Lost (Spoilers)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Now that I am completely caught up with Doctor Who, I FINALLY started watching Lost (for the first time, so no “spoilers”!) over the weekend. Three episodes in, I must admit I find myself caught up in the intrigue. It reminds me a bit of Marvel’s Skull the Slayer, but less super-heroey. I’m paying very close attention (or trying to) to all the hints and details. One of the “mysteries” on which I speculated in part one of the pilot has already been resolved in part two, so it’s a moot point.

I expect this is going to be a bit like a 1940s movie serial (but slicker) in that some bits are going to left out only to be revealed later. The hero’s car goes over the cliff at the end of one installment, but we’re not shown him jumping out until the beginning of the next. I’ve already seen that to some extent. For example, Kate is left alone with the US marshal, and shortly thereafter, the other guy shoots him in the chest with the gun Kate was holding. There’s a scene missing!

I like Kate, though. I think I’m supposed to at this point, but I also think I’ve made the right decision. She saved the farmer’s life at the risk of being captured in the flashback, but even more telling, she affixed the oxygen mask to the marshal’s face when he was unconscious.

I do think watching shows on DVD is the way to go. Based on a strong opening season, I watched Heroes for three years only to have it cancelled out from under me with no resolution (rumors of a TV movie to tie up loose ends notwithstanding). What a waste of my time! At least I know going in I won’t have that problem with Lost.

[Philip Portelli]

Jack's references to his father were ploys not only to get the meds he wants but to disguise the fact that this takes place after he's been off the Island. We're not supposed to know we're in the future until Kate shows up at the end. Man, that was a shock! But everyone said LOST was dragging the rescue out but now there are more doubts if they should have been rescued!

Daniel Faraday is a great character who can make exposition interesting. He truly was the linchpin of the next two seasons!

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Jack's references to his father were ploys not only to get the meds he wants but to disguise the fact that this takes place after he's been off the Island.

Yeah, I see that now. That was sloppy misdirection.

We're not supposed to know we're in the future until Kate shows up at the end.

My wife fell for it, but I didn’t. She kept trying to convince me that the “beard scenes” happened after Jack got his tattoo but before he flew to Australia. Because they’re showing the “future scenes” out of order, for a while there I was convinced that there might, in fact, be two alternate future timelines. I see now it’s not a parallel time-line, but I remain unconvinced that it is the one, true future.

Further complicating matters is that a couple of days ago we moved to the next disc and, instead of going to the main menu, the machine began playing what we thought was the first episode on the disc, but no! We immediately got the feeling that we had missed something, but given the nature of the show, we thought we’d just wait for it to start making sense. By the time we were half way, through, we were committed. When the episode was over we discovered that we had, in fact, just watched the fourth episode on the disc and had skipped three!

We’re caught up now and back on track (I think).

It’s odd that none of the “Oceanic Six” mention the island (until the episode I watched last night, anyway, in which Kate mentions that Sawyer decided to stay). The way I count, the six are Kate, Jack, Sun, Hurley, Sayid and… Aaron or Jin? I could buy that the media might not include an infant in the count, but if they are counting him, who’s buried in Jin’s grave? Or is it empty? (I could see that, too.) And who was in the coffin? It couldn’t have been Jin if he didn’t leave the island. My second thought (when I first saw that scene) was Sawyer, but I didn’t buy that nobody came to the viewing (because his character had grown so much over the course of the first three seasons). My first thought was Kate’s step-dad, but that’s when I thought we were being shown an alternate reality (due to those ham-fisted references to Jack’s dad). I’ll have to give it some more thought. The answer is probably staring me right in the face.

And what’s up with Claire? She inexplicably she showed up with Christian (her and Jack’s dad) in the cabin, leading me to believe she might be dead… either from the explosion or maybe as far back as the birth of Aaron… but that’s because I watched “Cabin Fever” out of order and didn’t know she had walked off with Christian from their campsite the night before. (Maybe I’m not back on track.) I’ve heard so much about this show I think I’m trying to make it weirder than it is (if that’s even possible). For the time being I’ll set aside thoughts of time travel and parallel dimensions, but apparently time passes at a different rate on the island than for the rest of the world. And the island can be “moved”?

Okay, gotta go.

[Philip Portelli]

Claire leaving Aaron to follow her father was one of the great mysteries of this season. Did she go willingly? Was she drugged? Was she, in fact, dead? I couldn't understand it, then or now.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Okay, I know who's in the coffin now. It was a great MacGuffin, but I'm getting a little irritated at this show feeding the viewers misinformation: first implying that Jack's father is still alive, second arbitrarily (?) changing the name of the man in the coffin. Even if he had a reason for travelling under an assumed name, I don't believe the "Oceanic 6" would refer to him by that name when talking amongst themselves. Tracy guessed it, though.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

We’re a couple of episodes in to season five now, and it’s becoming increasing clear that the “flash-forwards” are not an alternate reality as I had at fist suspected. Because time seems to pass faster in the outside world than on the island, by the time the “Oceanic Six” make it back, island and non-island events ought to be pretty well synched-up.

Last week I had a dream of the castaways on the island, a bright light flashed and they were on the set of a sitcom.

Last night I dreamed of bright flashes affecting the Peanuts characters. Peppermint Patty argued that they were moving backward and forward in time, but Charlie Brown said they were just moving forward from day-to-day. Then there was a bright flash and everything went to color as reality shifted to Sunday, proving Charlie right.

Back in March 2009, in reference to this post, Darin said, “I will say, Jeff, that if you ever get around to watching Lost, some of your theories on how altered timelines may affect memory are very similar to theories I've seen from some professional commentators on recent events in that show.”

Time travel is very different on Lost in comparison to Dark Shadows, mainly because on Lost the past can’t be changed, but on Dark Shadows they changed it all the time! I’ll have to see how the concept of a “constant” plays out on Lost, but I’ve already borrowed one concept from Lost which will help smooth over some of the discrepancies resulting from multiple Dark Shadows timelines.

To be continued (soon) on the Dark Shadows thread.

[Rich Steeves]

I really enjoyed season 4, but season five was a favorite of mine, for several reasons that I won't spoil for you...

[Jeff of Earth-J]

One thing about Lost is that it doesn’t keep one waiting very long before most mysteries are solved. Well, some mysteries. Certain mysteries? But each mystery solved (as I’ve mentioned before) leads to another one. For example, until I see otherwise, I am going to believe that Claire was killed in the explosion and the island brought her back to life. I mean, it brought Locke back and he was definitely dead! But that begs the question why did Ben save him from committing suicide, then strangle him?

Another open question: what happened to Aaron and why did Kate leave him behind?

Here are two open questions from previous seasons. One, what’s the deal with Libby? Was she a mental patient pretending to be a therapist, or a real therapist in a mental institution (for whatever reason)? And two, what about Desmond’s vision of Claire and Aaron boarding the helicopter if Charlie sacrificed himself?

I’m not asking for answers, mind you; I’ll find out soon enough.

[Alan M.]

Jeff of Earth-J said:

One thing about Lost is that it doesn’t keep one waiting very long before most mysteries are solved.

Spoken like someone who's been able to see the entire series in a few months' time. (From my watching-since-day-one perspective, I had to fight back a sarcastic, derisive snort when reading that sentence. :P )

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Oh, yeah, I know! I'm still working my way through the previous Lost discussion (I left off on page 44) and have definitely noticed all those posts saying, "A reapeat tonight... again!" I can imagine how frustrated that was! And how hard to keep up with the story! I'm watching an episode or two a day and I still find it hard to remember certain detials. More reasons to wait for the DVD!

[Rich Steeves]

Actually, I feel this way, too, and I watched it live. For example, Kate asked the Marshal for a favor when they were on the plane, and we found out what that was almost immediately, which set up a disappointed paradigm for me early. Luckily, there were other reveals that they took longer to get to...

Alan M. said:

Jeff of Earth-J said:

One thing about Lost is that it doesn’t keep one waiting very long before most mysteries are solved.

Spoken like someone who's been able to see the entire series in a few months' time. (From my watching-since-day-one perspective, I had to fight back a sarcastic, derisive snort when reading that sentence. :P )

[Rich Steeves]

I could never understand why viewers of LOST were frustrated by reruns. It was like they'd never seen a network prime-time tv show before! I remember watching Buffy, and realizing they were going on a month-long break or whatever, and enjoying the reruns while building anticipation for the next new episode. Again, being weaned on comics, where each new installment is a month away, and plot points are sometimes teased out over years (or decades), I guess I had a particular point of view...

Jeff of Earth-J said:

Oh, yeah, I know! I'm still working my way through the previous Lost discussion (I left off on page 44) and have definitely noticed all those posts saying, "A reapeat tonight... again!" I can imagine how frustrated that was! And how hard to keep up with the story! I'm watching an episode or two a day and I still find it hard to remember certain detials. More reasons to wait for the DVD!

[Philip Portelli]

The rerun situation became frustrating because of its frequency. They would have a new episode, then two repeats, new episode, repeat, new, new, three repeats and so forth with November, February and May getting the bulk of the new ones. That's why they split the third season into two. With all the details, there was always something missed or forgotten. Why they didn't simply tape them like I did, I haven't a clue.

Of course, why ABC didn't rerun the entire season over the summer is beyond me as well. They could have started them up, ran them straight and ended them the week before the next season began. This could have let old fans enjoy/study/agonize over the plot-points and twists and give newer fans a chance to catch up.