Tabula Rasa
- Episode aired Oct 6, 2004
- TV-14
- 43m
IMDb RATING
8.4/10
7.7K
YOUR RATING
Jack and Hurley discover an alarming secret about Kate, while the marshal's life hangs in the balance.Jack and Hurley discover an alarming secret about Kate, while the marshal's life hangs in the balance.Jack and Hurley discover an alarming secret about Kate, while the marshal's life hangs in the balance.
Fredric Lehne
- Marshal Edward Mars
- (as Fredric Lane)
Madison
- Vincent the Dog
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn the flashback, Kate apologizes to the Australian rancher and pronounces "sorry" with a Canadian accent (rhyming with "gory"). Kate later lies to the rancher and claims to be Canadian, which is actually true for actress Evangeline Lilly.
- GoofsWhen Kate is in the car with the Australian farmer, the image was horizontally flipped to appear how Australian cars have right-side drivers and left-lane driving. As the U.S. Marshall's GMC truck pulls alongside, the "C" from the grill logo is visible in the farmer's rear view mirror when its reflection should be horizontally flipped.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Fire + Water: Anatomy of an Episode (2006)
Featured review
Entirely average episode
The first of the several 'Kate on the Run' episodes, "Tabula Rasa" is a Damon Lindelof solo effort that only barely manages to stay interesting thanks to some character development and the interesting character Ray Mullen in the flashbacks.
After the thrilling "Pilot, Part 2", "Tabula Rasa" is a bit of a comedown. Still just a basic survival drama with some mystery at its core ("Walkabout" would introduce many of the enduring concepts in the series, but at this point there's not even much of a hint of the show being anything other than a survival drama and frankly the island events suffer for it. I guess "Tabula Rasa" is a necessary evil; an episode that is designed to further introduce some of the characters and take some time to expand upon some of the concepts introduced in the pilot.
The whole 'Kate is a criminal' storyline seems awfully boring and hackneyed as we view it now fully aware of what Kate actually did and how poorly-executed the future events in the storyline are. Not much happens on the island, mainly a lot of suffering on the Marshall's part and a lot of Kate looking worried and anxious. In many ways this is Sawyer's episode more than Kate's- at least on the island. Sawyer is the character that develops most in this episode- you could watch the Pilot and wonder if the Sawyer we're seeing in the later seasons has anything at all in common with this Sawyer, but in the space of about 15-20 minutes of screen time Damon Lindelof makes Sawyer a far more interesting and sympathetic character. It's just a shame that the writers have completely ignored the island's magical hair-growing abilities and their obvious effects on Sawyer's hair.
This episode was the first episode of "Lost" directed by series regular Jack Bender who took over the job from J.J. Abrams who directed the pilot episodes. He was a veteran director by this point but is clearly still familiarizing himself with this particular series. Michael Giacchino's score for this episode is disappointing and noticeably weaker than his efforts for "Pilot, Part 1" and "Pilot, Part 2".
6/10
After the thrilling "Pilot, Part 2", "Tabula Rasa" is a bit of a comedown. Still just a basic survival drama with some mystery at its core ("Walkabout" would introduce many of the enduring concepts in the series, but at this point there's not even much of a hint of the show being anything other than a survival drama and frankly the island events suffer for it. I guess "Tabula Rasa" is a necessary evil; an episode that is designed to further introduce some of the characters and take some time to expand upon some of the concepts introduced in the pilot.
The whole 'Kate is a criminal' storyline seems awfully boring and hackneyed as we view it now fully aware of what Kate actually did and how poorly-executed the future events in the storyline are. Not much happens on the island, mainly a lot of suffering on the Marshall's part and a lot of Kate looking worried and anxious. In many ways this is Sawyer's episode more than Kate's- at least on the island. Sawyer is the character that develops most in this episode- you could watch the Pilot and wonder if the Sawyer we're seeing in the later seasons has anything at all in common with this Sawyer, but in the space of about 15-20 minutes of screen time Damon Lindelof makes Sawyer a far more interesting and sympathetic character. It's just a shame that the writers have completely ignored the island's magical hair-growing abilities and their obvious effects on Sawyer's hair.
This episode was the first episode of "Lost" directed by series regular Jack Bender who took over the job from J.J. Abrams who directed the pilot episodes. He was a veteran director by this point but is clearly still familiarizing himself with this particular series. Michael Giacchino's score for this episode is disappointing and noticeably weaker than his efforts for "Pilot, Part 1" and "Pilot, Part 2".
6/10
helpful•58
- ametaphysicalshark
- Jun 10, 2008
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