This month marks the tenth anniversary of the premiere of LOST.  It was ten years ago September 22 that ABC premiered the Hawaii-based show down on the beach in Waikiki.  The rest, for many of us, is history (and alternate history, as the case may be).  For the occasion, I thought I’d try watching the series again.  Here’s one of my favorite scene’s from the show’s two-part pilot.

I think my appreciation for this moment comes from watching everything Joss Whedon has made over the last ten years.  This scene, which involves the mysterious “smoke monster,” feels like something out of the Whedon playbook: the group shot.  I love how the camera moves, starting with individuals and pairs, and how it catches people in the background.  This feels like the first time that we see the cast as anything like a “team.”  It may be one of the only times, really.  From this point on, it’s “a few characters here, a few characters there.”  In the end, it all comes back to this group, on the other side of mystery.

I’ve got a few clips from season one to revisit, but nothing like a moment from every episode.  If you’re a fan of the series, hopefully this will be a nice call-back for you.  If you’ve never seen it before, you should give it a try.  Season one is almost perfect.  Part of that is because the sci-fi elements weren’t too prevalent so early on.  It really is about the characters, the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, and how they learn to live with what they know of themselves on an island and around people that they don’t know at all.