Welcome to paradise: How Lost’s pilot set up the show’s inevitable success

“Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark.” Spoken by Lost’s resident man of faith John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) in the series premiere to explain backgammon, these words neatly illustrate the show’s spiritual premise. Lost’s stunning two-part pilot doesn’t just transport us to this weird tropical island—a beautiful, mystical, often creepy place where characters battle exterior and interior demons. (It’s still decidedly not purgatory, folks.) The show’s debut also throws us into a truly unique narrative—and, somehow, 20 years after originally airing, it still holds up.  

ABC’s propulsive series arrived as the network struggled to find a hit drama after 1997’s The Practice and 2001’s Alias, one that could compete with Fox’s 24, NBC’s The West Wing, and a slew of standard procedurals. It’s no wonder Alias creator J.J. Abrams was tapped to help helm this plane-crash survival story, with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse coming aboard a show that soon became peak primetime TV. Lindelof would go on to explore metaphysical ideas of life and death in The Leftovers, whereas a gamut of shows (Orange Is The New Black, Lucifer, Yellowjackets) would draw from Lost‘s well. 

Proclaiming this show as ushering in a new, bold chapter is easy now, but back then, much like that damn Island, Lost felt bizarre. A pricey, serialized network original (the pilot’s $10 to $14 million budget was the most expensive at the time) with a huge ensemble and stakes seemed like an uphill battle as there was nothing like it on TV. Acclaimed shows like Twin Peaks and X-Files were too niche or focused on their two leads, respectively, whereas Lost introduced 17 critical faces in its two-hour launch. (Okay, 18, as we can’t forget Vincent the dog.) The pilot achieves all of this without wasting a second or feeling overstuffed, making it clear this is no ordinary Lord–Of–The–Flies-meets-Survivor series. 

Perhaps Lost’s greatest feat was how it presented refreshingly non-linear storytelling inside the familiar framework of a mystery box. The answers (about the Island and the people on it) would roll out—eventually—as the show’s writers cooked up puzzles spanning, as we’d find out later, centuries. In turn, the ever-expanding suspense, spread over what would now be seen as a whopping 25-episode first season, provided fertile ground for character development through shifting perspectives and timelines. And it all turned Lost into compelling, must-watch TV. 

A product of its time, Lost also launched when watercooler shows were still a thing and around the start of social media, with fan forums abuzz with theories about what the hell was going on with this show. There was no lack of puzzles or symbolism to ponder with Lost, which reveled in cliffhangers and twists. Most of the season-one speculating was about the Island’s eerie whispers, hostile natives, the presence of a polar bear, and, worse still, that smoke monster. “Pilot Part 2” wraps with Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) asking what we’re all thinking: “Guys, where are we?” As the show went on, the questions got personal and wilder: Why is Jack Shephard’s (Matthew Fox) dead dad roaming the jungle in a sharp suit? How is a paralyzed Locke suddenly walking? Why are Hurley’s (Jorge Garcia) lottery numbers cursed? And what did fugitive Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) do? 

Lost’s flashbacks made us care about these strangers (and a few, um, “others”) and helped keep us hooked beyond the WTF twists. Even the premiere does it to an affecting degree to flesh out Kate and Charlie, a rockstar with a heroin addiction, so their Island reveals hit harder. Weaving everyone’s detailed backstories and connections along with the Island’s secrets became a winning formula. Episode four, “Walkabout,” best set the stage for that after the premiere. (Side note: It’s hard to imagine Lost without Ben Linus, Desmond Hume, and Juliet Burke, who debut much later, but this real-time edit of the Island’s goings-on during the crash gives a new perspective on the pilot.) 

The show wasn’t devoid of tropes despite crafting this rare recipe. The basic ideas were sketched through common stylistic devices and archetypes—a hero (Jack Shephard), villain (Sawyer), damsel in distress (Kate, Claire Littleton), joker (Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, Charlie), and outsider (Sun and Jin Hwa-Kwon). The foreshadowing, Easter eggs, and misdirects existed only to pull the rug out from under us because Lost writers loved nothing more than the idea of coming back full circle. In fact, season one’s first and last words are the same (Michael yelling the now-iconic “Waaaaaalt”), as are the series’ opening and closing shots. Even the story Jack tells Kate in the pilot, about how he overcame fear after almost botching a surgery? That life-changing event happened the same day he met Island protector Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) at the hospital vending machine. It changed the course of his life; he just didn’t know it yet. And neither did we until the season-five finale.  

Who knows if the writers knew exactly what they were doing at all times? As the lore got bigger, the chances that Lindelof, Cuse & co. had all the right explanations got smaller. Then again, life is a series of unanswered questions, and not everything is spelled out for us. Lost got to its mind-bending reveals much later (season five was a standout for this writer during a recent rewatch), and not all of them landed well, but the weighty moments are rewarding because of season one’s meticulous groundwork. It also helped that the cast, which had no huge stars, felt fresh, as did Michael Giacchino’s stunning score. 

The captivating, colossal mysteries of the Island may lure us in, but make no mistake: This is a visceral story about humanity. Look no further than when Jack assumed the leadership role with his “live together, die alone” speech in episode five, “White Rabbit.” Lost’s essence was about the characters learning how to let go and move on from their flawed pasts, and they do it because they find a community in the worst circumstances. A network drama in 2004 had no business being this profound, which is exactly why Lost was—and still is—a game-changer.