They’re making me rank all 122 episodes of Lost – and I couldn’t be happier

Each month, the culture team gather and throw around all the feature ideas we’ve had rattling around our heads. It’s more fun than it sounds. I particularly enjoy it when my team members unearth the approaching month’s anniversaries, which are mostly met with gasps from those who “can’t quite believe” a certain film or album is turning 40.

Next week sees the anniversaries of two wildly different, but no less influential, television shows, that are beloved by two different people on our desk: sitcom Friends and the cult drama Lost, which premiered on the same day in the US – 22 September – 10 years apart (in 1994 and 2004, respectively).

How does one go about commemorating such shows? In an age of digital journalism, the first answer is usually the right one: we rank the episodes. While lists may get a bad rap from some people who write them off as nothing but lazy, let me tell you this – even contemplating putting the episodes into some form of order has left me sleepless.

It’s here I should confess that I’m a Lost obsessive. I’m a firm believer that it changed the shape of television in ways I won’t bother to go into now. I even co-host a podcast with a friend who is watching for the first time – and yes, we’re called The LOST Boys. My point being, in a non-ironic way, this could be the most important feature I’ve ever been commissioned to write; I feel it’s my duty to the show’s fanbase – still one of the most dedicated after all these years – to make it as comprehensive as I possibly can.

Having seen the whole thing in its entirety around seven times, I fortunately didn’t need to re-watch every single episode to confirm the ones I love and the ones I don’t. This luxury wasn’t afford to my colleague who underwent a gigantic re-watch of all 10 seasons of Friends (that’s 236 episodes) to compile her list. In comparison, Lost ran for 121 episodes over six seasons – but, in my defence, every episode was double that of a Friends episode. And while I’m not purporting to be doing important or essential work here, I believe that even agreeing to attempt this gargantuan task is the true mark of the show’s legacy.

Next year will mark 10 years since the series aired its divisive finale. In preparation, I’m interviewing numerous cast members about their time on the show – and I think the only people more in awe of this than myself are my family and schoolfriends who had to put up with my relentless Lost chatter when I was a teenager. And now it turns out, thanks to my job, it wasn’t all for nothing.

Yours,

Jacob Stolworthy

Culture reporter