Confirmed Dead
[3] The beginning of the episode is set on December 21, 2004, or 91 days after the original characters crash-land on a tropical island from Oceanic Airlines Flight 815.
"Confirmed Dead" was watched by 17 million Americans and received generally positive critical reception as reviewers praised the introduction of the new characters.
He phones the Oceanic hotline while watching the newscast and claims that the footage of the plane wreckage being aired on television is not authentic, while Naomi Dorrit (Marsha Thomason) is shown in a posthumous flashback, criticizing her employer Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick) for his choice in her coworkers.
After Daniel parachutes from a failing helicopter onto the island, he uses Naomi's phone to contact George Minkowski (Fisher Stevens) on the ship that he came from.
[5] The next morning, on December 22, 2004, two of the flight 815 survivors – Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) and Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) – help Daniel find his colleagues, as the rival group led by Locke attempts to do the same.
After finding out that Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) is one of the Others, Miles demands to know where Ben (Michael Emerson) is, as locating him is the freighter crew's primary objective.
Locke holds him at gunpoint, and Ben starts to reveal information about the Kahana crew, specifically Charlotte's identity and that he has a spy aboard the ship.
While casting the "freighter folk" – the nickname that Lost's executive producers/writers/show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse use to refer to Daniel, Charlotte, Miles and Frank[7] – fake names, occupations and scenes were temporarily assigned, to limit the leak of spoilers.
"[11] Costume designer Roland Sanchez wanted to base one of the freighter folk's clothing after that of Keith Richards, specifically a picture in which he wore a sleeveless vest, which he admired.
Executive producers Cuse and Lindelof claimed in a podcast that the original script for "Confirmed Dead" listed Charlotte's birthday as being in 1970 and that Mader had it changed because she did not want people to think she was significantly older than she actually is.
[31] The Tunisian desert scene was filmed on location in Oahu, Hawaii, like the rest of the episode, at a stone quarry with industrial fans blowing fake sand.
Suskin said that creating effects for "Confirmed Dead" "was slightly too leisurely" because the episode aired over four months after post-production began.
[32] In fall 2007, Lost's writers presented ABC executives with the story that a salvage vessel called the Christiane I looking for the Black Rock, among other things, in the Sunda Trench would come across what would appear to be the wreckage of 815.
ABC hired the Australian company Hoodlum to design a $3 million viral marketing alternate reality game (ARG) titled Find 815.
Lindelof and Cuse dismissed the game as not being canon (not containing genuine information within the fictional universe) and was largely just a bonus for fans during the between-seasons hiatus.
[43] American critics were sent screener DVDs of "The Beginning of the End" and "Confirmed Dead" on January 28, 2008, with instructions not to reveal major plot points in reviews.
Among the journalists who gave vague and positive reviews were Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times,[44] Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune,[45] Diane Werts of Newsday[46] and Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle.
[23] Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger wrote that "after an underwhelming pre-credits sequence ... this sucker moved, and lots of things happened.
"[50] Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly thought that "Confirmed Dead" "was downright alive with fascinating new characters, mind-blowing new possibilities, and exciting new theory fodder"; however, he had heard complaints from others who received the preview screeners that they found the episode to be flawed.
"[55] A day after the original broadcast, BuddyTV's Dahl claimed that "[the audience is] on an epic journey, one that has been as entertaining and engrossing as any TV series has ever been".
He had problems with Claire's lack of grief for Charlie Pace's (Dominic Monaghan) death and Jack waiting so long to find out the freighter folk's main objective.
[57] Ben Rawson-Jones of Digital Spy gave "Confirmed Dead" three out of five stars, calling it "so-so", but commenting that "the new revelations in the episode are fairly startling and provide a momentary distraction from the frustrations.
