Lost – The Complete Fifth Season Blu-Ray Review With Show And Special Feature Clips

First off – Check the general DVD release trailer in the player at right.

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Few television phenomena have reached the status of LOST. In terms of the ability to create buzz and day-after discussion, the show has established a massive fan following, and has keyed in on getting people to foam at the mouth for the next episode. With outrageous and unpredictable plots, fans are always guessing, and nothing breeds chatter like coming up with your own theories.

Moving toward the predetermined final sixth season, season five found us dealing with strange time travel and the return of those who made it off the island. Before long, we were in one of those classic “everyone is their own grandfather” scenarios, and there was simply no way to guess what was going to happen, because the show made it clear that absolutely anything can happen. Unperturbed by anything so trivial as logic, LOST set out to spin madness upon madness, and solve its seemingly illogical dilemmas by way of chucking heaps of further illogic at them.

And who doesn’t love it?

An in-depth review of the full season is a task more mind-bending than I dare, and filled with open-ended statements and spoilers besides, so I won’t try. It must suffice to say that the season includes everything imaginable, and much more. The connections are completely incomprehensible, and trying to work out the details of the time travel mindset behind the show seems impossible. Still, it’s addictive fun, and love it or hate it, it’s hard to argue that it has pushed the envelope of television possibilities.

One of the best things about a show that whips up buzz and has countless rabid fans is the show’s ability to budget in special features during production. The Fifth Season Blu-Ray is packed, and many of the bonuses are of a sort you just can’t get with other shows, because you’ve got to have a legitimate theory of ROI to cover their creation.

Even the standard edition set has quite a helping of great features.

Building 23 & Beyond takes you through the offices where the magic happens. Where a previous season took you on an in-depth look at the creation process in Hawaii, in this one Michael Emerson walks you through the office on the mainland to meet the creative team and see how the work comes together.

An Epic Day With Richard Alpert is a behind-the-scenes tag-a-long during the entire day of shooting the last day of the season’s finale. You’ll spend the whole day with Nestor Carbonell, shuttling from one part of the island to the other, and get a real look at not just a day in the life, but a very intense day in the life.

Making Up For LOSTTime is a rather wild look at the rather wild ideas of time travel from the show, and how the producers and writers spin things together, and how the cast deal with it. Fans are really going to enjoy getting an earful of the writers and producers explaining the creative process.

LOST On Location takes you behind the scenes at a wide variety of sets and locations. A far better bonus than it sounds, you get a great deal of information, and the cast and crew really take you inside the filming process. This is the sort of special feature that is often a throwaway of little interest, but here the discussion and footage stand out, and there are so many locations covered that it is really a true bonus.

Mysteries Of The Universe: The DHARMA Initiative is really a special bonus, and the kind of thing you aren’t going to run into often. The “recently unearthed” footage of a television series exploring a wide array of mysteries set its sights on the elusive DHARMA Initiative. It’s so much fun that it’s rather hard to explain, and I think it probably loses something in the telling, but this is a television special from somewhere in the ’70s purporting to investigate secret societies, and it has a few leads into the DHARMA Initiative and many strange events connected with the group. Hilariously, one of the “events” in the show revolves around a college student who bought a janitor’s uniform from a thrift store to wear to a costume party, and the strange results when he happened to be photographed with the DHARMA logo outfit made it to the paper.

There are also quite a few deleted scenes, a blooper reel, and audio commentaries. The deleted scenes are (well, you be the judge) a bit more interesting than normal based on the curious nature of the show.

Blu-Ray Exclusive Features

The big game here is LOST University. A special feature like no other, LOST University lets you take classes exploring the themes, stories and secrets of LOST, and it’s a pretty amazing bonus that is very interactive.

Each visit to LOST University through the “LOST: The Complete Fifth Season” Blu-ray disc will connect viewers to a unique and exclusive experience, powered by BD-LIVE technology. Upon launching the innovative interface, students immediately get access to their personalized lesson plans, compelling HD Audio-Visual presentations and communication from the LOST University faculty and staff. Like any real university, campus life at LOST University is not solely focused on higher learning, pop quizzes and homework. Through an extended web experience, students will be able to pay visits to the campus bookstore to purchase LOST U merchandise, or discuss their school experience and “LOST” theories through study-groups on the LOST University message boards. Potential students will even have the opportunity to prep for the LOST U experience in advance on www.lostuniversity.org with story and character refresher courses and advanced reading suggestions… all providing information vital to getting up-to-speed with the world of LOST as it heads into its final season.

LOST University expands the world of “LOST”—viewers won’t just visit that world, but begin to understand it. Every semester, LOST University brings students deeper into the mythology, the history, the philosophy, and the mysteries of television’s ultimate mystery.

LOST University will offer a wide variety of entertaining and informative courses

including…

•Introductory Physics of Time Travel

•History

•Family Psychology

•The Languages Of “LOST”

•Jungle Survival Basics

•Deciphering Hieroglyphics

•Art Of “LOST” seminar

•Philosophy 101

Even casual fans are going to find this an impressive feature. The amount of effort that went into this, and the sheer volume of what is at your fingertips makes for not only a great special feature, but this is something that really takes great advantage of Blu-Ray possibilities.

LOST 100 is a special look at the 100th episode celebration, including Duff Goldman of Ace of Cakes, who made a cake up to his usual standards for the occasion.

This is without question one of the best sets for a season of television you’re going to find. Filled with a great variety of bonuses that go far beyond the scope of anything you’ll find on other releases, this is a must for any fan of the show.

Own it on Blu-Ray and DVD today!

Also, because this is just the perfect gift for that special someone, I will be including this in the Massive Holiday Giveaway coming… later today!

Check out a slew of clips from the set below.

TV SHOW

CAMPS GONE

WHAT HAPPENED, HAPPENED

SACRIFICE

JACOB

EXTRAS

BLOOPERS

WHITE LIGHT

JUNGLE SURVIVAL BASICS WITH THE CAST OF “LOST” – Class
Clip: Professor Josh Holloway and Evangeline Lilly

NEW PHYSICS WITH JEREMY DAVIES – Class
Clip: Professor Jeremy Davies

I’M LOST THERFORE I AM – Class
Clip: Dr. Shlomo Sher, Fellow at the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics and Ethics Consultant at the Marshall School of Business at USC

INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS OF TIME TRAVEL – Class
Clip: Dr. Clifford Johnson, Theoretical Physicist at USC; Sean Carroll, Senior Research Associate in Physics at the California Institute of Technology; Dr. Nick Warner, Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Professor of Mathematics at USC.

ANCIENT WRITING ON THE WALL – Class
Clip: Dr. Kara Cooney, Assistant Professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA