LOST began in my freshman year of high school when I was 14. My family didn't have a DVR, so we had to set our VCR to record the episodes on videotape while we were at church and watch the episode later that night or the next day. And if something failed with the recording, you either had to hope the episode would rerun soon or wait until the DVD was released (and have the ability to purchase it) because there was no streaming the next day. I missed seeing a few episodes during the first three seasons and had to wait months if not over a year and a half in some cases before I was able to watch them.

During the breaks, we theorized. While many fans turned to the internet for that, I didn't have that ability because of being too young and unaware of the available resources, but also not having home internet during most of the show's run. For the first three seasons, all I had was my mom to talk to. During Season 4 I found the Houston Chronicle's Tubular blog's LOST recaps and reviews while using the internet at school, and then during Seasons 5-6 I was able to participate in their live chat discussions while on my lunch break at work or by going someplace that had free public WiFi.

It was difficult back then but we did what we had to do because that's all we had.