As producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse state in their commentary on the fifth-season premiere, "We're doing time journey this year," and the pile-up of flashbacks and flash-forwards will do even the much dedicated fan dizzy. Ben, Jack, Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) arrive to locate this Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) have been part of the Dharma Initiative for three years. The writers in addition clarify the roles this Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Daniel (Jeremy Davies) have fun in the island's master plan, environment the stage for the prophecies of Daniel's mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), to have fun a bigger part in the sixth and final season.
Dozens of other players flit in and out, some never to return. A few, such as Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), exist again in the past. Lost could've wrapped things up in five years, as The Wire did, but the show continues to excite and surprise. As Lindelof and Cuse admit in the commentary, there's a "fine line between confusion and mystery," adding, "it makes extra sense if you're drunk." Other extras contain deleted scenes, featurettes, a "lost" episode of Mysteries of the Universe, and commentary from writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz on "He's Our You," a reference to Sayid, who tries to modify the future by varying the past. --Kathleen C. Fennessy