"Lost" Tabula Rasa (2004)

Director:

Jack Bender

Writers:

Jeffrey Lieber (creator) and
J.J. Abrams (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Lost" (2004)

Original Air Date:

6 October 2004 (Season 1, Episode 3)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

The U.S. marshal's assignment is revealed. Later, there is a difference of opinion between Jack and...

Plot Keywords:

Mysterious Island | Labrador Retriever | Plane Crash | Flashback | South Pacific

Cast

Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah
Emilie de Ravin	...	Claire Littleton
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes
Maggie Grace	...	Shannon Rutherford
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford
Malcolm David Kelley	...	Walt Lloyd
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen
Dominic Monaghan	...	Charlie Pace
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke
Harold Perrineau	...	Michael Dawson
Ian Somerhalder	...	Boone Carlyle
Fredric Lehne	...	Marshal Edward Mars (as Fredric Lane)

Runtime:

43 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

UK:15 | Portugal:M/12 | USA:TV-14 | Venezuela:PG-13 (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company:

Bad Robot

Goofs:

Continuity: In flashbacks to the airplane clash, the flight attendant says "The captain has switched on the fasten seat belts sign," but in the first episode she says "The pilot has switched on the fasten seat belts sign" in what is clearly the same message.

Quotes:

Hurley: So what's his story? He looks kind of... dying.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Fire + Water: Anatomy of an Episode (2006) (V)

Soundtrack:

Leavin' On Your Mind

Entirely average episode

The first of the several 'Kate on the Run' episodes, "Tabula Rasa" is a Damon Lindelof solo effort that only barely manages to stay interesting thanks to some character development and the interesting character Ray Mullen in the flashbacks.

After the thrilling "Pilot, Part 2", "Tabula Rasa" is a bit of a comedown. Still just a basic survival drama with some mystery at its core ("Walkabout" would introduce many of the enduring concepts in the series, but at this point there's not even much of a hint of the show being anything other than a survival drama and frankly the island events suffer for it. I guess "Tabula Rasa" is a necessary evil; an episode that is designed to further introduce some of the characters and take some time to expand upon some of the concepts introduced in the pilot.

The whole 'Kate is a criminal' storyline seems awfully boring and hackneyed as we view it now fully aware of what Kate actually did and how poorly-executed the future events in the storyline are. Not much happens on the island, mainly a lot of suffering on the Marshall's part and a lot of Kate looking worried and anxious. In many ways this is Sawyer's episode more than Kate's- at least on the island. Sawyer is the character that develops most in this episode- you could watch the Pilot and wonder if the Sawyer we're seeing in the later seasons has anything at all in common with this Sawyer, but in the space of about 15-20 minutes of screen time Damon Lindelof makes Sawyer a far more interesting and sympathetic character. It's just a shame that the writers have completely ignored the island's magical hair-growing abilities and their obvious effects on Sawyer's hair.

This episode was the first episode of "Lost" directed by series regular Jack Bender who took over the job from J.J. Abrams who directed the pilot episodes. He was a veteran director by this point but is clearly still familiarizing himself with this particular series. Michael Giacchino's score for this episode is disappointing and noticeably weaker than his efforts for "Pilot, Part 1" and "Pilot, Part 2".

6/10