Friday, May 02, 2008
Looking for Easter Eggs on Lost is not an easy task. It’s come to the point where I analyze every little detail to death, grasping to find some reason for a certain choice. In “Something Nice Back Home,” the difficulty came in the sheer volume of people introduced in the flash forward. There’s Dr. Eric Stevens, one of Jack’s co-workers, and two of his patients, Mrs. Berenberg and Ryan Laker.
Who are these people? I have no idea, but this is nothing new. We still don’t know who Mrs. Gardner and her drug dealing grandson are. Is this just Lost’s way of tossing in countless red herrings? Or is it something more?
In the first few seasons, we would frequently see characters reappear in other flashbacks, creating mysterious connections between everyone on the island. Now we’re getting new names and faces, and whether it has any relevance is unknown. Perhaps I am just tilting at windmills here, but I don’t believe these are dead ends. The focus on the photo of Mrs. Gardner’s grandson was so obvious that it must have been a clue, and last night, there was no reason for Jack to read us the diagnosis of “Ryan Laker” unless it will play a somewhat important role at some point.
My current theory is that, since we are now into flash forwards, the rules of coincidental connections have been reversed. Rather than seeing a close associate of one character who pops up in another flashback later, maybe we’re now seeing the character pop up in a future flashback BEFORE we see his or her connection to another castaway.
Perhaps I have too much faith in the show, but I would love for this to be the case. Maybe Ryan Laker is one of Libby’s patients who she had an affair with. Maybe Mrs. Berenberg is Daniel Faraday’s aunt. It sounds crazy, but I firmly believe the Lost writers are laying the groundwork for future reveals. Either that, or much like Hurley’s picture of an igloo in “The Beginning is the End,” it all means nothing and is just some cruel joke by the show to trick us into thinking something is important when it actually has no meaning.
What does have meaning, however, are these Easter Eggs, including some more Alice in Wonderland homages (this being a Jack-centric episode, we would expect no less).
#1 - How Old is Aaron?
When fans first learned that Kate is Aaron’s “mom” in the future, the biggest question (other than “Where’s Claire?”) was about Aaron’s age. On last night’s episode, we got the answer, sort of.
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/Image/LOST/egg410-newspaper.jpg
In the flash forward, Jack was disappointed by the Red Sox returning to their losing ways. Given the information in the article, there is only one viable date for time: August 31, 2007. Given Aaron’s birth on November 1, 2004, and ignoring any relative time distortions, this would put Aaron at around 2 years and 10 months old. So it wasn’t direct, but there’s one question down.
#2 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Some of you may have wondered what that book was Jack was reading to Aaron. Others probably assumed that it was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland base on the show’s fondness for associating Jack with that book. If you’re like me, you instantly recognized the lines Jack read as being from Alice, just as many of you assumed. The passage Jack read is from chapter two and is all about Alice, who recently ate a cake to get bigger, contemplating who she is.
#3 Through the Looking Glass
Another Alice reference was a bit more subtle and may not be a reference at all, but it jumped out at me. A looking glass, in case you didn’t know, is just a fancy old British term for a mirror, which caused me to wonder why Jack wanted to watch his own appendectomy “through the looking glass,” as it were. Was it just a harmless coincidence, an intentional reference, or something deeper? While watching the episode with a friend, he suggested that Kate was sent out because Juliet wanted to implant something in Jack during the surgery. I don’t buy it, but it’s just crazy enough to be worth mentioning.
#4 Scarless
Speaking of that surgery, I would assume that a haphazard island surgery would be pretty sloppy, and while part of me can accept that Jack might live through it, what I can’t believe is that there would be no scar leftover. How do I know there’s no scar? Well, thanks to that first flash forward scene with Matthew Fox in the towel, viewers became quite familiar with Jack’s abdominal region, and there did not appear to be a scar.
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/Image/LOST/egg410-scar.jpg
Part of me wants this to be a continuity error, a hasty mistake made just because some studio head urged the show to ramp up its male sex appeal, but in reality, it would make less sense if he DID have the scar. As Rose said, people get better on the island, not sicker. So while the appendicitis itself is a mystery, the healing of Jack’s scar isn’t so suspicious, just like John Locke’s bullet wound.
#5 - Kate the Nurse
I love it when a TV show references the show’s past. One quick exchange between Jack and Kate was a beautiful nod back to the Pilot. Kate told Jack she was going to be his nurse, and he responded, “Won’t be the first time.” It makes us all think back to that very first episode, when a squeamish Kate helped Jack stitch himself up.
#6 - Star Wars
J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof are admitted fans of Star Wars. Lost has featured many references, both overt and subtle, often involving Sawyer applying a Star Wars-themed nickname to someone else. In last night’s episode, the Star Wars love continued when Jack tripped over one of Aaron’s toys, a Millennium Falcon. Perhaps there’s some deeper hidden significance to this, but more likely than not, it’s just about two sci-fi geeks putting something they love in their show.
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/lost/lost-easter-eggs-episode-410-s-19075.aspx
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Question for those in the Know
As you watch the sneak peak, you hear a character ask for a "Zodiac Raft" to ferry the 815ers.
My question is, is this a Zodiac Raft?
My question is, is this a Zodiac Raft?
Please drop a note in our comments section. It would help put some pieces together for the finale.(Dark UFO Rumor) Sawyer and Kate Spotted with Filming Crew in LA??
I have been a big fan of your site for a long time and when I got this info I knew I had to give it to you. I have a good friend who lives in Los Angeles and she told me that she seen Josh Holloway and Evangeline Lilly leaving a house together with a small film crew. Now dont get me wrong I asked 100 times, "are you serious?" She guarenteed me and swore on her kids that it was no lie. I am not sure to what extent this could mean, but the first thing that came to my mind was... Maybe the "He" really is Sawyer that Kate says to Jack.
Thanks for your time and thanks for the website.
Posted By: ODI
Thanks for your time and thanks for the website.
Posted By: ODI
"Huge things answered"
Question: With TV shows usually the way that it works as an actor, it's an open ended storyline where you're going forward and just discovering what's happening as you go. With Lost, obviously that's all changed not only because of the flash forwards, but because it has an end date now. Does that change the way that you're approaching your work on the show?
Fox: Not really. Not that much. No. You know we're going to catch up with the flash forwards here in this year and then we'll be back and it's going to be really interesting to see how time is structured in season five. But we will have closed those two points - the finale of last year where you had that juxtaposition of him on the island feeling like he'd finally accomplished rescue and this future where he's desperate and at the pit of despair and feels like he has to go back and we don't know why and what's transpired in between. We will have closed that thing and so we will have gotten back into a situation where we'll be in the present.
Question: How much gets resolved in the finale?
Fox: Huge, huge stuff. We're shooting pretty much three episodes that are...it's really like a three-episode finale that we're shooting simultaneously. It's huge.
Question: Are there going to be more questions answered?
Fox: There will be huge things answered. Yes.
Source: Full Article @ Dark Horizons
Fox: Not really. Not that much. No. You know we're going to catch up with the flash forwards here in this year and then we'll be back and it's going to be really interesting to see how time is structured in season five. But we will have closed those two points - the finale of last year where you had that juxtaposition of him on the island feeling like he'd finally accomplished rescue and this future where he's desperate and at the pit of despair and feels like he has to go back and we don't know why and what's transpired in between. We will have closed that thing and so we will have gotten back into a situation where we'll be in the present.
Question: How much gets resolved in the finale?
Fox: Huge, huge stuff. We're shooting pretty much three episodes that are...it's really like a three-episode finale that we're shooting simultaneously. It's huge.
Question: Are there going to be more questions answered?
Fox: There will be huge things answered. Yes.
Source: Full Article @ Dark Horizons
"LOST" Wallpaper Screengrab
Yup, I did this.
And, yes, I run with 16 web-browsers.
You know, in case one breaks.
Why I voted for Cindy the Stewardess
Now that the transplanted story poll is over, this doesn't qualify as campaigning at the polling place. Sure she was concerned about Cholly on the plane, sure she took the back-up position in the march to the beach, sure she has taken care of The Children on Other Island. Sure she ranks along side Rose and Bernard as the only truly pure and good characters on the island - at least, as far as we know.
So, okay, I had more than one reason. Consider the above photo the "other" reason I voted for Cindy Chandler the Stewardess.
Teleportation Poll
Ben's expression/reaction when he "woke up" in the dessert at the beginning of 4.09 was very similar to Jack waking up in the jungle in the pilot episode. What do you think that means?
Nothing...just coincidence
15 (33%)
Jack wasn't on the plane, he was teleported to the island.
3 (6%)
Jack was on the plane, but someone teleported him off prior to the crash so Ben would have a surgeon.
10 (22%)
I think it totally blew my mind and I'm too confused to think about this rationally right now.
13 (28%)
Other
4 (8%)
Votes so far: 45
Nothing...just coincidence
15 (33%)
Jack wasn't on the plane, he was teleported to the island.
3 (6%)
Jack was on the plane, but someone teleported him off prior to the crash so Ben would have a surgeon.
10 (22%)
I think it totally blew my mind and I'm too confused to think about this rationally right now.
13 (28%)
Other
4 (8%)
Votes so far: 45
Transplanted Stories Poll Results
What transplanted stories are you most looking forward to in Season 5?
Libby's story
13 (54%)
Ben, Annie & other Dharma wackyness
11 (45%)
Frighter Away Team Flashbacks
0 (0%)
Danielle's Story
13 (54%)
Temple
10 (41%)
Cindy's Pre-Island Story & Others Story
1 (4%)
Other (See Comment)
2 (8%)
Votes so far: 24
Libby's story
13 (54%)
Ben, Annie & other Dharma wackyness
11 (45%)
Frighter Away Team Flashbacks
0 (0%)
Danielle's Story
13 (54%)
Temple
10 (41%)
Cindy's Pre-Island Story & Others Story
1 (4%)
Other (See Comment)
2 (8%)
Votes so far: 24
Saturday, May 3, 2008
It Had To Be Done
Napoleon, I deeply apologize. Those Glam Shots are how I want to think of my LOST gals. But every time I see Cynthia Watros and AnaL (Ms M-Rod) I can't get these images out my my melon. Maybe it is healthy to keep in mind that the next morning...even later that night if a normal earthling like myself were to "get lucky" with LOST girl, you could slip out for a glass of water and come back to bed to look down at "Dum-Dum-DUM!!
THIS!!!!!
If you dare, Click to make frighteningly LARGE.
I'm not sure what Libby "blew" during her field sobriety test. But she looks really f@#%ed up!
THIS!!!!!
If you dare, Click to make frighteningly LARGE.I'm not sure what Libby "blew"
Funny Observation.
SPOILERS - Episode 4x13 There's No Place Like Home - Filming Update
Pictures are not spoilers - merely interesting. But avoid the InvisoText for spoilers.
MAJOR FINALE SPOILER - I know this is not a full synopsis, but there have been some concerns about the finale being ruined so if you do NOT want the finale partly spoiled, then STOP reading and leave the SPOILERS SECTION.
**UPDATED** Ryan just messaged me saying that he thinks Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) was NOT on set. However, looking at the screencap posted it does look like him. So we can not say 100% that he was there, so sorry for any confusion.
Here is the latest filming updated for the season finale from our good friend Ryan from Hawaii Blog. It looks like the cast and crew were filming what seems to be the point the Oceanic 6 are trying to escape or get rescued. According to Ryan, all of the Oceanic 6 members were spotted on set as was Sawyer. Also, if you look closely you see someone that looks like Frank. I know director Jack Bender looks like Frank, but look at the cap below.
*UPDATED* Just posted a cap of what looks like Jin on set as well.
Here are Ryan's set report and photos.
Thanks to Lyly for the heads up.
As we draw nearer to the Season 4 finale, the “LOST” production crew is bringing the story ever closer to the pivotal moment when the Oceanic Six get off the island. To tell that story, they headed way out to Wai’anae, the arid, rural west coast of O’ahu. They established a base camp at Wai’anae Regional Park, and enlisted a handful of boats to carry equipment and crew across Pokai Bay.
The cast and their stand-ins took their direction on shore, then made their way into the ocean to film their scene. It was relatively simple in the narrative sense, but working on the water always makes things exponentially more complicated. Crew members had to keep a handle on a surfboard-riding director, hand held cameras and cameramen buffeted by the surf, a sound boat rocking on the waves, and keeping props from floating away. The primary prop? A large, octagonal life raft.
Action is called, and the stars get wet. Jorge Garcia, Yunjun Kim, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Naveen Andrews and Josh Holloway swim toward the raft through some debris. In several takes, Hurley — clutching a doll that’s most likely playing Aaron — helps pull Kate, Sun, and Sayid aboard. But Jack and Sawyer take a little longer to reach them. And Sawyer is holding someone who’s not moving.
Who is in trouble? Exactly how did the Oceanic Six (plus one) end up in the water? Where are they? And how do they get from here to Hawaii? The answers will come soon enough!
View More Pics Here: Ryan's Flickr
Posted By: ODI
THE LOST GIRLS pt. 1
The Women of LOST
--------------------------
Marcia Ardito (bikini girl)
Michelle Arthur (Flight Attendent #2)
Zoe Bell (Regina, suicidal freightie)
Julie Bowen (Sarah Wagner-Shephard, Jack's ex-wife)
Wendy Braun (Gina, eavesdropper at airport)
Beth Broderick (Diane Jansen, Kate's mom)
L. Scott Caldwell (Rose Henderson Nadler)
Jenny Chang (Rachel, Claire's friend)
Emily de Ravin (Claire Littleton, Aaron's mom)
Kim Dickens (Cassidy Phillips, mother of James Ford's daughter)
Katie Doyle (EMT/receptionist)
Faith Fay (Survivor/blue-striped shirt girl)
Gabrielle Fitzpatrick (Lindsey, Claire's aunt)
Fionnula Flanagan (Ms. Hawking)
Mira Furlan (Danielle Rousseau )
Andrea Gabriel (Noor "Nadia" Abed Jazeem, Sayid's love)
April Grace (Mrs. Beatrice Klugh)
Maggie Grace (Shannon Rutherford)
Kiersten Havelock (Emma, child taken by Others)
Lillian Hurst (Carmen Reyes, Hugo's mother)
April Parker Jones (Dr. Erika Stevens)
Kimberley Joseph (Cindy Chandler, flight attendent)
Yunjin Kim (Sun-Hwa Kwon)
Jill Kuramoto (Anchorwoman)
"Dakota L" (blonde casualty)
Tomiko Okhee Lee (Mrs. Lee, mother of Sun's lover)
Evangeline Lilly (Kate Austen)
Rebecca Mader (Charlotte Staples Lewis)
Madison (Vincent)
Paula Malcomson (Colleen Pickett, Danny's wife)
Tracy Middendorf (Bonnie, Looking Glass)
Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet Burke)
Julie Ow (Nurse)
Lana Parrilla (Greta, Looking Glass)
Brittany Perrineau (Lotto Girl)
Tania Raymonde (Alexandra Rousseau)
Michelle Rogriguez (Ana-Lucia Cortez)
Katey Sagal (Helen, Locke's friend)
Kiele Sanchez (Nikki Fernandez, Corvette on Expose)
Meilinda Soerjoko (Chrissy, Oceanic ticket agent)
Tamara Taylor (Susan Lloyd, Walt's mom)
Marsha Thomason (Naomi Dorrit)
Rachel Ticotin (Captain Teresa Cortez, Ana-Lucia's mom)
Grisel Toledo (Nurse Lazenby, Mental Health Institute)
Suzanne Turner (Ticket Agent)
Sonya Walger (Penelope Widmore)
Cynthia Watros (Libby)
Robin Weigert (Rachel, Juliet's sister)
Tess Yong (Sun's Best Friend/maternity nurse)
Friday, May 2, 2008
Fishbiscuit Porn
How could she not know what that looked like? She had to know. So she's into a three-way with two fishbiscuits. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Battlestar Galactica...Taking the Road Less Traveled
To All That Have Asked
To Those That have inquired:
http://tinyurl.com/3mggk3
Oddly enough, the title of the book that guided me into my career
Enjoy this week's BSG folks and Fish.
To Those That have inquired:
http://tinyurl.com/3mggk3
Oddly enough, the title of the book that guided me into my career
Enjoy this week's BSG folks and Fish.
SPOILER.....The In (Famous?) Return of Horace Goodspeed
I'm really not solid how this is going to play out, but one thing is
for certain...
for certain...
Mr Goodspeed was NOT punched in the face.
And methinks he has a nosebleed.
Someone is in dire need of a Constant.
AND...
Will the return (or at least the explanation of the life of)
a very Special fellow Dharmaite explained?
And methinks he has a nosebleed.
Someone is in dire need of a Constant.AND...
Will the return (or at least the explanation of the life of)
a very Special fellow Dharmaite explained?
Prolly not. But we will find out if Horace had Lasik or the Island cured him of his trendy glasses.
AND...
Lostpedia may (and I repeat may) have to edit their Bio.
AND...
Lostpedia may (and I repeat may) have to edit their Bio.
Name
Horace Goodspeed
Also Known As
{{{AKA}}}
Status
Deceased
Age
{{{Age}}}
Date of birth
{{{Birth}}}
Date of death
{{{Death}}}
Origin
United States
Profession
Mathematician for the DHARMA Initiative
In Australia...
{{{ReasonAus}}}
On the plane...
{{{ReasonTrip}}}
On the island...
{{{IslandReason}}}
Family Members
Olivia Goodspeed - Wife
Duuude. Seems some Arzt Splattered a Bit Over Here
Since I rarely give big spoilers and I know how you guys LOVE Ausiello's asterix quizzes, I figured I'd break from tradition and spill a few major moments from tonight's episode, while giving you all something to sleuth over. They are toughies! I'm not about to make it easy, and I won't verify when somebody gets it right. Enjoy and be sure to post your guesses.
1. **** **** **** ** *e *** ****.
2. ***** ****** *h* **e*** l***'* **o*t..
3. ****'* **** *** *p***** ** *** ************.
4. ***** ***s****** ******* ***** ******.
Source: DocArzt
1. **** **** **** ** *e *** ****.
2. ***** ****** *h* **e*** l***'* **o*t..
3. ****'* **** *** *p***** ** *** ************.
4. ***** ***s****** ******* ***** ******.
Source: DocArzt
Quint at AICN Interviewed Michael Emerson
Here's the interview part of the article. You can read other things Quint said at this link.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36558
Quint: Hey Michael, what’s up?
Michael Emerson: I’m just having a nice day off.
Quint: I can imagine. You guys all went back to work right after the strike, right?
Michael Emerson: Yeah, and we have just been going at a serious rate of speed with so many endless days of running around in a jungle and fighting and shooting… Oh, my god…
Quint: Well at least it is in Hawaii. You could be doing that in some… I was going to say desert, but you were in the desert last week. Speaking of the show, I’ve been a follower since the beginning, but I saw last week’s episode and I really dug it.
Michael Emerson: Oh, good.
Quint: It must be great for you, because they are making Ben such a central character to whole story.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, they have given me a lot to do lately and it does seem like wherever the uber story is going that it has something to do with Ben and his mission and the things he knows.
Quint: I know at the beginning that it was very much set up as kind of this Locke and Jack as the central figures, but it has slowly over the seasons and especially with the reveal of last week’s episode, it seems that the bigger power struggle is between you and Penny’s father, so it’s pretty interesting, at least for fans. It must be great for you, but it’s probably also got to be a little bit of pressure since there are so many hardcore fans of the show now that if you are playing more of a central role to everything, I would imagine, as a non-actor, that there would be more pressure on your part to appease those fans.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, well you just want to keep the work good and you don’t want your character to become… You don’t want to lose mystery or ambiguity and you want it always to be compelling playing, so yeah there is a little bit of extra responsibility to keep it fresh and hot if you can or if your role gets bigger.
It’s interesting though how with each season on the show, the lens through which we do the story, pulls back a little further and includes more territory and more characters, so that the show… I don’t know if they ever actually meant it to be just about survivors on an island. I know a lot of people complain that they have sort of lost that first season blush on the show, but I don’t think they ever meant to stay there. I think that was just one look of many that and that the story was going to grow up and out and away from that.
Quint: Speaking as a fan, I think that as long as they keep the characters that everybody fell in love with in that first season, those who are left, as long as they keep them in the fold… I think that is where a lot of people were struggling with season two, because it focused so much away from all of the characters that everybody had assumed were going to be the leads rightly or wrongly, but I think that’s why the fan base has so roundly given themselves over now to Abrams and Lindelof and his crew, because they did. Now all of our characters are intermingling with all of the newer characters and like you were saying, they “keep it fresh.” I love their change up and when they started doing flash forwards.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, that was a stroke of genius, wasn’t it?
Quint: I think it’s an incredible way to keep a dynamic that everybody loves from the show without letting it go stale.
Michael Emerson: Yeah. I think it’s very fresh and I think it lends gravity and a maturity to the story now, because now we see that we are not dealing with the kind of story that has a trite ending, that this is going to be a thing more for grown ups and more about imperfect endings and things with regret; things left undone and unsaid, that kind of stuff.
Quint: Definitely. Let’s talk a little bit about some specifics form last week’s show if you don’t mind.
Michael Emerson: Sure.
Quint: Of course I’m a big sci-fi/horror nerd, so whenever the smoke monster returned and you walked out of that hidden tunnel and were filthy, I turned to my friends who I was watching it with and was like “Oh man, he just summoned the smoke monster, didn’t he?” It was great. That was great, but my favorite part of last week’s show had to be the moment when Alex was killed, because you can so clearly see in your character that you knew that that wasn’t going to happen and when it did, it was the very first thing we have seen in any of the episodes you have been in where you have been genuinely shaken.
Michael Emerson: Yeah.
Quint: I was just wondering how you approached that moment, because it was so new for your character.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, it was shocking and for Ben, he is never fully caught off guard, he’s never flummoxed or shocked really, but clearly something went very wrong and against every expectation in that moment and now he has sort of been shattered in a way. I don’t know how he is going to pull himself together exactly, but it was sweetly played by Tania Raymonde and I will miss her so much, quite afar from us having a fictional relationship, I also just like her very much as a person and have loved working with her.
I do feel a fatherly sadness at her going away and not continuing to be on the show. There are a lot of sort of fictional and real impulses at play there and Ben has to play a scene more naked or vulnerable than he is used to doing. There were many challenges for me as an actor in that episode; physical challenges with combat and horses and then getting outside of my emotional comfort zone as well. It was interesting work… hard work.
Quint: Yeah, well it was definitely your episode. You were the flash forward and what is also really interesting, I think, about the episode is it really kind of takes what has been up to this point kind of a villainous person… It’s like the more we see of him, the less of a villain he is then when we first met him.
Michael Emerson: That’s true. I was just saying that to somebody yesterday, that gradually I’m sliding towards this empathetic end of the scale on our show.
Quint: Yeah, definitely. I mean with that moment at the end when you say you are going after Penny it was like you have become… it’s weird, because it is almost like you have become an anti-hero, except everybody loves Penny. It’s a weird place to put the audience, because we feel for you and we want you to get revenge, but we also don’t want to see the people that we like get hurt in the process, so…
Michael Emerson: It creates a dilemma for the viewer, doesn’t it?
Quint: It definitely does.
Michael Emerson: Who do we support here? We know that Ben has been wronged; we have seen his pain, but now he means to take it out on Widmore by way of his daughter and what’s that deal where he and Widmore can’t hurt one another? What’s that about?
Quint: Yeah, that’s one of the talents of the show that it is able to keep posing new questions while solving old ones, so you don’t really feel shafted and that’s something that I think they have been really good about in the last couple of seasons.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, well when people say they never give anything up, that’s just wrong, they give up something every episode and then of course new questions take their place, but I think that that’s what is fun about the show, that is the landscape of this show, that of developing mysteries and puzzles.
Quint: Have you finished the season out yet or are you just taking a break?
Michael Emerson: No, we are still working. We have a lot of material at the end, I think 10, 11, and 12 are maybe done, but there is so much post work to do. So much now has to be done with music. There are way more special effects than there used to be now and now we are dealing not just with people in a jungle, but we are dealing with big boats and helicopters and all of that equipment and stuff that is all difficult to work with, so it has been challenging for the company. We have been working such long days. Finally today they gave us a full weekend off for Saturday and Sunday.
Quint: And now you are spending one of your days talking with an idiot like me.
Michael Emerson: (laughs) Not at all. You know, I actually have a lighter schedule next week. I’m over the hump. I only have a few little bitty scenes here and there to shoot before the end of the season.
Quint: That’s cool. The secrecy surrounding everything that JJ Abrams has his fingers in, especially in LOST, is well known and has almost become his trademark with his devotion to secrecy, so I was just curious how much you as an actor are kept in the dark. How much lead time do you have before you shoot, when you actually know where your character is going?
Michael Emerson: There is very little lead time. I shot a scene about ten days ago in an episode that wasn’t written until the night before and it has been like that and I don’t know if you know, but very often in the finales, there are secret scenes and again this year there are a couple. There are a couple of scenes that no one is allowed to look at until the day we film them, which I think is like May the seventh.
On May the seventh, I will go to the studio and there will be scenes that no one has ever seen and we will shoot them that day and they will rush them to LA and they will cut them and those will be the final moments of the season.
Quint: So, what is that like for you? Do you have this feeling when you are around there with all of the cast and everything, do you just get that feeling like that you know something that everybody is dying to know and that you know that you have that information first?
Michael Emerson: That will be cool. I mean, I guess I’m one of the lucky ones, because last year I wasn’t privy to the secret scene. I didn’t know that ending, that flash forward thing with Jack and Kate, I didn’t know that until I watched the broadcast. I was even present at the studio the day that they filmed it, but no one was talking about it. It’s kind of nice this year to know that at least when that day comes, I will know something that the world wishes it knew [Laughs] and then I’ll have to keep my mouth shut.
Quint: Well, what is it like from an acting standpoint? Does it make it much tougher? Do you think it actually benefits you to work on instinct and not over think it?
Michael Emerson: Yeah, people often ask me whether I need to know the larger story to play the part and luckily in this case at least I don’t. In a way, it’s freeing for me not to be responsible for too much story or thinking “Oh, how do I play this when I know that X is going to happen in ten episodes or two seasons from now?” That would just sort of clutter up my work anyway I think. I just feel free to come in and play the scene that is on the page that day and let the geniuses who run the show put it together and make the larger sense of things.
Quint: Has there ever been a moment when you have played it one way and then they have come to you saying “No, you can’t do it like that. You have to do it this way, but we can’t tell you why.”
Michael Emerson: Yeah, there have been moments like that. In the early going, before I or anyone knew that Henry Gale was going to turn out to be the leader of the others, there were sometimes these difficult moments on the set where they would ask me to do a scene… I would do a scene one way and they would say “Actually, we need it to go this other way…” We still shoot some scenes with a couple of different tones, so that they can pick what works best in the final cut.
Quint: What tone do they usually go for? Is there even a usual one?
Michael Emerson: My experience is if I shoot a scene, they will usually pick the more malevolent read for Ben. They will choose the one that makes him scarier and colder, but then they know what they are doing. They are playing with audience expectation a lot, too. It probably serves their purposes to have made Ben look evil for a spell, so that maybe someday they can then turn that on its head.
Quint: Yeah, and like how we were talking about earlier, it seems like they are laying some tracks to move in that direction, if they choose to.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, I’ll be interested to see what happens in the next season, because once again the lens will pull back and we will get an even bigger picture. It will include more space; more of the world; more other characters and stuff and the puzzle will be seen to be a much larger one.
Quint: And they have put a cap on it, right? They have announced that they are ending at a certain point.
Michael Emerson: Two more seasons after this.
Quint: It’s good. As much as I would love to see these characters keep going, like THE SIMPSONS or something, it would feel like it was forced and I like the idea that they are telling a specific story, you know?
Michael Emerson: Yeah. I think it was a bold stroke on their part and it reinvigorated us and the writing team and I think the viewers too, in a way.
Quint: Do they ever get your input on the character, now that you have lived with him for so long?
Michael Emerson: No, we don’t have that kind of dialogue, which suits me fine. I trust them and in a way we communicate by way of our work. They show me what they understand by writing the role and I show them what I understand in the playing of it and that becomes a kind of conversation and I see over time that they are very sensitive to the way I speak and the way I behave and they incorporate it more and more into the writing of the part. I’ll read a script and go “Oh my gosh, they know of that tic I have...” or a certain phrase that I will use in real life and there it turns up coming out of Ben’s mouth. It is kind of an unspoken kind of dialogue that we have between us.
Quint: I think the hardcore fanbase was really excited to see the smoke monster return and I think the idea that Ben has some sort of control over it is really fascinating. I think that that has really piqued the interest of a lot of people, especially what is coming up in the next few weeks. I know you can’t say much, but can you talk about, based on what you know, do you think the fans will be satisfied with the promise of last weeks episode? Do you think that will be fulfilled?
Michael Emerson: Oh yeah, I think they are going in to some mind bending new surprising directions. I am liking the evolving idea. Let’s say that Ben was able to manipulate the smoke monster, but on the show everything is a binary system, everything is in balance, morally balanced or economically balanced, so for Ben to make a thing happen like that, there is also a price, I think, that he had to pay. We don’t know what Ben paid yet to make the smoke monster come. We don’t know that he… “Is he allowed to do that?” and everyone who has power also pays a price. John Locke is going to pay a price. Ben has paid a price… Nothing is for free in terms of power or morality on the island and I’m beginning to see that the writers are more interested in that pattern, too, of this living ledger book system.
Quint: That’s really great. One thing that I really don’t like that I’m happy to see them avoiding in LOST is the soap opera or what they are doing in comic books now a lot where nothing means anything, where you can have a character die and it’s OK, because in five issues they will be back and the world has changed or they make this life altering decision and go “Oh, if people don’t like it, then we will just go back and it was something else or we will somehow change the rules midstream” and I like that people on LOST who have died, we can still see them every once and a while in a flashback, or at least we could back in the day, and that gave them a perfect way out, but I like that everything has a consequence and everything has rules.
Michael Emerson: Right, there are rules and there are prices to be paid.
Quint: If that wasn’t the case, then I don’t think LOST would have the fan base that it does. I think people like the fact that surprising stuff will happen, like Alex getting killed, or any number of people getting killed and that being it. Nobody is really safe. We can assume that Jack is safe now. We can assume some people who make it off of the island are safe, but we don’t know to what degree they are safe after that.
Michael Emerson: Right. They may be safe in the moment, but what’s the price tag going to be?
Quint: So yeah, it’s very fascination and I think that it has been getting stronger and stronger and I am really happy, because I have a lot of shows that I like to watch and there are a couple, like HEROES, that just kind of floundered where they had a promising beginning and just kind of floundered and I have hope that the next season will be better, but it’s good to see LOST keeping strong and without flattery intended, I think a lot of that has to do with you and Ben and what you bring to him.
Michael Emerson: Thank you. I think Ben started out as kind of an experiment where they were looking for a way to add another dimension to the antagonism of the island, so that they needed a character who had a face and a voice to go with these strange powers and it was an experiment that turned out very well and luckily I was the actor who got the part and I get to play it all of the time.
Quint: Cool, so what is coming up for you? You have shooting until May 7th and then do you have any more stage work later or any films coming up?
Michael Emerson: I had hoped to sneak in some stage work this summer and if we hadn’t had the writer’s strike, I would have been able to, because we would have finished the season months ago, but as it is, there’s not really time to do a play. My wife, Carrie Preston, is working on an HBO series in LA and I don’t want to go off and do a play somewhere and not be with her, so I’ll probably just hang out in Los Angeles with her while she is working on this series called TRUE BLOOD, the new Alan Ball series.
Quint: That’s cool.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, it has a vampire theme in it, which is kind of interesting.
Quint: That’s good. I like seeing fantasy… in this way a horror fantasy getting representation with something as prestigious as HBO can be and they are giving it the real treatment.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, the series is based on a series of pulp thriller novels and I can’t remember the lady who wrote them, but it is sort of a science fiction premise. In the very near future, vampires are able to come out of the closet, in effect, because science has invented a substitute blood product that they can live off of, so they don’t need to attack people anymore. I think there’s a sort of racial metaphor at the heart of it. What area people’s feelings about vampires and I think it’s sort of a social commentary.
Quint: Yeah, you can put any stigma, you can put the “anti-gay” sentiment that’s out there now or anti-anything. That’s what I love about the genre, that it’s able to have those messages without being preachy. It very much can be used really well to massage in social commentary. George Romero is very well known for doing that.
Michael Emerson: Exactly.
Quint: Cool, well thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it.
Michael Emerson: It was good talking to you.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36558
Quint: Hey Michael, what’s up?
Michael Emerson: I’m just having a nice day off.
Quint: I can imagine. You guys all went back to work right after the strike, right?
Michael Emerson: Yeah, and we have just been going at a serious rate of speed with so many endless days of running around in a jungle and fighting and shooting… Oh, my god…
Quint: Well at least it is in Hawaii. You could be doing that in some… I was going to say desert, but you were in the desert last week. Speaking of the show, I’ve been a follower since the beginning, but I saw last week’s episode and I really dug it.
Michael Emerson: Oh, good.
Quint: It must be great for you, because they are making Ben such a central character to whole story.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, they have given me a lot to do lately and it does seem like wherever the uber story is going that it has something to do with Ben and his mission and the things he knows.
Quint: I know at the beginning that it was very much set up as kind of this Locke and Jack as the central figures, but it has slowly over the seasons and especially with the reveal of last week’s episode, it seems that the bigger power struggle is between you and Penny’s father, so it’s pretty interesting, at least for fans. It must be great for you, but it’s probably also got to be a little bit of pressure since there are so many hardcore fans of the show now that if you are playing more of a central role to everything, I would imagine, as a non-actor, that there would be more pressure on your part to appease those fans.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, well you just want to keep the work good and you don’t want your character to become… You don’t want to lose mystery or ambiguity and you want it always to be compelling playing, so yeah there is a little bit of extra responsibility to keep it fresh and hot if you can or if your role gets bigger.
It’s interesting though how with each season on the show, the lens through which we do the story, pulls back a little further and includes more territory and more characters, so that the show… I don’t know if they ever actually meant it to be just about survivors on an island. I know a lot of people complain that they have sort of lost that first season blush on the show, but I don’t think they ever meant to stay there. I think that was just one look of many that and that the story was going to grow up and out and away from that.
Quint: Speaking as a fan, I think that as long as they keep the characters that everybody fell in love with in that first season, those who are left, as long as they keep them in the fold… I think that is where a lot of people were struggling with season two, because it focused so much away from all of the characters that everybody had assumed were going to be the leads rightly or wrongly, but I think that’s why the fan base has so roundly given themselves over now to Abrams and Lindelof and his crew, because they did. Now all of our characters are intermingling with all of the newer characters and like you were saying, they “keep it fresh.” I love their change up and when they started doing flash forwards.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, that was a stroke of genius, wasn’t it?
Quint: I think it’s an incredible way to keep a dynamic that everybody loves from the show without letting it go stale.
Michael Emerson: Yeah. I think it’s very fresh and I think it lends gravity and a maturity to the story now, because now we see that we are not dealing with the kind of story that has a trite ending, that this is going to be a thing more for grown ups and more about imperfect endings and things with regret; things left undone and unsaid, that kind of stuff.
Quint: Definitely. Let’s talk a little bit about some specifics form last week’s show if you don’t mind.
Michael Emerson: Sure.
Quint: Of course I’m a big sci-fi/horror nerd, so whenever the smoke monster returned and you walked out of that hidden tunnel and were filthy, I turned to my friends who I was watching it with and was like “Oh man, he just summoned the smoke monster, didn’t he?” It was great. That was great, but my favorite part of last week’s show had to be the moment when Alex was killed, because you can so clearly see in your character that you knew that that wasn’t going to happen and when it did, it was the very first thing we have seen in any of the episodes you have been in where you have been genuinely shaken.
Michael Emerson: Yeah.
Quint: I was just wondering how you approached that moment, because it was so new for your character.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, it was shocking and for Ben, he is never fully caught off guard, he’s never flummoxed or shocked really, but clearly something went very wrong and against every expectation in that moment and now he has sort of been shattered in a way. I don’t know how he is going to pull himself together exactly, but it was sweetly played by Tania Raymonde and I will miss her so much, quite afar from us having a fictional relationship, I also just like her very much as a person and have loved working with her.
I do feel a fatherly sadness at her going away and not continuing to be on the show. There are a lot of sort of fictional and real impulses at play there and Ben has to play a scene more naked or vulnerable than he is used to doing. There were many challenges for me as an actor in that episode; physical challenges with combat and horses and then getting outside of my emotional comfort zone as well. It was interesting work… hard work.
Quint: Yeah, well it was definitely your episode. You were the flash forward and what is also really interesting, I think, about the episode is it really kind of takes what has been up to this point kind of a villainous person… It’s like the more we see of him, the less of a villain he is then when we first met him.
Michael Emerson: That’s true. I was just saying that to somebody yesterday, that gradually I’m sliding towards this empathetic end of the scale on our show.
Quint: Yeah, definitely. I mean with that moment at the end when you say you are going after Penny it was like you have become… it’s weird, because it is almost like you have become an anti-hero, except everybody loves Penny. It’s a weird place to put the audience, because we feel for you and we want you to get revenge, but we also don’t want to see the people that we like get hurt in the process, so…
Michael Emerson: It creates a dilemma for the viewer, doesn’t it?
Quint: It definitely does.
Michael Emerson: Who do we support here? We know that Ben has been wronged; we have seen his pain, but now he means to take it out on Widmore by way of his daughter and what’s that deal where he and Widmore can’t hurt one another? What’s that about?
Quint: Yeah, that’s one of the talents of the show that it is able to keep posing new questions while solving old ones, so you don’t really feel shafted and that’s something that I think they have been really good about in the last couple of seasons.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, well when people say they never give anything up, that’s just wrong, they give up something every episode and then of course new questions take their place, but I think that that’s what is fun about the show, that is the landscape of this show, that of developing mysteries and puzzles.
Quint: Have you finished the season out yet or are you just taking a break?
Michael Emerson: No, we are still working. We have a lot of material at the end, I think 10, 11, and 12 are maybe done, but there is so much post work to do. So much now has to be done with music. There are way more special effects than there used to be now and now we are dealing not just with people in a jungle, but we are dealing with big boats and helicopters and all of that equipment and stuff that is all difficult to work with, so it has been challenging for the company. We have been working such long days. Finally today they gave us a full weekend off for Saturday and Sunday.
Quint: And now you are spending one of your days talking with an idiot like me.
Michael Emerson: (laughs) Not at all. You know, I actually have a lighter schedule next week. I’m over the hump. I only have a few little bitty scenes here and there to shoot before the end of the season.
Quint: That’s cool. The secrecy surrounding everything that JJ Abrams has his fingers in, especially in LOST, is well known and has almost become his trademark with his devotion to secrecy, so I was just curious how much you as an actor are kept in the dark. How much lead time do you have before you shoot, when you actually know where your character is going?
Michael Emerson: There is very little lead time. I shot a scene about ten days ago in an episode that wasn’t written until the night before and it has been like that and I don’t know if you know, but very often in the finales, there are secret scenes and again this year there are a couple. There are a couple of scenes that no one is allowed to look at until the day we film them, which I think is like May the seventh.
On May the seventh, I will go to the studio and there will be scenes that no one has ever seen and we will shoot them that day and they will rush them to LA and they will cut them and those will be the final moments of the season.
Quint: So, what is that like for you? Do you have this feeling when you are around there with all of the cast and everything, do you just get that feeling like that you know something that everybody is dying to know and that you know that you have that information first?
Michael Emerson: That will be cool. I mean, I guess I’m one of the lucky ones, because last year I wasn’t privy to the secret scene. I didn’t know that ending, that flash forward thing with Jack and Kate, I didn’t know that until I watched the broadcast. I was even present at the studio the day that they filmed it, but no one was talking about it. It’s kind of nice this year to know that at least when that day comes, I will know something that the world wishes it knew [Laughs] and then I’ll have to keep my mouth shut.
Quint: Well, what is it like from an acting standpoint? Does it make it much tougher? Do you think it actually benefits you to work on instinct and not over think it?
Michael Emerson: Yeah, people often ask me whether I need to know the larger story to play the part and luckily in this case at least I don’t. In a way, it’s freeing for me not to be responsible for too much story or thinking “Oh, how do I play this when I know that X is going to happen in ten episodes or two seasons from now?” That would just sort of clutter up my work anyway I think. I just feel free to come in and play the scene that is on the page that day and let the geniuses who run the show put it together and make the larger sense of things.
Quint: Has there ever been a moment when you have played it one way and then they have come to you saying “No, you can’t do it like that. You have to do it this way, but we can’t tell you why.”
Michael Emerson: Yeah, there have been moments like that. In the early going, before I or anyone knew that Henry Gale was going to turn out to be the leader of the others, there were sometimes these difficult moments on the set where they would ask me to do a scene… I would do a scene one way and they would say “Actually, we need it to go this other way…” We still shoot some scenes with a couple of different tones, so that they can pick what works best in the final cut.
Quint: What tone do they usually go for? Is there even a usual one?
Michael Emerson: My experience is if I shoot a scene, they will usually pick the more malevolent read for Ben. They will choose the one that makes him scarier and colder, but then they know what they are doing. They are playing with audience expectation a lot, too. It probably serves their purposes to have made Ben look evil for a spell, so that maybe someday they can then turn that on its head.
Quint: Yeah, and like how we were talking about earlier, it seems like they are laying some tracks to move in that direction, if they choose to.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, I’ll be interested to see what happens in the next season, because once again the lens will pull back and we will get an even bigger picture. It will include more space; more of the world; more other characters and stuff and the puzzle will be seen to be a much larger one.
Quint: And they have put a cap on it, right? They have announced that they are ending at a certain point.
Michael Emerson: Two more seasons after this.
Quint: It’s good. As much as I would love to see these characters keep going, like THE SIMPSONS or something, it would feel like it was forced and I like the idea that they are telling a specific story, you know?
Michael Emerson: Yeah. I think it was a bold stroke on their part and it reinvigorated us and the writing team and I think the viewers too, in a way.
Quint: Do they ever get your input on the character, now that you have lived with him for so long?
Michael Emerson: No, we don’t have that kind of dialogue, which suits me fine. I trust them and in a way we communicate by way of our work. They show me what they understand by writing the role and I show them what I understand in the playing of it and that becomes a kind of conversation and I see over time that they are very sensitive to the way I speak and the way I behave and they incorporate it more and more into the writing of the part. I’ll read a script and go “Oh my gosh, they know of that tic I have...” or a certain phrase that I will use in real life and there it turns up coming out of Ben’s mouth. It is kind of an unspoken kind of dialogue that we have between us.
Quint: I think the hardcore fanbase was really excited to see the smoke monster return and I think the idea that Ben has some sort of control over it is really fascinating. I think that that has really piqued the interest of a lot of people, especially what is coming up in the next few weeks. I know you can’t say much, but can you talk about, based on what you know, do you think the fans will be satisfied with the promise of last weeks episode? Do you think that will be fulfilled?
Michael Emerson: Oh yeah, I think they are going in to some mind bending new surprising directions. I am liking the evolving idea. Let’s say that Ben was able to manipulate the smoke monster, but on the show everything is a binary system, everything is in balance, morally balanced or economically balanced, so for Ben to make a thing happen like that, there is also a price, I think, that he had to pay. We don’t know what Ben paid yet to make the smoke monster come. We don’t know that he… “Is he allowed to do that?” and everyone who has power also pays a price. John Locke is going to pay a price. Ben has paid a price… Nothing is for free in terms of power or morality on the island and I’m beginning to see that the writers are more interested in that pattern, too, of this living ledger book system.
Quint: That’s really great. One thing that I really don’t like that I’m happy to see them avoiding in LOST is the soap opera or what they are doing in comic books now a lot where nothing means anything, where you can have a character die and it’s OK, because in five issues they will be back and the world has changed or they make this life altering decision and go “Oh, if people don’t like it, then we will just go back and it was something else or we will somehow change the rules midstream” and I like that people on LOST who have died, we can still see them every once and a while in a flashback, or at least we could back in the day, and that gave them a perfect way out, but I like that everything has a consequence and everything has rules.
Michael Emerson: Right, there are rules and there are prices to be paid.
Quint: If that wasn’t the case, then I don’t think LOST would have the fan base that it does. I think people like the fact that surprising stuff will happen, like Alex getting killed, or any number of people getting killed and that being it. Nobody is really safe. We can assume that Jack is safe now. We can assume some people who make it off of the island are safe, but we don’t know to what degree they are safe after that.
Michael Emerson: Right. They may be safe in the moment, but what’s the price tag going to be?
Quint: So yeah, it’s very fascination and I think that it has been getting stronger and stronger and I am really happy, because I have a lot of shows that I like to watch and there are a couple, like HEROES, that just kind of floundered where they had a promising beginning and just kind of floundered and I have hope that the next season will be better, but it’s good to see LOST keeping strong and without flattery intended, I think a lot of that has to do with you and Ben and what you bring to him.
Michael Emerson: Thank you. I think Ben started out as kind of an experiment where they were looking for a way to add another dimension to the antagonism of the island, so that they needed a character who had a face and a voice to go with these strange powers and it was an experiment that turned out very well and luckily I was the actor who got the part and I get to play it all of the time.
Quint: Cool, so what is coming up for you? You have shooting until May 7th and then do you have any more stage work later or any films coming up?
Michael Emerson: I had hoped to sneak in some stage work this summer and if we hadn’t had the writer’s strike, I would have been able to, because we would have finished the season months ago, but as it is, there’s not really time to do a play. My wife, Carrie Preston, is working on an HBO series in LA and I don’t want to go off and do a play somewhere and not be with her, so I’ll probably just hang out in Los Angeles with her while she is working on this series called TRUE BLOOD, the new Alan Ball series.
Quint: That’s cool.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, it has a vampire theme in it, which is kind of interesting.
Quint: That’s good. I like seeing fantasy… in this way a horror fantasy getting representation with something as prestigious as HBO can be and they are giving it the real treatment.
Michael Emerson: Yeah, the series is based on a series of pulp thriller novels and I can’t remember the lady who wrote them, but it is sort of a science fiction premise. In the very near future, vampires are able to come out of the closet, in effect, because science has invented a substitute blood product that they can live off of, so they don’t need to attack people anymore. I think there’s a sort of racial metaphor at the heart of it. What area people’s feelings about vampires and I think it’s sort of a social commentary.
Quint: Yeah, you can put any stigma, you can put the “anti-gay” sentiment that’s out there now or anti-anything. That’s what I love about the genre, that it’s able to have those messages without being preachy. It very much can be used really well to massage in social commentary. George Romero is very well known for doing that.
Michael Emerson: Exactly.
Quint: Cool, well thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it.
Michael Emerson: It was good talking to you.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Hellllllooooo My LOST Friends. May I direct you to...
Something Nice Back Home
S04E10
Lots of Jack Kate Mash and Shower - ShowKack.
ENJOY
http://tinyurl.com/4ldsrj
S04E10
Lots of Jack Kate Mash and Shower - ShowKack.
ENJOY
http://tinyurl.com/4ldsrj
Episode 4x12 There's No Place Like Home - Press Release
There are spoilers to be had - even in the press relese. Use >>>InvisoText<<<
Notice the appearance of Richard and that both Keamy and Omar on the guest list.
Also, noteworthy is the appearance of Nadia and other Oceanic 6 family members, which confirms previous spoilers. What about "Kendricks" could this have anything to do with the Kendricks that Ben mentioned when he goes to visit Widmore??
Thanks to FishBiscuitLand and Lyly for the heads up.
THE FACE-OFF BETWEEN THE SURVIVORS AND THE FREIGHTER PEOPLE BEGINS, ON ABC’S “LOST”
“There’s No Place Like Home,” Part 1 – The face-off between the survivors and the freighter people begins, on “Lost,” THURSDAY, MAY 15 (10:02-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.
“Lost” stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond, Emilie de Ravin as Claire, Michael Emerson as Ben, Matthew Fox as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Daniel Dae Kim as Jin, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet, Terry O’Quinn as Locke and Harold Perrineau as Michael.
Guest starring are L. Scott Caldwell as Rose, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Ken Leung as Miles Straume, Rebecca Mader as Charlotte Lewis, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Kevin Durand as Keamy, Anthony Azizi as Omar, Andrea Gabriel as Noor “Nadia” Abed Jaseem, Byron Chung as Mr. Paik, June Kyoko Lu as Mrs. Paik, Lillian Hurst as Carmen Reyes, Cheech Marin as David Reyes, Veronica Hamel as Margo Shephard, Michelle Forbes as Karen Decker, Susan Duerden as Carole Littleton and Noah Craft as Hendricks.
“There’s No Place Like Home,” Part 1 was written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse and directed by Stephen Williams.
”Lost” is broadcast in 720 Progressive (720P), ABC’s selected HDTV format, with 5.1-channel surround sound and Spanish audio via SAP.
A TV parental guideline will be assigned closer to airdate.
This episode of “Lost” will be available on ABC.com the day after airing on the network for users to watch online.
Source: ABC
Posted By: Edshrinker
Notice the appearance of Richard and that both Keamy and Omar on the guest list.
Also, noteworthy is the appearance of Nadia and other Oceanic 6 family members, which confirms previous spoilers. What about "Kendricks" could this have anything to do with the Kendricks that Ben mentioned when he goes to visit Widmore??
Thanks to FishBiscuitLand and Lyly for the heads up.
THE FACE-OFF BETWEEN THE SURVIVORS AND THE FREIGHTER PEOPLE BEGINS, ON ABC’S “LOST”
“There’s No Place Like Home,” Part 1 – The face-off between the survivors and the freighter people begins, on “Lost,” THURSDAY, MAY 15 (10:02-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.
“Lost” stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond, Emilie de Ravin as Claire, Michael Emerson as Ben, Matthew Fox as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Daniel Dae Kim as Jin, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet, Terry O’Quinn as Locke and Harold Perrineau as Michael.
Guest starring are L. Scott Caldwell as Rose, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Ken Leung as Miles Straume, Rebecca Mader as Charlotte Lewis, Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus, Kevin Durand as Keamy, Anthony Azizi as Omar, Andrea Gabriel as Noor “Nadia” Abed Jaseem, Byron Chung as Mr. Paik, June Kyoko Lu as Mrs. Paik, Lillian Hurst as Carmen Reyes, Cheech Marin as David Reyes, Veronica Hamel as Margo Shephard, Michelle Forbes as Karen Decker, Susan Duerden as Carole Littleton and Noah Craft as Hendricks.
“There’s No Place Like Home,” Part 1 was written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse and directed by Stephen Williams.
”Lost” is broadcast in 720 Progressive (720P), ABC’s selected HDTV format, with 5.1-channel surround sound and Spanish audio via SAP.
A TV parental guideline will be assigned closer to airdate.
This episode of “Lost” will be available on ABC.com the day after airing on the network for users to watch online.
Source: ABC
Posted By: Edshrinker
Pulling the Theories Together
Suppose there was a way to pull all the different theories together. Suppose that vile vortexes, god and/or the gods, space and time etc. could all fit into one grand idea.
The Masks of Odin by Elsa-Brita Titchenell
http://tinyurl.com/5jhvy7
Odin - Odin, considered the chief god in Norse paganism, is closely connected with transformation/shape shifting into animal shapes. He is a god of wisdom, war, battle and death. He is also attested as being a god of magic, poetry, prophecy, victory and the hunt (wiki).
Remember my theory of old 4-toe being the Colossus of Rhodes, and that is supposed to have been built in honor of Helios?
Here's an excerpt from The Masks of Odin.
There is a suggestive connection between what myths call the "waters of space" -- basis of all existence and the common ground of universes -- and hydrogen (from the Greek hydor: water), when we remember that hydrogen is the simplest, lightest, and most abundant of the elements, and the one which enters into the composition of all known matter. The second arm of the trinity may be sought in the second element, helium, named for Helios, the sun, where it was first discovered. A connection may also be found between fire and the element oxygen which chemically combines with other elements in combustion. One aspect of the divine fire is Mundilfore, the "lever" or "axis" which turns the "wheels" of galaxies, suns, planets, or atoms. It is the power which initiates rotatory and translatory motion, creating vortices, dynamic entities in the waters of space.
Rick
The Masks of Odin by Elsa-Brita Titchenell
http://tinyurl.com/5jhvy7
Odin - Odin, considered the chief god in Norse paganism, is closely connected with transformation/shape shifting into animal shapes. He is a god of wisdom, war, battle and death. He is also attested as being a god of magic, poetry, prophecy, victory and the hunt (wiki).
Remember my theory of old 4-toe being the Colossus of Rhodes, and that is supposed to have been built in honor of Helios?
Here's an excerpt from The Masks of Odin.
There is a suggestive connection between what myths call the "waters of space" -- basis of all existence and the common ground of universes -- and hydrogen (from the Greek hydor: water), when we remember that hydrogen is the simplest, lightest, and most abundant of the elements, and the one which enters into the composition of all known matter. The second arm of the trinity may be sought in the second element, helium, named for Helios, the sun, where it was first discovered. A connection may also be found between fire and the element oxygen which chemically combines with other elements in combustion. One aspect of the divine fire is Mundilfore, the "lever" or "axis" which turns the "wheels" of galaxies, suns, planets, or atoms. It is the power which initiates rotatory and translatory motion, creating vortices, dynamic entities in the waters of space.
Rick
EW Doc Jenson: 'Lost': An Indiana Jones Connection?
'Lost': An Indiana Jones Connection?
Awaiting tonight's Jack flash forward, Doc Jensen explores the show's links to ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' ''The X-Files,'' and other forebears
By Jeff Jensen
Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''THE TEASE!
We begin with some cryptic intel provided by exec producer Damon Lindelof at the request of the author seeking illumination about tonight's 10th episode of Lost's fourth season, ''Something Nice Back Home'' — a flash forward affair focusing on Dr. Jack Shepherd, whose Island-present circumstances are currently marked by a squirmy stomach and shameful despair over trusting these freaky freighter folk...
Sayeth Damon: ''Remember after the finale last season when everyone was asking us why Jack was blathering on about his father in what turned out to be our first flash-forward? It was just the booze and pills talking, right? And hey...why did he start taking pills in the first place?''
Sounds like a case of Physician: Heal thyself!
READER MAIL!
Special ''Shape of Things to Come'' Edition
If my overstuffed mailbox (JeffJensenEW@aol.com) is any indication, last week's episode may have been one of the show's most theory-sparking, imagination-engaging, question-provoking ever. To wit:
In your recap of ''The Shape of Things to Come,'' you mentioned how the game of Risk played by Locke, Hurley, and Sawyer foreshadowed Ben's risky and failed gambit to save his daughter. But something else that could have much more significance was Hurley's comment: ''Australia is the key to the game.'' Maybe I'm just taking it as more than it is, but I believe it is worth some speculation. Something to do with Mu, perhaps? — Marina
Dear Marina: Excellent point. I was much too busy excavating possible links to the conspicuously dropped date of Ben's flash forward — Oct. 24, 2005 — that I missed many obvious bits of intrigue, especially that Risk business. I'm not sure Hurley's Australia line was a nod to the lost continent of Mu — but it could be more significant than a mere reminder that this entire saga started in Sydney. Remember the season 2 episode called ''S.O.S.,'' in which Bernard and Rose visited a faith healer in the outback? Well, the episode featured a shot of a natural landmark of great significance in mystic/fringe science circles, a butte known as Ayers Rock. The Aborigines consider it a flashpoint of creation energy and entrance into an eternal realm of supernatural synchronicity called ''Dreamtime''; New Agers think it's an electromagnetic hot spot pulsing with mystical energy; and UFO buffs think it's an alien landing pad. (The correct answer, as I will soon prove, is actually...alien landing pad!)
Sci-fi hoo-ha aside, I choose to see the Risk game as an expression of character ideas. For example, the most interesting thing to me about the game was Sawyer's silly, reckless play to put Australia at risk just so he can acquire...Siberia. Now, what do Australia and Siberia have in common? They're both synonymous with being veritable prisons (Australia being a former penal colony; Siberia being the place the Soviets shipped dissidents and other ''Others''). So here was Sawyer, trading one prison country for another. This, to me, mirrors the flash-forward fate of the Oceanic 6, for whom rescue will lead to another, more figurative form of imprisonment, and perhaps serves as literal foreshadowing for what will happen to Sawyer himself.
If Ben can time travel, why doesn't/can't he go back in time to save Alex? — Lisa
Dear Lisa: I think he can't change the past because of ''course correction,'' the Lost idea that changing the past is all but impossible. Yeah, maybe he could alter the form of Alex's death, but Fate wants her dead, so it would just find another way to do it. Further, I don't think Ben would even give it a try, because even though Widmore ''changed the rules,'' I actually think Ben is still playing the game honorably, with respect for the integrity of the cosmos. Sure, he threatened to get tit-for-tat with Widmore by swearing to slay Penelope...but who says he's telling the truth? What if Ben is merely saying as much in order to bait Widmore into making a strategic mistake?
And the Fan Theory of the Week goes to...
Bill Geoghegan, who writes: ''Hi Jeff! After re-watching ''The Shape of Things to Come'' for the third time I had a minor epiphany about Charles Widmore — or should I say Captain Hanso?! Here goes: 'That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again.' When Widmore makes his claim to the Island during the bedroom scene with Ben, it's frustratingly vague, leaving so much unsaid. It hints at a history that may stretch back ...well...further than would seem natural. Like the ageless Mr. Alpert, Charles Widmore may be a man whose appearance might seem downright youthful when given his real age. Exactly what is Widmore's connection to the Island and when did he come to call it his own? Drawing a conclusion based on the clues we have right now, I'd say that Widmore's real identity is...Magnus Hanso! Yep, Captain of the Black Rock. He found the Island by accident, shipwrecked maybe, but eventually he mastered its secrets. For a time he ruled it as his own, but ultimately, somehow, got expelled from its life-preserving shores. Can't you just see him on the deck of some old English freighter, barking out orders to the sailors? And a slave trader, no less — just the type of occupation you'd expect of this sneering, grizzled old buzzard. Besides the perfect personality match, there's an even bigger clue: his bidding on the journal from the Black Rock. Obviously, he knows something of this ship and its connection to the Island. But how? And lastly, there's his sponsoring of the sailing competition that Desmond entered. If Widmore was once a seafaring man himself, it would be natural that he'd take pleasure in the epic challenges of men crossing the high seas.''
Dear Bill: Your grasp of Lost arcana — gleaned from the blast-door map and ''The Lost Experience'' (in case any ''non-cultists'' out there feel...well, lost) — dazzles me, so much so that your hypothesis is my new default Charles Widmore theory. A no prize to you!
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!Toward an extraterrestrial and Egypt-y theory of Lost — in which Doc Jensen converses with the only normal person he knows: Himself!
JEFF JENSEN: Hey Doc!DOC JENSEN: Hey Jeff! How are you?
Swell! Listen, some of my ''non-cultist'' Lost friends have a question about last week's episode, ''The Shape of Things to Come,'' and they wanted to know if you had any insight. Do you have a moment? Sure. Let me just put down by Bible concordance and complete collection of Carmine Infantino Flash comics and I can be mentally present with you. [THUMP!]
So you really watch the show with that stuff? Nah. I watch — and appreciate — the show just like everyone else. I don't consult that stuff until days later, either for fun to write my Doc Jensen columns, which, to be clear, is fun, too.
Interesting. You know, most obsessed fans express their fandom by, say, buying Jimmy Choo shoes. But you, like, read books. You're weird! I know! Anyway, you had a question?
Oh, yes. Okay, you know that secret room in Ben's house, and that wall or door with all those hieroglyphics carved in it? Yes.
Ummm...what was that? It is further proof that the ancient civilization that once lived on the Island — the society responsible for the four-toed statue and the ruins where Ben tried to get Locke to kill his dad — was actually a very advanced civilization from another planet.
[Silence]You look puzzled.
Well, yeah. Are you suggesting...aliens? On the Island? Yes.
How do you figure that? Because the glyphs are Egyptian. And as everyone knows, the aliens built the pyramids.
I think you're going to have to give me a little more proof than a nutty conspiracy theory. What clues do you see in Lost that suggest aliens? You mean, besides the conspicuous dropping of Philip K. Dick's book Valis earlier this season?
Sure. Besides that. Well, according to Koobie at DocArzt.com, the simplest translation of those Egyptian hieroglyphics on the door is: ''to summon protection.''
JEFF JENSEN: Interesting: That's valuable info to ponder, even if this alien theory of yours doesn't add up. DOC JENSEN: Good point. Consider it pondered. Now, let's assume as correct the conventional wisdom that ''to summon protection'' is a reference to Smokey the Monster — i.e. ''the Island's security system,'' to quote the late, lamented Rousseau.
Okay. Now, there's an Egyptian deity named Khonsu, or Khonshu, a lunar God, who functioned as a bloodthirsty avenging angel for pharaohs and protector to night travelers. Sounds kinda like Smokey, killing freighter mercs for King Ben and providing safe passage for the castaways as they escaped into the evening. Think of Smokey as the Island's superhero — like the Dark Knight himself, Batman, or better yet, Moon Knight, a Marvel superhero who gets his powers from — you guessed it — the lunar god Khonshu!
Okay, a couple things. First, I didn't guess, and would never have guessed that in a thousand years. Second, those connections could be pure coincidence. You can't honestly tell me that this ''Khonsu'' really has anything to do with Lost.No? According to Wikipedia, Khonsu was also known to ''increase male virility'' (see: Jin's increased sperm count on the Island) and ''aid in healing'' (see: Locke, Rose, Patchy). He also was a deity of childbirth (see: Island fertility issues). Khonsu's father, by the way, was the sun god Amun, whose name means ''hidden.'' Bookmark this idea: We're coming back to it in a few weeks. From this word, we get ''cornu ammonis,'' which refers to a region of the brain that governs two faculties of extreme importance to Lost: long-term memory and spatial reasoning. In other words: time and space.
Doc, you're lapsing into crazy talk again. Give me something solid I can take back to my friends. Even if Lost is intentionally nodding to this Khonsu dude, how does it connect further to aliens? Because of Indiana Jones.
WHAT?! Khonsu — along with his parents — was the guardian deities of the Egyptian city of Tanis, a crucial location in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's where Indy found the Well of Souls (not a bad way to think of the Island) and, later, the Ark of the Covenant itself, which contains the protective power of God, who in the Old Testament took the form of...a wandering dark cloud (think: Smokey). Tanis is also the site of a major ''necropolis,'' or Egyptian city of the dead. Now, remember those Egyptian hieroglyphics in the Hatch?
[Headshaking bewilderment]They translated into ''underworld,'' which —
YOU'RE EVADING THE ISSUE HERE, WHICH IS ALIENS. THERE ARE NO ALIENS IN RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK!But there are supposed to be aliens in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in theaters May 22. Or have you not read EW's recent article on the movie in the magazine's Summer Movie Preview? Apparently, the Indiana Jones franchise is about to make a big leap from mystical fantasy into alien-oriented sci-fi. Is Lost about to make the same leap? [Indeed, my editor, Mr. Joshua ''I just got engaged, woo-hoo!'' Rich, is so taken by this connection, he adds the following: ''Lost and Raiders of the Lost Ark do share an important word in their titles. In fact, what does 'Lost' mean in the Raiders title? The Ark wasn't really 'lost,' per se — it was hidden, tucked away, placed somewhere so that people couldn't find it, somewhere that required all sorts of supernatural trickery in order to get to. BY SOMEONE. FOR A REASON.]
Okay, you're just being silly here. I'll grant you, you've made some nifty connections between Smokey and this Khonsu fellow, but dragging Indiana Jones into your insanity via this flimsy connection to Tanis and the climactic scene of Raiders en route to proving your theory that extraterrestrials play a key role in the Island mythology of Lost is just plain poppycock! Okay. But what about The X-Files?
What about it? Surely you've noticed the enormous number of analogous elements between Lost and The X-Files, a TV show practically synonymous with aliens?
No, I haven't, but I'm sure you're going to tell me. Yes, I am. Let's forget for a moment that the mythology of The X-Files also forged links between aliens and ancient civilizations, including glyph-happy cultures like the Mayans, Egyptians, and others —
JEFF JENSEN: Okay, let's forget that.DOC JENSEN: There's at least three undeniable parallels. (1) A debate between reason and faith embodied by two main, rival characters. In Lost, it's Jack and Locke; in The X-Files, it's Scully and Mulder. (2) A tragic villain who possesses forbidden knowledge and enormous manipulative powers. In Lost, it's Ben, who had a cancerous tumor on his spine; in The X-Files, it's Cigarette Smoking Man, also known as Cancer Man. (3) Both shows have some kind of elemental black substance imbued with sentient consciousness. In Lost, it's Smokey; in The X-Files, it's the black oil, which, as it turned out, was a repository for alien life seeking to recombine with a more traditional body. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Are you trying to suggest that Smokey might also be a vehicle for a disembodied alien mind? I'm thinking that it's a possibility. Like, what if to cheat death, the alien culture that was once on the Island downloaded the massive electrical current of their collective consciousness into a medium or vehicle that could sustain it? You know: Twister meets Being John Malkovich.
So if Smokey is E.T., then would Ben be its Elliott? Ha! That's pretty funny. Actually, I was going to suggest that Ben might be trying to help Smokey ''phone home,'' if you will. Like, what if Smokey's spaceship crashed on the Island a loooong time ago, and the destruction of the vessel's warp engines ruptured reality and created the time-space phenomenon around the Island, and ever since, Smokey has been waiting for the day that our civilization catches up to its civilization so we can create technology that could either summon a rescue vessel or even repair its own spaceship (which is buried deep below the Island) and go home? In a sense, Smokey could be a castaway, too; he's...lost.
But how does Ben fit into that theory? You said he was helping Smokey? Right, well you know that part about the ship's warp drive rupturing reality and creating that time-space phenomenon?
Yeah? Well, what's happened is that, ever since, people have been coming to the Island and trying to figure out how to exploit that anomaly for their advantage.
How so? The anomaly can be harnessed for time travel. Smokey has a problem with that, because he doesn't want the timeline screwed around with in any way that could prevent human civilization from becoming sophisticated enough to fix his ship. Ben has been helping Smokey in that effort.
Why? I don't know. Like I said: I was going to suggest this theory, but I decided against it.
Because it's totally stupid? No, because I'm not totally convinced Ben really has the kind of monster-in-the-closet rapport with Smokey like everyone else is currently theorizing.
It looked pretty obvious to me. He sicced Smokey on those freighter freaks like a bloodthirsty pit bull! Actually, we don't know if he did that at all. We're just assuming he did, based on the appearance of cause and effect. But like Desmond David Hume's philosopher namesake always insisted, you can't always trust the appearance of cause and effect. For example, consider this scenario: What if Ben didn't go to Smokey's hideaway but instead got into a time machine, projected his consciousness ahead in time an hour or later, and learned about Smokey's attack on New Otherton, then zipped back and planned an escape plan around such a plan?
Yeah, I buy that. But I'm not buying your alien crap or Smokey-is-an-E.T. nonsense. It's easier for me to believe that Smokey is a supernatural entity, like that ''Jinn'' thing you mentioned a couple weeks back in your wormhole/time-travel theory. Okay. But just remember what the late, great Arthur C. Clarke said.
And what did he say? ''Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.''
You know, it's amazing to me more people don't find you annoying. I don't know why I even put up with you. You and me both.
Bye, Doc.
Bye, Jeff.
Tomorrow: my recap of ''Something Nice Back Home.''
Next week: therapy.
Doc Jensen
Awaiting tonight's Jack flash forward, Doc Jensen explores the show's links to ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' ''The X-Files,'' and other forebears
By Jeff Jensen
Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''THE TEASE!
We begin with some cryptic intel provided by exec producer Damon Lindelof at the request of the author seeking illumination about tonight's 10th episode of Lost's fourth season, ''Something Nice Back Home'' — a flash forward affair focusing on Dr. Jack Shepherd, whose Island-present circumstances are currently marked by a squirmy stomach and shameful despair over trusting these freaky freighter folk...
Sayeth Damon: ''Remember after the finale last season when everyone was asking us why Jack was blathering on about his father in what turned out to be our first flash-forward? It was just the booze and pills talking, right? And hey...why did he start taking pills in the first place?''
Sounds like a case of Physician: Heal thyself!
READER MAIL!
Special ''Shape of Things to Come'' Edition
If my overstuffed mailbox (JeffJensenEW@aol.com) is any indication, last week's episode may have been one of the show's most theory-sparking, imagination-engaging, question-provoking ever. To wit:
In your recap of ''The Shape of Things to Come,'' you mentioned how the game of Risk played by Locke, Hurley, and Sawyer foreshadowed Ben's risky and failed gambit to save his daughter. But something else that could have much more significance was Hurley's comment: ''Australia is the key to the game.'' Maybe I'm just taking it as more than it is, but I believe it is worth some speculation. Something to do with Mu, perhaps? — Marina
Dear Marina: Excellent point. I was much too busy excavating possible links to the conspicuously dropped date of Ben's flash forward — Oct. 24, 2005 — that I missed many obvious bits of intrigue, especially that Risk business. I'm not sure Hurley's Australia line was a nod to the lost continent of Mu — but it could be more significant than a mere reminder that this entire saga started in Sydney. Remember the season 2 episode called ''S.O.S.,'' in which Bernard and Rose visited a faith healer in the outback? Well, the episode featured a shot of a natural landmark of great significance in mystic/fringe science circles, a butte known as Ayers Rock. The Aborigines consider it a flashpoint of creation energy and entrance into an eternal realm of supernatural synchronicity called ''Dreamtime''; New Agers think it's an electromagnetic hot spot pulsing with mystical energy; and UFO buffs think it's an alien landing pad. (The correct answer, as I will soon prove, is actually...alien landing pad!)
Sci-fi hoo-ha aside, I choose to see the Risk game as an expression of character ideas. For example, the most interesting thing to me about the game was Sawyer's silly, reckless play to put Australia at risk just so he can acquire...Siberia. Now, what do Australia and Siberia have in common? They're both synonymous with being veritable prisons (Australia being a former penal colony; Siberia being the place the Soviets shipped dissidents and other ''Others''). So here was Sawyer, trading one prison country for another. This, to me, mirrors the flash-forward fate of the Oceanic 6, for whom rescue will lead to another, more figurative form of imprisonment, and perhaps serves as literal foreshadowing for what will happen to Sawyer himself.
If Ben can time travel, why doesn't/can't he go back in time to save Alex? — Lisa
Dear Lisa: I think he can't change the past because of ''course correction,'' the Lost idea that changing the past is all but impossible. Yeah, maybe he could alter the form of Alex's death, but Fate wants her dead, so it would just find another way to do it. Further, I don't think Ben would even give it a try, because even though Widmore ''changed the rules,'' I actually think Ben is still playing the game honorably, with respect for the integrity of the cosmos. Sure, he threatened to get tit-for-tat with Widmore by swearing to slay Penelope...but who says he's telling the truth? What if Ben is merely saying as much in order to bait Widmore into making a strategic mistake?
And the Fan Theory of the Week goes to...
Bill Geoghegan, who writes: ''Hi Jeff! After re-watching ''The Shape of Things to Come'' for the third time I had a minor epiphany about Charles Widmore — or should I say Captain Hanso?! Here goes: 'That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again.' When Widmore makes his claim to the Island during the bedroom scene with Ben, it's frustratingly vague, leaving so much unsaid. It hints at a history that may stretch back ...well...further than would seem natural. Like the ageless Mr. Alpert, Charles Widmore may be a man whose appearance might seem downright youthful when given his real age. Exactly what is Widmore's connection to the Island and when did he come to call it his own? Drawing a conclusion based on the clues we have right now, I'd say that Widmore's real identity is...Magnus Hanso! Yep, Captain of the Black Rock. He found the Island by accident, shipwrecked maybe, but eventually he mastered its secrets. For a time he ruled it as his own, but ultimately, somehow, got expelled from its life-preserving shores. Can't you just see him on the deck of some old English freighter, barking out orders to the sailors? And a slave trader, no less — just the type of occupation you'd expect of this sneering, grizzled old buzzard. Besides the perfect personality match, there's an even bigger clue: his bidding on the journal from the Black Rock. Obviously, he knows something of this ship and its connection to the Island. But how? And lastly, there's his sponsoring of the sailing competition that Desmond entered. If Widmore was once a seafaring man himself, it would be natural that he'd take pleasure in the epic challenges of men crossing the high seas.''
Dear Bill: Your grasp of Lost arcana — gleaned from the blast-door map and ''The Lost Experience'' (in case any ''non-cultists'' out there feel...well, lost) — dazzles me, so much so that your hypothesis is my new default Charles Widmore theory. A no prize to you!
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!Toward an extraterrestrial and Egypt-y theory of Lost — in which Doc Jensen converses with the only normal person he knows: Himself!
JEFF JENSEN: Hey Doc!DOC JENSEN: Hey Jeff! How are you?
Swell! Listen, some of my ''non-cultist'' Lost friends have a question about last week's episode, ''The Shape of Things to Come,'' and they wanted to know if you had any insight. Do you have a moment? Sure. Let me just put down by Bible concordance and complete collection of Carmine Infantino Flash comics and I can be mentally present with you. [THUMP!]
So you really watch the show with that stuff? Nah. I watch — and appreciate — the show just like everyone else. I don't consult that stuff until days later, either for fun to write my Doc Jensen columns, which, to be clear, is fun, too.
Interesting. You know, most obsessed fans express their fandom by, say, buying Jimmy Choo shoes. But you, like, read books. You're weird! I know! Anyway, you had a question?
Oh, yes. Okay, you know that secret room in Ben's house, and that wall or door with all those hieroglyphics carved in it? Yes.
Ummm...what was that? It is further proof that the ancient civilization that once lived on the Island — the society responsible for the four-toed statue and the ruins where Ben tried to get Locke to kill his dad — was actually a very advanced civilization from another planet.
[Silence]You look puzzled.
Well, yeah. Are you suggesting...aliens? On the Island? Yes.
How do you figure that? Because the glyphs are Egyptian. And as everyone knows, the aliens built the pyramids.
I think you're going to have to give me a little more proof than a nutty conspiracy theory. What clues do you see in Lost that suggest aliens? You mean, besides the conspicuous dropping of Philip K. Dick's book Valis earlier this season?
Sure. Besides that. Well, according to Koobie at DocArzt.com, the simplest translation of those Egyptian hieroglyphics on the door is: ''to summon protection.''
JEFF JENSEN: Interesting: That's valuable info to ponder, even if this alien theory of yours doesn't add up. DOC JENSEN: Good point. Consider it pondered. Now, let's assume as correct the conventional wisdom that ''to summon protection'' is a reference to Smokey the Monster — i.e. ''the Island's security system,'' to quote the late, lamented Rousseau.
Okay. Now, there's an Egyptian deity named Khonsu, or Khonshu, a lunar God, who functioned as a bloodthirsty avenging angel for pharaohs and protector to night travelers. Sounds kinda like Smokey, killing freighter mercs for King Ben and providing safe passage for the castaways as they escaped into the evening. Think of Smokey as the Island's superhero — like the Dark Knight himself, Batman, or better yet, Moon Knight, a Marvel superhero who gets his powers from — you guessed it — the lunar god Khonshu!
Okay, a couple things. First, I didn't guess, and would never have guessed that in a thousand years. Second, those connections could be pure coincidence. You can't honestly tell me that this ''Khonsu'' really has anything to do with Lost.No? According to Wikipedia, Khonsu was also known to ''increase male virility'' (see: Jin's increased sperm count on the Island) and ''aid in healing'' (see: Locke, Rose, Patchy). He also was a deity of childbirth (see: Island fertility issues). Khonsu's father, by the way, was the sun god Amun, whose name means ''hidden.'' Bookmark this idea: We're coming back to it in a few weeks. From this word, we get ''cornu ammonis,'' which refers to a region of the brain that governs two faculties of extreme importance to Lost: long-term memory and spatial reasoning. In other words: time and space.
Doc, you're lapsing into crazy talk again. Give me something solid I can take back to my friends. Even if Lost is intentionally nodding to this Khonsu dude, how does it connect further to aliens? Because of Indiana Jones.
WHAT?! Khonsu — along with his parents — was the guardian deities of the Egyptian city of Tanis, a crucial location in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's where Indy found the Well of Souls (not a bad way to think of the Island) and, later, the Ark of the Covenant itself, which contains the protective power of God, who in the Old Testament took the form of...a wandering dark cloud (think: Smokey). Tanis is also the site of a major ''necropolis,'' or Egyptian city of the dead. Now, remember those Egyptian hieroglyphics in the Hatch?
[Headshaking bewilderment]They translated into ''underworld,'' which —
YOU'RE EVADING THE ISSUE HERE, WHICH IS ALIENS. THERE ARE NO ALIENS IN RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK!But there are supposed to be aliens in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in theaters May 22. Or have you not read EW's recent article on the movie in the magazine's Summer Movie Preview? Apparently, the Indiana Jones franchise is about to make a big leap from mystical fantasy into alien-oriented sci-fi. Is Lost about to make the same leap? [Indeed, my editor, Mr. Joshua ''I just got engaged, woo-hoo!'' Rich, is so taken by this connection, he adds the following: ''Lost and Raiders of the Lost Ark do share an important word in their titles. In fact, what does 'Lost' mean in the Raiders title? The Ark wasn't really 'lost,' per se — it was hidden, tucked away, placed somewhere so that people couldn't find it, somewhere that required all sorts of supernatural trickery in order to get to. BY SOMEONE. FOR A REASON.]
Okay, you're just being silly here. I'll grant you, you've made some nifty connections between Smokey and this Khonsu fellow, but dragging Indiana Jones into your insanity via this flimsy connection to Tanis and the climactic scene of Raiders en route to proving your theory that extraterrestrials play a key role in the Island mythology of Lost is just plain poppycock! Okay. But what about The X-Files?
What about it? Surely you've noticed the enormous number of analogous elements between Lost and The X-Files, a TV show practically synonymous with aliens?
No, I haven't, but I'm sure you're going to tell me. Yes, I am. Let's forget for a moment that the mythology of The X-Files also forged links between aliens and ancient civilizations, including glyph-happy cultures like the Mayans, Egyptians, and others —
JEFF JENSEN: Okay, let's forget that.DOC JENSEN: There's at least three undeniable parallels. (1) A debate between reason and faith embodied by two main, rival characters. In Lost, it's Jack and Locke; in The X-Files, it's Scully and Mulder. (2) A tragic villain who possesses forbidden knowledge and enormous manipulative powers. In Lost, it's Ben, who had a cancerous tumor on his spine; in The X-Files, it's Cigarette Smoking Man, also known as Cancer Man. (3) Both shows have some kind of elemental black substance imbued with sentient consciousness. In Lost, it's Smokey; in The X-Files, it's the black oil, which, as it turned out, was a repository for alien life seeking to recombine with a more traditional body. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Are you trying to suggest that Smokey might also be a vehicle for a disembodied alien mind? I'm thinking that it's a possibility. Like, what if to cheat death, the alien culture that was once on the Island downloaded the massive electrical current of their collective consciousness into a medium or vehicle that could sustain it? You know: Twister meets Being John Malkovich.
So if Smokey is E.T., then would Ben be its Elliott? Ha! That's pretty funny. Actually, I was going to suggest that Ben might be trying to help Smokey ''phone home,'' if you will. Like, what if Smokey's spaceship crashed on the Island a loooong time ago, and the destruction of the vessel's warp engines ruptured reality and created the time-space phenomenon around the Island, and ever since, Smokey has been waiting for the day that our civilization catches up to its civilization so we can create technology that could either summon a rescue vessel or even repair its own spaceship (which is buried deep below the Island) and go home? In a sense, Smokey could be a castaway, too; he's...lost.
But how does Ben fit into that theory? You said he was helping Smokey? Right, well you know that part about the ship's warp drive rupturing reality and creating that time-space phenomenon?
Yeah? Well, what's happened is that, ever since, people have been coming to the Island and trying to figure out how to exploit that anomaly for their advantage.
How so? The anomaly can be harnessed for time travel. Smokey has a problem with that, because he doesn't want the timeline screwed around with in any way that could prevent human civilization from becoming sophisticated enough to fix his ship. Ben has been helping Smokey in that effort.
Why? I don't know. Like I said: I was going to suggest this theory, but I decided against it.
Because it's totally stupid? No, because I'm not totally convinced Ben really has the kind of monster-in-the-closet rapport with Smokey like everyone else is currently theorizing.
It looked pretty obvious to me. He sicced Smokey on those freighter freaks like a bloodthirsty pit bull! Actually, we don't know if he did that at all. We're just assuming he did, based on the appearance of cause and effect. But like Desmond David Hume's philosopher namesake always insisted, you can't always trust the appearance of cause and effect. For example, consider this scenario: What if Ben didn't go to Smokey's hideaway but instead got into a time machine, projected his consciousness ahead in time an hour or later, and learned about Smokey's attack on New Otherton, then zipped back and planned an escape plan around such a plan?
Yeah, I buy that. But I'm not buying your alien crap or Smokey-is-an-E.T. nonsense. It's easier for me to believe that Smokey is a supernatural entity, like that ''Jinn'' thing you mentioned a couple weeks back in your wormhole/time-travel theory. Okay. But just remember what the late, great Arthur C. Clarke said.
And what did he say? ''Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.''
You know, it's amazing to me more people don't find you annoying. I don't know why I even put up with you. You and me both.
Bye, Doc.
Bye, Jeff.
Tomorrow: my recap of ''Something Nice Back Home.''
Next week: therapy.
Doc Jensen
For The Lost Boys Fans
In the lower article Ed suggested I not forget to mention the Television Program Listing Magazine's inclusion of Josh Holloway - James "Sawyer" Ford - on their "TV's Sexiest Stars' list. Here's a mention and pic from a three year old Entertainment Weekly cover - issue 815, in case you can't make out the fine print. This cover contained a spoiler, touting Boone as "Lost's first casualty" before his final appearance aired. First, "Major character" casualty, I think they meant, since the 815 survivors had already lost Seth Norris (who hadn't even been given a name other than "the pilot" at that time), Joanna, Gary Troup (guy sucked into turbine)... and didn't Ethan's slaughter of Scott predate Boone's death too? Of course three years has brought about an awful lot of casualties (including Charlie, shown on the cover - and is anyone expecting Michael, also shown, to get away from the island a second time?) - way too many to keep the order straight.
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