14 Questions With: Michael Emerson

AOL Television

He might play one of the creepiest characters on television, but in real life, Michael Emerson is thoughtful, affable and endearingly intrigued with Ben Linus, his sinister 'Lost' alter ego.

And he's not alone: Ben is one of the most talked about, love-to-hate-him TV villains of all time, and his latest plot to get the Oceanic 6 back to the island from which they fled is revealing more of his devilish, multi-layered mind game each week.

Emerson talked to AOL TV exclusively about getting the island back on track, watching the show on TV to fully grasp where it's headed, who he enjoys acting alongside and why a scene involving cereal sticks out in his mind as a favorite. -- By Maggie Furlong

1. When you get a line like "That's my lawyer," do you get direction on how to say it, or is that all you?

I just like to fiddle around with delivery, you know. Sometimes in the gravest of circumstances, a more nonchalant reading of a line turns out to be entertaining. [Laughs]

2. Ben Linus was only supposed to be on a few episodes. At what point did you realize that he might be sticking around?

Well, there was a point in the early going where it occurred to me one day, "Wow, wouldn't it be crazy good if I was actually the leader of the Others. That would be so unexpected and cool." And I mentioned it to a director -- this was in one of the early episodes when Sayid was still beating up on me -- and the director said, "I can't discuss that with you." [Laughs] So I thought, "Oh, something's up here."

3. What's it like signing on for a gig knowing that you'll have to endure numerous torture scenes?

Luckily I had no idea! One day -- January 10 of 2006 -- I flew to Hawaii and the next morning I was, you know, hanging from a palm tree. And people had said, "Oh, 'Lost,' great show … it's rough work though." That was the word in the acting circles. And it's true -- it has been rough work. But very rewarding. I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's a great character and I love the way they write my part; I love the scenes that I get to play.

4. People really have latched on to Ben Linus … why do you think that is?

It's so nice! People, I guess they respond to the sort of ambiguity of the character. And they invest the character with power and foresight and a certain kind of wit and almost superhuman management skills … [laughs] … which is fine.

5. Did you ever think that your character would get to have a moment as emotional as last season when his daughter, Alex, was executed in front of him?

No, I never dreamt that that would be a way that they would provide a turning point for the character. It was surprising and shocking -- even in the terms of real life, you're stunned to think that Tania [Raymonde], who plays Alex, is not going to be here anymore to do scenes with. I'd had that kind of real-life sadness about it, and then the sort of pace and shock value of the actual execution kind of took the breath out of you. It was a hard scene to play too -- I was looking out a window of an interior set at a tape mark on the wall. They shot Keamy and Alex days later in an outdoor location. So I didn't have that to play off of … I just had to conjure that in my mind as a kind of imaginary image and go with that.

6. Do you have a favorite moment that you've gotten to play on the show?

Wow … in the whole of my tenure? Goodness. I do enjoy the moments of wit, or the moments of sort of nonchalant delivery. I loved that breakfast scene that I had with Jack and John Locke in season 2, where I ate cereal. That was a fun scene to play because I think that was the first scene I ever played where I understood that Ben had all the cards in his hand, and that he was a prisoner in name only. It was sort of an exhilarating dynamic, to be held but to still be running the show sort of. It was kind of great.

7. Is there any cast member you haven't gotten to act alongside much yet, that you're hoping to have more scenes with?

I always long for more scenes with Richard Alpert, because I get along with Nestor [Carbonell] so well, and I think his character is just chilling and strange and compelling. I'll also be happy someday when Ben has scenes with Miles [Ken Leung]. Because Miles … he's kind of a wag, isn't he? He's kind of a smartass. It'd be fun to have a little duel of wits with him, if he thinks he's so smart. [Laughs] ... Miles is very much on everyone's mind because there's a storyline going on right now in the filming that he figures very prominently in. So you've got a big dose of Miles coming down the pike here! You're gonna go back in time with Miles, which is delicious, to see what he used to be like. Oh man, it's so great. [Laughs]

8. Do you think Ben considers himself a bad guy or a good guy?

I don't think he thinks about it much -- he thinks of himself as doing the best job he can with limited resources, and he's very consumed by his mission, his battle, his quest -- whatever it is that he needs to get done, he believes in it. I think he believes too that he's a good guy, that he's ethical. He has lapses … he's made some mistakes, and some of them are kind of grievous. Sometimes he can be quite childish and snippy ... he doesn't do well when he's thwarted. He sort of reverts to a not very well-socialized teenager. There's something in him that is frozen in his youth, but maybe the storyline means to explore [that]. We are going to revisit Ben's youth this season, and we're going to revisit certain scenes we've seen before, but framed in a new way -- new perspective, re-contextualized. Ben's mom [played by Emerson's real-life wife] hasn't yet been called upon to appear. But I'd say that possibility is still out there.

9. Do you feel like you have to watch the show when it airs to fully understand what's going on?

It's made so much more clear in the telecast -- I mean, you read the script and it's dizzying. The script says, "Now we're in 1954." "Now we're in 1978." And it's hard to keep that all straight. You just have an overall sense of the blurring … we're just bouncing around. But seeing it on TV, they illustrate it quite well. They do the best they can to let us know where we are, and why. And … it won't go on forever.

10. So have you been able to sort of step back and decide what you think will happen? Could Ben's return to the island with the Oceanic 6 possibly be the end of that flashing?

I don't think it works the way you describe -- but that's good, that's logical what you said, that their arrival would be the fix. I think the fix and their arrival are unconnected, even if they did coincidentally happen in something like the same timeframe. That's assuming that there is some … I'm talking about a small fix, not a big fix. This business of things being unhinged in time and space … that's … that's ongoing on some level. Hmmm … we're kind of talking about things we shouldn't be talking about. [Laughs]

11. You've played quite a few very disturbed individuals -- are you drawn to that type of role, or is it just a coincidence? And are you ever worried you'll be typecast?

It's just some kind of accident. I never thought about it before I did it. It's not the thing I would've steered toward or have chosen. I enjoy the playing of villains -- I enjoy playing any kind of character that has a kind of complex psychology, and these kinds of characters have that. It's sort of a freak of how I got started in television, and how people have continued to sort of seek me out for that type of playing. It wasn't a tone that was ever part of my repertoire on the live stage, and it hasn't really been my movie tone either. It's just sort of what they have wanted me to do on television. I'll have to figure that out a little better when 'Lost' is over, and see if there is some new tone to be explored in future TV work.

12. How do you imagine life changing when the show ends after next season?

I have a lot of things in my life that I didn't fully know or absorb while I was in it. I tend to perceive a thing better in hindsight, so I'm sure there's going to be a lot of nostalgia in me, for the time spent in Hawaii, for the time spent working on the show, for the people I worked with and the relationships I had. But at the same time, I think I won't be the only one who will be relieved to return to North America, to pick up the life I had before my 'Lost' adventure, and not be always traveling, and not always be five time zones away from loved ones and all of that. Like everything else, it'll be the end of a sort of golden time, but hopefully set the stage for equally compelling projects.

13. Are there shows that you watch and think, "Man, if I wasn't on 'Lost' …"?

I was always really jealous of 'Deadwood' -- I like period, and I like what a language program it was, how many different kinds and colors of antiquated English speech there was in it. At the other end of some kind of scale, I'm a great admirer of 'The Wire.' People always say, "Well what do you want to play?" And I never have a good answer, because the best things you play always come out of left field, completely unpredictably. The best roles I've played -- the top 10 -- are roles I was unaware existed before I got them; I wouldn't have thought to ask to play something like Ben. I mean, who knew? So, now it's sort of an article of faith with me; I'm going to sit back and wait and see what comes around on the wheel of life and hope that it's equally compelling. [Laughs] It's all wheels … wait till you see!

14. Where do you keep the Emmy you won for your guest role on 'The Practice'?

My Emmy sits on a metal and glass stand, in the corner of our tiny little dining area in our apartment in New York. It's in kind of a shadowy place, but that's all right. It catches my eye every so often. There is a note of tragedy attached to my Emmy, because it flew home on my lap on the night of Sept. 10, 2001, and before I'd even unpacked it the following morning, we had this earth-shattering tragedy in our city. The whole mood of celebrating it or that achievement sort of went out the window, and has never sort of fully returned. It is also a memento of that time and those events. I never got that day where I sat there and looked at it, and held it in my hand and fully absorbed the fantastic-ness of it. But it's there.

Official LOST Video Podcast - 02/12/2009

LOST 5X06

'Lost's' Infamous Smoke Monster To Be Revealed

By KATIE SAWYER
Feb-12-2009

Source: Yahoo! News

This story may contain spoilers.

Finally, one of the most interesting mysteries on ABC's hit show "Lost" is about to be solved.

Daniel Dae Kim, who plays the recently "resurrected" Jin, said in a recent interview that the origin of the puzzling smoke monster will soon be revealed.

The "smoke monster" has plagued our castaways since the show began, and is famous for having killed Mr. Eko. Producer Damon Lindelof has called it "one of the biggest secrets."

Not only will viewers get to see its lair, but Kim says the monster is "as old as the island."

In regards to the atomic bomb that was recently discovered on the island, Kim suggests that we'll find more about that as the series wraps up.

"That's a huge red herring if it's a red herring," he said. Nothing is ever just a coincidence on this island, so we'll be seeing the bomb again.

Last but definitely not least, Kim also said that viewers shouldn't get too worked up over a reunion of Jin and his wife Sun (played by Yunjin Kim) just yet. Fans only recently found out that Jin had survived the freighter explosion, and even Sun thinks he is dead.

Though Sun will return to the island, Kim said the events don't mean "they're particularly in the same place or chronologically in the same time."

As always "Lost," promises to keep fans on the edge of our seats till the very end.

"Lost" airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
http://www.syfyportal.com/news426064.html

“This Place is Death” Thoughts

By Paul Burrows

Jin & Sun: Marwage is what brings THEM together
Back during season two we got another episode that had a big wedding ring theme. Jin was on the other side of the island with the Tailies and was returning to the base camp. Sun was freaking out because the bottle of raft letters had been found and she thought that Jin had died. Adding to her sadness she had lost her wedding ring which she actually ended up finding in the bottle of letters that gave her so much pain. The flashback jumped back & forth between their perspectives of the first time that they met. Which by the way shows us that Ji Yeon wasn’t the first time that we got a flashback that jumped back and forth between them, but this time it was the same time period.

In this Place is Death Jin tries to use his ring to keep Sun safe and away from the island, which ether through trickery on Locke or Ben’s part was used to convince Sun to come back to the island and that Jin was still alive. Both times finding the wedding ring gave Sun hope.

Danielle: 4 + X + 5 = 15
This is a prime example of this season. Darlton has been making the answers clearer and has been actually giving us some good stuff. But they are still withholding enough from each reveal to make for good debate. We saw Smokey go into a hole by some ruins, but is that the Temple or something else? We saw Danielle & the French team arrive and Montand losing his arm, but is the sickness in Danielle’s mind or is it something real? Did the Jughead become the Swan Hatch or something else? It’s all a little frustrating, but it makes for awesome debate. I know that X is being saved for season 6 so I have faith that it will all make since in the end. I’m just enjoying the ride. My favorite reference though was seeing the Music Box.

Charlotte: Narnia
In the Narnia series each time the kids came back they came in another manner. First through a Wardrobe then through the subway first during Narnia’s prime and then during a time that other forces had taken things over and things were in a state of ruin. We find out that Charlotte had been born on the island left and then returned and things were taken over by the Others. Just like how the Pevense’s got help from their past lives with their old weapons Charlotte was able to help Locke find the well because of the fact that her mind was jumping around to different times in her life. This also gave us more of her backstory, which unfortunately killed her. But fortunately we are bound to get more since one of the next flash jumps will be during Dharma in its prime.

Which speaking of literary references Locke’s falling down the well could have been yet another Alice In Wonderland reference and Christian is the White Rabbit as was refereed to in an early season 1 episode.

TV Guide: Lost Episode Recap: "This Place Is Death"

Feb 11, 2009 09:06 PM ET by Mickey O'Connor

Namaste, y'all! Wednesday's episode of Lost sheds new light on how Ben convinced the Oceanic 6 — or at least part of it — to return to the island and how Locke came to his fatal decision to assist in that very same mission. We see how Jin flashed his way back to a reunion with his fellow Lostaways. Oh, and somebody dies!

THE HARD SELL
Ben has his work cut out for him with the fussy Oceanic 6, as Jack appears to be the only one who's really on board with his plan to go back to Funhouse Island. For her part, Sun has pulled a gun on Ben out at the Long Beach marina, just seconds from offing him because she believes he caused Jin's death. Kate screeches off with Aaron when she finds out that Ben is the source of her recent legal trouble. Sayid similarly beats feet, as he doesn't want any part of Ben's plan.

But! Ben has proof that Jin is alive, and if Sun gives him 30 minutes, he'll show her that proof. But first, they have to go see a person who's going to show them how to get back to the island. Sun agrees, but her trigger finger is no less itchy. On the way, Jack says if Ben is lying, Jack will kill him himself, which sends Michael Emerson into a signature tizzy in which he affirms that he's the good guy and that he has done so much to help them, blahblahblah. At this point, I've reversed my position on Ben so many times, my nose is bleeding. By the episode's end, this little speech is cast in a much different light, so I have good reason not to trust him, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The motley trio arrives at Mrs. Hawking's church/house/cult headquarters in a van labeled Canton-Rainier (which is an anagram for "reincarnation," by the way). Ben gives Sun Jin's wedding ring, which he says John gave to him. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but in terms of rock-solid proof that Jin is still alive, this is a little iffy, no? Anyhow, it's sufficient for Sun, who is a little more receptive to Ben's "go baaaack!" pitch this time.

But hey now, here's Desmond! "You're looking for Faraday's mother too?" he asks them, which gets a particularly interesting reaction shot from Ben. It didn't seem like he knew, right? Inside is our beloved Eloise Hawking, who amusingly berates Ben for not bringing all of them, but seems OK with it when Ben says it was all he could get on short notice. "I suppose this will have to do for now," she purrs. "Let's get started." So as the group gets fitted for their own creepy cloaks, let's flash back to this week's significant island-based developments, shall we? Hold on to your noses!

JIN NE SAIS QUOI
Jin quickly discovers that it's 1988, and that one of his French rescuers is a young Danielle Rousseau. His disorientation is justified. Naturally, his thoughts are of Sun's welfare. "I need... go find my camp," he pleads. He asks if they've seen a helicopter. "First a boat. Then a helicopter. Next thing you know he'll be talking about a submarine," says one of the Frenchmen in subtitles, which is a pretty random thing for him to have said, considering at one point there was a submarine on the island. Do they know more about the island that they're letting on? Rousseau & Co. agree to help him find his camp, but not before he helps them find the radio tower, from which they can send out Danielle's ominous broadcast.

Along the way, someone gets thirsty, which is unfortunate because, you see, Nadine has the canteen, but... where's Nadine? I actually don't even remember seeing another woman in their party, do you? Well, it doesn't really matter because it's at that moment that they hear "the monster" and see all those weird explosions from the ground like we haven't seen since Seasons 1 and 2. A mort Nadine falls from the sky, and Smokey shows up to drag the blond Frenchman into one of his underground pits. They grab his arm and attempt to save him from the monster's plant-like tendrils, but to no avail. His arm comes off doll-like, and he gets dragged away. In a decision as misguided as "hey, let's do an episode about Nikki and Paolo," they decide to go into the pit after him, which Jin, who knows from island-based monster life forms, strongly advises against.

It's at this moment that Jin and Danielle have a sweet exchange about her staying behind because of the baby, and I'm left wondering: Did Danielle ever remember Jin? Or was she already too deep-woods crazy for such slippery details? But there's no time for pondering now, as Jin says au revoir to Danielle with a flash.

He's alone, standing amidst ruins that I don't remember seeing there before. He sees the decomposing arm of the blond guy, grabs a little hydration off a giant jungle leaf and makes his way to a beach. A forlorn jewelry box plays a sad melody as Jin discovers — sacre bleu! — two dead, bearded French guys who kind of stink. He also soon comes upon the source of their deadness, as Danielle and her beau, Robert, are in some sort of Mexican stand-off, rifles drawn. She says he isn't Robert, that he's sick; he attempts to explain. "It's not a monster; it's a security system guarding that temple," he says in subtitles. For a moment, she touches her pregnant belly and appears to thaw a bit, but when he pulls the trigger on his gun and misfires, she shoots him dead.

Now featuring the signature crazy eyes we know and love from Mira Furlan's sympathetic portrayal of older Danielle, young Danielle (by the way, this Melissa Farman is quite an actress too — hmmmm, same initials, weird) quickly whirls on Jin and aims. "You disappeared! You're sick too; you're a carrier," she shrieks. Just as she's about to make the newly alive Jin not so, there's a flash and...

THE GANG'S ALL HERE
Sort of. Rose?! Bernard?! Where are you?! It's like that episode of The Brady Bunch where Bobby and Cindy get lost in the Grand Canyon, except I'm the only one calling, and there are no friendly native people to give them cute nicknames.

Ahem. So Jin has another gun pointed at him, but this time it's Sawyer's! Hooray! It's reunion time, and for a brief second, things are happy on Funhouse Island. Daniel surmises that he was blown within the radius. Jin has a lot of questions obviously. In his excitement, he lapses into Korean and asks someone to translate. Everyone racistly assumes he means Miles — "He's Korean; I'm from Encino," Miles snarks — but as we already know, Charlotte is somewhat of a linguist.

Jin wants to know how Locke is sure that Sun made it off the island. Locke non-explains that he just knows — frustrating! — and that she never should have left. So, even though I know he's right, I find myself wondering why Locke hasn't faced more resistance in his quest to get to the Orchid.

It's then that we learn that Charlotte also speaks Klingon, a funny detail sure to fuel many the dirty-dirty fantasy of Trekker viewers everywhere. But like the hits on Wolfman Jack's radio show, the flashes keep on comin'! Two in a row, and Charlotte collapses again. She tells Jin, in Korean, not to let them bring her back, no matter what. Why's that, Charlotte? "This place is death," she cries, thus rendering moot my frustrating, fruitless Google searches earlier today. (It's just a line in the episode, stupid.) We'll contemplate the possibly wide-ranging implications of that statement later, but for now, let's hear what else Charlotte has to say. Because she has a lot to say.

HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE
Unstuckintime-itis presents a new symptom: Charlotte is talking like a little kid, much like Faraday's former squeeze back in Oxford. "Why can't Daddy come with us?" she non-sequiturs. Is it bad to point out how amusing all these asides were? To wit: "You know what my mum would say about me marrying an American." "I know more about ancient Carthage than Hannibal himself." "Turn it up, I love Geronimo Jackson." (Which, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that one of the albums found in Desmond's hatch way back in the day?)

Another flash (I'm losing track of them in the narrative now, but there were a lot), and the group decides to leave Charlotte behind; Daniel stays with her. But, before they part ways, they realize that they don't know when they are, thus the Orchid might not yet even exist. "Look for the well; you'll find it at the well," says Charlotte, in a helpful moment of clarity.

While the others are off finding said well (see below), Charlotte unleashes a monologue that answers almost all of the questions we've ever had about her character. She's remembering things. It turns out she grew up on the island as part of the Dharma Initiative, but left with her mum, who tried to get young Charlotte to forget it ever existed. "That's why I became an anthropologist, to find this island again," she exposits. "That's what I've been searching for my whole life." It's kind of sad, seeing as she's in the process of bleeding out. But before we shed a tear, wait, there's more!

"Why are you telling me this?" Daniel asks, and you expect her response to be something like "Because I'm dying" or "Because I love you." But no, this is Lost, so this brief, googly-eyed respite is not about romance; it's about information, damn it. Spill it, Charlotte, quick, before the thump! Here goes: When she was little, a scary, crazy man told her she had to leave the island and to never ever come back — or else she'd die. "Daniel, I think that man was you," she says. Thump! Well done, Charlotte!

Daniel tells her that he told Desmond to go find his mother, who will help them. But before Charlotte can get her mind around this really weird revelation, she's gone again. "I'm not allowed to have chocolate before dinner," she squeaks. And then she appears to die. Well done, Rebecca Mader, who has really done some fine work on Lost. I'm guessing that even though Charlotte is dead (she is, right?) we haven't seen the last of her because, I mean, we still don't know why she speaks Korean. Maybe she'll pop up in a Sun or Jin flashback?

TRY NOT TO THINK OF TERENCE TRENT D'ARBY
After what appears to be a very brief hike, Locke, Jin, Juliet, Miles and Sawyer find the Orchid. "What are the odds that we'd end up here at the same time as this thing?" Juliet says. Ha! Guess what? There's a flash, and then it disappears. "You just had to say something," Sawyer grumbles. But that's OK, they find the olde-tymey wishing well (wish my love a wishing well/to kiss and tell — aargh!) to which Charlotte referred.

"How the hell did Charlotte know this is here?" asks Miles, because he isn't reading my recap. No matter: Locke is going in. As he says curt goodbyes, Jin — who knows a thing or two about not descending into dark, island-based pits this week — threatens to cut the rope. "This island is bad," he says. He doesn't want his wife and daughter to return. Locke promises not to contact Sun, but says that she might find him. "You tell her I'm dead. You buried me. Take the ring," he says. Fair enough! So down he goes, but — good gravy! — there's another flash, and when Juliet, Jin, Sawyer and Miles come to, the rope that formerly went down the well now ends at solid ground. "We can't help him," Juliet says gravely.

SIXTY FEET UNDER
Meanwhile, underground, Locke has fallen to the bottom of the now-sealed-in well, in the dark, and has some sort of spike sticking out of his leg. Boy, those appendages of his just can't catch a break, can they? Just as things look really grim (and that's saying something on this show...), Christian arrives. "I'm here to help you the rest of the way," he reports. Christian scolds John for not following his instructions: He told Locke that he had to move the island, not Ben. When John explains that Ben said he had to stay behind and lead his people, Christian gives this enlightening reply: "Since when did listening to him get you anywhere worth a damn?" Oy. Good guy, bad guy — who knows?

But there's good news! Christian tells him he just has to give the ol' donkey wheel a little shove, that it has slipped off its axis (will this also stop the flashes?), and then see Eloise Hawking in Los Angeles, who will tell him how exactly to get himself — and all the others — back to the island. He also confirms Richard's mandate that he's going to have to die in the process. So maybe that's not exactly good news.

"Can you help me up?" Locke asks. "No, sorry, I can't," Christian replies (because he's a ghost?). As the wheel turns and the screen fades to white, Christian says, "Good luck, John... say hello to my son." "Who's your son?" Locke asks, but there's the flash to end all flashes, and the episode ends. Thump.

So, what did you think of "This Place Is Death"? Did we get enough of Danielle's backstory or do you think there is still more to tell? Do you think Locke stopped the flashes? Is it too late for Charlotte? What will that mean for the narrative structure of the remainder of the series? Will we see the return of flashbacks and flash-forwards? How soon before we see the Oceanic 6 return? And do you miss Rose and Bernard as much as I do? I worry about them.
http://www.tvguide.com/Episode-Recaps/lost/Lost-Episode-Recap-1002793.aspx

EW: Lost Redux: "This Place Is Death!"

Wed., Feb. 11, 2009 10:02 PM PST by Kristin Dos Santos

Jacob! The Monster! The sickness! The frozen donkey wheel! Gaah! And a big death!
There was so much going on in tonight's episode of Lost, it almost felt like a good six episodes of revelatory goodness packed into one hour, right?

So while we try to stop our heads from spinning and noses from bleeding, and also try to forgive bosses Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for killing off yet another fan favorite (why, why, why?), let's dish about what went down and exclusive scoop on what comes next…

WHAT WE LEARNED
Charlotte Is Dead: But don't cry for Rebecca Mader! Yes, the loss of Charlotte is a big blow to fans, but fear ye not. From what I understand, Mader got to seek solace in the arms (or, at least, shared movie-studio set proximity) of some guy named George Clooney after leaving Lost island (Oahu), as she was cast in a movie with TV's sexiest-ever man. Not a bad consolation prize, right? According to my peeps, Mader's hiatus is as of yet undetermined in length, and I'm personally hoping we somehow see Charlotte again on her native island. Remember, this is time travel, people, so anything is possible! Shall we start the petition to bring her back below?
Geronimo! The long-referenced '70s band Geronimo Jackson (first discovered by Charlie and Hurley in the hatch) was brought back into the mix tonight as sickly Charlotte uttered, "Ohhh, turn it up! I love Geronimo Jackson." Seems she was (time?) traveling down memory lane, reliving her childhood as she lunged closer to death. And the revelation that Daniel Faraday was the "scary" man who warned her not to come back to the Island seems to make it clear that (a) Daniel found a way to go back in time and try to warn Charlotte not to come back to the Island in order to save her and (b) it didn't work because destiny cannot be altered.

That Was Jacob, Right? It certainly seems that Jacob is embodying the elder Dr. Shephard, as he appeared to Locke in the Orchid station to help him on his way. And note this: He could not help Locke physically, but he could hold a lantern. So either he's a sick bastard who likes to watch injured people squirm, or (more likely) he cannot have any physical contact with other human beings. Meanwhile, remember that Emerson insists he has no idea who Jacob truly is yet: "I haven't had any Jacob scenes yet, but they're out there. I mean, it has to be answered somewhere along the way. Jacob has henchmen that we never dreamed of." Any clues on who those henchmen might be?

Another Reason to Believe Ben Is Pure Evil: Ji Yeon might be the most adorable child ever, and the fact that Ben's shenanigans are tearing Sun away from her precious daughter makes Ben appear all the more Beelzebub, in my book—especially given that Charlotte warned Jin to keep Sun off the Island because "this place is death." Not to mention, the elder Dr. Shephard (Jack's father) mused to Locke tonight: "Since when did listening to [Ben] get you anywhere worth a damn?" Guy's got a point.

Another Reason to Believe Ben Is Pure Good: Yes, Michael Emerson (Ben) is a wickedly talented thespian, and, yes, we all know Ben is a conniving son of, well, Michael Emerson's wife in real life, but I'm sorry, Ben's car-haulting tirade at Sun and Jack still seemed alarmingly forthright: "What I'm doing is helping you," he told them. "If you had any idea what I've had to do keep you safe, to keep your friends safe, you'd never stop thanking me." Could that possibly be true?
Another Reason to Believe Ben Is Both: "I think Ben has the Losties' best interests at heart, to the extent that their interests coincide with his interests," Emerson himself tells me. "That makes it sound too selfish, but with the interests of the great contest or battle that he's involved in, the terms of which are yet unclear. I mean we know who one of his adversaries is, it's Charles Widmore, but I have a feeling we're going to find there are even larger players."

Jin's Plan Backfired: The very token he had hoped would keep Sun away (his wedding ring) is precisely what Ben used to lure her back to the Island. Something tells me he'll have mixed emotions when he sees her! Regardless, can I just say again how happy I am to have Daniel Dae Kim back on this show? He is the shiznit, and his scenes tonight rocked.

The Monster's True Purpose Revealed? "It's not a monster," Rousseau's baby daddy declared. "It's a security system guarding the temple." Sure, he was afflicted by "the sickness" and all kinds of crazy when he said this, but from what I understand the monster does have a lair (complete with hieroglyphics) and it certainly sounds legit.

WHAT LIES AHEAD
The Oceanic Six Are Going Back to the Island: And sooner than you think. But that doesn't mean everyone's holding hands again right away…

Spoiler Alert: Sources tell me that what lies ahead this season could bear the slogan "Same place, different time." (Can't they just meet at Sizzler?) In a way, it may remind you of that Jim Carrey/Kate Winslet movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as time travel/memories certainly can make reconnecting with love ones extremely difficult.

Holy Hot Kiss! Tonight's promo promises Jack and Kate will share some smoking-hot screen time next week. And let me tell you, I slow-mo'd that sucker over and over again and can tell you that Evangeline Lilly and Matthew Fox really went for it, wide-open mouths and all. Holler! Should be some good TV.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b99679_Lost_Redux_quotThis_Place_Is_Deathquot.html

Lost's Daniel Dae Kim Talks Time Travel: Popular Mechanics Exclusive Interview

When the freighter went up in a massive explosion in Lost's season finale last year, it was hard not to declare Daniel Dae Kim's character Jin a goner. He was last seen on the deck of the freighter, waving frantically to a departing helicopter carrying his wife, Sun. After all, there was enough C4 on that ship to blow anyone on it to kingdom come. But Kim, who plays Jin, always knew he would be back—and he made his reappearance at the end of last week's episode, "The Little Prince," unconscious and floating on a piece of the dearly departed freighter.

His return solved a mystery that's been plaguing fans since the finale. Not only is Jin alive, but he's time traveling just like the other castaways. But how is that possible when the helicopter, which wasn't anywhere near the island, was past the blown-up freighter and didn't go along for the island's ride through space and time? "That's one of the questions I had for [the producers] when I saw them last week," Kim told sci-fi blog io9. "I was blown off the ship and I was floating on my own. But I was within the radius of the island's time travel abilities. So I went with the island."

In an exclusive interview with Popular Mechanics at New York's Comic Con last weekend, Kim admitted to being a little wary of the show's time-travel premise. "I think time travel is really tricky," he said. "But if there's a logic and a complete and well-thought-through paradigm for it, I think it can be really interesting. Some of my favorite time-travel movies just make me think and, you know, the 'what if' question becomes a big one."

Beyond watching time-travel movies, Kim doesn't do much heavy theoretical digging into the mechanics of the phenomenon. "I almost bought the same contraption that they had in Napoleon Dynamite for time travel, but it didn't work out so well," he jokes. Instead of research, Kim relies on the information producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse give him. Which, by the sound of it, is a lot. "I actually just had a conversation with Damon and Carlton last week about the specifics of their version of time travel," he said. And, he assures us, there is definitely logic to the phenomenon on the show. "It is nothing if not well thought out."

But Kim knows exactly when he would go if he could travel through time. And just like the island, he wouldn't be satisfied with just one place and time. "I've always been really interested in the age of the samurai in Japan," he said. "I've always wanted to see what it would be like to live in feudal Japan; I think that would be interesting. I'd love to see the Roman Empire right around the time of Christ, and I'd love to see my ancestors, my children and their children, and how they end up faring in the world. " And when would he go, as Jin, in the island's history? Kim thinks for a moment. "The day after the series finale," he laughed, "just to see what happens next." —Erin McCarthy
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4303497.html

'Lost': Q&A with Rebecca Mader -- SPOILERS

07:28 AM PT, Feb 12 2009

Tragedy struck "Lost" in this episode as one of the cast members met her maker. After weeks of hemmoraging, Charlotte, the anthropologist who grew up on the island, finally had one time jump too many and died on the jungle floor, babbling about an American husband.

Sad, yes. But hardly surprising. After all, her death was probably the easiest death to predict in "Lost's" entire history. No one gets that bloody and gets off scot-free. In her final moments, she revealed to us that she'd grown up in the Dharma Initiative and that she'd apparently met Daniel Faraday when she was a little girl. This isn't so surprising, considering that we saw Faraday living and working among the Dharmas circa their late-'70s heyday in the season opener.

I spoke with Charlotte herself, Rebecca Mader, about her time on the island, but before we conduct our final exit interview, a quick summary of "This Place Is Death's" finer moments.

Just the good parts: This season of "Lost" continues to speed along at quite a fast clip. It seems as if the increasingly frequent time jumps are allowing us to jump to all the good parts of the island's history. We got to see Rousseau's arrival on the island, her first encounter with the smoke monster and then bam we're days down the road, when Rousseau finally offs the final members of her team. (Remember, she told Sayid back in Season 1 that her crew had become sick from being on the island.) It appears her boyfriend went crazy somehow after pursuing the smoke monster down into its underground lair under the temple.

The temple: As for the underground lair, it appears we got our first glimpse of the temple we heard about back in Season 3. If you remember, that's where Ben sent the Others to wait for him when he went off to meet with Jack and the rest of the plane-crash survivors. But what is this temple? We still don't know for sure, but it bears some interesting-looking hieroglyphics. I'm no Egyptologist, but I was able to make out the symbols for sun (time of day), farmyard, r and k (ark?), city and learning. What does it mean? Damon Lindelof revealed at a San Diego Comic-Con panel that the hieroglyphics that appeared in the hatch when the infamous button wasn't pushed translated to mean "Underworld." Could this new set of hieroglpyhics reveal Smokey's feeding times? As Rousseau's boyfriend said, the creature is just a security system.

Ms. Hawking: So after a week or two of speculation, we now have almost certain confirmation that the blond Eloise who pointed a gun at Daniel Faraday in the island's past is the same Eloise who's known as Ms. Hawking in the present. And it's also not a huge shocker to learn that, yes, Ms. Hawking appears to be Faraday's mother. So who's his father? I'd bet Widmore's fortune that Faraday's research wasn't being funded by the evil billionaire out of the goodness of the guy's heart. We know they were on the island together, so it's not much of a leap to think that Eloise and Charles produced a baby. But if that's true, then why does Faraday not have the last name Hawking or Widmore? Time will tell.

Christian Shepherd: Jack's sorta-deceased dad made another appearance, though apparently he's nothing more than the island's spokes-ghost at this point. And yes, I do think that Shepherd is just a ghost. Notice how he told Locke he couldn't help him up. It's not because he's following some rules of courtesy. I don't hink he physically could help him up if he wanted to.

And now, a few words from Rebecca Mader...

How did the producers break it to you that Charlotte was going to die?

I’ve known since June of ’08, because that’s when we negotiate contracts between seasons. Originally, when I started on the show in August of 2007, I was only supposed to do eight episodes. I ended up doing 20. I was on the show a lot longer than I thought I was going to be. A lot of it has to do with the writers strike. Less episodes in Season 4 meant backstories were compromised for the new people. I think that’s why my character carried into Season 5.

And how did you take it?

I was disappointed when I found out. When I got to the end of Season 4 and found out Charlotte had been born on the island, that was huge. So when I found out I was leaving, I was disappointed. ... Like all things, it’s for the best. I’ve been on the show for a year and a half. That’s the longest I’ve ever been on a gig.

How was the experience of shooting a series in Hawaii?

It’s like when you shoot a movie, and you go away on location. They’re permanently on location. It’s strange to be that far away for a long time. But it’s Hawaii -- it’s better than a kick in the head. I just go to the beach and drink a pina colada and float around in my inner tube. That’s not normal! It’s a blessing to be paid to be in paradise. The Hawaiian people are so friendly. I felt I was out of the business and the whole L.A. thing the whole time I was there. When not on set, I was around normal people doing normal things. It’s the most relaxing environment I’ve ever been in.

Did you find yourself hanging out with the other actors who came to the island at the same time you did?

I didn’t feel the difference between the new people and the old people. You click with different people. It wasn’t like the newbies hung out at the pub together.

What was the experience of being on the show so far from its writers, who are all based in Los Angeles?

It’s rare to work on a series without a writer. If you have a question about a line, then phone calls have to be made. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you have to wake someone up if an actor isn’t feeling a line. Sometimes it’s too much of an effort. Sometimes my line is written in a certain way, and it needs to be more English. I would go to the script supervisor usually to make changes.

How much did they tell you about Charlotte initially?

When I first got the job, I was told nothing about my character. She’s an anthropologist and she’s tough, she’s a female Indiana Jones. That’s what I went into the show knowing. That’s all I knew all of Season 4, until the very end, when I learned I was originally from the island. I was on a break reading my script, and I said, “Bloody hell!”

It seems like the actors spend a lot of time just walking across the island. True?

[Lots of laughter] Traipsing. It’s a lot of traipsing. You have to do it a lot of times. First you walk up the hill, then you go down the hill, then you go back up the hill. By the end of the day, you don’t want to be on the hill anymore.

They water down the greens. By the end of the day, it’s a death trap. We were shooting a scene with Miles (Ken Leung), and he took a step and slipped out of frame down the hill. I hope it makes the bloopers reel, because there’s nothing funnier than someone falling over.

What are you doing next?

I wrapped in mid-November, then I did a movie in December –- “Men Who Stare at Goats.” I play Ewan McGregor’s ex-wife. Shot that in New Mexico. Now I’m in England and planning for some top-secret charity work. I know it sounds so cliché: an actress that cares. I’m going to New York for talk shows. I don’t know what the next acting job will be. I would love to do a comedy. Before Charlotte, I played a really intense attorney. I’m silly and I never get to show people that.

So many people who “die” on the show keep showing up. What’s your sense of how likely you are to return?

I may end up coming back in Season 6. Some people say, “You’ll be back!” If I’m not, never mind. If they turn around and ask me to come back, I'd be happy to do it. I’m not upset, I have no ill will. It’s been such a blessing.

Fans spend so much time obsessing over the clues on this show. How much time do the actors who make the show spend thinking over the creation of those clues?

[Laughter] I have to be careful how I answer this. I think they’re more concerned by what’s for lunch. If something is placed somewhere in a scene, we’d never be made aware of it. Those sneaky things they do to the fans, we’re completely oblivious.

What’s your best memory of being on the island?

Some of the down time. Sitting around with other cast members. Being together under the stars. It’s like camping -- talking and connecting and laughing.

And your worst memory?

Mosquito bites. They even get me through my jeans.

Did you have any actors you particularly liked working with?

I liked working with Terry O’Quinn. I liked the chemistry our characters had. He’s my favorite character on the show. He’s also fun to hang out with on set. I love working with Josh Holloway, he and I have a very similar sense of humor. He’s just funny. Elizabeth Mitchell, the chemistry between our characters was fun. I loved being in scenes with Juliet. She was like a big sister. She’s full of love. Being around her had this effect, where I’d want to curl up in a ball and have her pet your head. She’s one of the most wonderful women I’ve ever met.

--Patrick Kevin Day
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/02/lost-qa-with-re.html

'Lost' Recap: Married To It

'Lost' Recap: Married To It
We learn more about the ties that bind people to the Island, Rousseau's past, and the Island's secrets, even as we say goodbye to one character

SACRIFICIAL MAN Locke embraced his role in the Island mythology, even as it meant he ended up with a bum leg again

By Jeff Jensen

Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''The geek in me wants to start with Smokey, the frozen donkey wheel, and the significance of a Magical Jin. The gentleman in me wants to start by apologizing to Sun for impugning her mothering skills (my theory last week was debunked in the first scene: Ji Yeon is alive, well, and skinny) and congratulate her on renewing her wedding vows. But really, we should begin this recap of the ominously entitled ''This Place Is Death'' by paying our respects to the dead. So let's swipe one of Ms. Hawking's votive candles and light one for Charlotte Staples Lewis, whose bloody passing was charged with mythic buzz. The time travel sickness munched up more and more of her brain, then swallowed it whole. In her final wild-eyed, pale-faced moments, her mind became unmoored and began to toggle between past and present. ''Oh turn it up, I love Geronimo Jackson,'' she cooed, referring to Lost's faux hippy-era folk group. (I get a Three Dog Night/''Road To Shambala'' vibe off the name.) And she gave up some secrets. Yes, she had been born on the Island. Her mom and dad were members of The Dharma Initiative. But Dad went loco and Mom got spooked. She packed up Charlotte (''Why isn't Daddy coming with us?'' Charlotte murmured during her throes, perhaps flashing on the moment) and took her to London and told her that Island was just a childhood fantasy — a land of make-believe, like the Narnia concocted by Charlotte's literary namesake. And then this bombshell: ''Leave the Island and never come back,'' said a scary man from her Island youth — a bogeyman with more than a passing resemblance to her would-be boyfriend, Daniel Faraday. ''I'm not supposed to have chocolate before dinner,'' she blurted, her mind suddenly elsewhere. And then she was gone for good.

The temptation of chocolate takes us somewhere, too — namely, straight to hell. In C.S. Lewis' first Chronicles of Narnia novel, The White Witch — a stand-in for Satan; the incarnation of death — seduced Edmund into betraying his siblings with an English delicacy made of chocolate known as Turkish Delight. For Charlotte, the Island was her Turkish Delight — her forbidden fruit — and chasing after it led to her doom. ''This place is death!'' she bellowed, and I couldn't tell in that moment if her mind was in the present, speaking of her killer environs, or if it was in the past, passing along something she had been told.

Digging deeper into the Charlotte/Lewis connection, we sinker deeper into an abyss of subtext. Along the way, we pass A Grief Observed, Lewis' chronicle about the death of his companion, Joy, and how it tested his Christian faith. Then, there's The Great Divorce, which actually isn't about marital dissolution but a fantastical vision of the afterlife, à la Dante's Inferno, although it was actually meant as a parable about living in the here and now. (The title is a riff on — and the book a response to — William Blake's surreal manifesto, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.) These are stories about the underworld, the mythical place where souls hang after they've shed the mortal coil. And now recall the Egyptian hieroglyphics in "The Hatch," which according to the producers of Lost translated into ''Underworld.'' And Smokey's scene-stealing, arm -ripping presence in this episode reminds us that the guy who made the Map in "The Hatch" called the Monster by a different name: ''Cerberus,'' the three-headed demon dog that guarded the gates of Hades. And finally, know that Christian Shepherd, the dude with the Jesus pun name, played the part of ''psychopomp'' in this episode — a ''psychopomp'' being a mythic underworld figure who serves as a ''guide to souls,'' escorting the dead between states of existence. Psychopomp?! Yes: Psychopomp! Psychopomp! Psychopomp! Psychopomp! You can't just say it enough. PSYCHOPOMP!

Okay: I went a little...well, psycho. And while I would argue that my references are relevant, clearly we must be careful about what conclusions to draw, as the producers have adamantly insisted that the Island isn't a literal afterlife, paradise, purgatory, or inferno. But stumbling on The Great Divorce did illuminate the grand theme of Season 5 so far: ''What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.'' Welcome to the messy divorce season of Lost. See: an Island separated from its place in space; souls ripped from their designated points in time; a fellowship of castaways pulled apart, a band break-up of such unholy wrongness in the eyes of almighty destiny that unless they are reunited...well, ''God help us all,'' as we've repeatedly been told this year. (If only someone had used that argument on the Beatles 30 years ago...) ''This Place Is Death'' brought out the theme of dissolution in bold relief, as unions of all sorts were dissolved in various ways. Charlotte died on Daniel. Danielle Rousseau and her French dude, Robert, decoupled with shotguns and madness. Jin turned in his wedding ring. John Locke split from the Island. And good lord, did you see that arm get ripped off poor Montand?! Did you heart the wet icky splooge of his limb being shorn away?! ''Put asunder,'' indeed.

WELCOME TO THE MOUTH OF MADNESS: JIN, DANIELLE, AND SMOKEY

Actually, forget CS Lewis and his Christian parables. ''This Place Is Death'' felt like an HP Lovecraft horror story to me. Lovecraft was all about fools who go chasing after forbidden knowledge and buried secrets and wind up getting more than they bargained for, if not killed, or worse, driven hopelessly mad. His stories were full of ancient lands hidden away from the world, where malevolent gods and their pet monsters dwell in their ruins and lie in wait for explorers and other lost souls to feed upon or possess. The essential Lovecraft saga is At The Mountains of Madness, about geologists who discover the remnants of an old civilization in Antarctica and stumble into supernatural trouble, including a monstrous, shape-shifting creature called a Shoggoth. What did Faraday say in this episode?

And so we had Rousseau and her French scientist buddies and Jin trekking through the jungle, stumbling upon the remnants of the Island's ancient past, and getting attacked by its resident shoggoth, Smokey. We learned one new thing about Smokey: He/She/It resides in the bowels of an old temple — or should we say the Temple, a much-talked-about-but-never-seen Island landmark. Smokey chewed up one of the Frenchies, then he made like a Return of the Jedi/Sarlacc Pit tongue and gave Montand his own kind of French kiss. As Smokey dragged his prey into his lair, we heard a whirring sound, like a winch being wound, akin to when the Monster tried this same kind of snag and drag trick with Locke toward the end of Season 1. Is Smokey mechanical? Is he animal? Is he ''posthuman and hardwired?'' (See another gloomy shoggoth, emphasis on ''goth'' — Marilyn Manson, Mechanical Animals. Great album.)

Jin and the Frenchies scampered after Montand and grabbed him by the arm and engaged Smokey in a tug of war struggle for his life — men of science on one side, freaky thing of faith on the other. The freaky faith thing won, but the science squad got Montand's arm for a door prize. You saw that, right? They ripped off his arm. Again: They. Ripped. Off. His. Arm. I gasped, and my mouth hung open for many minutes afterward. And then, when it could move again, I smiled and said aloud, ''Man, do I f---ing love this show.'' Ripped his arm off! I'm still giggling. Anyway, welcome back to the show, Jin, and thank you for facilitating one of the all-time great Lost sequences. I loved how the whole thing was imbued with a cool, creepy quiet. It even had the patience to stop for a second and watch Jin sip rainwater out of a palm frond. Riveting. And refreshing!

The eeriness continued on the beach, where the divorce/marriage themes clicked in. There was the music box, with the guy in the groom's tux dancing with his princess bride. And here was Jin serving as witness to the Shotgun Marriage (and Divorce) of Danielle and Robert. So much previously referenced Lost mythology was compressed into this brief scene. We saw the deadly results of the madness that afflicted Danielle and her cohorts. We heard them argue about Smokey, and heard Robert refer to it as the Temple's ''security system,'' which, if you recall, is how Danielle characterized the Monster wayyy back in Season 1 — as a ''security system.'' But what struck me about hearing these words again was just how long Rousseau has stuck with that interpretation, forged in the first days of her Island hell. It embellished for me the idea that Danielle has been really messed up for a really, really long time.

Remember when Rousseau totally freaked out when she saw Jin again on the beach? ''I saw you disappear!'' she exclaimed. In her shock, I saw a simple answer to the time travel noodle-cooker that many of you have been puzzling over since last week: Did the French Lady recognize Jin when she first met the castaways in Season 1? The answer could very well be: Does it matter? For Rousseau, Reappearing Jin was one more scary, inexplicable thing in a scary, inexplicable situation that was about to become a way of life. By the time their lives intersected once more in her future timeline, seeing Jin again (if she even recognized him), the significance probably just bounced off her. ''Oh. You again. Whatever.''

With all of this said, I am sticking with my theory from yesterday's Doc Jensen. Per the precedent set in ''The Constant,'' in which Season 4 Faraday did not remember meeting Time Traveling Desmond in the past until Season 4 Desmond actually made the trip, I don't think Season 1 Rousseau recognized Jin from their Season 5 encounter. Yes, a little confusing, but it's all summed up by the term ''course correction'' which Lost has frequently cited. Simply, what this means is...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Despite the author's insistence that what follows will be ''simple,'' it is actually nothing short of an epic tangent that will either confuse you royally or, in the author's words, ''illuminate your freaking' brain with extraordinary revelation that explains everything about 'Lost'.'' You can be the judge. You can also feel free to skip to next BOLD FACED HEADER if you prefer your recaps to be safe and sane. This is all to say: You only have yourself to blame for reading this. We now resume the narrative proper.]

Simply, this means that some kind of omniscient and self-aware agency — God; Fate; Some undiscovered regulatory force — finds a way to sort things out when paradoxes or inconsistencies are created by time travel. This is not merely a writers' contrivance. This is actually rooted in some kind of theory. It is called ''The Principle of Self-Consistency,'' and it was promoted by two eggheads, one named Igor Novikov, and one named David Lewis — and yes, as we learned last season, that also happens to be the name of Dead Charlotte's Dharma Dad.

But it's that Novikov guy who's about to flip your lid. In 1991, in a journal called Classical and Quantum Gravity, Novikov and another dude named Andrei Lossev wrote a big paper about time travel called — drum roll please! — ''The Jinn of the Time Machine: Non-Trivial Self Consistent Solutions.'' The purpose of the paper was to describe various solutions to paradoxical problems created by time travel. Here's an example of one such paradox — taken from a book I found called The New Time Travelers — that I believe speaks to the larger plot of Lost. Let's say a writer wants to write a novel. So he builds a time travel machine, goes to the future, buys a copy of the novel he wrote, then brings it back. Easy. Except who created the novel if the author really didn't write it?

But Novikov and Lossev argued that this seemingly impossible scenario just might be possible...if you were willing to apply some creative thinking. The title of their paper is something of a wry nerd joke, one that Lost fans can appreciate. In The New Time Travelers, the author (whose name I wish to deliberately withhold for now) explains that a ''non trivial'' solution is physicist speak for ''not the obvious answer.'' As for the other part of the title, the term ''Jinn'' is another word for the kind of genies you might find in Arabic fairy tales. Novikov and Lossev used the term Jinn to describe things like that magical novel I mentioned earlier — things whose existence defy conventional explanations. According to the mysterious author of The New Time Travelers, Novikov and Lossev were drawing on the depiction of a kind of Jinn that you find in the Koran; they are ''a race of spirits that can appear suddenly and unexpectedly.''

A race of spirits that can appear suddenly and unexpectedly. Just like Jin in last night's episode. Just like Christian Shepherd in last night's episode. And just like Desmond in last night's episode — Desmond, whom Faraday in the season premiere called ''miraculously unique.'' Just like a Jinn.

The implication of all these ''clues'' is that there seems to be some kind of time loop in play, one in which some or all of the castaways are the Jinns in the aforementioned magical novel analogy; they are objects that must be returned to where they belong in order to avoid catastrophic paradox and preserve the established time-space continuum. Which, I think, is a pretty good explanation for what Ms. Hawking and her off-Island crew of quantum mechanics are attempting to do. (Too supernatural for you? Well, tough. The naturalists in the crowd got a big disclaimer from Faraday last night when he said: ''Bringing back to the people who left to stop these temporal shifts, that's where we leave science behind.'')

Crazy. Okay. But here's where all of this gets really great. The mysterious author of The New Time Travelers? His name is David Toomey. Ring bells? It should. David = Dave, Hurley's imaginary friend from the Loony Bin. Another Jinn. Toomey = Sam Toomey, another victim of The Numbers' curse. Best friend to Leonard Simms, one of Hurley's loony bin friends. In fact, the whole reason Hurley went to Australia was to find Toomey. Instead, he learned the dude had shot himself years earlier.

(Look, you should just be grateful that I'm not going to spend the next 1000 words comparing the Island to the Novikov/Lossov conceit of a ''clever spacecraft'' moving at time-warping light speed. Because that would REALLY get you calling for my termination. PSYCHOPOMP!)

John Locke has had some great smiles this season. I loved the one in ''Jughead'' where he grinned ear to ear when he made the acquaintance of young Charles Widmore. And I loved the one he flashed Sawyer just before he climbed down the Well, our newest addition to the Island's mythic topography. Wouldn't it just be easier to just lower you down, you old coot? ''Where's the fun in that?'' he said, just beaming.

And so he lowered himself down the rope and then the time flash kicked in and severed the rope and John Locke fell like Icarus from the sky and landed in the Island's underworld. Busted his leg, too. AGAIN. Do I dare mention that this team-up of classical physics (John Locke fall down and go boom) and quantum physics (time flash) reminds of the name of that scientific journal Classical and Quantum Gravity that published the aforementioned ''Jinn'' paper? PSYCHOPOMP!

And speaking of which, there was Jack's Ghost Dad, bringing the light of illumination in to the darkness of the Lost puzzle. Letting Ben turn the frozen donkey wheel? Stupid Locke! That. Wasn't. What. You. Were. Told. To. Do! Why can't you just follow the damn instructions, man! But second, Christian told John that he could still make things right. All he had to do was turn the wheel — or rather, fix the wheel by putting back on its axis — and leave the Island and convince his friends to come back. (Is this why the castaways have been flashing through time? Because Ben didn't leave the wheel in the locked position? Hilarious.) Oh, and he had to die, too. ''I guess that's why they call it...sacrifice,'' Christian said coyly. Big question: Do we trust Jack's father? Who is on the side of angels here: Christian in his Underworld or Ben and Ms. Hawking in their church? Or are they all on the side of demons? ''The only side he's on is his own,'' Sayid said of Ben. Maybe that applies to ALL the menacing power players at work in the Lostverse manipulating castaway destinies.

Regardless: Locke is back on the path that was intended for him — his Christ-like rescue mission of redemption, reconciliation, and restoration. Which reminds me: Earlier in this epic digression, er, recap, I mentioned a book called The Great Divorce. In the brief introduction to his book, Lewis wrote a line that sums up exactly what happened to Locke last night. ''I do not think all who choose wrong paths perish; but their rescue consists of being put on the right path. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, not by simply going on.'' What he said!

COUPLINGS AND OTHER CONSPICUOUS SYMMETRIES

One last observation about the episode before turning this over to you. I noticed a number of interesting symmetries in this episode. For example:

Sci-Fi Smokey lives in the Temple...and Ms. Hawking lives in her half-church/half-geek basement, i.e., Our Lady of Perpetual Computer Labs.

John Locke gets a big ''Thank you!'' from Juliet for trying to save their asses...and Ben gets a big speech whining about the lack of gratitude from Jack, Sun and co. for trying to do the same.

And finally, Jin basically divorces Sun by turning in his wedding ring for the sake of saving Sun's life...and Sun basically marries him anew by accepting his ring for the sake of saving Jin's life. So it goes that an episode about divorces large and small should end with a wedding.

Now: a tropical Island for the honeymoon.

PS: Sorry about last week, Sun.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1550612_20245769_20258523,00.html?xid=email-alert-lost-20090212-item1

"This Place is Death" Polls

Use this Comment section to suggest other answers and to discuss your choices.

"The Little Prince" Polls

What did you think of "The Little Prince"

I got so into it that I started dodging bullets and paddling for my life! 22 (29%)

Awsome
33 (44%)

OK
17 (22%)

Really, Really Bad
2 (2%)

It gave me labor pains just watching it
0 (0%)

Votes so far: 74

What were your favorate parts of "The Little Prince"?

Sawyer watching Kate help Clarie give birth
11 (20%)

Seeing Jin alive
29 (53%)

Seeing Danielle Rouseau and her crew
21 (38%)

Locke seeing the Hatch light & telling Sawyer about that night
10 (18%)

Jack's conversation with Claire's Mom
3 (5%)

Ben telling Kate that he had sent the lawyers to take Aaron
6 (11%)

Sun pulling the gun from the chocolate box
3 (5%)

Another moment
3 (5%)

Votes so far: 54


Who were the ones in the canoe shooting at Saywer's group?

The Others/Hostiles
6 (15%)

Widmore's people
7 (17%)

The Oceanic 6
11 (28%)

Someone in 2007/2008 that we haven't met yet
10 (25%)

Someone else
5 (12%)

Votes so far: 39

'Lost': Time Travel Anxiety? The Doc Has the Cure!

Doc Jensen has been diagnosing a lot of you with this condition since season 5 began -- this week, he has the salve. Plus: the ''Lost Untangled'' clip of the week, and a little number we call ''Zero Point Energy and You''

By Jeff Jensen

Jeff Jensen, an EW senior writer, has been despondent since the cancellation of ''Twin Peaks''''THE TEASE!'' + ''LOST MADE EASY!'' = LOST UNTANGLED
ABC is trying to do its part to ease Lost viewers' confusion with a new weekly web series called Lost Untangled. I'm not sure how clarifying these things truly are, but they're pretty darn entertaining. Beginning this week, we're going to embed these videos in this column. This installment offers a recap of what happened last week and a peek at tonight's episode. My hunch is that this may have been unintentional: The scene in question — the payoff of the Is Sun Gonna Gun Down Ben? cliffhanger — originally may have been the climactic moment of ''The Little Prince,'' but they decided to cut it and move it into the new episode for some reason. If you can handle being spoiled just a little bit, I think you'll find this pretty darn fun.

THE LOST LIST!
Special ''Lost in Time'' edition
In all the time I've spent publicly obsessing over Lost, I don't think I've seen the hardcore fans quite this activated by the show. (''Activated'' = talking, speculating, theorizing.) At the same time, I've never seen them so baffled, either. (''Baffled'' = ''I don't understand what the hell is going on!'') I don't think this is bad, per se. On the contrary, I think for many viewers, confusion is fueling their more-intense-than-ever interest. But for many others, confusion produces unwanted anxiety. The cause of this exciting/frustrating confusion is the time-travel story line, a sci-fi conceit that's proven to be accessible to the masses (Back To The Future, The Terminator, Peggy Sue Got Married) even though it comes with a high risk of failure (see: the too-many alternate realities/shoddy narrative logic of Heroes). This week's list focuses on five key questions pertaining to LTTA (Lost Time Travel Anxiety) and my suggestions for how to roll with them, with a minimum of nutty theories.

1. WHAT OR WHO IS DOING THE TIME TRAVELLING — THE ISLAND OR THE CASTAWAYS?
Lost certainly isn't conforming to what we expect the usual time travel story to look like. The fact that the show is defying our expectation is one reason for LTTA. The castaways should be Marty McFlys and the Island should be Doc Brown's time-traveling DeLorean. Right? Wrong. If that scenario were true for Lost, then everyone who was on the Island when Ben turned the frozen donkey — i.e., Richard Alpert and the Others — should be time traveling, too. So, too, should the actual physical environs of the Island as it existed when it vanished. What makes the most sense — based on everything we've seen so far — is that only the castaways are quantum leaping. Of course, this conclusion rips open a new can of wormy questions. Why only the castaways? What makes them so special? Those are questions that nag at me — but I feel like the story is going to answer them.

THE LOST LIST! (cont.)
2. WHERE DID THE ISLAND GO?
The vanishing Island mystery is the biggest source of my own kind of LTTA. I find myself wanting to come up with a single time-travel theory that explains everything — the quantum-leaping castaways, Ben's wormhole trip to the Sahara Desert, and the Island's disappearance. But what makes the most sense is that there are separate (but interlocking) explanations for each of those puzzles. Personally, I still like my theory that either Ben's crank on the frozen donkey wheel or the Oceanic 6's departure from the Island represented an event that shouldn't have happened. That event made a mess of the Island's timeline, and until the timeline is fixed, the Island has taken itself/has been taken ''offline.'' However, I am also intrigued by the idea that the Island moved into a hidden dimension of space. Sci-fi crazy talk? Not at all: According to super string theory, there are 10 dimensions of space, including eight that are hidden in the fabric of reality. As a result of turning the donkey wheel, the Island slipped into one of those dimensions. Crazy? Not according to Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe.

3. WHAT TIME (PERIOD) IS IT?
A chief source of LTTA for many fans is how the show makes them do some of the work of figuring out what year the castaways land in after each time flash. My advice? Don't work so hard. I don't think the show wants us to. I think Lost merely wants us to identify with the castaways' fear and confusion over their predicament. In other words, keep track of their emotional experience, not the history lesson. So far, all of their reactions have been unified by a common theme: Can the past be changed in such a way that alters everything that follows? Season 5, it seems to me, is simply an elaborate rumination on that question, and as such is a fanciful elaboration of classic Lost themes: redemption, salvation, transformation, escape, acceptance. Tonight, the theme switches to something very visceral: simple survival.

That said, I think we should mentally bookmark at least two of the stops that the Left Behinders have made so far in their time-travel jaunts: 1. The ''Jughead'' adventure, in which the castaways met Richard Alpert and a young Charles Widmore, and in which Faraday advised the Others to bury a hydrogen bomb; 2. The ''Ajira Airlines'' intrigue, in which the Left Behinders discovered that another group of people — maybe the returned Oceanic 6, maybe a new group of castaways? — were using their old beach camp.

4. WHAT YEAR SHOULD IT BE ON THE ISLAND, AND WHAT YEAR IS IT OFF THE ISLAND?
A relatively easy pair of questions to answer, but we find ourselves re-asking them as we struggle to stay afloat in the deluge of new chronological twists and turns. The Left Behinders vanished in January 2005. That was the same month and date that the Oceanic 6 left the Island. Since then, more than three years have passed for the Oceanic 6 — but only a couple days (maybe more, maybe less) have elapsed for the Left Behinders, in terms of time spent time traveling.

5. THE NOODLE COOKER: NOW THAT WE KNOW THAT DANIELLE ROUSSEAU ENCOUNTERED JIN IN THE PAST, DID SHE KNOW WHO JIN WAS WHEN SHE FOUND THE CASTAWAYS AFTER THEY CRASHED ON THE ISLAND?
This intrigue will be further deepened tonight, as I can report that she and Jin will share a pretty unforgettable adventure together. A similar mystery surrounds Richard Alpert. We now know the ageless Other encountered Locke and company during the 1950s era of the Island. But did he possess those memories when he was trying to convince Locke to kill his dad and usurp Ben's leadership during season 3?

Perhaps this question was addressed/answered last season in ''The Constant.'' In that classic episode, Desmond's consciousness traveled back in time to when he was in the military. Then he sought out Daniel Faraday for help in solving his time displacement dilemma. That means Daniel should have come to the Island with the memory of meeting Desmond, right? Nope. The episode seemed to establish that Faraday did not possess that memory until Desmond went back in time. This principle was affirmed anew in the season premiere, when Faraday used Island Past Desmond to send a message to off-Island Future Desmond, who had no recollection of that bizarre encounter until about three years after he was rescued by Penny.

The precedent of the Faraday/Desmond moments would seem to suggest that the answer to the Rousseau/Jin question is simply, ''No.'' Adult Rousseau did not yet have a memory of meeting Jin when she encountered the castaways in season 1. That said, Faraday did tell Desmond that he was miraculously unique, that ''the rules'' didn't apply to him. Does that mean that the Desmond/Faraday precedents actually can't be applied to other characters? Time will tell.

GET TO THE (ZERO) POINT!
A theory that could explain almost everything

Last season, in the episode ''Meet Kevin Johnson,'' Lost cited a book that may help explain many of our time travel questions. In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, the hero becomes ''unstuck in time'' and begins experiencing past, present, and future all at once. Perhaps Lost is dramatizing a similar conceit: The Left Behinders have become ''unstuck'' and are now experiencing the Island's past, present, and future in an everlasting state of now. Bookmark this idea.

In the world of science, there is a theoretical concept called zero point energy/zero point field, which could help explain much of what we're seeing on Lost. Zero point energy is a hypothetical source of possibly limitless energy. It is linked to ''The Casmir Effect'' and ''negative energy,'' terms name checked by Pierre Chang in his Orchid orientation videos. They are also key ingredients in the wormhole theory of time travel.

Men of Science aren't the only ones interested in zero point energy. There's a whole bunch of Men of Faith — fringe thinkers, mostly — who believe that zero point energy is like magic. It can be mentally directed to make stuff happen (a.k.a. mind over matter), or even grant a kind of omniscience that could allow a person to experience past, present, and future all at once. Lynne McTaggart, a leading proponent of zero point thinking (she even wrote a book about it called The Field, which her own website describes as ''a cult best-seller''), contends that people can wield this energy to cure their maladies. Think: the season 2 episode ''S.O.S.'', in which the lovable Bernard and Rose went to see an Australian faith healer. Said healer, if you recall, lived near Ayres Rock (also known as Uluru), which the Aborigines considered a gateway to an otherworldly realm called the Dreaming, and which bunches of New Age types believe is a kind of nexus for zero point-esque quantum/mystic energy. (I don't make this stuff up! It's all researchable at Wikipedia — so it must be true!)

Maybe you think this zero point stuff is silly. Maybe you think I'm nuts for even trying to apply it to Lost. If so, you're probably going to think I'm totally off my rocker for suggesting the following:

Remember the scene in this season's second episode in which Neil (a.k.a. Frogurt) died?

Now, I am convinced that this scene is actually a coded message pointing toward zero point theory. The scene begins with Miles Straume hauling in a dead boar. Then, Neil starts yelling at Sawyer for calling him Frogurt, emphatically reminding us that his name is Neil. Now, earlier in the episode, Neil carried on about the utter pointlessness of their survival struggle. Why work so hard to build a new camp or start a fire if the time flashes will basically take it all away? His cynical consternation reaches a crescendo in his death scene, when Neil rants about their inability to produce simple, conventional energy (''We have no fire!'') before getting killed by a flaming arrow of irony.

Dead boar. Niels Bohr. Not a bore.
Decoded:

''Neil'' + ''dead boar'' + ''pointlessness'' = Niels Bohr, a dead physicist and one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, which points to the existence of this hypothetical zero point energy. (And because I love the idea of this pun, please, let me jackhammer it into your brain: ''pointlessness'' = ''zero point.'') Bohr worked closely with Werner Heisenberg, whose fabled ''uncertainty principle'' is often used to prop up mind-over-matter pseudoscience with some kind of legit science. And really, isn't Frogurt's flaming-arrow death a complex metaphor for what has happened ever since Ben turned the frozen donkey wheel? ''Frogurt'' = ''frozen yogurt.'' If you apply heat to frozen yogurt, it melts. Similarly, when Ben turned the frozen donkey wheel, energy was unleashed, and the castaways' fixed perspective sense of time began to melt into an unstable flow of relativistic fluidity.

[Crickets]

I will now receive your flaming arrows of incredulity at JeffJensenEW@aol.com.


* * *

Speaking of brain-hurting crazy talk, may I recommend to you the new episode of Totally Lost, the new web series hosted by yours truly and my friend and colleague Dan Snierson. We left you on a cliffhanger last week, as our show was essentially hijacked by Pig-E, the ratings-goosing tiny toy swine mascot that management forced upon us. I tried to bolt, but before Dan could do so, Pig-E used his psychic powers to make Dan's nose bleed. No, I'm not making that up. THIS REALLY HAPPENED. What happens next? Well, we made a show about it. Look for it to post later today — or watch it right now, if ''later in the day'' has already happened. How very Slaughterhouse-Five.

More tomorrow in the TV Watch recap. See ya! —Doc J
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid10996115001/bclid10713938001/bctid11596114001

One on One with Michael Emerson

February 11, 2009 12:03 am HoboTrashcan Celebrity Interviews

From the moment he first arrived on screen claiming to be an innocent balloonist marooned on the island, Benjamin Linus has been an unstoppable force on Lost. While normally depicted as a cold and calculating villain, it now seems that Linus is the only character who can bring the Oceanic Six back to the island, saving humanity in the process.

Playing this complex and captivating character is Michael Emerson, a stage actor who made a name for himself on television by playing serial killer William Hinks on The Practice. We recently caught up with Emerson to talk about the complexities of Lost, the lighter side of Benjamin Linus and having microwavable food thrown at your head.

How did you get into acting and when did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

I got interested in it when I was a kid. The earliest memory I have of an urge to be on stage was I saw a kid that went to my church doing the school play at the high school and I just thought he was so great and so charismatic. I thought, “If I could ever be half that cool, I would want to do that.” So I studied it as an undergraduate in college and then I lost track of it for a long time. I fell into another line of work – I became a magazine illustrator and I did that all through my 20s. I didn’t become an actor again until my middle-30s. So I’ve come back to it late and I guess I’m still trying to make up for lost time.

Was acting something that you just couldn’t let go? What made you decide to go back to it?

I knew that my life would be in the arts and I had skills and sensibilities that lent themselves to the theatre or the graphic arts or what have you. But the longer I pursued the graphic arts, I realized that I was happy to be pursuing a creative field, but I wasn’t enjoying the process of it very much - the lonely hours hunched over a drawing table, the solitary nature of it. So I was glad when I got back to the theatre and I realized that the same set of tools could be brought to bear but in a somewhat more celebratory and social work setting. I felt that I then found the best of both worlds. So the theatre seems to work fine for me.

One of your first big television roles was playing serial killer William Hinks in The Practice, which earned you an Emmy. What was it like playing that role and how much of an impact do you think that character had on your acting career, including Damon Lindelof and Carlton’s Cuse’s decision to cast you as Benjamin Linus on Lost?

It was the first character of that sort I had ever played, whether it was on stage or in front of the camera. As you can see, it has colored all of the work I’ve done subsequently on TV for sure and possibly in the cinema as well. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It was a departure for me. I had always played mostly comical characters previous to that, but now that sort of positioned me into the “damaged and dangerous” kind of category, which is fine with me.

They continue to give me interesting characters and certainly Ben is a great and complicated and mysterious and wonderful undertaking. But it’s a type of playing that I wouldn’t have predicted would be my meat and potatoes and I wonder if there will be more of it in my life or if I’ll find a way into some other sort of type of character.

Lindelof said in interviews when Sayid captured Ben and first introduced the audience to your character, the plan was always to have Ben eventually revealed to be the leader of The Others, but the writers had a “trap door” in place to have Ben end up as just another Other in case the actor who played him wasn’t working out. When you were originally cast for that three-episode arc, did you know that was the case?

No, but that was my sort of intuition. Look, when you take a guest spot on TV, every actor sort of has that tiny kernel of hope at the back of his mind that you’re going to play this character so well that they’re going to figure out a way to keep you and that happened for me on Lost. And then, in hindsight, you say, “What was the dynamic of that exactly?” And I think it is just as you described – a sort of an onscreen screen test. They had written this character. They thought they liked it, they thought they would do things with it, but they were going to wait and see how it played out. Luckily it played out well with me with my portrayal, so they kept me in it and they ran with it. It was a kind of an audition that I passed and I’m glad to have passed it.


At what point did you start to get the sense that Benjamin Linus was going to be a big deal on the show?

In the early going, I don’t know, in the third or fourth episode that I was in when Sayid was still pressuring me to reveal my secrets or who I represented or who I was working for, it came to me one day, “Wouldn’t it be a neat twist if instead of being some henchman that I was actually the guy in charge?” And I actually mentioned it to a director on whatever episode it was and he said, “I can’t really discuss that with you.”

And then I thought, “Well, if I’m not on to something that’s true, I’m on to something that should be true or would be cool if it was true.” It turned out it was true.

So did you decide to play the character like that at that point?

I always played the character sort of the same, which was give up as little as possible, play it as earnest and let the business of who he was or what he was up to be a contract between the writers and the viewers.

Lindelof said that what sealed the deal for him and Carlton Cuse was the way you delivered the line “You guys got any milk?” during the chilling breakfast scene with Locke and Jack.

(Laughs.)

It’s the first time we see how cold and calculating the character can really be and your delivery of that line is perfect. Ben has had many more bone-chilling lines since then and you have a tendency to deliver his more disturbing lines perfectly calm, which makes him creepier than if you were adding inflection to his voice.

Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?

How did you come up with that? How did you decide to deliver his lines without any emotion?

I learned it on stage, where I learned everything that I do as an actor. I have played some villains, Shakespearean villains like Iago, and I learned that something that scares an audience is when the subtext of a line reading does not match what the line says. In other words, if someone is inappropriately cool in a hot situation, it unnerves the audience. They’re suspicious. To say the right words, but in the wrong tone is a good tool. It sends a signal. It suggests to us that this person doesn’t think like I do. Either this person is warped or crazy or this person is up to something.

With Ben, you certainly get the impression that there is a lot going on below the surface and that he’s constantly up to something.

And I think that’s an important effect to achieve in our work, at least with a character like Ben. One of the things the audience longs for is a sense of a character’s inner-life. And if you play a character that gives up little, then you want to suggest or promise that it’s not because there’s nothing to give up. It’s because they choose to keep it to themselves. It’s much more interesting.

When Ben was first introduced, it seemed quite clear that he was a villain on the show, but as the story has unfolded, we’ve become more sympathetic to him. The scene last year when Keamy killed Ben’s daughter in cold blood right in front of his eyes was truly heartbreaking and it showed just how vulnerable and human Ben actually is. Do you think of Ben as a villain? Do you think that as he says he is, he’s actually one of the good guys? How do you see the character?

I probably view him a little more sympathetically then most of the people who watch the show, but partly that’s craft and partly it’s that I really think he’s a more ambiguous creature than some people do. I think it’s entirely possible that he ends up being one of the heroes of the show because we don’t know what the stakes are for him. We don’t know who he’s fighting and for what. Maybe if we knew, we would admire his steadiness and his relentlessness.

And he definitely thinks that he’s right.

That’s certainly true. That’s safe to say. Ben believes pretty much everything he says and he’s not much of a liar really. He’s a manipulator, but he doesn’t tell that many lies. And he really hasn’t hurt that many people, in the present day at least.

We saw his honesty again in last week’s episode when Jack attempted to defend him and Ben admitted that he hired the lawyer who was attempting to prove that Kate isn’t Aaron’s mother.

Ben is nothing if not practical. He’d already gotten what he needed from that play, so why hide it? It’s a new deal now, they’re on the docks. So we need to talk frankly and they need to know the score. Or at least the part of the score that Ben is willing to reveal.

But this business of Ben becoming more complicated and less patently villain, that’s part of the whole mechanics of the show in general. The show started out to seem like a very simple story and as it’s gone it’s grown in complexity and ambiguity, as have most of the characters. All of those stereotypes seem to be in Lost to be broken down and reconfigured and recontextualized. And they’re great at that.


Your character has had some truly memorable interactions, particularly Locke, Jack and Charles Widmore. Do you have a favorite actor to work with on the set? Is there a particular character that if you see Ben has a scene with him you really look forward to it?

When I see that Terry [O'Quinn] and I are on the call sheet together, I know that it’s going to be a good day’s work. It’s going to be well played and it’s also going to be a fast and easy and lighthearted day because I think the Ben and John Locke scenes are brilliantly written and their dialogue or their dance is near the heart of the story of Lost. And we just work so well together. We’re of similar ages and similar craft and similar attitude about our work, so they are effortless days, they are carefree and the product always seems to turn out great.

Ben is definitely in Locke’s head, which is always great too.

Yeah. Well each of them is the nut the other cannot break somehow. They’re like irritants to each other and yet brothers in some strange way.

Earlier this season, you got a Hot Pocket thrown at your head when you spooked Hurley. How tough was it to keep a straight face during that scene?

Well, we did a lot of takes of it as you can imagine trying to get the Hot Pocket right. Some of them were too dry, some of them had way too much pizza sauce in them and they blew up like all over the place, so that was hilarious. Then it takes 10 minutes to get your straight face back on. But yeah, it was an interesting evening’s work. And, of course, they cut my deadpan response, which was: “Now that’s just a waste of a Hot Pocket.” (Laughs.) Which I thought was a classic downbeat Ben dry read, but they cut it.

They give Ben a lot more funny lines then the audience ever sees because that’s the first thing they’ll cut of Ben is when he’s being funny.

That’s too bad because he actually is a very funny character.

He’s very witty, I think. (Laughs.)

There are countless websites devoted to analyzing Lost and coming up with theories about the show. As an actor on the show, do you try to figure out what it all means or do you just focus on the script in front of you and focus on that day’s work?

We do both but like the viewers we’re sort of watchers of the show too. And as readers of the scripts, we’re continually trying to figure out what’s going on, where it’s headed or “Does this mean what I think it means?” We have those discussions on the set. Some people are more interested in that than others. I mean, Jorge [Garcia] is always a good one to talk about “All right man, where’s this thing going and what do you think?” because he keeps track of all of the most bizarre theories about the show and he’s also a sharp reader of the script. He can sort of read the mind of the writers a little bit, so sometimes he has a great idea of where a thing is leading.

Which is interesting too since the writers have said that his character a lot of times stands in for the audience – that he is used to represent what the audience is thinking.

He is. He is us if we were in that situation. Bewildered, bemused, out of place, ill-equipped, all of that. He’s an earthling amongst aliens.

Your wife is a huge fan of the show and she even played your mother in a flashback episode. Does she try to get inside information from you about the show?

No, she tries to get me to shut up. She’s a purist, you know? She doesn’t want to know anything before she witnesses it in the official and legal telecast. So I have to kind of be quiet. I’ll come home and say, “You’re never going to believe what I did today.”

And she’ll say, “Shut up! Shut up!”


Obviously, you don’t know what the writers have in store for your character or the show next season, but how would you like to see Lost end and how would you like to see things end for Ben?

I don’t know that Ben will end up being any different when this is all said and done than he has been right along. It may be that Ben is unchanged. We may just, because of circumstances that the writers create, we may just come to see him differently. The change may be in the viewer, not in the character.

The end of the whole story, the final conclusion – I hope it’s sort of contextual. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a thing that was in plain sight all along. I hope that it’s a thing where we go, “Oh my god, I should have known. It was there all the time. How did I not get that?” I hope that’s the note that we feel at the end of it all.

If anyone could pull that off, it would be the writers of Lost.

It’s going to be something where there’s one more dimension to the events we’ve witnessed than we thought or than we dreamed. Something that repositions everything. And I think these are the guys for the job. They’re deeply experienced and deeply read in science fiction and fantasy and horror and comic books. They are structurally brilliant. So if you can depend on anyone for an ending that means something, I think it will be these guys.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Lost airs Wednesday nights on ABC, but you probably already knew that.
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2009/02/11/one-on-one-with-michael-emerson/

LOST 5x05 This Place Is Death Sneak Peek 2

LOST 5x05 This Place Is Death Sneak Peek #1

LOST 5x05 This Place is Death Promo #3

LOST - Daniel Dae Kim Reveals How Jin Survived

LOST 5X05 This Place Is Death Canadian Promo

`Lost' star says Smoke Monster secrets to emerge

Your content goes here
By LAURI NEFF – 5 hours ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — One of the biggest mysteries of "Lost" — the Smoke Monster — will be unveiled on the popular TV drama, and soon.

Actor Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Jin, said in an interview that the origin and nature of the malevolent dark cloud will be disclosed and viewers will even get a glimpse of its lair. Turns out the monster is as "old as the island" that's been home to the Oceanic jet-crash survivors and their foes.

Kim also cautioned against expectations that his character, Jin, will reunite with his wife, Sun (Yunjin Kim), even though Jin survived a freighter explosion and Sun returns to the island after escaping it.

Those events don't mean "they're particularly in the same place or chronologically in the same time," Kim said.

As for the atomic bomb that showed up in the "Jughead" episode, he said the show's producers rarely give something such prominence unless it counts in the island's mythology.
"That's a huge red herring if it's a red herring," Kim said, suggesting the bomb could help resolve plot points as the series ends in 2010.

Perhaps the time-traveling that's popped up this season might be one of those.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iTBgePEZtSTMwnUwyhkUqjVAIl_wD9691BBO1

Walt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I recently saw Malcolm David Kelley, "Walt haircut" and all, hawking chicken snacks in a Tyson commercial. It didn't fill me with a lot of hope for his future on Lost. Care to comment? — Adam

MATT: Did it occur to you that MDK was working the Walt 'do because he recently filmed an episode of Lost, scheduled to air Feb. 25? Just don't expect Michael's son to factor into Ben's mission to return select former castaways to the isle. As Michael Emerson tells us, "The writers would say that Walt ... left the island at a time that wasn't key. It's not just about the six who left; it's about when and how they left."
http://www.tvguide.com/News/MegaBuzz-Lost-NCIS-1002743.aspx

Lost Sneak Peeks: -------------- Is Back!

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b99339_lost_sneak_peeks_smokey_back.html
Lost Sneak Peeks: Smokey Is Back!
Today 11:45 AM PST by Kristin Dos Santos
http://vids.eonline.com/services/link/bcpid1396519019/bctid10556579001
Sun (Yunjin Kim) is a gun-toting madwoman now! She's definitely not afraid of a little "eye for an eye" revenge, but Ben (Michael Emerson) has a saving grace...Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) is still alive! And for once, he's not lying.

Also, old Smokey is back, and it seems like he may have his very own lair—guarded by hieroglyphics, no doubt. Check it out in the clip below and then come back on Wednesday night for the Lost Redux to get the lowdown...
http://vids.eonline.com/services/link/bcpid1396519019/bctid10556571001

Spoilerfix Stuff

Episode 5.09: Namaste Airdate: March 11, 2009

02/08 - Jin and Swayer see the first half of the Oceanic 6. The reaction is emotional to the return. Jack talks to Marvin Candle. Juliet and Sawyer are living together.
Source: Lost Spoilers

General spoilers:

02/08 - Two new people will accompany the O6 back to the Island. We will see another crash. We will see Ms. Hawking inside the Lamppost Station. Sawyer has to to lie. The lie hinges on everyone's safety, especially his own. Someone we've seen will be shown to be Ethan's mother. [...] Dharma wants to kill Sayid and capture him. A teenage Ben helps him escape. Ben is shot and I think Jin witnessed this. Juliet tries to help Ben but gets Sawyer and Kate to help her carry Ben to Richard and the Others. Richard Alpert was there and so were Others with guns. Locke is seen shooting a scene where he is wearing an outfit very similar to the suit he was buried in. Source: Lost Spoilers

Episode 5.07 - The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham - Press Release

LOCKE'S FATEFUL MISSION OFF THE ISLAND IS REVEALED, ON ABC'S "LOST"

Malcolm David Kelley Guest Stars as Walt

"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" - Locke's fateful mission off the island as Jeremy Bentham is revealed, on "Lost," WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 (9:00-10:06 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

"Lost" stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, 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, Ken Leung as Miles, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet and Terry O'Quinn as Locke.

Guest starring are Malcolm David Kelley as Walt, John Terry as Christian Shephard, Alan Dale as Charles Widmore, Lance Reddick as Matthew Abaddon, William Blanchett as Aaron, Sa•d Taghmaoui as Caesar, Zuleikha Robinson as Ilana, Ammar Daraiseh as Hajer, Grisel Toledo as Susie, Stephen Scibetta as foreman and John Jamal Bradley as kid.

"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" was written by Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof and directed by Jack Bender.

Source: ABC