. I know, its a show-and, there will be inconsistencies. These two just sort of stood out, things that I suppose your regular folks wouldnt even look at.
I like the series so far though-not so much from a survival aspect, but certainly from a storytelling one. I dont expect accuracy in even the BEST hollywood has to offer-this isnt too bad though.

I love Lost, own every season of DVDs, and heck if I have a clue how it's all going to turn out or what the "truth" of it all will prove to be.

One of the tensions in the first season was between those who operated under the assumption that rescue would come any second and those who, like Jack, thought they were going to be there for awhile and needed to dig in. Perhaps for a long while.

The Smoke Monster, wild pigs and the assorted lethal booby-traps inland set by various antagonists made living off-the-beach a bit dicey.

Two things the show has gotten very correct: 1) the importance of drinkable water; 2) the importance of health care/meds.

Would Jack have been so powerful if he were not the only physician in a perilous environment?


Have you watched Jericho? Like all entertainment television, a fixation on accuracy can prove frustrating watching Jericho but for many of the same reasons I enjoy Lost I think Jericho was worthwhile.

Enjoy Lost. It's the only network show I make a point of watching.

Interesting mental exercise for Lost devotees:

What supplies-resources could reasonably be assumed to be on a 747 in route from Sydney Australia to Los Angeles?

Significant cargo in addition to passenger luggage?

I'm reminded of Sawyer's struggle with finding suitable eyeglasses....

That would be an issue for me. I don't carry two months of disposable contacts with me on flights. If my glasses were destroyed I wouldn't see the wild boar coming....

The Lost survivors do make shelter use of the fuselage pieces.

As I recall, initially about 40 survived the crash scene where Jack and company landed.

Run away as fast as you can! The show will do nothing but suck you in and twist your mind as you try to make sense of it.

It's not called "Lost" for nothing. You will be "lost" in all of the plot turns.

full disclosure - The DW and I are lost addicts.

I really like Lost, but much like other shows it's not really a goto for survival information.

Food and water were addressed early on in the show, and all though they did build fire and shelter, it was relegated to a background activity that pretty much just happened for the most part.

Thank goodness Locke went a little overboard on the collection of knives he took with him for the "Walkabout". LOL

They do scavenge the aircraft quite a bit for equipment and show parts of the plane throughout the series, especially wiring used as ropes and ties. Items that various passengers had with them as carry on or in the luggage compartment are also used.

Though I've watched Lost since the beginning, I don't recall the exact timeline of events as related to seasons, so I'm trying to keep it light and not to spoil anything for you.

At some point a more permanent solution for food and shelter will show up. At first I thought it was a writing cop out, but it makes sense in the overall story line of the show.

They fabricated everything using the Professor's inexhaustable supply of palm frond, coconuts and vines... oh wait, wrong show, never mind.

I gave up after the Jabbywocky creature and the 'A polar bear! On a tropical island!!' (just as silly as the Monty Python 'A tiger, In Africa' sketch) episodes, which would have been in the first 3-4 episodes. The 'Lost' script writers were making this series up, episode by episode. The continuity folks employed by the show must have had a very tough time of it.

I watched pretty much all the first season episodes. The situations were bogus but I hung on for a season. Then there was the writer's strike and several shifts in time slot. I missed the first show of the second season but caught the last half of the second. time had passed and somehow the story and characters seemed less compelling. There were other things to do.

For useful survival information the show is a joke. Head down to the county library and check out any survival manual. Sit down and read it for an hour and you will have absorbed more useful information than several years of watching "Lost".

The first year was decent light entertainment. Not terribly realistic or or engaging but there are worse shows. Most of the "reality" shows, like 'Survivor XYZ' and 'Marry a Bastard/Bimbo' shows were far less watchable. At least 'Lost' had actors, and a script, such as it was. It is, IMHO, dreck, but high grade dreck.

Yeah, Lost is very good show but definitely not Cast Away 2. While watching first episodes of season 1 - when they realized noone is coming to rescue them I remember thinking something like: "By this time McGyver would have had already built a space ship" .

Ok, lol, I wasnt looking at it for survival tips. Just to be clear about that. True, it is relegated to the background, if at all-and, there are supply drops periodically as well. BUT, overall, I am enjoying the series-I am in season 3 now, and its a little odd-the underlying storyline is great, but, well, the threads are starting to become confusing. And, I am watching 2 episodes a night-I could only imagine waiting a week, or a SEASON, would throw me off-I would lose interest fairly quickly.

I still wonder where all the damned tarps came from...

The Tarp Conundrum has been scrutinized in the Lost community:

http://mswendy.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/lost-parody-tarps/

Another big quandary amongst the many LOST podcasts, blogs and message boards: [i]“Where did all the tarps come from?”. Not just a handful from possible plane cargo wreckage… but scads and scads of them![/i]

Lost is auctioning off most of its props. I haven't looked through the catalogue, wouldn't be surprised to find a couple for sale.

http://www.profilesinhistory.com/lost-auction-preview/lost-auction-preview

Dagny, I appreciate that I wasnt the only one who considered that-I find it amusing that a whole community has observed this .
I am all set with the props-not surprised that they are being auctioned off, but I am not a collector of anything (on purpose). Although, It would be kinda cool to label all my emergency stuff with those....

I watched a few episodes the first season than as it got wierder and hard to discern any plotline, I just gave up on it.

I've watched all of the episodes and it almost jumped the shark for me in seasons 2 or 3 but I had to gut through it. It's total escape-ism for me. DW and I get to turn off reality for an hour and click on a different mind wave to try to figure out what's going on. Two things that were not noticable to me: roving guards (maybe on a couple of episodes) and I always wondered where would be a good place to put the sanitation pits, just from a community planner perspective.

The island is a relatively easy place to survive. There are pigs inland, and fish in the sea (and Jin gets on with catching them early - he turns out to be a fisherman, which is handy), and plants. They get water too.

One thing that struck me, and not really wanting to get into the big Jack versus Sawyer issue, is that where Jack went through the plane wreckage looking for meds and alcohol that he knew he could use, Sawyer went through it looking for just about anything. After a while they set fire to the plane because it was becoming a health hazard, and then when they needed something Sawyer was the guy they had to go to. Eg I don't think he had any idea they'd need batteries from laptops, he just saved everything of value. Smart guy, who really helped the community.

I've not really looked at the tarps, but maybe some of them were material from the plane? Eg seat covers. (By series 2 they find other sources.)

I'm currently part way through series 5. Although there are good things about it, I'm not sure they are worth the bad. I'd say that 90% of the questions raised in the first series haven't been answered yet, after over 100 hours of TV. What's especially annoying is the characters lack of curiosity. They don't talk to each other, or share information, or even ask questions half the time. They'd been there a week before anyone even thinks to circumnavigate the island, and that's Syed who's actually just trying to kill himself, and he doesn't far. Had he continued, he'd have found the pier and other installations we see in the second series. For all they knew, there could have been a hotel on the other side of the island. They just didn't explore.

I've stuck with it since the first episode. very enjoyable. what I love is their ability to navigate the jungles without compass!