“Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark.” — John Locke

I’ve seen this jumbo-sized (total running time: 82 minutes) episode of “Lost” more than any episode of the series. I watched it twice in its original, leaked-on-the-Internet form (which differs significantly from the final product only in the sequence of some beach scenes, which were pushed back in order to create a proper ending at the one-hour mark, with the death of the pilot) and have seen it at least three more times since.

It’s the most expensive TV pilot ever made. But is it the best? Well, it comes close. Certainly it looks like it cost a fortune (which it did). And it introduces us to a slew of characters and provides a set of mysteries that kick-start the series ongoing storylines.

Most interesting to me is the way the pilot handles the plane crash. The first shot of the series, a close-up of Jack Shephard’s eye as he awakens in the jungle, is not only the series’ most iconic and re-used image, but a bold storytelling choice. This show, which might be more conventionally told by following these characters onto the plane and then showing them crash-land on this strange island, instead begins with the crash already completed.

When we finally do see the crash, it’s in three flashbacks — introducing us to the show’s unique time-fractured style, though without the sound-effect conventions that the rest of the series will use. Each flashback provides slightly more information, starting with Jack’s slightly mundane one, moving on to a somewhat more diverting one involving Charlie and his heroin, and ending with Kate’s — at the very end of the episode — actually showing us the money shot of the plane’s tail section shearing away from the fuselage. (Hmm… I wonder what happened to the people in the tail section? Oh well, I don’t suppose it’ll ever come up.)

Anyway, back to the opening sequence, a masterful seven-minute scene that begins in the relative calm of the jungle and ends with screaming crash victims, a whining jet engine running on the last remnants of its fuel, and of course the explosion of said fuel. (I love how the first thing Jack sees once he opens his eyes is Vincent, apparently unharmed, walking through the undergrowth. Vincent seems like a hallucination or even a ghostly visitation in his appearances in this episode, and it’s a fun moment when Jack realizes that he didn’t imagine that dog he saw in the jungle, and is able to tell Michael that Vincent is alive and well.)

If there’s a scene that’s etched in my mind from this episode, it’s the steadicam shot in which we follow Jack out of the jungle and on to the beach. The sounds of horror are slowly getting louder, but as the shot pans to the right, there’s nothing but gorgeous, peaceful tropical sand stretching off into the distance. It’s like an advertisement for a Hawaiian resort. Then the camera whips around to follow Jack to the left, and into the hell of the crash site. I love the contrast — we’re in paradise, but under the most unfortunate of circumstances.

Once he reaches the crash site, the first thing Jack does is try to save a guy trapped under debris (helped by John Locke). Fitting that Jack, whose entire character is built around his compulsive need to fix things, jumps at the opportunity to save people at the crash site. In the moment, it’s quite heroic. With the distance of 100-plus episodes, though, it’s easy to see this character trait for all its strengths and weaknesses. In the heat of the moment when surrounded by flaming wreckage, yes, Jack’s a hero. The rest of the time, those same traits can make him insufferable and screw up his life.

I will admit that after the fifth season of “Lost,” I found it a lot harder to watch the opening scenes on the beach. And I suspect this feeling will trend throughout the first season, when we spend a lot of time with the castaways as a whole. Because here’s the thing. As terrible as this plane crash was, there were 48 survivors from the main section of the plane. And out of that group, do you know how many of them survived to see the end of season six? I count ten. The other 38 characters — mostly “socks,” as the producers refer to the interchangeable generic survivors — all end up dead, either killed by Ethan or crushed by a drugrunner’s plane or buried alive or shot by flaming arrows or strangled to death by Benjamin Linus.

Knowing that for all of Jack’s heroism, the only people to survive the crash of the main fuselage are Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer, Sun, Jin, Sayid, Walt, Rose, and presumably Claire, is pretty depressing. If I have a major complaint about the execution of season five, it’s the massacre of all the remaining beach survivors (at the hand of flaming arrows). I know, I know, it was simpler to kill ‘em off. But it does chip away at the whole story of a bunch of people surviving this terrible plane crash.

Speaking of future events ruining nice moments from the pilot, I always liked Jack’s story to Kate about how after making an error during surgery, he allowed his fear in for five seconds, then got past it and took care of the patient. It’s a nice scene with a great callback, when Kate counts to five after the intial attack by the Monster on the episode’s title character, Gregg Grunberg’s Pilot.

But now, thanks to the final episode of the fifth season, we’ve seen that scene. Jack nicks the dural sac and his father, Christian, tells him to count to five. Wait, what? You mean it wasn’t Jack’s own clever rule to compartmentalize fear, but rather his father forcing him to do it? Drag. That scene was better in my imagination.

In hindsight, it’s funny to realize that in that memorable scene where Jack has to save someone from Boone’s bad lifeguarding skills, it’s actually Rose who’s being saved. (And while at the time I was touched with the tragedy of Rose’s husband dying because he was in the bathroom when the tail section fell off the plane, now I’m amused because I know that Rose and Bernard will eventually be reunited and live happily ever after in the 1970s. I wonder how Bernard experienced the crash, locked up inside the head?)

There’s so much to cover here, so much that’s fundamental to the mythology of “Lost”. The French transmission on a loop for 16 years. (Left by Danielle Rousseau.) The polar bear. (Part of the Dharma research stations on Hydra island.) Sawyer taking the marshal’s gun and badge because he “thought it was cool.” Sayid’s gulf-war unit being the Republican Guard. Hurley’s first “Dude”. (“Dude, I’m not going anywhere!”) Sun and Jin talking exclusively in Korean, with Jin alternately barking orders at Sun and offering small slices of fish to Hurley and Claire. Michael’s first line of dialogue. (“Waaaaaaalt!”) And even those first tantalizing and familiar sounds of the monster, rumbling around in the jungle and giving everyone on the beach something to think about.

And then there’s John Locke. Locke ends up being one of the most important characters in the series, but in this episode he only really has two notable scenes. And yet, what an impact those two scenes make. First, he turns and looks at Kate and smiles, his mouth full of orange peel. When she looks at him, he then turns the orange into a makeshift frown, sticking his lower lip out. It’s such a very odd scene, and it makes no sense by itself, though knowing that Locke has just experienced a miracle certainly puts it in a different light.

Locke’s one proper scene is even creepier. It’s just him and Walt. Locke is setting up a backgammon game, and explains to Walt that the game goes back 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia (and it’s a “much better game than Checkers”). He then lays down a line so clearly intended to foreshadow the series’ story arc, there might as well be a flashing neon sign next to a copy of Stephen King’s “The Stand.” “Two players. Two sides. One is light, one is dark. Walt, do you want to know a secret?”

We won’t hear the answer, or find out what the secret is, for a couple of episodes yet. And as for the suggestion of an ages-old struggle between light and darkness, you’ll need to wait 100-plus episodes for a scene on this very same beach between a man wearing light clothes and another wearing dark clothes.

Skippable? Some episodes will be skippable, and I’ll tell you which ones you can avoid if you want to save time. But no, sorry, you’ll need to watch this episode or you won’t know what the heck is going on. (“What’s all this about a plane crash? When did that happen?”)

Superfluous: I will also chronicle things that I see that seemed important at the time, but ended up being superfluous due to the meandering story and casting issues that go on when you’re making a TV show for six years.

I know we’re going to be seeing more of them throughout the first couple of seasons, but let me tell you, all the scenes between Boone and Shannon made me die inside a little bit. They just don’t matter. Yes, it’s sad when Boone dies suddenly later on this season, and even tragic when Shannon is accidentally killed by Ana Lucia. But you know what? Lift them out of the story and it all goes on fine without them. They are truly the appendix, the vestigal third (and fourth?) nipples of “Lost.” Sorry, Rutherford family. Shannon fills out a bikini well and I’m sure the ladies find Boone dreamy, but in the end they’re just socks with extra lines of dialogue.

Up next: The series properly begins with “Tabula Rasa,” in which we learn much more about Kate.

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