An Excellent Question...

I'm back! My Top 108 Lost Moments list is coming, although I'm still revising it because after looking it over I realized there were a couple important ones I left out. As a result, over the long weekend I read through the Lostpedia synopsis of every episode again. Of course this drove my list up above 140 and I'm now working to pare it down to 108 with about 10 honorable mentions or so. Will probably take me a couple more days before the first post goes up. I'm also trying to find clips or screenshots for all of them and that's been adding a lot of time to the project.

But Matt sent me an e-mail this morning on something else I've been meaning to address:

I was looking over your list of top ten episodes, drawn up at the end of season three. I know that you've got the 108 moments list cooking, and that the more charitable thing to do would be to identify the ten best episodes from the last three seasons.

I'm curious, though. What would a top ten list for the whole series look like? Relatedly, are there any episodes on the original list that you see in a different light with the series as a whole in mind?

I have been meaning to draw up a new Top 10 Episode list (you can read my previous one here) for the series as a whole, although I'm unsure as to how to go about it. I could add reviews for new entries on the list and simply reprint any holdovers or just do a short, one-post update to the list itself. I'm currently leaning towards the former, likely after my moments list is finished.

But the really hard part is that my opinions of some episodes have changed a lot. I didn't even include "Through The Looking Glass" on my original list because at the time, while I thought it was good, I don't think it had sunk in yet just how good it was. I made my list shortly after that finale aired and I also think part of me didn't want to include it because it was too new. Also I already had two season openers and a season finale on there and I wanted to spread the love around a bit. Now I don't think you could have a Top 10 episode list without having it on there somewhere.

Rereading all the synopses has also given me a new appreciation for some of the episodes too. For example, while the mini-series at the beginning of Season 3 was by-and-large still terrible with a lot of plot elements that didn't really work (Ben and Kate on the beach, Ben's tumor, Ben's "con" of Sawyer, Kate's wedding, Bear Cage Sex, etc...) that mini-series also contained a few of the best moments of the entire series (with the really prominent one being Ben showing Jack the Red Sox winning the World Series).

All of this has really only gone in one direction for me - i.e. it's made me like some episodes more than I did before; episodes I really, really liked have continued to hold up pretty well. I don't think any episodes are going to be removed from the list on their own, I simply think they're going to be bumped off by better ones or ones I now hold in higher regard (like TTLG).

I also put up a new poll. The results from "The End" were really impressive as 75% of you thought it was "above average" or better. Bodes really well for Lost's legacy overall and that's really nice to see. After all, we do want someone to eventually find the next "Lost," eh? :)