Charlotte Staples Lewis is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Rebecca Mader.
On the island, she is held hostage by one of the plane crash survivors, John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), but is freed when another person from her team switches places with her.
She helps prevent poison gas from being released over the island, and develops a relationship with Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies).
Although conceived by the show's creators to be American, Charlotte's nationality was changed to British after the producers were impressed with English actress Rebecca Mader's audition.
Charlotte's introduction, along with the three other new characters from the freighter introduced in season four, was well received, but her storylines in later episodes had a mixed reception, though Mader's acting was praised.
During season five, a young Charlotte Lewis is shown living with her parents as part of a scientific community known as the Dharma Initiative, on the island where Oceanic Flight 815 would later crash.
[3] Charlotte arrives on the island on December 23, 2004, where she is held hostage by a number of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, who believe that she is dangerous.
[3] As she is wearing a bulletproof vest she survives, forcing Ben to reveal that Charlotte's team are looking for him, and not on a rescue mission for the survivors.
[6] That night, Charlotte and Faraday sneak off to the Tempest Dharma Initiative station, where they neutralize a potential source of poison gas.
[8] Later Faraday begins to ferry survivors to the freighter, but Charlotte chooses to remain on the island, as she believes she has found her birthplace.
[9] After Ben causes the island to vanish, Charlotte, Faraday and the remaining survivors begin to randomly travel through time.
[4] In season six the afterlife experienced by the characters is shown, in which Charlotte is set up as a blind date for James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway).
[17] During casting, Charlotte was described as "a hot twentysomething ... precocious, loquacious and funny... a very successful academic who also knows how to handle herself in the real world".
[25] Charlotte's discovery of a polar bear with a Dharma Initiative collar caused fan speculation about her connection with the island.
[30] Horowitz loved the emotion in the scene due to the audience only just learning Charlotte's backstory, and Kitsis thought Mader's performance "elevate[d] the words to a whole other level".
[34] Jeff Jensen from Entertainment Weekly liked that the "fascinating" new characters brought "mind-blowing new possibilities, and exciting new theory fodder".
[39] BuddyTV's Oscar Dahl thought the whole plot at the Tempest was "filler" and wondered if it had been added just to give Charlotte and Faraday something to do.
[40] After Charlotte speaks Korean in "Something Nice Back Home", James Poniewozik from Time became curious about her past because she is "the member of the four freighties whom we know the least about, and the most secretive and sinister-seeming of the bunch".
[43] Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger noted it was Jeremy Davies portrayal of Faraday's grief that made him care about her death.
[44] Cynthia Littleton from Variety said this was one of the few times Charlotte did not annoy her, as she acts as a translator for Jin, "finally do[ing] something worthwhile".