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"Pilot" constitutes the first and second episodes of the first season of Lost, that premiered on ABC on September 22, 2004, and September 29, 2004, respectively. The episodes were directed by J. J. Abrams, and written by Abrams along with Damon Lindelof, based on story by them and Jeffrey Lieber. The pilot introduces the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, who suffer a plane crash and end up on a mysterious island. Three of the characters, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) and Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan), are featured in flashbacks to their experiences as the plane breaks apart in midair; these scenes established Lost ' s distinctive use of flashbacks.

This episode was the most expensive pilot in television history, primarily due to the expense of purchasing, shipping, and dressing the actual decommissioned aircraft body used to represent the wreckage. It cost between $10 and $14 million. Both parts of the pilot earned high ratings, and the episode would later win many awards.

Part one
Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) awakens in the jungle, disoriented, battered and bruised. Finally able to stand, he crashes through the jungle vegetation and emerges onto an expansive beach, the site of a terrifying aftermath. The Oceanic Flight 815 airplane which Jack was on has crashed and now amongst the flames and wreckage the survivors are running around panicking in chaos. Jack, a distinguished surgeon, quickly rushes to the medical aid of the wounded. In quick fashion, he rescues a man pinned under wreckage, assists the pregnant Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin), and administers CPR to Rose Henderson (L. Scott Caldwell). After the initial shock of the crash passes, Jack retreats to a quiet area beyond the beach to tend to his own minor injuries when he notices Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) watching him. He asks for assistance, which she reluctantly gives by helping suture the wound on his back. That night, as the sun is setting over the island, the survivors sit on the beach and look out to the ocean awaiting rescue. Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) and his ten-year-old son Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley) discuss what to do with the bodies in the wreckage. Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) organizes a clean-up crew, while Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) salvages meals from the plane's galley and distributes them to the survivors. Jack is tending to a survivor in critical condition, the very survivor that Kate was sitting next to on the plane. Suddenly, the peacefulness of the camp is disturbed by loud roaring noises and crashing trees emanating from the nearby jungle.

In the morning, Jack decides that the survivors need to send a distress signal to have any hope of rescue, and he believes the best solution is to use the plane's transceiver, located in the cockpit that broke off from the plane in mid-flight. Kate claims to have seen smoke from somewhere within the jungle, so she, Jack, and Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) set off into the jungle to find what is hoped to be the cockpit. As they move deeper into the jungle, they encounter a sudden rainstorm. When the trio finds the plane, resting against a tree, they are forced to climb through the rows of seats to reach the cabin. Inside, they find the pilot (Greg Grunberg) awaking from a concussion. He tells them that the plane lost radio contact six hours after take off, where it turned back for Fiji and hit turbulence; the plane was a thousand miles off course when it crashed. Meanwhile, on the beach, the survivors takes refuge from the rainstorm in the wreckage. While huddled there, a Korean man, Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim), tells his wife, Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), in Korean that she should remain close to him at all times. Even though most of the survivors have taken shelter, John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) remains outside and sits alone in the rain on the beach with his arms outstretched and seems to enjoy the moment. Back in the plane's cockpit, the conversation with the pilot is interrupted when the strange roaring noise that the group heard from the jungle the previous night returns. When the pilot investigates, he is seized by something outside, which drags him through the cockpit window, prompting the trio to grab the transceiver and flee. During the escape, Charlie falls. Jack returns to help him, while a terrified Kate runs on. After "The Monster" disappears, Kate, Charlie and Jack reunite and find the pilot's bloodied corpse suspended in a tree top.

Part two
While Jack, Kate, and Charlie head back to the beach, Kate asks Charlie what he was doing in the cockpit's bathroom. Charlie says he was sick, but in a flashback it is revealed that he is secretly taking drugs. Meanwhile, Walt discovers a pair of handcuffs while looking for his dog Vincent. The possibility of a criminal on the plane leads to an immediate assumptions. James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) is quick to accuse Sayid of being an Iraqi terrorist, and a fight breaks out between them on the beach. Jack, Kate, and Charlie return from their jungle in time to help break up the fight. They enlist Sayid's help in getting the transceiver to work, but he informs Kate that they need to find a better place to get a reception from the transceiver. Sayid, Kate, Charlie, Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace), Boone Carlyle (Ian Somerhalder), and Sawyer decide to bring the transceiver inland in an attempt to reach higher ground and get a better signal. Along the way, they are attacked by a charging polar bear, which Sawyer shoots and kills. He then explains that he got the gun from the body of a dead marshal that was on the plane. Sayid accuses Sawyer of being the marshal's prisoner, so Kate takes the gun from Sawyer and dismantles it.

In a flashback of the final moments of the flight, Kate is seen sitting next to the marshal, the same injured man to whom Jack had been tending on the beach. Kate is wearing the handcuffs that Walt found in the jungle. As the turbulence hits, the marshal is knocked unconscious by a falling suitcase. Kate uncuffs herself, and puts the marshal's oxygen mask on him before attaching her own, at which point the tail end of the plane suddenly breaks off. Back at the beach, the marshal wakes up during the operation and asks Jack, "Where is she?" Inland, the group continue their trek and now high up in the mountains, they get a signal. However, Sayid is unable to communicate an SOS because another signal is blocking the transceiver. The blocking message on the transceiver begins to play over and over, and with the battery running out, Shannon is asked to translate the repeating looping message which is being spoken in French. Shannon translates: "I'm alone now, on the island alone. Please someone come. The others are dead. It killed them. It killed them all." Sayid calculates that the message has been replaying itself for sixteen years. The six are now more afraid and confused than ever.

Development and writing
Lost began development in January 2004, when Lloyd Braun, head of ABC at the time, ordered an initial script from Spelling Television based on his concept of a cross between the novel Lord of the Flies, the film Cast Away, the television series Gilligan's Island, and the popular reality show Survivor. Jeffrey Lieber was hired and wrote Nowhere, based on his pitch to write the pilot. Unhappy with the result and a subsequent rewrite, Braun contacted J. J. Abrams, who had a deal with Touchstone Television (now ABC Studios), and was also the creator of the television series Alias, to write a new pilot script. Although initially hesitant, Abrams warmed up to the idea on the condition that the series would have a supernatural angle to it, and collaborated with Damon Lindelof to create the series' style and characters. Together, Abrams and Lindelof also created a series "bible", and conceived and detailed the major mythological ideas and plot points for an ideal five to six season run for the show. The development of the show was constrained by tight deadlines, as it had been commissioned late in the 2004 season's development cycle. Despite the short schedule, the creative team remained flexible enough to modify or create characters to fit actors they wished to cast. Lost's two-part pilot episode was the most expensive in the network's history, reportedly costing between US$10 and US$14 million, compared to the average cost of an hour-long pilot in 2005 of US$4 million.

Casting
In the initial plans for the series, Jack was going to die midway through the first episode. The role of Jack was originally offered to Michael Keaton, but when the producers quickly changed their minds about Jack's death, making him the leader, Keaton gave up the job. After Matthew Fox's casting as Jack, the character was established as a leader, and the airplane pilot was introduced to take Jack's place as The Monster's first victim. Around seventy-five women of different shapes, sizes, ethnicities and ages auditioned to be Kate. In the initial plans, Kate would emerge as the leader after Jack died. She was not going to be a fugitive, instead her husband was going to go to the bathroom shortly before the plane split in mid air, and she would remain adamant on the Island that he was alive. This ended up being used for Rose’s (L. Scott Caldwell) character instead. The producers were impressed with Canadian Evangeline Lilly's audition for Kate, as she displayed the confidence with vulnerability that they were looking for. As this was Lilly's first role, she had difficulty obtaining a visa to work in America. She was supposed to start on the first day of filming, but the schedule was rearranged to give her more time, and in the mean time, the producers began auditioning again in case the visa did not come through. However during one of the auditions, they got an email confirming that she had obtained her visa and could start work on the show.

Matthew Fox, Dominic Monaghan and Jorge Garcia originally auditioned for the role of Sawyer, who at the time was supposed to be a suit-wearing city con man, but the role was given to Josh Holloway. Garcia was the first actor the producers knew they were going to cast. While the producers thought Garcia was spectacular, they did not think he fit in the role of Sawyer, so they created the Hurley character for him instead. When Holloway auditioned for Sawyer, the producers liked his southern accent and the edge he brought to the character (Holloway reportedly forgot his lines and kicked a chair in frustration). The producers knew he did not suit the role, but thought he was very watchable, so they rewrote the role to suit him, making him more feral, Southern, but kept the same intelligence he originally had. After appearing in The Lord of the Rings, Dominic Monaghan was offered many fantasy-based roles, like elves and pixies. He was keen to portray a different role, so he wanted a contemporary part that had layers and an edge. Originally Charlie was an older rocker that has been a big hit in the 1980s but now had a heroin addiction. After the producers enjoyed Monaghan’s audition of Sawyer, they decided to cast him as Charlie and rewrote the script to make Charlie a young has-been instead.

When the producers were auditioning actors for roles in Lost, Harold Perrineau was in the area. The producers called it a "natural move" to have him audition. Although initially skeptical about the show, he took the role when Lost creator J. J. Abrams explained more about it. A lot of children were seen for the role of Walt. They were narrowed down to the top three, with Malcolm David Kelley winning it, after the producers were impressed with his role in Antwone Fisher. Abrams had worked with Terry O'Quinn previously on Alias, and was keen to work with him again. He explained to O'Quinn that although the role in the first episodes would be fairly small, the character will develop afterwards. O'Quinn took the role as he trusted Abrams. He was also the only character who did not have to officially audition for a part of a main character. The producers were looking for someone who had a "Paris Hilton quality" to play Shannon, but she could not just be shallow, as the storyline would require more than that. A lot of women were auditioned before the producers finally settled on Maggie Grace. She was written to be a bitch in the first season as the producers needed a character they could use to create opposition and conflict. Unlike many other characters of the first season, who were rewritten based on their actors, Boone was largely the same through production. He was originally going to be named Boone Anthony Markham V, going by the nickname, "Five". Ian Somerhalder was cast in the role, but he did not want to shoot a pilot; however, he jumped at the opportunity once he found out he would be working with Abrams.

Lost was planned to be a multi-cultural show with an international cast. The producers thought it was essential that an Australian was cast for the part of Claire, and the Oceanic 815 was leaving from Sydney. Emilie de Ravin was working in Edmonton, so was unable to go to the auditions, which were being held in Los Angeles. From a video she sent to the producers, they were able to tell that de Ravin had the youth and sweetness required for the role, but also looked as though she had some life experience. Sayid was not in the original draft of the pilot episode, but executive consultant Jeff Pinkner had worked with Naveen Andrews on a short-lived ABC series called The Beast, and was keen to have him on Lost. The producers were surprised that Andrews was interested in the role. When they cast him, all Andrews was told was that Sayid was from Iraq and had been in the army. Yunjin Kim originally auditioned for Kate. At her audition she told the producers that she spoke fluent Korean, having been raised in South Korea, where she had starred in several films. The producers were impressed with Kim's performance and wrote her the character of Sun, who was planned to be someone who could not speak English, but after examining her relationship with her husband, the audience would learn that she does in fact speak it. Daniel Dae Kim was cast in the role of Jin, Sun's husband. Dae Kim described his audition as a "really interesting experience". He found it especially hard as it was his first time acting in Korean, and he had not spoken in it regularly since being in high school, when he would talk to his parents.

Filming and editing
The episode filmed on Panavision 35 mm cameras almost entirely on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The island scenes for the pilot were filmed at Mokulē'ia Beach, near the northwest tip of the island. The studio scenes set inside the flight were shot in Los Angeles. Many special effects were used, especially bluescreen. One was made just before Part 2 was broadcast, since a scene involving a stuffed polar bear was freeze framed and mocked on the internet, prompting ABC to replace it with a CGI bear.

The staff had five days to shoot the sequence with Jack rushing to the medical aid of the wounded at the site of the plane crash. The wreckage of Flight 815 in the sequence was made with a Lockheed L-1011 airplane built in 1972 and previously used by Delta Airlines until 1998, that after being purchased by ABC was broken up and sent to Hawaii by ship. The first shots of the sequence were meant to be pieces of a puzzle. Abrams, the episode's director, said it was supposed to be "as if you were looking at a picture but just having little windows into it and not quite understanding what was what and where anything was. So we have these random close-up shots of characters and the wreckage and then the shot pulls back and its the first time you kind of get a sense of what is going on and what the crash site looks like." In the sequence, the producers wanted to focus on the mayhem "without going overboard and hearing all the people screaming in panic," so they decided that the plane engine should still be running to make it impossible to hear anything but the loud sound of the engine. Burk said that when they were filming the sequence, it was important the scenes were not too "gruesome" and "bloody". The staff did not want the audience to tune out because they got disgusted by seeing too much blood, so there were almost no blood in that sequence at all, except for scratches on the survivor's faces and the blood on the leg of a man.

One of the scenes features a survivor getting sucked into a still spinning turbine, which causes a big explosion. In an effort to try and cut down on production costs, some staff members suggested that the scene be removed. However, Abrams insisted that scene be kept because it "defined the show in so many ways that, you know, surprising things can happen at anytime." Instead of a computer-generated explosion, the producers blew up a part of the plane to create a real explosion. The day after the turbine explosion, there was going to be a wing explosion. Producer Bryan Burk said they were all prepared for an enormous detonation, but it ended up looking more like a firework and the scene had to be re-shot. Kevin Blank was in charge of the visual effects when he saw a huge piece of the engine sitting on the beach, he said "What if we lifted that up on a crane, set it on fire and then dropped it right behind one of the actors?" The producers liked the idea and decided to go through with it. The engine was held up in the air by wires and it was covered with a jell that would make it stay lit. Dominic Monaghan stood twenty feet in front of the engine but they used a long lens to make it look like he was actually standing right in front of it. As they were getting ready to shoot, the wires snapped all of a sudden and the four ton piece of engine fell to the ground and landed right behind Monaghan. Burk said it "scared the hell out of everyone. Everyone just got kinda quite and we shot that shot the next morning again for real because it was just getting to late to shoot it again."

The scene with Kate stitching up Jack's scar was delayed four hours because the producers did not think the scar looked realistic. The close-ups of Kate's face in the same scene were re-shot two weeks later because Abrams felt he directed Lilly too strong the first time, so there was not the vulnerability they needed. Jack is seen with tattoos in the scene. Fox received the tattoos before Lost and producers considered putting make-up over them, but instead, decided just to keep them and fit it in with the plot. The editors had nine days to edit the pilot's footage together into two hours before the network decided what to do with it. Lindelof said they spent "probably sixty percent of [their] time just cutting that opening plane sequence and the Kate and Jack stitching sequence. It was really about the first half hour of the show and getting it on its feet."

Broadcast and ratings
The world premiere of the first part of the pilot episode was on July 24, 2004, at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Damon Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Paul Dini, Evangeline Lilly, Dominic Monaghan, and Matthew Fox attended the premiere. Part one and two of the pilot episode premiered on television on September 22, 2004, and September 29, 2004, respectively. Part one garnered 18.6 million viewers, easily winning its 9/8 central timeslot, and giving ABC its strongest ratings since 2000 when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was initially aired—beaten only the following month by the premiere of Desperate Housewives. According to Variety, "ABC sure could use a breakout drama success, as it hasn't had a real hit since The Practice. Lost represents the network's best start for a drama with eighteen to forty-nine year olds since Once and Again in 1999, and in total viewers since Murder One in 1995." Part two acquired a rating of 10.5/17, being seen by 17 million viewers. Both parts were aired on the same night in its United Kingdom broadcast on Channel 4 on August 10, 2005. Lost became the second most watched television show for Channel 4 that week, with 6.75 million viewers, second only to Big Brother.

Critical reception
Since airing, both parts of the pilot have received generally positive reviews from television critics. IGN gave the the first part a 10/10 score, declaring that Lost "delivers on every promise it makes to its audience" and the script moves along at a "brisk pace, never forcing its hand and giving the audience just enough to keep the interest piqued without giving up too much, too early." Entertainment Weekly gave an A stating that even non-science fiction and fantasy fans can like it, and USA Today gave it 4 stars praising the cast. The Futon Critic later chose the pilot as the fifth best TV episode of 2004.

Chris Carabott of IGN gave the second episode a 9/10 rating, commenting that the deciphering of the message at the end of the episode was "well handled". Carabott added that from Charlie's "initial excitement" at hearing the French women's voice to Shannon's translation of the message and finally Sayid revealing that it has been repeating for sixteen years, the scene "epitomizes what Lost does best. It really is a roller coaster of emotion and that sense of dread that sets in here is brilliantly portrayed."

Awards
The pilot has received several awards and nominations. At the 2005 Emmy Awards, J. J. Abrams won Directing for a Drama Series for the pilot, with Mary Jo Markey winning Editing for a Drama Series, and additional nominations to Sound Editing and Writing for Drama Series. Casting director April Webster won an Artios Award for her work in the pilot. The pilot also won two Golden Reel Awards for Effects & Foley, and a VES Award for visual effects. The episode was also nominated for an Hugo Award and the awards of the American Society of Cinematographers, Art Directors Guild and Directors Guild of America.