The fourth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the ABC network in the United States, and on CTV in Canada on January 31, 2008, and concluded on May 29, 2008. The season continues the stories of a group of over 40 people who have been stranded on a remote island in the South Pacific, after their airplane crashed there more than 90 days prior to the beginning of the season. According to Lost executive producers/writers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, there are two main themes in the fourth season: "the castaways' relationship to the freighter folk" and "who gets off the island and the fact that they need to get back". The fourth season was contemporaneously acclaimed for its flash-forwards, pace and new characters. Retrospective reviews have been more critical of the season, and later seasons of Lost as a whole. The fourth season aired Thursdays at 9:00 pm from January 31 to March 20, 2008, and at 10:00 pm from April 24 to May 15, 2008. The two-hour finale aired at 9:00 pm on May 29, 2008. Buena Vista Home Entertainment (under the ABC Studios label) released the season on DVD and Blu-ray Disc under the title Lost: The Complete Fourth Season – The Expanded Experience on December 9, 2008, in Region 1; however, it was released earlier—on October 20, 2008—in Region 2.

Production

The season was originally planned to contain sixteen episodes; eight were written before the start of the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. Following the strike's resolution, it was announced that only five more episodes would be produced to complete the season; however, the season finale's script was so long that network executives approved the production of a 14th episode as part of a three-hour season finale split over two nights.

Writer's strike cut material

Three episodes were cut from the second half of the season. A Ben-centric (Michael Emerson) flashback (later repurposed as a flash-forward), and a Charlotte-centric (Rebecca Mader) flashback, are two known scrapped episodes from the season's original back half. It is unknown whether the back half of the season was changed slightly, or significantly. Mader admitted her character's storyline got "completely cut" in general because of the strike. She joked: "It all went wrong for me after that so, looking back, I selfishly wish that hadn’t happened. I wanted to be Charles Widmore (Alan Dale)’s daughter. I think it would have been brilliant if I’d been a bit more intrinsically linked to all of that – and he was played by Jim from Neighbours". Shortly before production of the fourth season began, Michael Emerson disclosed on a podcast that Annie (played by child actor Madeline Carroll) would return, and viewers would see her adult appearance. This is set up in the episode "The Other Woman", as Harper Stanhope (Andrea Roth), Juliet's therapist, remarks she looks "just like her", the "her" being an adult Annie. This is further teased in the episode's enhanced caption. Annie's identity for Harper's comparison was confirmed by Lindelof in a 2010 podcast (which implies Ben's mother (Carrie Preston) was a red herring). Harper's reappearance was also affected by the strike. Showrunner Damon Lindelof also revealed at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con they planned to show how Ben got caught in Rousseau's trap by accident and what he was doing on the other side of The Island (as it was left ambiguous whether it was intentional or not). They also expressed a desire to show his motivation for participating in The Purge. But neither storyline panned out. Speculation arose from fans, and Emerson who portrays Ben himself, that Annie may be a character the viewers are already familiar with. There was also plans to resolve Libby's backstory in two further episodes after her appearance to Michael (Harold Perrineau) as an apparition. Other cut material includes further development following the reunion between Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan) and Alex Rousseau (Tania Raymonde) after being reunited for the first time in 16 years since Alex's abduction. Though Furlan stated in her posthumously released memoir that they chose to kill her character off out of spite after she asked for better accommodations with her schedule after facing mistreatment on the set, hence why the reunion storyline was ignored.

Crew

The fourth season was produced by ABC Studios, Bad Robot and Grass Skirt Productions. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse served as the season's show runners. The show was primarily filmed in Hawaii with post-production in Los Angeles. Lindelof and Cuse's fellow executive producers were co-creator J. J. Abrams, Bryan Burk and Jack Bender. The staff writers were Lindelof, Cuse, co-executive producers Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, and Drew Goddard, supervising producer Elizabeth Sarnoff, co-producer Brian K. Vaughan and executive story editor Christina M. Kim. The regular directors were Bender and co-executive producer Stephen Williams.

Cast

The fourth season featured sixteen major roles with star billing. The show continues to chronicle the lives of the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815; the survivors' interactions with the island's original inhabitants, whom they refer to as "the Others"; and a group of people who arrived on a freighter. The list is ordered by actors' last names, with brief summaries of the characters.

Main

Recurring

Reception

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the season has an approval rating of 88% with an average score of 8.6/10 based on 25 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Lost regains its mojo in a fourth season that reaffirms the show's place as one of TV's most unique undertakings." Time named Lost the seventh best television series of 2008 and praised the fourth season for "complicat[ing] [Lost] time-and-space-travel story deliciously". Don Williams of BuddyTV dubbed "The Beginning of the End" "the most anticipated season premiere of the year" and Michael Ausiello later called the final hour of Lost fourth season "the most anticipated 60 minutes of television all year." American critics were sent screener DVDs of "The Beginning of the End" and "Confirmed Dead" on January 28, 2008. Metacritic gave the season a score—a weighted average based on the impressions of a select twelve critical reviews—of 87, earning the second highest score in the 2007–2008 television season after the fifth and final season of HBO's The Wire. In a survey conducted by TVWeek of professional critics, Lost was voted the best show on television in the first half of 2008 "by a wide margin", apparently "crack[ing] the top five on nearly every critic's submission" and receiving "nothing but praise". The May 7, 2007 announcement of a 2010 series end date and the introduction of flashforwards were received favorably by critics, as were the season's new characters.

Awards and nominations

The fourth season was nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards, with one win, for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One-Hour). The series was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, its second nomination in that category since the first season, while Michael Emerson received his second consecutive nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. It also received nominations for Outstanding Cinematography for a One-Hour Series, Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score), Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series, and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. The season earned Lost two Television Critics Association Award nominations for "Program of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Drama". The season also was nominated for a 2008 Writers Guild of America Award in the category of Dramatic Series.

Ratings

Throughout the fourth season, Lost continued to slip in the ratings. The season premiered with 16 million American viewers, giving Lost its highest ratings in 17 episodes; however, the size of the audience steadily decreased throughout the season. The eighth episode, which served as the mid-season finale as a result of the writers' strike, brought in 11 million, setting a new series low. The next episode and midseason premiere climbed slightly to 12 million, but the episode after that set the current record for lowest-rated episode in the United States with 11 million people watching. The finale was seen by 12 million, reaching the most viewers since the midseason premiere and making it Lost lowest-rated finale yet. Despite the decline in viewers, Lost consistently ranked within the top 20 programs of the week with one exception. The finale topped the chart, due to its broadcast being over a week after the official end of the television season. Entertainment president Stephen McPherson commented that while he would "love to see the show grow … the reality is that the numbers are pretty good."

Episodes

The number in the "No. overall" column refers to the episode's number within the overall series, whereas the number in the "No. in season" column refers to the episode's number within this particular season. "Featured character(s)" refers to the character(s) who is centered on in the episode's flashbacks or flashforwards. "U.S. viewers (million)" refers to the number of Americans in millions who watched the episode as it was aired. A clip-show recapping the first three seasons titled "Lost: Past, Present & Future" preceded the season premiere episode.

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