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It's TV Anniversary Week at The Wire, and we're taking a special look at the inordinately prestigious crop of shows celebrating milestone anniversaries this fall. Today, we're looking at ABC's Lost, which premiered Sept. 22, 2004.
On Sept. 22, 2004, a passenger flight bound for Los Angeles leaves Sydney and crash lands on a mysterious island. A man wakes up in the middle of a bamboo forest. He runs toward the explosions. Fade to black.
Waaaaaoaooooooeoeoeeeeeheeeoooeeeoooeeeooo.
Yeah, Lost's intro music theme sounds were fairly earsplitting. But in honor of the 10th anniversary of its debut, we're deciphering it for you. Why? Because maybe, just maybe, more clues were embedded in those 12 seconds of noise than we knew! Maybe they revealed who shot at Sawyer & Co. in the outrigger! Maybe they told us why Allison Janney signed on for that one episode in Season 6! We can dream. [Cue flashback "whooooosh" effect.] Below, the results of our investigation:
0:00-0:03: The opening is meant to distract you from the chaos to come. It sounds kind of like a wind tunnel machine not turned all the way on crossed with Dory's whale sounds from Finding Nemo. This is incredibly apt in Lost lore, because Oceanic Flight 815 broke into pieces over the Indian Ocean which touches Australia, and Finding Nemo takes Marlin and Dory on a heartwarming journey to Sydney, Australia, where the plane took off. We see what you're doing, J.J. Abrams.