LOST: Season 2 Blu-Ray Edition Review
Posted by Rick Tym on 07.01.2009
Get ready for Henry Gale in high def.
Matthew Fox - Jack Shephard
Evangeline Lilly - Kate Austen
Terry O'Quinn - John Locke
Naveen Andrews - Sayid Jarrah
Emilie de Ravin - Claire Littleton
Jorge Garcia - Hugo "Hurley" Reyes
Maggie Grace - Shannon Rutherford
Josh Holloway - James "Sawyer" Ford
Yunjin Kim - Sun-Hwa Kwon
Daniel Dae Kim - Jin-Soo Kwon
Dominic Monaghan - Charlie Pace
Harold Perrineau - Michael Dawson
Michael Emerson - Henry Gale
Michelle Rodriguez - Ana-Lucia Cortez
Cynthia Watros – Libby
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje - Mr. Eko
L. Scott Caldwell - Rose Henderson
Sam Anderson - Bernard Nadler
Kimberley Joseph - Cindy Chandler
Henry Ian Cusick - Desmond Hume
Mira Furlan - Danielle Rousseau
M.C. Gainey - Tom
Tania Raymonde - Alex
François Chau – Dharma Orientation Video Spokesman
Clancy Brown - Kelvin Inman
John Terry - Christian Shephard
Malcolm David Kelley - Walt Lloyd
Ian Somerhalder - Boone Carlyle
ABC Studios
Release Date: June 16, 2009
The Episodes
Ahh. The divisive second season of Lost. Many liked it, many hated it, but not too many people outright loved it. In typical Lost fashion the season opened with the answer to one of last year’s cliffhangers while leaving another to float in limbo for awhile until addressing it in the following episode. Personally, this reviewer loved the season premiere’s opening reveal of a certain brotha occupying a certain underground structure. We got to the raft and Walt stuff soon enough. And, of course, a whole lot more.
Looking back upon this season in all its glory now rendered even clearer in high def, it’s easy to see why some people were dissatisfied when the episodes first aired. But just like then I still enjoy the slow burn of many of the plot threads. From a creative standpoint new characters would have to be introduced and that’s where the tail section passengers came in. Don’t believe the hype—Michelle Rodriguez’s Anna Lucia is nowhere near as annoying as the haters would have you believe, and Cynthia Watros gave us a character that’s still whose fate is still being debated. The great Desmond Hume also makes his first appearance and there’s also some dude named Michael Emerson playing a throwaway character named Henry Gale. Whatever happened to that guy?
And let’s not forget the great Mr. Eko! He kicked ass.
Long story short, the second season of Lost did more things right than it gets credit for. Once again, I always maintain the show-runners credo that it’s all about the people and their paths of redemption. Some of the back stories may have seemed a little overblown at the time but almost every piece of the season two puzzle had meaning. The Tailies were a great addition and the impetus for moving forward during the middle of the season, and everything came to a head in the purple-soaked finale.
Here are the disc breakdowns for season two:
Disc One
“Man of Science, Man of Faith” – Includes audio commentary track by writer/show-runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, producer Bryan Burk and director Jack Bender.
“Adrift”
“Orientation”
“Everybody Hates Hugo”
Disc Two
"...And Found"
"Abandoned"
"The Other 48 Days"
"Collision"
Disc Three
"What Kate Did" – Includes audio commentary track by Evangeline Lilly, Paul Edwards, and Michael Bonvillain.
"The 23rd Psalm" – Includes audio commentary track by Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and Bryan Burk.
"The Hunting Party"
"Fire + Water"
Disc Four
"The Long Con"
"One of Them"
"Maternity Leave"
"The Whole Truth" – Includes audio commentary track by Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, writer Elizabeth Sarnoff, and writer Christina M. Kim.
Disc Five
"Lockdown"
"Dave" – Includes audio commentary track by Jack Bender, Jorge Garcia, and Cynthia Watros.
"S.O.S."
"Two for the Road"
Disc Six
"?"
"Three Minutes"
"Live Together, Die Alone"
Disc Seven
Special features (not of the disembodied talking voice type) are once again divided into three main sections. The kicker is that for Season 2, the extras are hosted, Dharma-orientation video style, by Dr. Pierre Chang. Or Marvin Candle. Perhaps we should just call him actor Francois Chau.
So, if you are a fan who hasn’t purchased the DVD box sets yet and are looking for some high def goodness, this is probably already on your “buy” list. If you’re newcomer with Blu-ray capabilities, now’s your chance to jump in. The commentaries listed above are certainly nothing new if you already have the standard definition DVDs and the extras discussed below may not be the driving impetus for shilling out the extra cash for this Blu-ray set, but the second season itself in superior high definition format is—or at least, it should be.
The Video
It’s Blu-ray once again, for those of you that read my season one Blu review), baby! What else needs to be said? Actually, there are a few things. First off, the episodes are presented in their original 1:78:1 aspect ratio, with the added gravitas of 1080p High Definition. While there are some compression issues here and there, particularly in a few of the lower-lit night scenes, mostly everything from the sky to the jungle foliage to the blue ocean waves is stunningly vibrant. Let’s not kid ourselves…you’re buying the Blu-ray for the image quality, and the second season of Lost does not disappoint.
Extras, however, were not remastered and remain mired in lowly (this time I do not) 480i.
The Audio
The sounds of Lost come pounding through the speakers in 5.1 uncompressed (48 kHz/16-bit) for the English language, 5.1 Dolby Digital in French or 2.0 Dolby Digital (boo!) in Spanish for the episodes, while only having the option of 5.1 Dolby Digital in English for the bonus features. (As you no doubt have discerned, I watched the shows and extras in English). Conversations are crisp and clear but even better are the surrounding ambient noises of the jungle world the main characters inhabit. Seriously, you feel like you’re on the Island—or off of it—with them. The soundtrack swells and retreats as appropriate in high def audio that complements rather than overpowers the events onscreen.
Subtitles are available for both the episodes and extras in English, Spanish and French.
The Packaging
The standard stubbier and slightly skinnier plastic Blu-ray case houses all seven discs and is adorned by a cardboard slipcase. Nice packaging although—and once again, this is for you guys and gals that read my season one Blu review—I’m still leery of that plastic spindle. It remained intact in this set, though.
The Extras
Here’s where your mileage may vary. Just like the season one Blu-ray set, all of the extras are the same as those on the standard DVD collection. Blu-ray exclusive extras for season two consist only of Best Buy and TV Guide bonus disc features, and once again I’m counting them as “not new.” Also, as noted above in the Video portion of the review, the following segments that comprise the special features are the same “regular def” quality as those found on the box set which may already adorn your shelf. Forewarned is forearmed, I always say. Still, let’s break ‘em down…
As mentioned earlier, all of the extras below are found on Disc Seven.
Phase 1: Observation
• Fire + Water: Anatomy of an Episode (31:45): Documentary that breaks down the episode in which Charlie is a zealot for baptism. Great behind-the-scenes look that goes from the writing room all the way to shooting in Hawaii and back to Burbank, CA for post-production.
• Lost: On Location (44:32): Ten mini-docs highlighting different aspects of production, from the legend of the Dharma shark’s tattoo to the last days of Cynthia Watros and Harold Perrineau onset…for now. For then, actually.
• The World According to Sawyer (4:31): A great and flashy feature that highlights all of Sawyer’s awesome (if slightly insulting) nicknames for his fellow castaways.
Phase 2: Conditioning
• The Lost Flashbacks (3:26) – A few flashback scenes not broadcast during the “Abandoned” and “Lockdown” episodes.
• Deleted scenes (18:25) – Exactly as described. Scenes left on the cutting room floor for several episodes. Interesting but not groundbreaking (just like those “flashbacks” above).
• Lost Bloopers (4:06) – Standard gag reel, which I usually enjoy (it’s nice to see some goofiness amidst all the seriousness) made all the better when Sayid and Locke take part in a Brokeback Mountain parody.
• Channel 4 UK Promo Directed by David LaChapelle (1:06) – Remember that weird but cool promo showing all of the cast from season one dancing around the wreckage of Oceanic 815 in makeup and special wardrobe? Here it is for you to take another gander at.
Phase 3: Conclusion
• Lost Connections (1:56) – An interactive maze game that shows the connections that Oceanic passengers had.
• Mysteries, Conspiracies and Theories (10:17) – Cast members, fans, the producers and even J.J. Abrams himself talk amongst themselves in an effort to audibly reason out what exactly is happening on the Island.
• Secrets from the Hatch (15:47) – Mini-doc about, you guessed it, the hatch and the plan to keep its contents a secret for the entire season.
Special Blu-ray extras include bonus deleted scenes and a few more on location tidbits found on the promo discs included in Best Buy and TV Guide packages.
In addition the bonus materials listed, the Blu-ray discs have a nifty thing called SeasonPlay, which enables your player will remember where you left off in the middle of a disc even if you remove it from the machine. (Hey, it’s new to me.) The whole “seamless menus” think works okay, I guess. Best of all, if you buy Lost’s second season on Blu and already own it on regular DVD, you can send in for a $20 rebate. (This also applies to the first season.) The offer is good until June 16, 2010.
So there you have it; all the season two extras lined up and neatly described. As previously mentioned, there’s nothing really new there which is disappointing, but at this stage of the game a bit of retrofitting the new with the old was to be expected as the early seasons play catch up with seasons three and four, which are already available on Blu-ray.
The 411: Season two is a bit more uneven than the stellar first season which launched Lost with a bang. Still, it’s great fun to go back and view these episodes with the knowledge from the seasons that lie ahead, and to do so in high definition is an even greater joy. Once again, the extras are nothing new but the quality of these episodes in high definition video and audio make this edition of Lost’s second season another must-have for fans with Blu-ray capabilities.
