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What was in the Hatch? The cliffhanger from season one of Lost was answered in its opening sequences, only to launch into more questions as the season progressed. That’s right: Just when you say “Ohhhhh,” there comes another “What?” Thankfully, the show’s producers sprinkle answers like tasty morsels throughout the season, ending with a whopper: What caused Oceanic Air Flight 815 to crash in the first place? As the show digs into more revelations about its inhabitant’s pasts, it also devotes a good chunk to new characters (Hey, it’s an island; you never know who you’re going to run into.) First, there are the “Tailies,” passengers from the back end of the plane who crashed on the other side of the island. Among them are the wise, God-fearing ex-drug lord Mr. Eko (standout Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje); devoted husband Bernard (Sam Anderson); psychiatrist Libby (Cynthia Watros, whose character has more than one hidden link to the other islanders); and ex-cop Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), by far the most infuriating character on the show, despite how much the writers tried to incur sympathy with her flashback. Then there are the Others, first introduced when they kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) at the end of season one. Brutal and calculating, their agenda only became more complex when one of them (played creepily by Michael Emerson) was held hostage in the hatch and, quite handily, plays mind games on everyone’s already frayed nerves. The original cast continues to battle their own skeletons, most notably Locke (Terry O’Quinn), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), whose obsession with finding Walt takes a dangerous turn. The love triangle between Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), which had stalled with Sawyer’s departure, heats up again in the second half. Despite the bloating cast size (knocked down by a few by season’s end) Lost still does what it does best: explores the psyche of people, about whom “my life is an open book” never applies, and cracks into the social dynamics of strangers thrust into Lord of the Flies-esque situations. Is it all a science experiment? A dream? A supernatural pocket in the universe? Likely, any theory will wind up on shaky ground by the season’s conclusion. But hey, that’s the fun of it. This show was made for DVD, and you can pause and slow-frame to your heart’s content. Just try and keep that head-spinning to a minimum.

On the DVD

Commentaries by various cast members and producers reveal little other than the occasional easter egg (the Dharma logo on the shark fin, Walt’s mumbling translating to “Don’t push the button; the button is bad” backwards). But disc seven opens with an eerie Hanso Foundation instructional video, leading you to eight hours of bonus features, including cast members’ own theories, deleted scenes, and featurettes on specific episodes. It’s all well and good for Lost fanatics, but if you want the cream of the crop, check out: “Lost Connections,” an interactive feature that reveals how all the islanders are actually linked (for instance, one of the officers who captured Sayid during the Gulf War is Kate’s father); a Channel UK promo for the show directed by David LaChappelle in which cast members suck in their cheeks and, dressed in evening wear, tango in slow motion as if in a Calvin Klein ad (it has to be a joke, right?); and “The World According to Sawyer,” which strings together each of the un-PC nicknames and pop culture references spewed by Holloway’s character. Favorites include “Chewie” for Jin and “Ponce de Leon” for Ana Lucia. It’s by far the cherry on top of a sweet dessert.

As the second season of Lost begins, the hatch is opened up, and from that moment on, the viewers are thrown into a tailspin of more mystery, eerie goings on, and everything else that made the first season of Lost so good. While Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Locke (Terry O’Quinn) investigate what’s inside the hatch (and even more msytery arises from who and what they find inside), we are introduced to the “tailies”; survivors from the tail of the plane that include tough girl Ana-Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), the spiritual and mysterious Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, better known as the ruthless Simon Adebisi from HBO’s Oz), and others, as they come across a ship wrecked Michael (Harold Perrineau), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway). There’s so much that happens throughout the second season of Lost that it’s mind boggling to keep everything together with the overlapping storylines and more questions being raised than answers, all of which really hurt the first half of the season (not to mention that creator J.J. Abrams left during the season to film Mission: Impossible 3, though he did leave the show in better hands than he did with Alias), but as the second half starts things really pick up. Characters begin being picked off, and ever so slowly secrets are revealed. We learn what happened to Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) leaving Michael with some very hard choices to make, get a better insight into just who the “others” are, and we learn that the island has some connection with the Dharma Corporation. All this leads up to the explosive season finale when the it’s learned what caused the plane to crash, and what will happen as Locke challenges Mr. Eko about pushing the button. Like the first season, the finale leaves you wanting so much more, only this time it leaves you with your jaw on the floor. However, while the second season is wonderful television, it is a step down from the groundbreaking first season, and some of the new casting choices (Rodriguez in particular) weren’t the best ideas. Despite that though, there’s a lot to admire here, and by the time you get to the closing credits, you’ll be salivating for more.

Actors: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Naveen Andrews, Emilie de Ravin, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia, See more
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 6
Rating
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: September 5, 2006
average customer review: based on 105 reviews. (Write a review.)
DVD Features:
Available Subtitles: English
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
Commentary by: Executive producers Damon Lindelof, Carleton Cuse, Bryan Burk and Jack Bender on “Man of Science, Man of Faith”Dolby Digital 2.0,Director Paul Edwards, Director of Photography Michael Bonvillain, and co-star Evangeline Lilly on “What Kate Did”Dolby Digital 2.0,Executive producers Damon Lindelof, Carleton Cuse and Bryan Burk on “The 23rd Psalm”Dolby Digital 2.0,Director Jack Bender, co-stars Jorge Garcia & Cynthia Watros on “Dave”Dolby Digital 2.0,Co-stars Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim, writers Elizabeth Sarnoff and Christina M. Kim on “The Whole Truth”Dolby Digital 2.0
24 episodes from the 2005-2006 season on 7 discs
Exclusive unaired flashbacks
LOST connections: interactive experience that plants seeds for season three
Conspiracy theories with creators, writers, fans
Fire and Water: Anatomy of an Episode
Secrets From the Hatch
Deleted Scenes
Bloopers
Channel UK promo directed by David LaChapelle
The World According to Sawyer
Note on DVD sets: During shipping, discs in multidisc sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we’ll refund or replace your purchase.
From IMDb: Quotes & Trivia
ASIN: B000FIMG68