Piecing together the Lost puzzle

As the final season of brain-bending series Lost starts, Kimberley Rothwell attempts to summarise the last five seasons without going troppo.

The TV series Lost is a little like the Eagles song Hotel California, says a fan on the show's website: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

The five seasons so far have had viewers in a tangle of time travel, plot twists, coincidences, flashbacks and flash forwards - the show's as twisty and turny as a snake with a knot in the middle.

Matthew Fox, who plays the show's central character Jack Shephard, told The Guardian he's the only cast member to know how the series will end.

"It's going to be really beautiful and powerful, and I can't wait to see how we end up there."

What we do know is how the first five seasons have gone - but there's a lot to remember. So, if you've for- gotten where we left our crash survivors last time, or you're new to the series and wondering if you can catch up, here's a guide to Lost.

Season One:

Oceanic Flight 815 crashes onto an apparently deserted island en route from Sydney to Los Angeles. Among the survivors are doctor Jack, fugitive Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Korean socialite Sun (Yunjin Kim) and her husband Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) , ex-Republican guard Sayid (Naveen Andrews), rock star Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), who takes a shine to eight-months-pregnant Claire (Emilie de Ravin), labourer Michael (Harold Perrineau) and his son Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), lottery winner Hurley (Jorge Garcia), conman Sawyer (Josh Holloway), and John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who finds he can walk after years in a wheelchair.

The survivors are terrorised by a mysterious smoke monster who snatches victims willy-nilly. Investigating the island's deep jungle for food and shelter, they come across French scientist Rousseau (Mira Furlan) who has been sending out a distress signal for 16 years. She's a little bit, shall we say, deranged, and warns them of "The Others".

Locke, obsessed with the island's powers, discovers the hatch to a bunker hidden in the undergrowth. Flashbacks show the lives of the survivors before the crash, including how winning the lottery destroyed Hurley's life, and Sayid's former life as a torturer. As the season ends, one group of survivors attempt to blow the hatch open.

At the last minute, Hurley sees inscribed on it the same numbers he won the lottery with and freaks out. Another group of survivors, including Michael and his son Walt, build a raft and attempt to set out to search for help. But they run into a mysterious band of pirates who snatch Walt and leave the rest for dead.

Season Two:

As the raft survivors - Sawyer, Jin and Michael - drift back to shore, they are captured by a group of people who were also on flight 815, those who were in the back of the plane. Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), Libby (Cynthia Watros) and Mr Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) are the only ones left after The Others have plundered their numbers.

Back at the hatch, Jack, Kate and Locke find it leads to an underground station inhabited by Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), a Scotsman who, flashbacks reveal, briefly met Jack back in the US. Desmond has been in the station, run by an outfit called the Dharma Initiative, for three years, and has been tasked with punching in Hurley's winning lottery numbers into a computer every 108 minutes to avoid some sort of electro- magnetic meltdown. Meanwhile, a man calling himself Henry (Michael Emerson) is found, and incarcerated by Jack.

He's revealed to be one of The Others. Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley attempt to rescue Walt, but are captured - Michael sacrificed them so he could escape with his son. Locke is convinced that entering the numbers into the computer is just a psychological experiment, and lets the clock tick down. The station, with Charlie, Mr Eko, Desmond, and Locke inside, implodes.

Season Three:

The Others, rather than being bearded, barefooted savages, are revealed to live in nice houses and have book clubs. Henry is actually Ben, their leader, and in a flashback, The Others watch flight 815 break up in mid-air as it descends over the island. One of them is Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), a fertility scientist and doctor who wants to leave the island, but has been trapped by Ben.

Back in real time, Jack, Sawyer and Kate have been imprisoned by The Others, and Jack is talked into performing life-saving spinal surgery on Ben, while Kate and Swayer get it on in their cell. The strange network of Dharma Initiative research stations is further revealed, and Jack lives with The Others, playing football and swigging beer with them. He befriends Juliet, who is actually Ben's spy. Or is she? Jack and Juliet strike a deal to leave the island by submarine, but Locke blows it up, and he buddies up with Ben.

The season ends with half the audience scratching their heads wondering what is going on, and the appearance of parachutist Naomi (Marsha Thomason), who has a radio phone that could get Jack and co off the island. Charlie, who has so far managed to keep relatively sober despite finding a huge stash of heroin on the island, attempts to save everyone by getting a message out through an underwater Dharma station, but drowns in the process.

Season Four:

Are you still with us? This season is all about how the "Oceanic Six", as they are known, finally hot-foot it from the island. Locke breaks off into a splinter group, mumbling wildly about the island being his destiny. There's more crashing through the jungle with guns, Ben continues to manipulate Jack and Locke and everyone around him.

Desmond - remember him, the guy down the hatch with the numbers? - starts having out-of-body experiences and skipping through time. He makes contact, in the future or the present or who knows when, with the love of his life Penny (Sonya Walger), who is the daughter of an English businessman with a mysterious connection to the island.

The freighter Naomi sailed in on also has Daniel (Jeremy Davies), a physicist, Miles (Ken Leung), a medium, and Charlotte (Rebecca Mader), an anthropologist, who all come to the island. They arrive by chopper from the freighter, but there's a problem and only enough fuel to get back to the freighter if Sawyer jumps off. He sacrifices himself so that Jack, Kate, Claire's baby Aaron (Claire's gone AWOL), Hurley, Sayid and Sun can escape.

They decide to lie when they get back to the States about their time on the island so that those left behind won't be in danger. Oh, and Ben "moves" the island, which results in it disappearing and jumping aimlessly through time.

Season Five:

As if getting off the island the first time wasn't bad enough, the Oceanic Six, sans baby Aaron who's now three, return to save those left behind. But time has lost all meaning on the island. Juliet, Sawyer, Daniel, and Miles are back in 1977. Sawyer and Juliet have shacked up, and are pretending to be Dharma Initiative people. Everything is hunky dory until Jack and co turn up.

The Dharma Initiative folks are about to dig up the pocket of energy (by accident) that causes the island's electromagnetic anomaly - and to control it they have to build the station that Desmond comes to live in 30 years later. Daniel and Jack believe the crash that brought them to the island was caused by the anomaly, so try to blow up the pocket with a nuclear warhead that's been lying around since the 50s. The thinking is that if there's no pocket, there's no crash and their lives and struggles on the island will never have happened.

But the bomb doesn't explode. When diggers strike the pocket, electromagnetic energy is released, and Juliet is sucked into it. She survives, and is close enough to let the bomb off manually - but will it work?

* Lost, the sixth and final season, screens on TV2 on Wednesday nights at 9.30pm.

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