Thursday, January 06, 2011

Lostaholics Anonymous: The Lost Top 10 Episodes

Last week someone posted on my Facebook page asking if I could recommend my top 10 favourite episodes of Lost. That was a really tough question, and honestly, I can't believe I never really thought about it before. (No, really, I hadn't! What is WRONG with me??) I knew what a couple of standouts were for me, and I can easily name favourite scenes and lines and moments, but episodes? Eek. That's a toughie. Often there would be a favourite flashback for me, but the corresponding on-island stuff wasn't as interesting, but in the next episode I'd love the on-island stuff and the flashback would be a little meh. So I guess I never really stopped to come up with anything.

But after he asked me that, I really had to think about it. I know what my favourite episode is, so that was easy, but how do I rank the others? I REALLY had to think about this one a lot, but I think I've come up with them. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind 10 minutes from now. ;) But what I'm really hoping is that this causes everyone else to come up with their top 10 and share them with all of us.

1. The Constant
2. Ab Aeterno
3. The End
4. Walkabout
5. Through the Looking Glass
6. The Shape of Things to Come
7. The Incident
8. The Cost of Living
9. Live Together, Die Alone
10. The Man Behind the Curtain

40 comments:

Ian said...

I suspect you'll be happy to know I started watching Lost over the holidays. As of Tuesday I am on to the second season!

Fables Of The West said...

Well I can give you my top three for certain (and coincidentally they are a slight juxtaposition of yours):
1) The End
2) The Constant
3) Ab Aeterno

I have several other favorites that came in the final season, including 'Everybody Loves Hugo", but choosing just ten is too hard.

Unknown said...

Ten is a big number! Eeks! Here goes:

1. The Shape of Things to Come
2. Sundown
3. Pilot
4. Lockdown
5. A Tale of Two Cities
6. The Economist
7. The Man Behind the Curtain
8. The End
9. Walkabout
10. Tricia Tanaka Is Dead

I feel like I should defend a couple of my weirder choices!

"Sundown" is a purely sentimental choice. It was the first episode I ever watched being filmed. I got to meet Naveen Andrews and get a picture. I also got heatstroke. LOL So when I see the episode, I'm like, Look! That's the tree I stood under for five hours! :)

"A Tale of Two Cities": The opening of this episode is my favorite favorite opening of any episode. I'm a huge Juliet fan, and EM's acting here is so so good. She's the reason I get all squishy and teary whenever I hear "Downtown." Also, I love the "I guess this means I'm out of the book club scene."

Hunter said...

Great list, Nikki. I'm surprised you hadn't thought about it yet too. I agree with pretty much your entire list. I might substitute Do No Harm for The Cost of Living and move The Shape of Things to Come into the top 5. I just love that episode for some reason. When smokey comes flying out of the jungle...oh man, AWESOME!

Those are minor differences though.

Erin {pughs' news} said...

Excellent question. I'll get out my Finding Lost books tonight and compile my list! The Desmond episodes are right up there for me, I know that for sure...

Annie said...

Oh, good topic choice! This will take me a few minutes to figure out (these are in the order that I thought of them, not in order with the best one first!)

1) The Pilot 1/2- I still feel so happy and excited when I watch it knowing the story that awaits our Losties

2) The End- I'm one of the people who loves the finale and the images of them in the church together made me very happy

3) The Constant

4) A Tale of Two Cities

5) Greatest Hits- this is one of my all time favorites. I can't believe no one else has listed it!

Joan Crawford said...

The one where Sayid makes the Love Den for Old Stupid What's Her Name. That and the one where he was being tortured, as this required him to be shirtless - finally!

I shall henceforth refer to these episodes as "Sexy Time" and "Nipples".

Dan Fleming said...

I can't disagree with any of the episodes listed, but I'm shocked that All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues and Confidence Man have not been named.

Nikki Stafford said...

Ian: YAY!! You just made my day. xo

Carol Hoffman said...

Off the top of my head...

1. Dave
2. Lockdown
3. Flashes Before Your Eyes (I prefer it to The Constant)
4. Across the Sea (I prefer it to Ab Aeterno)
5. A Tale of Two Cities
6. The Man Behind the Curtain
7. Left Behind
8/9. Pilot 1/2
10. The End

IScreen said...

Nobody's listing "Some Like it Hoth?" Look, I wouldn't argue it's the best, but I probably enjoyed it more than any other ep (with "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" a close second -- mainly due to my love for Three Dog Night's Shambala).
Jorge Garcia and Ken Leung play off each other so well, and it offers some nice insight into the guarded Miles. Plus, I love Hurley's "Empire" script (and the fact that he spells out Chewbacca's roar), and the confrontation between Hurley and Dr. Chang. Just good, good, good.

Maggie Elizabeth said...

Carol Hoffman: I love Left Behind!!! So pleased with your choice! Heehee :)

I'm gonna get out my lost books and take a couple hours and make a list and slowly narrow it down to ten.

I liked expose for the awesome killings of cranky and bitch.

The Question Mark said...

Hmm, I think my Top 10 would be:

1) Through the Looking Glass
2) Ab Aeterno
3) The Shape of Things to Come
4) The Constant
5) Expose'
6) The End
7) ...In Translation
8) Exodus
9) Flashes Before Your Eyes
10) The 23rd Psalm

LittleMo said...

Ian
I hope you know about the rewatch that is being commented on in this blog. Its just started on season 2 too and has some great discussion

http://blog.wehavetogoback.net/episodes

LittleMo said...

This is going to take some compiling - good job its the weekend.

For help in picking episodes theres a great summary list on the imdb site here

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/episodes


I know my list is going to include episodes with Hurley, Faraday and Desmond so Some like it Hoth will be in there along with Jughead, The Variable and Catch 22

Unknown said...

Hi! First comment on your wonderful blog. I've never tried ranking the LOST episodes before, so here goes:

1. Walkabout
2. Pilot
3. The Constant
4. The Brig
5. The Shape of Things to Come
6. The Man Behind the Curtain
7. Ab Aeterno
8. Through the Looking Glass
9. Man of Science, Man of Faith
10. Jughead

Zeilentrafo said...

When I watched "Dave" for the first time I instantly knew that it would be one of my alltime-favorite episodes.

And as of today it still remains to be THE essential LOST-episode for me.

Anonymous said...

1. Season 3 Finale
2. Sawyer kills Sawyer
3. First Lock FB (Wheelchair!)
4. Season 1 Finale
5. The Other 48 Days
6. First episode

That's all I can think of.

EvaHart said...

Thaat took a lot of debating and re-arrranging! But here goes:

1)The Constant
2)Happily ever after
3)The End
4)The Shape of Things to come
5)The Variable
6)This Place is Death
7)Dr Linus
8)Flashes Before Your Eyes
9)There's No Place Like Home
10)Ab Aeterno

How about Top Ten openings and endings of episodes?

Anonymous said...

I've thinked a lot about that, but I'm always changing...

1- Through the Looking Glass
2- The Constant
3- Happily Ever After
4- The Variable
5- The Shape of Things to Come
6- Pilot
7- Everybody Loves Hugo
8- There's No Place Like Home
9- White Rabbit
10- Exodus

LittleMo said...

Poll of Polls !

I'm a bit of a fan of data and statistics. So I have taken all of your polls to create a grand finale poll.

Question mark I can't find Expose.
Also Anonymous I can't find Sawyer kills Sawyer, or the Sayid naked (nipples) episodes.
Each episode you have voted for I have awarded points - your first place gets 10 points, second 9 etc. Where people have only mentioned say 4 episodes then they got 10, 9 , 8 and 7 points respectively. Where people have voted for one or other part of the pilot or a two part finale I have combined the votes

Here are the results with the winner at the top and the score for each shown after its name.
(I hope the formatting comes out OK)

1 The Constant 71
2 The Shape of Things to Come 48
3 The End 47
4 Through the Looking Glass 44
5 Pilot: Part 1 & 2 43
6 Walkabout 34
7 Ab Aeterno 32
8 The Variable 21
9 Some Like It Hoth 20
10 A Tale of Two Cities 19
11 Happily Ever After 17
12 The Man Behind the Curtain 16
13 Lockdown 16
14 Flashes Before Your Eyes 13
15 Do No Harm 13
16 Exodus 11
17 Everybody Loves Hugo 11
18 Tricia Tanaka Is Dead 10
19 Jughead 10
20 Dave 10
21 Sundown 9
22 The Incident 8
23 Catch-22 7
24 The Brig 7
25 Across the Sea 7
26 The Other 48 Days 6
27 Greatest Hits 6
28 There's No Place Like Home 5
29 The Economist 5
30 This Place Is Death 5
31 All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues 5
32 Confidence Man 5
33 Live Together, Die Alone 4
34 ...In Translation 4
35 Left Behind 4
36 Dr. Linus 4
37 The Cost of Living 3
38 White Rabbit 2
39 Man of Science, Man of Faith 2
40 The 23rd Psalm 1
41 The Package 1




If more people put their polls up over the weekend then I will recalculate.

LittleMo said...

CORRECTION

I just checked my scores and did one of Nikki's wrong (!! - sorry !)
It affected (only) the top 10 - so here is the corrected version

1 The Constant 71
2 The End 52
3 The Shape of Things to Come 48
4 Through the Looking Glass 44
5 Pilot: Part 1 & 2 43
6 Ab Aeterno 39
7 Walkabout 34
8 The Variable 21
9 Some Like It Hoth 20
10 A Tale of Two Cities 19

LittleMo said...

More statistics for you !!!
Here are the scores per season. How many episodes appear in the list, how many points they gained and the average number of points per episode

Season 1 - 8 Episodes 117 points average 14.6
Season 2 - 6 episodes 39 points average 6.5
Season 3 - 10 Episodes 129 points average 12.9
Season 4 - 4 episodes 129 points average 32.3
Season 5 - 5 Episodes 64 points average 12.8
Season 6 - 6 episodes 140 points average 23.3

Hunter said...

LittleMo,

Expose is the name of the episode. It's episode 14 in Season 3. Sawyer kills Sawyer is The Brig. That's awesome that you combined everyones scores though. I guess I should make an official Top 10.

1. The Shape of Things to Come.
2. Pilot
3. Walkabout
4. The End
5. Flashes Before Your Eyes
6. Through the Looking Glass
7. Do No Harm
8. Exodus
9. Greatest Hits
10. There's No Place Like Home

Anonymous said...

Well, here is my top ten:

1. "The Other 48 Days"
2. "La Fleur"
3. "Through the Looking Glass, Parts I and II"
4. "Exodus, Part I"
5. "The Candidate"
6. ". . . In Translation"
7. "The Hunting Party"
8. "This Place Is Death"
9. "Collision"
10."D.O.C."
9.

Quarks said...

Here is my top ten episodes of Lost (although it was hard to narrow it down to just ten!):

1. LaFleur
2. The End
3. Through the Looking Glass
4. Greatest Hits
5. Happily Ever After
6. Tricia Tanaka Is Dead
7. The Incident
8. There's No Place Like Home
9. The Constant
10. The Substitute

I chose these episodes because I feel that they are the best all round episodes in my opinion having watched the whole series. There are various episodes which I would have liked to include, but they were largely because of only one scene in them, as opposed to being the best all round episodes, e.g. Confidence Man, What They Died For, Outlaws, Dr Linus etc.

Scott said...

1) The Constant
2) The Shape of Things to Come
3) The End
4) There's No Place Like Home
5) The Man Behind the Curtain
6) This Place is Death
7) The Other 48 Days
8) Jughead
9) 316
10) Pilot

Lots of "The's"

Amy said...

I love how many different episodes have been mentioned so far. Just goes to show how awesome Lost was!

1. Through the Looking Glass
2. The End
3. The Constant
4. Live Together, Die Alone
5. Do No Harm
6. Ab Aeterno
7. Pilot
8. The Incident
9. Tricia Tanaka is Dead
10. Something Nice Back Home

Derek said...

This is my list, but it's in no particular order.

1. Ab Aeterno
2. Dead is Dead
3. Tricia Tanaka is Dead
4. The End
5. The Incident
6. The Candidate
7. The Shape of Things to Come
8. There's No Place Like Home
9. Exodus
10. This Place is Death

Rebecca T. said...

Oooh... now there's a hard question. let me see... I have some odd favorites. here they are, but not really in order:

1. Greatest Hits
2. Solitary
3. I Do
4. Tricia Tanaka is Dead
5. Through the Looking Glass
6. The Shape of Things to Come
7. The Lie
8. Sundown
9. Dr. Linus
10. There's No Place Like Home Part II

Phew ... that was a lot harder than I thought it would be. So much fun to see everyone's favorites!

JS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JS said...

Oh, and

13. The Man Behind the Curtain.
14. Lockdown
15. Tricia Tanaka is Dead
16. Sexy Time
17. Nipples
18. Flashes Before your Eyes
19. Expose
20. The 23rd Psalm

JS said...

I can't do it. I tried. It was just a list of all the episodes. Yes, some are "better" than others, perhaps, but you need all of them to tell the story imho.

But if I HAD to, like, watch 10 10 times in a row, which ones would I want to watch?

1. The Constant
2. Pilot
3. The End
4. Walkabout
5. Greatest Hits
6. The Incident
7. The Shape of Things to Come
8. Dead is Dead
9. The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham
10. There’s No Place Like Home
11. Through the Looking Glass
12. The Brig

LittleMo said...

Ok - here's my list of 10 and then a new poll of polls to follow updated with all polls up to now

1 Man of Science, Man of Faith
2 Ab Aeterno
3 Some Like It Hoth
4 The Constant
5 Jughead
6 Lighthouse
7 Outlaws
8 Pilot
9 Across the Sea
10 The Variable

LittleMo said...

Ok so here's the poll of polls now.

I have shown the old rank and the new so you can see what has changed with later votes

old rank, new rank, Title, Total
1, 1 The Constant 98
2, 2 The End 92
4, 3 Through the Looking Glass 76
3, 4 The Shape of Things to Come 74
5, 5 Pilot: Part 1 & 2 69
6, 6 Ab Aeterno 54
7, 7 Walkabout 42
18, 8 Tricia Tanaka Is Dead 32
27, 9 Greatest Hits 31
11, 10 Happily Ever After 23
16, 11 Exodus: Part 2 23
22, 12 The Incident 22
12, 13 The Man Behind the Curtain 21
28, 14 There's No Place Like Home: Part 2 21
26, 15 The Other 48 Days 20
15, 16 Do No Harm 20
-, 17 LaFleur 19
14, 18 Flashes Before Your Eyes 19
10, 19 A Tale of Two Cities 19
9, 20 Some Like It Hoth 18
13, 21 Lockdown 16
8, 22 The Variable 14
30, 23 This Place Is Death 14
21, 24 Sundown 12
-, 25 Dead Is Dead 12
39, 26 Man of Science, Man of Faith 12
-, 27 The Candidate 11
17, 28 Everybody Loves Hugo 11
19, 29 Jughead 10
20, 30 Dave 10
33, 31 Live Together, Die Alone 9
34, 32 ...In Translation 9
-, 33 Solitary 9
25, 34 Across the Sea 9
-, 35 I Do 8
24, 36 The Brig 7
36, 37 Dr. Linus 6
29, 38 The Economist 5
32, 39 Confidence Man 5
31, 40 All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues 5
-, 41 Lighthouse 5
35, 42 Left Behind 4
-, 43 The Hunting Party 4
-, 44 The Lie 4
-, 45 Outlaws 4
37, 46 The Cost of Living 3
-, 47 316 2
-, 48 Collision 2
38, 49 White Rabbit 2
-, 50 The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham 2
41, 51 The Package 1
-, 52 The Substitute 1
-, 53 Something Nice Back Home 1
-, 54 D.O.C. 1
40 55 The 23rd Psalm 1

Interesting that the top 7 are the same but then some big changes occur. The Variable, Some Like it Hoth and A tale of two cities have dropped down a bit where Tricia Tanaker, Greatest hits and Happily Ever After have moved up.

Gillian Whitfield said...

Ab Aeterno
The Constant
The End
Sundown
Lockdown
Happily Ever After
Live Together, Die Alone
Shape of Things to Come
The Moth
Greatest Hits

Linda345 said...

Oh noooo!! I knew this would happen some time. Went away for a couple of days and this was posted. Now I'm late, and it's like when you finally make it to the concert and it's over and everyone's gone and you're all confused but you think well you might as well just pick up your kid and then you just stand there because you can't remember whether you have a kid, and, oh well.....


My favorites:
1. The pilot
2. The End
3. The Lighthouse
4. A Tale of Two Cities
5. Through the Looking Glass
6. White Rabbit
7. There's No Place Like Home
8. The Incident
9. Exodus
10.LA X

LittleMo said...

Never fear guys, here's an update with Gillian and Lost in your eyes scores included.
Gillian I assume yours are in order with the best at the top!!

I have just shown the rank as it now is, as its getting complicated to show changes.

Although the top 10 is pretty much the same you have increased the scores of some interesting episodes like the Moth and one of my favourites - the Lighthouse !!!

new rank Title Total
1 The End 109
2 The Constant 107
3 Through the Looking Glass 82
4 Pilot: Part 1 & 2 79
5 The Shape of Things to Come 77
6 Ab Aeterno 64
7 Walkabout 42
8 Tricia Tanaka Is Dead 32
9 Greatest Hits 32
10 Happily Ever After 28
11 A Tale of Two Cities 26
12 Exodus: Part 2 25
13 The Incident 25
14 There's No Place Like Home: Part 2 25
15 Lockdown 22
16 The Man Behind the Curtain 21
17 The Other 48 Days 20
18 Do No Harm 20
19 LaFleur 19
20 Flashes Before Your Eyes 19
21 Sundown 19
22 Some Like It Hoth 18
23 The Variable 14
24 This Place Is Death 14
25 Live Together, Die Alone 13
26 Lighthouse 13
27 Dead Is Dead 12
28 Man of Science, Man of Faith 12
29 The Candidate 11
30 Everybody Loves Hugo 11
31 Jughead 10
32 Dave 10
33 ...In Translation 9
34 Solitary 9
35 Across the Sea 9
36 I Do 8
37 The Brig 7
38 White Rabbit 7
39 Dr. Linus 6
40 The Economist 5
41 Confidence Man 5
42 All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues 5
43 Left Behind 4
44 The Hunting Party 4
45 The Lie 4
46 Outlaws 4
47 The Cost of Living 3
48 316 2
49 Collision 2
50 The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham 2
51 The Moth 2
52 The Package 1
53 The Substitute 1
54 Something Nice Back Home 1
55 D.O.C. 1
56 The 23rd Psalm 1
57 LA X 1

Anonymous said...

That´s easy: All Sawyer-centric episodes.

Anonymous said...

All Sawyer-centric episodes. Duh.