FAQ for
"Lost" (2004) More at IMDb Pro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

Lost is a serial drama show. Set on a mysterious Island, Lost centers primarily around the adventures of the people who survived the crash of Oceanic Airlines flight 815. The show involves elements of mystery, adventure, and science fiction genres.

The ultimate nature of the monster is not known. Popular fan theory claims that the monster is a cloud of nanotech particles. However, the producers have said that the monster is not nanotechnology. All we know of the monster is that it is described, by Rousseau, as being a "security system" for the Island. The monster appears as a black smoky cloud which apparently has some ability to read minds. It also appears to be vulnerable to sonic waves such as the ones which come from the fence around The Barracks. In season four, it was released by Benjamin Linus and went after members of the freighter crew, implying that it can be controlled.

It has sometimes been implied that it can take the form of someone in someone's past. This theory explains a lot of what we have seen on the island. It has also killed people.

Many theories were thrown around on the internet after the Season 3 finale - such as Walt, Michael, and Ben - but the Season 4 finale confirmed that name of the man was Jeremy Bentham, who turned out to be Locke when the body was finally shown.

As hinted at in Orientation, and confirmed in season 3, the polar bears were part of genetic experiments going on at Dharma. The bears were being trained for increased intelligence and to be able to survive in a non arctic habitat.

Some viewers continue to question how the bears got from Hydra island to the main Island. Obviously, at some point when Dharma shut down the bears either escaped or were released. The question of how they got to the main Island is mainly based on fan ignorance of polar bears. The scientific name of polar bears is Ursus Maritimus, and they are excellent swimmers, probably the best mammalian swimmers other than Dolphins and Whales. Polar bears have been known to swim dozens of miles between ice floes and the relatively short distance between Hydra island and the main island would be a simple matter for them to cover.

In general, the producers have stated that if someone on Lost appears to have died then they are REALLY dead. This leads one to assume that the appearance of some dead characters (Charlie, Yemi, etc.) is truly the appearance of Jacob or the monster - or ghosts.

Yes, but it had no real significance.

It was revealed on the special features disc in the Season 2 Lost boxset that it was an easter egg.

Lost will end in its 6th season. The fifth and sixth seasons will have 17 episodes each.

Yes. The producers confirmed that the events which we saw off Island in the season 3 finale was a flash forward. This is confirmed by evidence in the episode. The phone and the car which Jack uses were both released after the main action of Lost takes place. A date of April 2007 is also visible on the newspaper clipping which Jack is reading. The producers have confirmed that the upcoming seasons will consist of a mixture of flash forwards and flash backs.

Also one of the clues to hint at it being a flash forward is the name of the funeral parlor jack visits, It's named "Hoffs/Drawler Funeral Home" and Hoffs/Drawler is an anagram for flash forward.

Some fans have remained confused over Alex's lineage. Rousseau says that Alex is her child and that she murdered Alex's father. However, Ben also claims to be Alex's father and Alex refers to him as "Dad." Despite both claiming to be Alex's parents, Ben and Rousseau appear to have never met before the end of season 3.

The explanation, however, is simple. Danielle is the biological mother of Alex, who was conceieved with Danielle's now dead husband. After Alex was taken from Danielle, Ben raised her. Ben is Alex's adoptive father.

Christian Shepard is dead. In the flash forward Jack says "get my father down here" because he is high out of his mind on painkillers. At least momentarily he loses touch with reality and believes that it's years earlier when his father was still alive.

Also, though there is the lack of a body in the episode "The White Rabit", some have speculated that Christian is not dead, if you watch the entire episode, in flash backs, Jack identifies his father's body which had no indication of mutilation that would cause Jack to be confused.

Ben is jealous of Locke and that is seen in season 3 when Ben forces Locke to kill his father so that he can join the others.When Locke fails to kill him, Ben says "I'm sorry, he is not who we think he is". It is clear that Ben wants to maintain his leadership and the belief of the others that he is special but knowing about Locke and how he started walking again when he crashed on the island...that was reason enough for him to shoot Locke but as we can see, he eventually fails to kill him.

According to Ben, Jacob knows all the secrets of the island.

He does appear (briefly) in the cabin scene in Season 3.

Firstly when Ben grabs hold of the chair and says: "That's enough, you've had your fun!" Jacob "pushes" Ben against the wall and the camera quickly pans back and we can see a shadowy figure in the chair.

Secondly, before Locke runs out of the cabin, there is a close up of Jacob's eye. He looks from Ben over to Locke.

It should be noted that neither of these glimpses provide us with actual clues as to Jacob's appearance. After the episode some fans examined the images to see if it was an already known actor/character. However, the producers have stated that the actor who will play Jacob was not yet cast at the time of Man Behind the Curtain where he makes his first appearance. Instead, the images of Jacob are a combination of other performers. The image of Jacob sitting in the chair is that of one of the Lost propmasters. The eye, and the voice of Jacob of Lost producer Carlton Cuse.

The Lost Mobisodes, called "Missing Pieces," are mini-episodes that are supposed to "fill in the gaps" for us until the fourth season premiere. They are NOT deleted scenes and they were written and produced by the people who write and produce Lost. So far, there is 13 of them and they can be seen on ABC.com.

Link to the Mobisodes - http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index

In the episode "Cabin Fever" it is revealed that Richard Alpert visited Locke as a child. Yet Locke doesn't recognize Richard when they first meet on the Island. The answer is simple: Locke only met Richard for a few minutes, when he was a young child and never met him again until he landed on the Island. Do you remember everyone you ever met as a child?

If you live in the US you can go to abc and use their full episode player to view all four seasons. New episodes usually go up in the early morning (around two or three AM) of the day after it airs on the network.

If you have the new windows vista, just go to the windows media center. all three seasons are on there for free. Just go into Internet Tv, go to tv, Under tv go to series, and you will see all four seasons available for free. The shows only have two 30 second commercial in between.

You can also go to hulu.com, which has some up with a couple of commercials. TVShack.net has all the seasons, without commercials.

Try www.surfthechannel.com

Many fans believe that there is a "lost DUI curse". Specifically they believe that the producers, whether intentionally or not, punish actors who receive Driving Under the Influence convictions by killing off their characters. The theory was started after Ana Lucia and Libby were killed in a single incident months after the actors who portrayed them were both arrested for DUI in a single incident. Similarly Mr Ecko was killed after the actor who portrays him had a moving violation, and Jin was apparently killed after he received a DUI. However, it should be noted that many Lost actors have received moving violations without having their characters killed.

It is not known for sure. As whispers are heard as a precursor to the black smoke, they are also at times heard when the others appear, characters that have died reappear, when Hurley finds Jacob's cabin, and as an ominous warning whenever some other action is about to place -- surprise attack on the survivors, etc. In a recent interview at Lostpedia, David Fury, a writer for Lost's first season, and the man who wrote the episode "Solitary" where we first here the whispers, commented that at the time the whispers were meant to be The Others, but that this has likely changed.

When Lost was in pre-production Jack was originally supposed to be played by Michael Keaton. In this scenario Jack would have been killed by the monster when he, Kate, and Charlie went to the cockpit. Afterwards Kate would become the leader of the group. ABC disliked this idea since they felt it was a waste to get viewers emotionally involved with Jack only to kill him off in the first episode. So the producers agreed to keep Jack on permanently. However, Michael Keaton was not interested in doing a series full time. He had only wanted to appear in the pilot. When he backed out they recast the part with Matthew Fox.

In the s4 finale Daniel is piloting a zodiac towards the freighter with a number of people on it. He is last seen as the Island begins to move. The ultimate fate of Daniel and the other people on the raft will be revealed next season. However, it seems likely that Daniel and the raft were within the area of effect when the Island moved. If he had been outside of that area then presumably the Oceanic Six would have seen him while they were floating in the ocean. In addition, at the 2008 Comicon, the producers confirmed that Faraday would be returning for season 5.

There has been a further rumor for season five which says that Farady will be thrown back in time to an undisclosed period.

Ji Yeon is unusual in that it involves BOTH a flash back and a flash forward. The scenes of Sun giving birth to her daughter are a flash forward. The scenes of Jin trying to buy a stuffed panda are a flash back. This can be seen at the end of both segments. When Jin finally gets to the hospital it turns out that he is not rushing to his own child's birth but is giving a present to the Chinese ambassador. When leaving the hospital Jin comments that he's only been married for a few months. At the end of the flash forward Sun travels to Jin's grave. At this point Jin is dead, or at least is believed to be dead by the members of the Oceanic Six.

Remember that the Oceanic Six are lying about what happened. They maintain that only three people besides themselves survived the crash; Charlie, Boone, and Libby. As part of their charade they would pretend that everyone else, including Jin, died on the date of the crash.

Bernard had been sitting next to his wife, Rose, in the middle section he had gotten up to go to the bathroom and thus was with the tail section survivors after the plane crash. However, when Ana Lucia found him he was strapped into a chair as if he had been seated there all along. The answer to this question is simple. When the turbulence started on the plane Bernard sat down in a nearby empty seat in the tail section and buckled in.

Before season four Lost produced a series of short movies know as mobisodes. These were billed as "Lost: Missing Pieces" and were advertised as "filling in gaps in the series." While the quality and interestingness of the mobisodes varies, they mostly contain little important information. Instead they are mostly interesting diversions, with many being slice of life episodes. The only one which has, potentially, important significance to the plot is the last one to be broadcast, "In the Beginning."

Jorge Garcia, the actor who plays Hurley HAS lost weight. He's noticeably heavier in the first season than in the fourth season. However, the producers have said before that they were not going to force Jorge to lose weight just to maintain verisimilitude on the show.

Also, in season 2 Hugo was in charge of the food from the hatch, and he ended up eating a lot of it, and we can assume he kept some for later because he is often seen eating Darma food in later scenes around the Island.

One popular fan theory was that all of the characters actually died in the plane crash and that the Island was purgatory. The producers dismissed this idea as early as the first season and ending of s3 and the off Island portions of s4 would seem to confirm this. The producers have occasionally poked fun at this theory, such as when Anthony Cooper believed that they were in hell.

Some ask why Charlie didn't swim out the window in the s3 finale. One simply answer is that the window was too small. Also it should be remembered that because of Desmond's vision Charlie believed that his death would lead to Claire and Aaron being rescued.

The answer is simple. When the robot subs investigated the faked 815 crash they did not do an actual head count of every single body. They merely went inside and saw masses of dead bodies and assumed that everyone on board was dead.

Some people have raised this objection to Aaron's inclusion in the Oceanic Six. The truth is that the name "Oceanic Six" is a media term applied to the six people who were rescued from an Island after the crash of flight 815. The fact that Aaron was not actually a registered passenger of flight 815 (since he had yet to be born) is irrelevant.

This is still the subject of speculation. We only see Boone romantically involved with one person: his step sister, Shannon. The only evidence for him being gay are some comments made by Shannon such as ridiculing him for "checking out guys." However, this may just be Shannon being cruel to him by ridiculing his sexuality, and not any indication that he is actually gay.

He's not. Nestor Carbonell, the actor who plays Richard, has eyes that naturally look dark with thick, well defined eyelashes. If you look at him in other roles he looks the same.

Yes. In "The Man Behind the Curtain" we see Ben, aged approximately ten years, meet Richard in the jungle. While Richard has long unkempt hair, stubble, and is dressed in rags, he appears no older than he is in the present. It is clear from this episode that Richard either does not age or ages very slowly. Some have suggested that the man who Ben meets may be Richard's father. However, in the same episode Ben comments to Richard "You remember birthdays don't you?" This is a clear indication that Richard does not age and therefore has less reason to be aware of birthdays. It should also be noted that Lost has never cast the same actor for different roles.

In the season three finale Charlie drowns in the underground "Looking Glass" station when Mikhail blows out a window, causing it to flood. Some people have asked why Charlie did not swim out the window. The simple answer is that the window was too small.

A more reasonable question is why Charlie shut the door to the room, allowing himself to drown. There was breathing apparatus in the station and the moon room was large and would take some time to fill. Conceivably he could have simply run out of the room and swum out of the station along with Desmond. The closest thing to a good answer that fans have come to is that when Mikhail blew open the window, Charlie decided that he had to fulfill Desmond's vision after all. If he drowned then Aaron and Claire would be rescued. If he escaped then anything might happen.

The new episodes are usually posted in the early morning of the day after it airs on the network, usually 2 or 3 am.

An image, taken from an early episode in season one, has been circulating on the web which shows Walt standing in front of some of the wreckage. Some claim to be able to see a Dharma logo on the fuselage, which led to speculation that maybe Dharma was involved in the crash somehow. However, the producers confirmed that at that point in the first season they had not yet conceived of the Dharma Iniative, let alone designed the logos for it. The marking are instead standard markings present on many jet liners.

In one podcast Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse implied that there was an important clue in the pilot that everyone had missed. They have since confirmed that this was just misdirection on their part.

Some, however, continue to speculate that something which was missed in the pilot was the smoke monster attacking the plane. There is a piece of footage which, when viewed at slow speeds, clearly shows a dark shape zooming towards one of the engines, which then explodes. However, the producers have stated that this is not the monster, but is rather an improperly rendered CGI effect. What was supposed to be a piece of debris flying away from the exploding engine instead became a dark shape flying towards it.

The first four seasons of Lost take place across roughly 100 days, from the plane crash on September 22nd, 2004, to the season 4 finale which takes place in the last two days of 2004.

The hair of some of the people has grown. In particular Jin and Sun show quite a bit of growth. Jack, on the other hand, seems to not have grown at all. Presumably Jack simply doesn't grow hair very fast.

There are also various scenes in which we see some of the characters getting a haircut. In the episode "Born to Run" we see Claire cutting Charlie's hair and in "The 23rd Psalm" we see Kate giving Sawyer a haircut.

The food which was present on the plan ran out by episode three of the first season. In the first season they relied mostly on boar hunted by Locke, fish caught by Jin, and fruits and berries gathered by random people. In the second season they found the Hatch, which contained a large stockpile of food. Later in the season a large pallet of food was dropped from some sort of aircraft. Over the course of the next three seasons this food, supplemented by caught and scavenged food, has been their main source of sustenance. In addition, in season two Sun is shown planting a garden, which presumably supplies some food.

The answer is both yes and no. The writers have stated that they have a long range plan for the series, and that they generally have long range plans for each season. But sometimes these plans change. One example of this is Michael Emmerson as Ben. Originally he was hired only for the one story arc in season two. At the end of that arc he would have been revealed to either be an innocent man, or some low level Other who we might see occasionally as a recurring character. However, the producers were so impressed with Michael Emmerson's performance that they decided to hire him as a series regular and made his character the leader of the Others and of major importance to the plot.