Top Ten Lists for Lost

TOP TEN BEST LOST MOMENTS:

Wow, coming up with a top ten was really hard! There are so many moments I loved on this show. I could easily have done 25 or 50 moments. This is the best I could do with a top ten...

1) Pilot - Season One

Just a perfect hour of television. Jack waking up in the jungle, the first horrible reveal of the plane crash, the skillful introduction of each character during that chaos, Jack first telling the story of how he counts to five to conquer his fear...just so many fantastic moments. It was probably one of the best, if not the best pilot I've ever seen.

2) Locke Reveal - Season One

This is the moment that sealed the loyalty of many of my friends. The reveal that Locke was in a wheelchair before the crash was a huge twist and it was brilliantly handled. In the series pilot, I remembered how Locke was acting weird during the crash, even almost breaking into a smile in one shot. I thought it was really strange. In this episode, they show the exact same footage, only now we have a new lens and we understand why he reacts the way he does. It's a brilliantly edited and acted episode. And a brilliant twist. And the music...this is the first moment I noticed Giacchino's awesome score. He would continue to impress...

3) Chasing Ethan - Season One

This was a long sequence and our first real encounter with an Other - Ethan, who infiltrated the castaways and kidnapped Charlie and the pregnant Claire. This whole sequence was full of some terrific moments - Hurley's discovery that Ethan wasn't on the plane, Ethan kicking the snot out of Jack in the rain ("If you follow, I will kill one of them."), and then Jack and Kate discovering Charlie's body hanging from a tree. Granted, they were able to save his life, but this moment was disturbing and showed that this show was playing for keeps.

4) Sawyer Tells Jack About his Dad - Season One

Sawyer tells Jack a story about how he met a man in a bar, a doctor who couldn't bring himself to call his son and apologize...a man who was of course Jack's recently deceased father. For me, this was one of the best emotional scenes in the series, superbly written, acted, and directed. Matthew Fox's failed attempt to hold back his tears is a moment that still resonates with me. I know it's not exciting as some other moments of the series, but this one sticks with me.

5) Michael Shoots Ana Lucia and Libby - Season Two

Here's a huge twist that I didn't see coming! When Michael betrays the castaways and kills Libby and Ana Lucia, I was shocked. I know Ana Lucia wasn't the most popular character, but I actually liked her and was sad to see her go. And her facial expression when she gets shot is haunting. Absolutely one of the biggest and best twists of the show.

6) Jack Helps Sawyer and Kate Escape - Season Three

People had some complaints about when Jack, Kate and Sawyer were imprisoned in the beginning of Season Three. But hopefully everyone can agree that the escape was awesome. With Jack holding Ben hostage in the middle of a medical operation and screaming into the microphone, "Kate, run!!!!"  Just an awesome moment for me!

7) Beach Battle - Season Three

The finale to Season Three was action packed, emotional, and dramatic with a lot of different plot elements going down - Ben shooting Locke, Jack bringing the survivors to the radio tower, Desmond and Charlie sneaking into the Swan Station, and "not Penny's boat" are all incredibly memorable moments. But for me, the highlight was the battle at the beach, when Sawyer, Jin, and Sayid take on the Others. From the night time ambush, to Hurley coming to the rescue in his Dharma bus, to Sawyer shooting a defenseless Tom (Hurley: "He surrendered!" Sawyer: "I didn't believe him."), this was all amazing and badass stuff. Season Three was a great finale.

8) "We have to go back!!" - Season Three

And the other part of this great finale also needs to go on this list. When we realize that the flashbacks featuring Jack falling apart in a fake beard are actually flash forwards - revealing that some people made it off the island in the future, but not everyone. This was a hell of a twist and ended with a terrific line for a cliffhanger, Jack screaming to Kate in an empty parking lot, "We have to go back!!!"

9) The Constant - Season Four

So everyone loves this episode, where Desmond is jumping through time and can't find his balance. I actually found it to be a bit cheesy. And when Desmond in the past tells Penny that she needs to answer the phone in the future when he calls or else he'll die, I kind of rolled my eyes at the silliness of it all. And then, in the episode's climactic scene, the dying and desperate Desmond makes the call. And Penny answers. And I am suddenly hit with one of the most romantic moments I have ever seen in a TV show. The sheer joy felt by the separated lovers just bursts off the screen and only the most cynical bastards in the world could be immune to it. And when they both say, "I love you" in the phone at the same time before the signal is lost...sniff sniff...that's fantastic stuff.

10) Juliet Blows Up the Bomb - Season Five

The finale to Season Five was incredibly intense as Jack tries to explode a nuclear bomb on the island. It was not as memorable as the other finales, but it did have one hair raising moment of drama that ranks probably as the most intense moment of the show - when Juliet's legs get tangled in the cords and she is dragged into the hole with the bomb. Sawyer grabs her, but isn't able to save her. And at the bottom of the hole, bloody and dying, Juliet sees the bomb and starts hitting it with a rock to set it off with the last of her strength. This was an incredibly powerful and moving sequence, and both Elizabeth Mitchell and Josh Holloway were inexplicably robbed of awards kudos. Neither were even nominated. Both deserved to win for this scene alone.

So there you go. My favorite ten moments in Lost. There are a LOT of other moments I would have loved to have put in here, but I forced myself to ten only.

TOP TEN WORST LOST MOMENTS:

Admittedly, only a few of these are truly horrible moments. Some are nitpicks. But hey, I needed to get the list to 10!

1) People being too mysterious - whole series

This actually was a real problem, especially in the first two seasons. So many of the mysteries could have been solved faster if people would actually talk to each other! Unfortunately, everyone on the plane was too busy being mysterious. I will give a pass to the first half season because these people had never met each other before and maybe there were some trust issues. But you would think that after awhile, they would actually start sharing information with each other. This really got annoying after awhile.

2) Darth Charlie - Season Two

I liked Charlie, but the producers really didn't seem to know what to do with him in Season Two. So they give him strange dreams, make him act crazy, have him alienate everyone in the cast and then instead of letting him explain himself rationally, they have him sulk off and put his hood up so he looks like an evil Jedi leprechaun - this is a new character I like to call Darth Charlie. For a few episodes, you always know if it is a Good Charlie or a Bad Charlie scene based on whether he is wearing the Darth Charlie hood. He proceeds to do bad and out-of-character things like beat up Sun while she is gardening. It seems like Charlie is on the verge of becoming a villain and then the show just completely forgets about it - everyone just accepts Charlie back into the group, and the producers ignore this Darth Charlie subplot ever happened like the terrible idea it was.

3) Hurley Tries to Blow up the Food - Season Two

Lost put a lot of its characters through the ringer, bringing them to the edge of their sanity. That sometimes made the characters do stupid things. But I was cool with that because crazy people do stupid things. Unfortunately, there were a few times when the show went a little too far and it just became unbelievable. In Season Two, Hurley is buckling under the pressure of being in charge of the food stash. Everyone is hassling him, trying to get more food, drinks and peanut butter. Hurley, already fearing for his sanity, decides the best way to escape would be to blow up the pantry and all the food in it. I'm sorry, this is too much. Yes, Hurley is having some issues this episode, but to destroy the food supply and potentially doom everyone on the island to starvation is just too far out of character. Stupid.

4) Charlie at the End of Season Two

This moment killed me! So the Hatch blows up. Charlie barely escapes, but Mr. Ecko, Desmond and Locke aren't able to get out in time. There is a deafening noise and a bright light fills the sky for a few brief, terrifying moments. Everyone knows something bad just happened. And then its over and a bloody Charlie comes out of the jungle onto the beach. Claire asks him what happened. And he says...well, he doesn't say the hatch just blew up. He doesn't say, hey, Ecko, Desmond and Locke were in the Hatch, maybe we should see if they are okay. No, he says, "Nothing happened" and plays dumb. And everyone accepts it! And Claire even gives him a smoochie, conveniently forgetting all the evil Darth Charlie moments from earlier in the season. This is just sloppy. Season Two was not a good season for Charlie. He got much better in the third.

5) Jack Accuses his Dad of Sleeping of his Wife - Season Three

Here's another example of crazy going too far. Jack's trust issues go back to his rocky relationship with his father and also the fact that his wife left him for another man. Jack starts to act really crazy and stubborn, and even a little paranoid. Knowing what we know about Jack on the island, I could accept this. But suddenly Jack thinks it would be a good idea to combine the two crappy things in his life and accuses his father of sleeping with his wife. Which is just mindboggling to me. He even confronts his father at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and tries to beat him up. Some critics like this scene because a) Fox's admittedly good performance, and b) it is what sends Christian Shepherd on the final bender which finally kills him (making Jack feel even more guilty). That's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the reason for Jack's temper tantrum was lame.

6) Nikki and Paolo - Season Three

Here we have the two most hated characters in the series, Nikki and Paolo. Trying to add some new blood to the show, the producers added Nikki and Paolo, two extremely unlikable people, and tried to shoehorn them into the story as if they had been there all along. They were lame and the world agreed. It did not take long for the producers to kill them off, in the Twilight Zone-style episode, "Expose." Though the characters were universally unliked, many people liked the twisty turns of their final episode. I didn't. But I was super happy they were gone!

7) Jack Gets a Tattoo/Bai Ling - Season Three

Lost at its worst, hands down. Not only is the back story pointless (do we really care how Jack got his tattoo??), but its execution is terrible. Bai Ling is bad as Jack's Thai lover/magic tattoo artist and the scene where Jack violently forces her to give him a tattoo is out of place, out of character, and just uncomfortable. It's just terrible. Ugh.

8) Sun forgets how to speak English - Season Six

So just when we need to be barreling towards our climax, the producers decide to give Sun a new subplot - she gets bumped in the head and forgets how to speak English. The producers maybe did this because a) Sun had been doing nothing except yell, "I want to find my husband!!" for almost two full seasons, b) Season Six was getting so depressing they felt they needed some comic relief. Those are the only two reasons I can think of for this silly subplot. All the producers succeeded in was making audiences roll their eyes in annoyance. And the subplot ends when Sun and Jin are finally reunited, a powerful moment that was sort of ruined by Lapidus saying, "Well, looks like someone got their voice back!" Puke!

9) Ilana Dies - Season Six

So Ilana had been set up as a big character in the last two seasons. And then before we find out why she is significant, she literally just blows up. Without us ever finding out why she was important or why her character was even on the show. She was pointless. And it is a pity because she had some potential and I thought the actress Zuleikha Robinson was putting in some good work. I had heard rumors that Ilana was actually Jacob's daughter and that she originally had a bigger role, but the producers just couldn't find the time to work all that backstory in. So what to do with a problem character? Blow her up with dynamite! You know what? I think I would rather have seen her backstory than the Across the Sea episode. A missed opportunity...

10) Across the Sea - Season Six

This episode was just a mistake. It raised too many questions too close to the end of the show. It was badly written and badly acted - most shockingly by the normally superb Alison Janney. I understand they wanted to give some background on Jacob, Smokey and especially the mysterious light. That's fine. But there was nothing in this episode that couldn't have been inserted in flashbacks in earlier episodes. This did not require an entire hour devoted to it. All it did was grind everything to a halt right before the finale, which was a big mistake.

So there you go. That's my top ten/bottom ten. What are yours??? I'd love to know!!!