So I'm rewatching this from the start. I saw it 'live' back when it was first released, but just felt like going from the top as I was a young un when season 1 first came out.
I'm 3 episodes in, initial thoughts are:
1) The acting in the pilot is a bit hammy in parts - especially from Jack and Kate.
2) There's some excellent foreshadowing in the pilot that you only get when rewatching - the first is a really odd scene after the plane has crashed, and the dust has somewhat settled...Kate looks over to Locke and he smiles an orange peel smile. It's just such a bizarre moment given what's happened (I think she's stealing shoes at the time). The second is when Walt and him begin talking and he introduces the game backgammon to him and says 'Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark.' That's pretty much the whole show captured in that one line in the first episode.
3) Evangeline Lilly is so beautiful (to be honest, most of the female leads here are beautiful).
4) Charlie is a very central character in these first few episodes. I guess he's probably one of the 'stars' of the show given he'd only finished LotR a year or so prior. Similar to Michael who was still popular from Romeo & Juliet. Them two aside, the rest of the actors I wouldn't have known from anywhere, but as a cast, they really turn in some great performances.
5) It really is brave storytelling, and kudos to the studio behind it, that they depict a flight crash so explicitly only a few years after 9/11. I know a slate of movies / tv shows from around that timeframe were shelved due to how they'd be perceived following that incident. The plane crash is really well done and it is a genuinely shocking moment in the show.
Someone on youtube has done an epic edit of the plane crash in real time using all the scenes in other seasons (i.e. Desmond, the Others etc) and pieced it together in 24 format. I'll post it once I get to the season 2.
Anyway, more thoughts when I make my way further in.