Adrift (Lost) - Production

Production

Season one's final episode finishes with two cliffhangers, the opening of the hatch and the attack of the Others on Michael's boat. When production of season 2 started, the writers decided that season premiere "Man of Science, Man of Faith" would focus on the hatch, leaving the raft for the second episode. To avoid bloating the first episode, some of the hatch storylines, such as Locke's incursion, were left to be revealed in "Adrift". The episode was originally going to be Sawyer centric, and was to feature actress Jolene Blalock as a guest, but this was rewritten "at the proverbial last minute" and changed to a Michael-centric episode.

Director Stephen Williams described filming at the sea as challenging, since the waves caused cameras, lighting and the scenery where the actors were standing to be "moving out of sync with one another". Williams however thought that the scenes became more realistic due to the location. The aquatic scenes took three nights to complete, and Harold Perrineau received swimming lessons in preparation. When Sawyer is getting ready to swim to the other platform, a shark swims past, and in an underwater shot a DHARMA Initiative insignia can briefly be seen near its back fin. This was an inside joke or "easter egg," which turned out to be more visible than had been intended. While a mechanical shark which required three puppeteers was built, the shot of Michael being attacked was done with a shark fin being held by an underwater crew member.