Doc Jensen on ''The Variable,'' which puts Daniel in full effect, in both foreground and back story. Plus: Revisiting the Orientation Film from season 2, a couple of clarifications and corrections, and a little TOE tapping
IT'S ALL TOO MUCH? Sure, it may seem confusing at times, but pull yourself together -- the Doc's Geeky Preamble will surely inspire
By Jeff Jensen
Welcome to the Planet Fiction that is Lost. My name is Doc Jensen, archaeologist of impossible possibilities, currently on temporary work release from the Santa Rosa Mental Health — err, I mean, Mental CRACKPOT GENIUS Institute. Please note the placard on the door of my office:
''To be a scientist is to commit to a life of confusion punctuated by rare moments of clarity. When I leave the office at night, the confusion comes with me. Ruminating over these equations, seeking patterns, looking for hidden relationships, trying to make contact with hidden data — it's all uncertainty and possibility engaged in an endless chaotic dance. Every so often the blur resolves, but the respite is short lived; the next puzzle demands focus. This, really, is the joy of being a scientist. Established truths are comforting, but it is the mysteries that make the soul ache and render a life of exploration worth living.'' —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, from the new issue of Wired, guest-edited by Lost co-creator and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams.
The ''endless chaotic dance'' of (seemingly) infinite possibilities — that's what I love about investigating the mystery matrix of Lost. Or, for those who speak High Geek: Think of this column as a trading ship traversing the channels that exist among countless alternative potentialities that glitter within Lost like a monolithic theoretical snowflake floating in 196,833 dimensional space, whose captain is fond of stopping on the most unlikely and obscure of many possible worlds. [A No Prize if you know the reference: JeffJensenEW@aol.com is where you should send your submissions.] I promise you no answers in this column — just the crazy joy of Sherlocking through this deep and shifty show. Emphasis on crazy. Yeah, I know: It's not like we're trying to find the underlying order of the universe, or locate the sub-atomic super-strings that stitch together the fabric of the cosmos, or plant flags in the secret dimensions coiled in the folds of the observable universe. No, excavating the secret archaeology of Lost isn't like that at all.
It's wayyyyyyyy cooler!
'Lost': King Faraday
Doc Jensen on ''The Variable,'' which puts Daniel in full effect, in both foreground and back story. Plus: Revisiting the Orientation Film from season 2, a couple of clarifications and corrections, and a little TOE tapping
Buzz up!More
IT'S ALL TOO MUCH? Sure, it may seem confusing at times, but pull yourself together -- the Doc's Geeky Preamble will surely inspire
ABC
All About
Lost
By Jeff Jensen Jeff Jensen
Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''PREAMBLE: A GEEKY RAMBLE
Welcome to the Planet Fiction that is Lost. My name is Doc Jensen, archaeologist of impossible possibilities, currently on temporary work release from the Santa Rosa Mental Health — err, I mean, Mental CRACKPOT GENIUS Institute. Please note the placard on the door of my office:
''To be a scientist is to commit to a life of confusion punctuated by rare moments of clarity. When I leave the office at night, the confusion comes with me. Ruminating over these equations, seeking patterns, looking for hidden relationships, trying to make contact with hidden data — it's all uncertainty and possibility engaged in an endless chaotic dance. Every so often the blur resolves, but the respite is short lived; the next puzzle demands focus. This, really, is the joy of being a scientist. Established truths are comforting, but it is the mysteries that make the soul ache and render a life of exploration worth living.'' —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, from the new issue of Wired, guest-edited by Lost co-creator and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams.
The ''endless chaotic dance'' of (seemingly) infinite possibilities — that's what I love about investigating the mystery matrix of Lost. Or, for those who speak High Geek: Think of this column as a trading ship traversing the channels that exist among countless alternative potentialities that glitter within Lost like a monolithic theoretical snowflake floating in 196,833 dimensional space, whose captain is fond of stopping on the most unlikely and obscure of many possible worlds. [A No Prize if you know the reference: JeffJensenEW@aol.com is where you should send your submissions.] I promise you no answers in this column — just the crazy joy of Sherlocking through this deep and shifty show. Emphasis on crazy. Yeah, I know: It's not like we're trying to find the underlying order of the universe, or locate the sub-atomic super-strings that stitch together the fabric of the cosmos, or plant flags in the secret dimensions coiled in the folds of the observable universe. No, excavating the secret archaeology of Lost isn't like that at all.
It's wayyyyyyyy cooler!
'Lost': King Faraday
Doc Jensen on ''The Variable,'' which puts Daniel in full effect, in both foreground and back story. Plus: Revisiting the Orientation Film from season 2, a couple of clarifications and corrections, and a little TOE tapping
Buzz up!More
IT'S ALL TOO MUCH? Sure, it may seem confusing at times, but pull yourself together -- the Doc's Geeky Preamble will surely inspire
ABC
All About
Lost
By Jeff Jensen Jeff Jensen
Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''PREAMBLE: A GEEKY RAMBLE
Welcome to the Planet Fiction that is Lost. My name is Doc Jensen, archaeologist of impossible possibilities, currently on temporary work release from the Santa Rosa Mental Health — err, I mean, Mental CRACKPOT GENIUS Institute. Please note the placard on the door of my office:
''To be a scientist is to commit to a life of confusion punctuated by rare moments of clarity. When I leave the office at night, the confusion comes with me. Ruminating over these equations, seeking patterns, looking for hidden relationships, trying to make contact with hidden data — it's all uncertainty and possibility engaged in an endless chaotic dance. Every so often the blur resolves, but the respite is short lived; the next puzzle demands focus. This, really, is the joy of being a scientist. Established truths are comforting, but it is the mysteries that make the soul ache and render a life of exploration worth living.'' —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, from the new issue of Wired, guest-edited by Lost co-creator and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams.
The ''endless chaotic dance'' of (seemingly) infinite possibilities — that's what I love about investigating the mystery matrix of Lost. Or, for those who speak High Geek: Think of this column as a trading ship traversing the channels that exist among countless alternative potentialities that glitter within Lost like a monolithic theoretical snowflake floating in 196,833 dimensional space, whose captain is fond of stopping on the most unlikely and obscure of many possible worlds. [A No Prize if you know the reference: JeffJensenEW@aol.com is where you should send your submissions.] I promise you no answers in this column — just the crazy joy of Sherlocking through this deep and shifty show. Emphasis on crazy. Yeah, I know: It's not like we're trying to find the underlying order of the universe, or locate the sub-atomic super-strings that stitch together the fabric of the cosmos, or plant flags in the secret dimensions coiled in the folds of the observable universe. No, excavating the secret archaeology of Lost isn't like that at all.
It's wayyyyyyyy cooler!
PREVIEW: ''THE VARIABLE''
Are you up on Michael Faraday, one of the founding fathers of electromagnetic science? Could you recognize an allegorical Faraday Cage if you saw one? How about a Faraday Effect? On tonight's Lost, one Mr. Daniel Faraday — named after the famed 19th century Michael Faraday — will be in full effect, in both foreground and back story. We saw the fuzzy-frazzled physicist return to the Island two weeks ago, looking refreshed from his off-Island sabbatical in Ann Arbor, but also sporting the ominous colors of the Dharma Initiative's secret Black Swan Team. As Hurley reminded us, these negatively attired stormtroopers are currently building Lost's version of the Death Star, the Hatch, whose button-regulated tractor beam yanked the castaways out of the sky like a powerful magnet pulling metal thingies out of...something. If Faraday is one of these Men in Black in charge of Dharma's technological terror, does that make him — what? — Grand Moff Tarkin? Or perhaps (gulp) this faithless Imperial stooge...
I like the washed-out black and white sheen that's been given to that classic Star Wars moment — it gives it a certain old and damaged Orientation Film feel, specifically the one that the castaways found in the Hatch back in the third episode of season 2. As your (quack) doctor in Lostology, allow me to give you a piece of advice: Watch it again, as at least some of it has direct bearing on what is currently happening back in Dharma 1979 on Lost. (Note: This version does not include a short snippet of missing footage that was later found by Mr. Eko, which instructs Swan occupants to refrain from using the computer to communicate with the outside world.)
Note the following:
1. Dr. Candle's left arm does not move during the entire film.
2. Dharma's founders were a pair of University of Michigan scientists, Gerald and Karen DeGroot. An industrialist named Alvar Hanso funded their work.
3. Remember — nay, MEMORIZE — this line as if it were scripture: ''Not long after the experiments began, however, there was...an 'incident'...and since that time, the following protocol has been observed...''
4. The copyright date on the film: 1980.
5. The year that The Empire Strikes Back was released: 1980.
Point No. 5 probably has nothing to do with anything.
Some thoughts on each of these points, but in reverse order:
4. THE CRYPTIC COPYRIGHT The time-traveling castaways are currently parked in December 1977. So we're still a couple years away from...well, whatever this copyright truly signifies. My interpretation has long been that Dr. Pierre Chang, in his Marvin Candle guise, rolled film in the Year of Empire. But perhaps the copyright date represents the year that the Hanso Foundation took steps to legally lock down all of Dharma's material in order to control it and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands or being publicly distributed.
3. HAS ''THE INCIDENT'' BEEN FORESHADOWED? Two weeks ago, in my recap of ''Some Like It Hoth,'' I speculated that Hurley might try to rally his fellow time-travelers to mount an attack on the Swan in order to prevent its creation, thus changing history. Perhaps the Incident represents their (failed) attempt at doing so. SPOILER ALERT! This past week, ABC released the official title for the two-hour season finale airing on May 13. Guess what it is? Yep: ''The Incident.''
2. THE ROOTS OF DEGROOT: KAREN EDITION Greg Egan's acclaimed 1995 sci-fi novel Distress is a book that teems with semi-plausible Lost connections (South Pacific island setting, mysterious diseases, invading mercenaries, and the opening line is very Miles: ''All right. He's dead. Go ahead and talk to him.''), but what really blew my mind was stumbling across a character named Karin De Groot. She's the assistant to a physicist who is on the verge of discovering the one true Theory of Everything, a real scientific term, known by its acronym, TOE. A number of radical religious groups, known as ''Ignorance Cults,'' are seeking to stop De Groot's boss from finishing the TOE, lest it trigger an ''Aleph Moment'' that would transform the world by uniting all people under a single, accurate understanding of the nature of reality. Indeed, through the wonky science-magic of quantum mechanics, broadcasting this TOE would actually retroactively create the world. (See: John Archibald Wheeler's feedback loop/''participatory universe'' theories, discussed in an earlier edition of Doc Jensen.) Might these ''What lies in the shadow of the statue?'' people currently running around Lost be the show's version of a mystery-preserving Ignorance Cult? And in the context of Lost, would these be good guys (because mystery is good) or bad guys (because the truth of the Island should be shared with the world)? And is there a connection between TOE and the Island's Four-Toed Statue? AGAIN WITH EGAN! After I first mentioned Greg Egan's work in last week's column, reader Valerie Naas hit me back with the suggestion that the Australian author's entire catalog rings with Lost resonance. She suggests checking his short stories ''Lost Continent,'' ''In Numbers,'' ''Demon's Passage,'' and (get this) the Hugo award-winning ''Oceanic,'' all of which can be found in the collection Dark Integers and Other Stories.
2b. THE ROOTS OF DE GROOT: GERRY AND ALVAR There are echoes of the De Groot/Hanso relationship in the real-life link between psychologist Ian Stevenson and a very wealthy inventor whose work most likely affected the lives of every single person reading this column.
Like the fictitious Gerald and Karen De Groot, Ian Stevenson — not to be confused with the English cartoonist whose work includes the postcard book Lost Heroes — was deeply interested in parapsychology, a fringe science that encompasses all sorts of mind-over-matter weirdness evidenced by Lost characters such as Walt and Miles. Stevenson was influenced by Theosophy, a freaky fusion of classical mythology, mysticism, cutting-edge science, and exposure to the more respectable Eastern religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. He experimented with LSD, which he was inspired to do after meeting Lost-referenced author Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, Island, Doors of Perception), whose coterie also includes a man who lent his name to Lost's ageless enigma, Richard Alpert. FUN FACT! Huxley — whose life and work interfaces with Lost in so many ways he deserves a Doc Jensen column unto himself — died on the same day as another major Lost-cited author, C.S. Lewis. (You know who also died on the same day? JFK. Weird, huh? Now, check this out.)
But Stevenson is most famous for his fixation on reincarnation. During the 1960s and 1970s, Stevenson traveled the world and interviewed scores of people, hoping to find evidence of past-life experiences. He was funded by The Parapsychology Foundation, as well as Chester Carlson, the inventor of xerography and the founding father of...photocopying. Carlson — whose second wife claimed to have extrasensory powers and inspired her husband to fund research into paranormal possibilities — bequeathed bunches of money to Stevenson's employer, the University of Virginia, to fund his research. (For more info, check out this autobiographical essay written by Stevenson.
There are so many nifty parallels with Lost here. We know Dharma — created by academics with fringe science interests; funded by a rich industrialist — was very interested in parapsychology and was influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism. And given the resurrection powers of the Island and the season's many references to Egyptian history and iconography, we're left considering the very real possibility that Dharma was keenly interested in concepts like life after death and reincarnation. So were the ancient Egyptians, from whom we get the idea of ''transmigration of the soul'' or ''metempsychosis,'' to use a really big word cited frequently in James Joyce's Ulysses, this Lost season's biggest literary reference (to date). As for Chester ''Call me Mr. Xerox'' Carlson, my mind wants to link beyond Alvar Hanso to Pierre Chang, making copies of Bunny 15 down there in the Orchid, not to mention making copies himself via all those different orientation films. Speaking of Chang:
1. WHASSUP WITH DR. CHANG/CANDLE'S IMMOBILE ARM? Many Lost theorists believe that the Dharma Dude of Many Names lost it during the Incident. Me? I think he...chopped it off himself! EWWWWWWW! Why would I think that?! Because...
EVERYTHING IS FAKE. (KINDA.)The Good Father Theory of Island History, or: I'd Give My Left Arm to Save My Son!
A couple weeks ago, I put forth the hypothesis that the Purge never happened, that it was part of a scam engineered by Ben to unseat Charles Widmore as leader of the Others. Most of you thought I was as loony as Connect Four-playing Lenny. After all, we did see Ben honest-to-god kill his abusive father in a Dharma bus with a canister of gas, right? Moreover, as Sarah Kittel noted: ''Your Ben-tricked-Widmore theory doesn't make any sense. What about all of the bodies in the open-air grave seen in 'The Man Behind The Curtain' and 'Cabin Fever'!?''
Good point — one that I was totally expecting. The Dharma mass grave — the final resting place for all 40 victims of the Purge — would seem to be conclusive proof that the gassing of Dharmaville really occurred. Then again, we're dealing with a show in which someone (Charles Widmore, if you believe Mr. Friendly from ''Meet Kevin Johnson'') dug up a whole cemetery in Thailand, strapped the exhumed corpses into an old Oceanic Airlines plane, and planted the whole thing at the bottom of the ocean to fool the planet into thinking that the 815ers were all dead. (And you think my fake Purge idea is crazy?!?!) Maybe Benjamin Linus did something similar. Maybe he got his hands on several dozen moldy corpses and dumped them in a pit in order to sell John Locke (and by extension, the castaways) on the lie of the Purge...
Okay, okay, I must admit: I am not 100-percent sold on my own line of reasoning. That's why I called it a hypothesis, not a theory. But I am convinced that there is some kind of Big Twist about the Purge. There could be many possibilities, but the one I want to focus on today brings us back to Dr. Chang's dismembered arm.
My contention is that at some point very soon, someone is going to sit Dr. Chang down and spill the beans on everything that's going to happen in the future. The Incident. The Purge. Oceanic 815. The fact that Miles Straume is his infant son, all grown up. Everything. (My prediction for loose-lipped future revealer: Miles himself, as part of an effort to bond with — and save — his doomed dad.) Moreover, I think Pierre Chang is going to find all of this out right about the time that the quantum-leaping castaways figure out how to leave 1979 and get back to the present. Dr. Chang will then find himself in a very, very, very tricky position: Should he try to change history, no matter how impossible (yeah, yeah, ''whatever happened, happened'') — or should he try to preserve it? Actually, this is a no-brainer. He's going to choose the latter. Why? Because he's a father who will do anything he can to protect his son. Chang is going to realize that in order to save Miles, he has to ensure that future Island history comes to pass. He must chase his wife and son off the Island; he must make sure the Swan gets built and that it brings down Oceanic 815; he must make sure that Miles comes back to the Dharma past, so he can make sure Miles can go back to the future in 1979. Got that?
And that's why Dr. Chang is going to take a chainsaw to his left arm...or at least, shoot a film in which he pretends that his left arm can't move. Because he has to. That's just the way it happened in the future. That orientation film, with all of its conspicuous details, is just one more thing that must exist in the future, in order to preserve a history that will assure Miles' safety. Ditto the Purge. I think Ben and the Others have their own reasons for preserving established history. And because they, too, are aware of future events, they executed mass murder simply because the script of history demanded it. That makes them sound rather heartless, so here's a scenario that lets them off the hook just a teensy bit: Perhaps something happened to Chang, and his Dharma colleagues reversed course on his history-preservation gambit, and the Others had to take drastic measures to stop them. And, as an added bonus, Ben got to kill his crappy father, too.
All of these possibilities appeal to me. They seem reasonable, as they conform to the logic of the Predestination and Ontological paradoxes of time-travel theory. Plus, they're all very prisoners-of-fate dark and ironic and tragic, and I loves me the dark and ironic and tragic.
Except Twilight. Don't ever talk to me about Twilight.
And speaking of sucktastic vampire stories...
DR. ACULA IS NOT AN ANAGRAM!Corrections, clarifications, and other crap
The name Daniel Fierman may be familiar to longtime EW readers. For many years, he was an ace writer and editor at the magazine, and I have great memories of collaborating with him on our Star Wars and coverage, among other things. In fact, Dan edited my first big Lost TOE — the Evil Aaron Theory, circa season 2 — and actually helped finish it after my brain melted down on deadline day. This column owes him another debt, for it was Mr. Fierman who coined ''Doc Jensen.'' Dan is now an editor at GQ, and last week he sent me the following note about my ''Shark vs. Bear''/Dr. Acula theory: ''I feel compelled to point this out: Who would win a fight between a bear and a shark is a long, long noted bar fight. It's kinda the animal kingdom version of Maris v. Mantle.'' This is what I get for doing all my drinking in my office instead of the local tavern. (See: the last episode of Totally Lost.'') Dan: Thank you.
Meanwhile, Christopher Lastrapes emailed me to bust me on my erroneous use of the word ''anagram.'' ''While you're right about Rainier-Canton [being an anagram for reincarnation], Dr. Acula is not an anagram, for the letters are not rearranged. It's simply strategic placing of a period inside of a word. In fact, if spelled out, it should be Doctor Acula, which encompasses more letters than Dracula. So if you wanted to make Doctor Acula an anagram, you could use Octo Dracula, the vampire that had octuplets.'' Is that a Nadya Suleman slam?! Wow. Bunches of you — including Jeffrey Israel, and Will from Hawaii — want to know why I haven't yet written a theory arguing that Bram (part of the ''What lies in the shadow of the statue?'' cult) isn't a link to Dracula author Bram Stoker. My answer: Because I'm still investigating Stoker's involvement with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which probably has something to do with...something.
On non-vampiric fronts: Donna Weaver busted me on screwing up on ''quantum supposition'' — I should have used the term ''quantum superposition.'' (My spellcheck clearly hasn't been updated with quantum mechanics jargon.) Maria, a.k.a. ''Butterscotch,'' would really like me to investigate the possibility that Lost has something to do with ''Project Camelot,'' whose website is filled with all sorts of stuff that keeps Art Bell up at night. (Literally.) And finally, Roni Pekins read my theory positing a connection between Lost and Norse mythology from a couple weeks back and demanded an apology. (Wink, wink.) ''An insult to Norwegians,'' Roni wrote. ''Love your columns, but please, Vikings did NOT wear horned helmets! Watch your research. Wikipedia is not the ultimate resource. Otherwise, thanks for all of the wonderful insights on Lost (and for making me laugh).'' My pleasure...but what do you mean Wikipedia is unreliable?! Impossible!
WHAT'S IN YOUR BIG TOE? Theories of Everything and Lost
You might find this rather hard to believe, but in my four years of searching for a ''theory of everything'' that explains Lost, I had never heard of the term ''Theory of Everything'' or its acronym, TOE, until I stumbled across Greg Egan's Distress. Of course, my mind immediately linked to the Four-Toed Statue, and I was struck by some new possibilities, none more so than this: The Four-Toed Statue is a pretty perfect symbol for the current Theory of Everything in the real world.
A Theory of Everything is a search for a scientific foundation for reality — a search for footing, if you will. Why four toes? Maybe it's because the closest thing we currently have to a TOE in science — the Standard Model of Particle Physics — states that there are four fundamental forces in the universe. But physicists will tell you that the Standard Model is unsatisfactory, for any number of reasons, including the fact that many eggheads suspect that there's a fifth force out there — the missing fifth toe, if you will. At present, brilliant minds like the aforementioned Brian Greene are obsessed with building a TOE that blends classical physics, general relativity, and quantum mechanics. No one has nailed it yet. And so, like the Four-Toed Statue, the current state of the TOE is incomplete. (That said, I'd encourage you to investigate Greene's 2005 work The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, a layman-friendly survey of essential TOE ideas that includes a great, Lost-appropriate chapter on time travel.)
So what does this mean for Lost, if anything? Well, I'm taken with the idea that the Statue is a symbolic object — something out of the Jungian subconscious, made manifest — representing the current state of meaning about our world. In the castaway present of 2004, the Statue tells us that our TOE is in a state if flux, open to interpretation, a riddle to be solved, or, if you're Sayid, something profoundly troubling. ''I don't know what is more disquieting,'' said Sayid as he beheld Four-Toed in the season 2 finale, ''the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that it has four toes.'' FUN FACT PART ONE! ''Disquiet'' is another word for ''distress'' — as in Egan's book Distress. FUN FACT PART TWO! ''The Disquieting Muses'' is a famous painting by Giorgio de Chirico, a master of the Italian metaphysical school whose surreal works are filled with eerie dream objects not unlike the Four-Toed Statue.
Regardless, for me, the Four-Toed Statue speaks to characters puzzling through the mysteries of themselves and their world — and to Lostologists devoted to finding the missing big TOE of the show. Of course, what will happen to us when Lost finally reveals the answers to all those riddles to us? Funny: The very end of Distress addresses the issue of life after the TOE gets exposed: ''Other people lamented the end of mystery. As if nothing would remain to be discovered, once we understood what lay beneath our feet. And it's true that there are no deep surprises — there's nothing left to learn about the reasons for the TOE, or the reasons for our own existence. But there'll be no end to discovering what the universe can contain; there'll always be new stories written in the TOE — new systems, new structures, explained into being. There might even be new minds on other worlds, co-creators whose nature we can't even imagine yet...''
Or, put another way:
What lies in the shadow of the statue?
Ourselves.
And hopefully, more shows like Lost.
But no need to get distressed yet! We have three more episodes of Lost this season — and a new episode of Totally Lost today! In our newest adventure, Dan and I are given a challenge by our arch-nemesis, Pig E. Keep your eyes peeled (and your cursor on the pause button) for another fleeting glimpse of teasers — and today, they're pretty damn meaty. For even more, click over to EW.com's brand-new episode of Must List Live! to see Dalton Ross and Jessica Shaw discuss Lost's all-time best episodes.
Be seeing you — tomorrow, at the recap.
Doc Jensen
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid21354146001?bclid=21368471001&bctid=21353511001
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1550612_20250233_20275333,00.html
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