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*Warning: Contains spoilers for all of Lost.*
Imagine: your favourite TV show is about to finish when, right before the climax, it suddenly travels back 2,000 years in time for an episode featuring none of your favourite characters.
Well, this exact weekend 15 years ago, that actually happened to fans of Lost – the long-running sci-fi mystery series which, at its 2000s height, was the biggest show on TV.
Initially about a group of plane crash survivors who find themselves stranded on a mysterious desert island, the mythology and complexity of Lost only expanded as each episode went by.
Featuring a giant ensemble cast, some of TV’s best-loved characters, and gripping mysteries, Lost was a major hit and is still regarded today as one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
From one week to the next, viewers were on the edges of their seats, never knowing what kind of story they were going to get next – especially as questions mounted up about the history of the island.
One week, you’d be watching three characters fixing up an abandoned camper van. The next, you could be watching those same characters battling a monster made entirely of black smoke.
But by the end of the series in 2010, fans demanded answers and had far less patience with episodes that departed from the main threads of the plot.
It was into this environment that Lost dropped its most polarising episode, Across the Sea – to this day, some fans still regard it as the one that almost ‘killed’ Lost right before the curtain came down.
Over more than 100 episodes, the island had been revealed as more than just an island – it was, in fact, a gateway between our world and the literal darkness underneath.
A sinister character known only as the Man in Black – who, it turned out, was the smoke monster – was being kept there by his brother Jacob, ostensibly to protect the rest of the world.
Lost creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse wrote Across the Sea to explain the origins of this battle between yin and yang, but didn’t provide the answers a lot of fans were after.
It turned out the immortal Man In Black and Jacob had been locked in their eternal struggle for almost a millennium, witnessing centuries go by in the process.
But not only were fans unhappy with some of the answers provided, they also couldn’t understand why the episode didn’t feature any of the main cast.
As recently as 2024, Reddit user McIgglyTuffMuffin still argued: ‘I understand how it’s all set up for the final two episodes. But god damn does its placement bring everything to a screeching halt. [It’s like the writers said] “Screw it, let’s go back to the beginning of time!”‘
Their thoughts were echoed by BillyDeeisCobra: ‘I loathe Across the Sea, for lots of reasons, and a big part of it may be how it killed the momentum of the season wrap-up in the initial airing.’
Viewers were also unhappy that a show which had previously been focused on character-driven sci-fi stories was drifting further and further into fantasy territory.
Electrical_Web8850 concurred in a separate post: ‘I just don’t get what the writers were going for with this origin story. [It] really was hard to stomach given the overall narrative of the entire show.
‘For me, the episode Across the Sea is the worst episode of the series… I still love the show, but just find this episode completely out of place.’
Lost was critically acclaimed from beginning to end, earning an overall critic rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes – and an audience rating of 89% – across six whole seasons.
Our thoughts on Lost's most controversial episode
Metro’s Lost expert Rob Oliver shares his thoughts…
Many Lost fans say Across the Sea would have been better received if it had been placed earlier in season six – either as the premiere episode or in the slot before the mid-season break, and it’s hard to disagree.
However, Lost writers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof would have no doubt considered putting Across the Sea at the start and middle of season six before ultimately deciding to place it ahead of the climax. Whatever question you have about something a TV show does, the writers have always asked it long before you.
To that end, Across the Sea is a brave departure episode, and the decision to place it so close to the end is a courageous one.
In fact, I’d argue that not only does it not kill the momentum of the season, it actually significantly deepens Lost’s mythology and history, reframing several prior events from the series and forcing the audience to re-evaluate the story – right before the very end.
It’s a bold and stylish piece of work, and the kind of TV episode you rarely get in the streaming age. Across the Sea more than serves its purpose, not just as an episode of Lost but as a reminder of what’s possible in longform storytelling.
As of 2025, Across the Sea has a Metacritic rating of just 54, with creators Lindelof and Cuse apparently receiving messages saying they had ‘ruined’ Lost for everybody.
However, the episode had its defenders at the time, and its reception among fans has improved considerably in the 15 years since its broadcast.
While they did receive lots of hate mail, Lindelof and Cuse also received messages saying that Across the Sea was one of the ‘best episodes’ of Lost overall.
Nualabear argues: ‘[Across the Sea] was one of my favourite episodes. The ancient history of the island is one of the absolute coolest aspects of the show for me, and this was right up that alley.’
In 2022, Jay Southworth, a co-host of the Lost fan podcast Flashback, called Across the Sea ‘really strong’ and defended it on the grounds that it worked as a ‘Greek or Roman mythology-style story about two ancient characters establishing so many motifs and themes that define Lost’.
Watch all six seasons of Lost on Netflix.
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