Orientation

Orientation aired on October 5, 2005. Jack Bender directed, and Javier Grillo-Marxuach wrote it with Craig Wright, a playwright who wrote two episodes of the show.

Where things stand: the Hatch is open and the people who went down into it found more than they expected. Out at sea, the raft survivors are fighting to stay alive. The camp on the beach has a lot of questions and nobody with answers.

This is Locke’s third episode as the focus, after Walkabout and Deus Ex Machina, and here is the shape of it: an orientation film from the DHARMA Initiative is found, and the purpose of a button is explained. It is one of the most talked-about hours of the season, and the official magazine later gave the film a feature of its own. The title is a hint about how much this episode sets up for everything that follows. Pay attention.