Check out this unbelievable editing job that shows the plane crash from the vantage points of several characters, as depicted across each of the three seasons of Lost. If you did not believe before that the Powers that Be have always had a plan for the show, look at how seamlessly these shots from at least six different episodes work together to tell the story of moments leading up to the crash through the immediate aftermath from the perspective of Desmond, the Others, the fuselage survivors and the tail section survivors.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
On the Whacking of Great Television
Let me take a moment to step away from all things "Lost" to bemoan the "lost" opportunity to properly inter a beloved TV series. Ah, David Chase, but your Sopranos finale left so much to be desired, and proved that, while you are truly a master of the medium, you also seem to harbor many of the same sociopathic tendencies as your protagonist/ anti-hero, Tony Soprano. In much the same nonchalant-and-therefore-disturbingly-cruel way that Tony snuffed the life out of beloved nephew/ captain Christopher Moltisanti because it was simple and convenient to do so, you have killed your baby in a manner that defied rhyme or reason. Mr. Chase, even in the mafia, there is an omerta governing who is to be killed, and under what circumstances. Your decision to end the final episode just as tension began to build, but before any particular set of events was actually set in place, was a cruel taunt to the millions of ardent fans who very truly felt you changed the face of television for the better.
Would it have killed you to add one small effect, the sound of sudden gunfire, after the final cut to black? You would have left things with a sense that something happened other than Meadow finally showing up at the conclusion of her parallel parking ordeal. The once-but-no-longer final episode of "Jericho" employed this technique to tremendous effect. Or you could have announced that Carlo's apparant turn had led to an indictment, but left it to the viewer to imagine how that would end up. Or, Paulie Walnuts, whose eventual betrayal has long been teased, could have finished the episode just walking and talking with Butch, the presumptive heir to Phil Leotardo's throne. Again, a suggestion, but not a resolution.
Just something more fulfilling than waiting for someone, anyone, to take the Sopranos' order at Holston's. That's all we ask. I'm not saying you have to mimic the absolute best finale ending ever, from "Six Feet Under," in which the eventual deaths of each and every cast member were depicted in juxtaposition to Claire's departure into whatever adventures would befall her on her route to that last moment of her death. Indeed, to be that complete in your wrap-up would have seemed derivative.
But should the finest resolution in Sopranos really be saved for Bobby Bacallieri? I think not. These characters deserved better. These fans deserved better. And all we got for the moment of terror in which we collectively thought our cable had gone out was the knowledge that somewhere you were probably cackling maniacally with the knowledge that you had pulled one over on your fans.
To be sure, there is a theory gaining traction that the cut to black was meant to signify Tony's suddenly getting whacked at Holston's, a nod to his birthday chat with Bobby in which the latter suggested you never see it coming, and the world just goes black. But if that were indeed the message behind the finale, it was too subtle, and rewarded too few fans - only those that hung on your every line of dialog across 85 episodes as though it were scripture to be memorized, chapter and verse. That kind of subtlety is fine for early reveals (a la Lost's Anthony Cooper being the real Sawyer), but not for the final resolution we all anticipated so fully.
We expected an end with someone getting whacked. Instead, we got an ending that was whack.
Would it have killed you to add one small effect, the sound of sudden gunfire, after the final cut to black? You would have left things with a sense that something happened other than Meadow finally showing up at the conclusion of her parallel parking ordeal. The once-but-no-longer final episode of "Jericho" employed this technique to tremendous effect. Or you could have announced that Carlo's apparant turn had led to an indictment, but left it to the viewer to imagine how that would end up. Or, Paulie Walnuts, whose eventual betrayal has long been teased, could have finished the episode just walking and talking with Butch, the presumptive heir to Phil Leotardo's throne. Again, a suggestion, but not a resolution.
Just something more fulfilling than waiting for someone, anyone, to take the Sopranos' order at Holston's. That's all we ask. I'm not saying you have to mimic the absolute best finale ending ever, from "Six Feet Under," in which the eventual deaths of each and every cast member were depicted in juxtaposition to Claire's departure into whatever adventures would befall her on her route to that last moment of her death. Indeed, to be that complete in your wrap-up would have seemed derivative.
But should the finest resolution in Sopranos really be saved for Bobby Bacallieri? I think not. These characters deserved better. These fans deserved better. And all we got for the moment of terror in which we collectively thought our cable had gone out was the knowledge that somewhere you were probably cackling maniacally with the knowledge that you had pulled one over on your fans.
To be sure, there is a theory gaining traction that the cut to black was meant to signify Tony's suddenly getting whacked at Holston's, a nod to his birthday chat with Bobby in which the latter suggested you never see it coming, and the world just goes black. But if that were indeed the message behind the finale, it was too subtle, and rewarded too few fans - only those that hung on your every line of dialog across 85 episodes as though it were scripture to be memorized, chapter and verse. That kind of subtlety is fine for early reveals (a la Lost's Anthony Cooper being the real Sawyer), but not for the final resolution we all anticipated so fully.
We expected an end with someone getting whacked. Instead, we got an ending that was whack.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
On Wings of (Green) Eagles
As the theorizing gets underway, I was thinking of something Damon and Carlton said in a recent podcast. They indicated that the green eagle that swooped past Hurley, Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Michael in "Live Together, Die Alone" was something they looked to put in the finales. Here is a screencap of that most obvious appearance of the bird (which prompted Hurley to ask if the bird called his name, and Michael to discover the gun Jack gave him had no bullets).
But I had no recollection of any prior appearances of the green "Hurleybird" until I recently rewatched Season 1 on DVD (if you have not taken another look at the first season since it aired, I strongly suggest you should - it was much more packed with clues than I, for one, initially realized). Anyway, in the first season finale, "Exodus, Part II," the green eagle in fact did make an appearance. Here are a couple of freeze frames, courtesy of lost-media.com.
Here, the eagle took flight away from Jack, Hurley, Locke, and Kate shortly after Dr. Arzt blew up, seconds before Smokey appeared and tried to drag Locke off into its subterranean lair.
Still, Damon and Carlton mentioned the bird, and its tendency to appear in finales, at a time recent enough for them to know what would happen in "Through the Looking Glass." And yet, there was no green bird...
Or was there? The bird's first appearance was a harbinger of Smokey. Its second was just before the whispers could be heard as Jack's team was ambushed by the Others. In the third finale, John Locke heard the whispers, and then (impossibly, it would seem), saw a significantly aged Walt, who seemed to have prescient knowledge of John's role on the island.
So I'm wondering - as related as the many strange island manifestations seem to be, is this evidence that, at the very least, spirit Walt and the Green Eagle are one and the same? Some food for thought, in any case.
But I had no recollection of any prior appearances of the green "Hurleybird" until I recently rewatched Season 1 on DVD (if you have not taken another look at the first season since it aired, I strongly suggest you should - it was much more packed with clues than I, for one, initially realized). Anyway, in the first season finale, "Exodus, Part II," the green eagle in fact did make an appearance. Here are a couple of freeze frames, courtesy of lost-media.com.
Here, the eagle took flight away from Jack, Hurley, Locke, and Kate shortly after Dr. Arzt blew up, seconds before Smokey appeared and tried to drag Locke off into its subterranean lair.Still, Damon and Carlton mentioned the bird, and its tendency to appear in finales, at a time recent enough for them to know what would happen in "Through the Looking Glass." And yet, there was no green bird...
Or was there? The bird's first appearance was a harbinger of Smokey. Its second was just before the whispers could be heard as Jack's team was ambushed by the Others. In the third finale, John Locke heard the whispers, and then (impossibly, it would seem), saw a significantly aged Walt, who seemed to have prescient knowledge of John's role on the island.
So I'm wondering - as related as the many strange island manifestations seem to be, is this evidence that, at the very least, spirit Walt and the Green Eagle are one and the same? Some food for thought, in any case.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Lost Theory Project Part 1 - the Questions
Greetings, Lostophiles. As promised, here is phase 1 of the hiatus-spanning project to develop a Complete Theory of Lost. My methodology requires that, in order to answer all of Lost's questions with a single, unifying theory, I first need to identify what those questions are. To that end, I've enlisted the help of the good folks at http://www.lostusers.com/ who helped me rough out the list you'll see below. Special thanks to Joe, Anna, Julie and Dean for their suggestions and theories, and for providing me with my own message board to cobble together this list. I suggest you check out the board (which you can access by clicking the title of this post), and all the boards at Lost Users, where the discussions range from the merely insightful to the downright brilliant.
So without further ado, here are the questions I've come up with, with the help of the LU community, divided into 31 categories (it probably would have been cooler if I came up with 42, but this will do just fine). Please post comments or email me at lostquestions@gmail.com if you think I need to add any categories, or any questions within each category, or if you think any of these questions have been positively answered already by the show.
1. Natural History of the Island
a. Is there something different about the island’s physical make-up that causes it to be the locus of so many strange goings-on?
b. Is the island physically anything other than a volcanic South Pacific island, like Hawaii or Polynesia?
2. The Statue/ Ruins/ Temple
a. Who built the 4-toe statue discovered by Sayid, Jin and Sun?
b. Who built the ruins where the Others left Locke and Cooper?
c. What is the “temple” where Ben sent the Others when he and Alex went to intercept Jack’s party?
d. Who built the temple?
e. Are a., b., and d. the same people? If so, what happened to them?
3. Jacob
a. Who or what is Jacob?
b. How long has Jacob been on the island?
c. If only Ben (and John Locke) can perceive Jacob, why does he hold such sway over the Others?
d. What does he have against technology?
e. What does he want, i.e., what has he tasked the Others with doing?
f. Why did he ask John Locke for help?
g. What about Ben made him the only person (before John Locke) Jacob would talk to?
4. The Hostiles
a. Who were Richard Alpert and his people before DHARMA called them “the Hostiles?”
b. What made the Hostiles so hostile?
c. Why doesn’t Richard seem to age?
d. How long have the Hostiles been on the island?
5. DHARMA
a. By what means did DHARMA hope to change the Valenzetti Equation factors (the numbers)?
b. What were they doing experimenting on Polar Bears?
c. Why tell the Pearl Station residents that there is no importance to the work being done in the Swan Station when in fact that station’s continued operation was so important?
d. How did Dr. Marvin Candle lose that arm?
e. Why does Dr. Mark Wickmund look so much like Dr. Marvin Candle, but with two arms, in the later-dated Pearl Station video?
f. What was the Swan station used for before the “incident?”
g. What was the “incident?”
h. Why not automate the Swan station E-M venting, instead of forcing people to push a button every 108 minutes?
i. Was the Purge brought on by Ben and the Hostiles the “end” of DHARMA? Did it still function in some form after that?
j. Why did food drops continue to come?
k. Why did Kelvin Inman think he was still working for the DHARMA Initiative so long after the purge?
l. How was Kelvin recruited by DHARMA (assuming he was)?
m. Who was Radzinsky (before he was splattered all over the ceiling of the Swan)?
n. For what purpose did DHARMA build the Looking Glass? Surely they were not trying to jam themselves?
0. Have we seen all the DHARMA facilities on (and around) the island?
6. The Numbers
a. Why are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 “the Valenzetti Constants?”
b. If they are constants, what do they represent in the real world?
c. Why do the numbers seem to have such power outside the context of the Valenzetti Equation? d. Why use the Valenzetti constants as the code in the Swan Hatch?
e. Why do the numbers appear so often in the flashbacks?
f. Why were they not used in the code young Ben entered to exit the sonic fence, only to be incorporated into the fence code later?
7. Smoke Monster
a. What is it? How was it created? How long has it been on the island?
b. What does it want?
c. Is it alive/ sentient?
d. Is it tied to "the incident?"
e. Is it related to the construction of DHARMA’s sonic fence, or is the fence’s effect on Smokey just a happy accident?
f. Does it in fact take different forms (like Christian Shephard, Sawyer's boar, Yemi, and the green eagle?)
g. Can it be controlled? If so, by whom?
h. Why is Rousseau so sure it is a “security system?”
8. The Others
a. How many “Others” are Hostiles? How many are Dharma Survivors? How many are post-purge recruits from off-island?
b. What do the Others want?
c. Why is pregnancy lethal to the Others’ women?
d. Do they all have the incredible strength Ethan seemed to possess? Or the incredible stamina/ healing ability Mikhail has demonstrated?
e. Under what criteria is a person added to Jacob’s list?
f. What is the symbol branded on Juliet, and carved in the tree by the vaccine drop (assuming they are the same symbol)?
g. What do the Others call themselves as a group?
h. Was Cindy (the flight attendant and last tail section abductee) an Other before she was taken, or did they somehow convert her?
i. What do the Others hope to accomplish by stealing children?
j. What did the Others think Bonnie and Greta were doing in Canada when they were actually in the Looking Glass?
k. What is it the Others (especially Mikhail) seem willing to kill or die for?
9. Benjamin Linus
a. Why is Ben Jacob’s human agent?
b. What does Ben want, and why is it different from what the Others and/or Jacob want (if it is)?
c. Is Ben just trying to get the island to reunite him with his mother?
d. Why did Ben end up with Alex as a daughter?
e. Has Ben left the island since he was a child?
f. What happened to Annie (Ben’s childhood friend who made the dolls)?
g. What else is contained in Ben’s journal?
h. Why is John Locke such a threat to Ben?
i. Why is Ben jamming signals sent out by his own people? Did this begin when the purple sky event happened?
j. Why did Ben lie and tell his people the Looking Glass had been flooded?
10. Danielle Rousseau
a. What was a 7-months pregnant woman doing on a scientific freighter?
b. Who is Alex’s father?
c. What is this “sickness” supposedly suffered by Danielle’s crewmates? Why did she have to kill them? Why has nobody manifested this sickness in the three months of island time that we have seen?
d. How did Rousseau live on the island for 16 years and not see the Others (who kidnapped her baby?)
e. Did she ever encounter any DHARMA Initiative people?
11. The Whispers
a. What are they?
b. Who are they?
c. Why do they only seem to appear at crucial moments in the plot?
d. Are they really a sound, or are they in the minds of those who hear them?
e. Do they represent intentional communication, or are they not meant to be heard by people on the island?
12. Desmond
a. Why was he sent to military prison?
b. What is the precise nature of his precognitive abilities? Is it completely linked to Charlie?
c. Did Desmond ever really change the universe, or did it course correct?
d. Why do sudden traumas seem to propel him through time? Is this something he could learn to control (like Hiro Nakamura on Heroes)?
e. What happened (to everyone and everything besides Desmond) when he turned the failsafe key in the hatch?
13. Brother Campbell and Ms. Hawking
a. What is their connection?
b. How does she have the same sort of precognitive/ time travel abilities Desmond has?
c. What are they trying to push Desmond to do? Did it end with turning the key?
d. Are they connected to any other characters in Lost? I.e. was the introduction to Penny Widmore just a coincidence?
14. Penelope and Charles Widmore
a. What are Charles’ connections to Brother Campbell, Alvar Hanso, and Paik Heavy Industries? b. What does Charles want, if not just to keep Desmond from marrying Penny?
c. Why was Penny trying to contact the Looking Glass Station?
d. Why did Penny have Arctic researchers looking for large E-M bursts?
e. Why was she surprised Desmond would be in a DHARMA hatch?
15. Nadya
a. How did this one woman get saved by Sayid in Iraq, Locke in Southern California, and Charlie on the streets of Manchester?
b. Did the CIA really know where she was when they enlisted Sayid’s help?
16. Cassidey
a. What happened to her after she and Kate parted company?
b. Does she have a larger connection to the goings-on in Lost, or are her links to Sawyer and Kate pure coincidence?
17. Richard Malkin (Claire’s Psychic)
a. Does he have any real abilities, or is he a sham like he told Eko?
b. Why was he so insistent that Claire raise Aaron?
c. Why was he then so insistent that Claire take flight 815, and no other flight, to give Aaron up for adoption?
d. Were there real people hoping to adopt Aaron? Was their hope specific to Aaron? Why go through Malkin?
18. Oceanic Flight 815
a. How did so many people with such interconnected backgrounds end up on the same plane?
b. How did more than 50 people survive the crash of a jumbo jet that broke up at cruising altitude?
c. It seems that all or most of the characters have issues with the fathers in their lives. Does this theme have something to do with who comes to the island?
d. Why did both Naomi and Anthony Cooper seem to think Flight 815, and the bodies of all aboard, had been found?
19. John Locke
a. How did the island heal his paralysis?
b. Why is he the only person, aside from Ben, who could hear and see Jacob? Why couldn’t Ben hear Jacob at the moment when John could?
c. What does he want to achieve by keeping people on the island?
d. Why did the Others seem to expect him to be their new messiah?
e. Does he have a special connection with Walt?
20. Hurley
a. Why is he so jinxed? Can the numbers do that?
b. Will he ever discover that he’s Locke’s boss?
c. Why did the green eagle seem to scream his name?
d. Was “Dave” ever a real person? If not, how did Hurley recognize him when he saw him on the island?
e. Why doesn't Hurley lose any weight?
f. Will Hurley ever see Libby again, as a vision like Dave?
21. Walt (and Michael)
a. What is the nature of Walt’s abilities? How does he summon animals by thinking about them? How does he get the precise rolls he needs when playing backgammon?
b. How does Walt project himself to characters like Sayid, Shannon and Locke?
c. How will the show explain Walt’s aging so suddenly?
d. Where did Walt and Michael go when they followed Ben’s directions?
e. Did Ben, who never seems to want to let somebody go, actually allow Michael a path off the island?
f. How did Walt reappear on the island if he and Michael escaped?
g. Is Vincent a real dog, or is he another island manifestation?
h. Why did Walt warn Locke not to "open that thing" (the Swan hatch)?
22. Claire and Aaron
a. How did Claire survive to give birth to Aaron, when all other women since Rousseau have died (we know Juliet's theory about off-island conception, but it has never actually been tested)?
b. Does Aaron have a special property about him other than just surviving birth on the island?
c. Why were Malkin and, presumably, the couple who wanted Aaron, so intent on getting this specific baby?
d. Are there larger implications to being Jack’s nephew?
e. Was Aaron really in particular jeopardy when Charlie had his dream visions?
f. What is the meaning of Claire's pre-abduction dream (written in her diary) about being unable to escape a black rock?
23. Naomi and Minkowski
a. Who does Naomi (and Minkowski, who answered the phone) work for, if not Penny Widmore? b. Why did Naomi have HALO jump gear while in a helicopter?
c. Why did Naomi have a picture of Desmond and Penny?
d. If not Desmond or the 815 survivors, what was she looking for?
e. Did Mikhail know whose flair Hurley had shot up?
f. Was her phone, in fact, a futuristic design not available in 2004?
g. Will Claire and Aaron get on a helicopter?
h. What does it mean to be “bad guys” in Ben’s terminology?
24. Jack
a. What lie did he tell that has him so distraught after his return to L.A.?
b. Why does he want so badly to return to the island?
c. How did the man of science become such a man of faith?
d. What’s so inappropriate about having Sarah give him a ride home from the E.R.?
e. Why did Jack tell the new Chief of Surgery "Go get my father"?
f. What is the other half of Jack's tattoo all about?
25. Kate
a. Was she pregnant? With Sawyer’s baby?
b. Boy or girl?
c. Does the baby know about the sister (Cassidey’s baby)?
d. Who was the “he” Kate needed to return to? Is it Sawyer, the Floridian sheriff she left at the alter, her son, or someone else?
e. Are she and Jack the only flight 815 survivors to make it back to civilization?
f. Why wasn't Kate immediately arrested as a fugitive when she arrived back home?
26. The Funeral
a. Who was in that casket?
b. Why was the funeral in South Central L.A.?
c. Why did nobody aside from Jack show up?
d. Why did Jack think Kate would be at the funeral?
e. Why didn’t Kate go to the funeral?
f. Who is J___ntham of New York (the subject of the obituary that informed Jack about the funeral)?
g. How did he die?
27. The Caves
a. Who were Adam & Eve?
b. How long ago did they live there?
c. What was the significance of their white and black rocks?
d. Why did "Christian" lead Jack to the caves?
28. The Swan Hatch Mural
a. Who painted it? What was its significance?
b. Who are the black man and white woman in the painting?
c. Why were the black man's eyes scratched out?
d. Is there a significance to the number "108" appearing in the center of the sun?
e. Is there a significance to any of the other symbols?
f. When was the mural painted? Was it painted during DHARMA experiments or after the purge?
29. The Beechcraft
a. How did the drug plane carrying Yemi's dying body end up on the island?
b. How was Locke able to discover the plane's exact location via a dream?
c. In that dream, how was Locke able to learn that Boone's nanny had died when she fell and broke her neck?
d. Why did Locke temporarily begin to lose feeling in his legs until he found the Beechcraft?
e. Assuming the dream and the failing legs were the island's way of leading Locke to the Beechcraft, why was he unable to find the Pearl hatch until after spending weeks in the Swan hatch?
f. Assuming Locke has some connection with the island that makes his beliefs somewhat valid, why did the island demand Boone's sacrifice in the Beechcraft?
30. The Black Rock
a. How did a slave ship that departed from Portsmouth, England bound for Africa get marooned on an island (presumably) in the South Pacific?
b. Was Magnus Hanso already aware of the island, and in fact looking for it with his slave mining crew, when he set out?
c. How did the ship end up in the middle of the jungle?
d. Why didn't the dynamite blow up when the ship was transported to the middle of the jungle?
e. How did Magnus Hanso actually die (there is a reference to his known final resting place on the Swan blast door map)?
f. Is Magnus's getting marooned on the island connected with Alvar's knowledge and exploitation of the island through the DHARMA Initiative?
g. Is the name "Black Rock" connected to the imagery of black rocks sprinkled throughout Lost (i.e. Claire's dream of a black rock, Adam and Eve's black rock, Locke's teaching Walt that Backgammon is a game between "black" and "white")?
h. Is there a "White Rock" somewhere, corresponding with the white rock held by Adam and Eve, and the white backgammon pieces?
i. What happened to the people on board who were not chained-up slaves?
j. What were the chained-up slaves fending off (see the position of their arms in "Exodus Part 2" - fending off something)?
k. Is it significant that Locke had Sawyer kill Cooper in the brig of the Black Rock?
31. General and Thematic.
a. Which direction is Lost headed: into sci fi or supernatural? Or is it a combination of both? Perhaps it might even seem to be one or the other, when in the end it is neither.
b. What is the significance of the six degrees of separation?
c. What was the inspiration of making Lost a serial mystery instead of a straight forward drama? d. What is the reason for it's popularity? Is it simply the mystery element, or is it the audience's response to their own feelings of being 'lost.' What does this say culturally?
e. The literary references in the show are numerous and significant. How does the process of integrating these works and references into the scripts take place?
f. Who keeps track of the time line?
g. Does the writing staff have a master list of questions? I assume they have a bible of the characters, references and details. Will something like this ever be published? Will the DHARMA maps and manuals ever be published?
h. What was the original inspiration for the concept of Lost? How long was the concept shopped around? What was the original pitch for the show?
So that's my list. I'm going to let this sit here for a while, and give you all a chance to respond. Later this summer, I will send this list to Jeff Jensen at ew.com, Michael Ausiello at tvguide.com, Kristen at E!, Doc Arzt at thetailsection.com, and, with a little luck, to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, to see what any of them has to say about this. So please do jump in on this one. Until later, Namaste.
So without further ado, here are the questions I've come up with, with the help of the LU community, divided into 31 categories (it probably would have been cooler if I came up with 42, but this will do just fine). Please post comments or email me at lostquestions@gmail.com if you think I need to add any categories, or any questions within each category, or if you think any of these questions have been positively answered already by the show.
1. Natural History of the Island
a. Is there something different about the island’s physical make-up that causes it to be the locus of so many strange goings-on?
b. Is the island physically anything other than a volcanic South Pacific island, like Hawaii or Polynesia?
2. The Statue/ Ruins/ Temple
a. Who built the 4-toe statue discovered by Sayid, Jin and Sun?
b. Who built the ruins where the Others left Locke and Cooper?
c. What is the “temple” where Ben sent the Others when he and Alex went to intercept Jack’s party?
d. Who built the temple?
e. Are a., b., and d. the same people? If so, what happened to them?
3. Jacob
a. Who or what is Jacob?
b. How long has Jacob been on the island?
c. If only Ben (and John Locke) can perceive Jacob, why does he hold such sway over the Others?
d. What does he have against technology?
e. What does he want, i.e., what has he tasked the Others with doing?
f. Why did he ask John Locke for help?
g. What about Ben made him the only person (before John Locke) Jacob would talk to?
4. The Hostiles
a. Who were Richard Alpert and his people before DHARMA called them “the Hostiles?”
b. What made the Hostiles so hostile?
c. Why doesn’t Richard seem to age?
d. How long have the Hostiles been on the island?
5. DHARMA
a. By what means did DHARMA hope to change the Valenzetti Equation factors (the numbers)?
b. What were they doing experimenting on Polar Bears?
c. Why tell the Pearl Station residents that there is no importance to the work being done in the Swan Station when in fact that station’s continued operation was so important?
d. How did Dr. Marvin Candle lose that arm?
e. Why does Dr. Mark Wickmund look so much like Dr. Marvin Candle, but with two arms, in the later-dated Pearl Station video?
f. What was the Swan station used for before the “incident?”
g. What was the “incident?”
h. Why not automate the Swan station E-M venting, instead of forcing people to push a button every 108 minutes?
i. Was the Purge brought on by Ben and the Hostiles the “end” of DHARMA? Did it still function in some form after that?
j. Why did food drops continue to come?
k. Why did Kelvin Inman think he was still working for the DHARMA Initiative so long after the purge?
l. How was Kelvin recruited by DHARMA (assuming he was)?
m. Who was Radzinsky (before he was splattered all over the ceiling of the Swan)?
n. For what purpose did DHARMA build the Looking Glass? Surely they were not trying to jam themselves?
0. Have we seen all the DHARMA facilities on (and around) the island?
6. The Numbers
a. Why are 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 “the Valenzetti Constants?”
b. If they are constants, what do they represent in the real world?
c. Why do the numbers seem to have such power outside the context of the Valenzetti Equation? d. Why use the Valenzetti constants as the code in the Swan Hatch?
e. Why do the numbers appear so often in the flashbacks?
f. Why were they not used in the code young Ben entered to exit the sonic fence, only to be incorporated into the fence code later?
7. Smoke Monster
a. What is it? How was it created? How long has it been on the island?
b. What does it want?
c. Is it alive/ sentient?
d. Is it tied to "the incident?"
e. Is it related to the construction of DHARMA’s sonic fence, or is the fence’s effect on Smokey just a happy accident?
f. Does it in fact take different forms (like Christian Shephard, Sawyer's boar, Yemi, and the green eagle?)
g. Can it be controlled? If so, by whom?
h. Why is Rousseau so sure it is a “security system?”
8. The Others
a. How many “Others” are Hostiles? How many are Dharma Survivors? How many are post-purge recruits from off-island?
b. What do the Others want?
c. Why is pregnancy lethal to the Others’ women?
d. Do they all have the incredible strength Ethan seemed to possess? Or the incredible stamina/ healing ability Mikhail has demonstrated?
e. Under what criteria is a person added to Jacob’s list?
f. What is the symbol branded on Juliet, and carved in the tree by the vaccine drop (assuming they are the same symbol)?
g. What do the Others call themselves as a group?
h. Was Cindy (the flight attendant and last tail section abductee) an Other before she was taken, or did they somehow convert her?
i. What do the Others hope to accomplish by stealing children?
j. What did the Others think Bonnie and Greta were doing in Canada when they were actually in the Looking Glass?
k. What is it the Others (especially Mikhail) seem willing to kill or die for?
9. Benjamin Linus
a. Why is Ben Jacob’s human agent?
b. What does Ben want, and why is it different from what the Others and/or Jacob want (if it is)?
c. Is Ben just trying to get the island to reunite him with his mother?
d. Why did Ben end up with Alex as a daughter?
e. Has Ben left the island since he was a child?
f. What happened to Annie (Ben’s childhood friend who made the dolls)?
g. What else is contained in Ben’s journal?
h. Why is John Locke such a threat to Ben?
i. Why is Ben jamming signals sent out by his own people? Did this begin when the purple sky event happened?
j. Why did Ben lie and tell his people the Looking Glass had been flooded?
10. Danielle Rousseau
a. What was a 7-months pregnant woman doing on a scientific freighter?
b. Who is Alex’s father?
c. What is this “sickness” supposedly suffered by Danielle’s crewmates? Why did she have to kill them? Why has nobody manifested this sickness in the three months of island time that we have seen?
d. How did Rousseau live on the island for 16 years and not see the Others (who kidnapped her baby?)
e. Did she ever encounter any DHARMA Initiative people?
11. The Whispers
a. What are they?
b. Who are they?
c. Why do they only seem to appear at crucial moments in the plot?
d. Are they really a sound, or are they in the minds of those who hear them?
e. Do they represent intentional communication, or are they not meant to be heard by people on the island?
12. Desmond
a. Why was he sent to military prison?
b. What is the precise nature of his precognitive abilities? Is it completely linked to Charlie?
c. Did Desmond ever really change the universe, or did it course correct?
d. Why do sudden traumas seem to propel him through time? Is this something he could learn to control (like Hiro Nakamura on Heroes)?
e. What happened (to everyone and everything besides Desmond) when he turned the failsafe key in the hatch?
13. Brother Campbell and Ms. Hawking
a. What is their connection?
b. How does she have the same sort of precognitive/ time travel abilities Desmond has?
c. What are they trying to push Desmond to do? Did it end with turning the key?
d. Are they connected to any other characters in Lost? I.e. was the introduction to Penny Widmore just a coincidence?
14. Penelope and Charles Widmore
a. What are Charles’ connections to Brother Campbell, Alvar Hanso, and Paik Heavy Industries? b. What does Charles want, if not just to keep Desmond from marrying Penny?
c. Why was Penny trying to contact the Looking Glass Station?
d. Why did Penny have Arctic researchers looking for large E-M bursts?
e. Why was she surprised Desmond would be in a DHARMA hatch?
15. Nadya
a. How did this one woman get saved by Sayid in Iraq, Locke in Southern California, and Charlie on the streets of Manchester?
b. Did the CIA really know where she was when they enlisted Sayid’s help?
16. Cassidey
a. What happened to her after she and Kate parted company?
b. Does she have a larger connection to the goings-on in Lost, or are her links to Sawyer and Kate pure coincidence?
17. Richard Malkin (Claire’s Psychic)
a. Does he have any real abilities, or is he a sham like he told Eko?
b. Why was he so insistent that Claire raise Aaron?
c. Why was he then so insistent that Claire take flight 815, and no other flight, to give Aaron up for adoption?
d. Were there real people hoping to adopt Aaron? Was their hope specific to Aaron? Why go through Malkin?
18. Oceanic Flight 815
a. How did so many people with such interconnected backgrounds end up on the same plane?
b. How did more than 50 people survive the crash of a jumbo jet that broke up at cruising altitude?
c. It seems that all or most of the characters have issues with the fathers in their lives. Does this theme have something to do with who comes to the island?
d. Why did both Naomi and Anthony Cooper seem to think Flight 815, and the bodies of all aboard, had been found?
19. John Locke
a. How did the island heal his paralysis?
b. Why is he the only person, aside from Ben, who could hear and see Jacob? Why couldn’t Ben hear Jacob at the moment when John could?
c. What does he want to achieve by keeping people on the island?
d. Why did the Others seem to expect him to be their new messiah?
e. Does he have a special connection with Walt?
20. Hurley
a. Why is he so jinxed? Can the numbers do that?
b. Will he ever discover that he’s Locke’s boss?
c. Why did the green eagle seem to scream his name?
d. Was “Dave” ever a real person? If not, how did Hurley recognize him when he saw him on the island?
e. Why doesn't Hurley lose any weight?
f. Will Hurley ever see Libby again, as a vision like Dave?
21. Walt (and Michael)
a. What is the nature of Walt’s abilities? How does he summon animals by thinking about them? How does he get the precise rolls he needs when playing backgammon?
b. How does Walt project himself to characters like Sayid, Shannon and Locke?
c. How will the show explain Walt’s aging so suddenly?
d. Where did Walt and Michael go when they followed Ben’s directions?
e. Did Ben, who never seems to want to let somebody go, actually allow Michael a path off the island?
f. How did Walt reappear on the island if he and Michael escaped?
g. Is Vincent a real dog, or is he another island manifestation?
h. Why did Walt warn Locke not to "open that thing" (the Swan hatch)?
22. Claire and Aaron
a. How did Claire survive to give birth to Aaron, when all other women since Rousseau have died (we know Juliet's theory about off-island conception, but it has never actually been tested)?
b. Does Aaron have a special property about him other than just surviving birth on the island?
c. Why were Malkin and, presumably, the couple who wanted Aaron, so intent on getting this specific baby?
d. Are there larger implications to being Jack’s nephew?
e. Was Aaron really in particular jeopardy when Charlie had his dream visions?
f. What is the meaning of Claire's pre-abduction dream (written in her diary) about being unable to escape a black rock?
23. Naomi and Minkowski
a. Who does Naomi (and Minkowski, who answered the phone) work for, if not Penny Widmore? b. Why did Naomi have HALO jump gear while in a helicopter?
c. Why did Naomi have a picture of Desmond and Penny?
d. If not Desmond or the 815 survivors, what was she looking for?
e. Did Mikhail know whose flair Hurley had shot up?
f. Was her phone, in fact, a futuristic design not available in 2004?
g. Will Claire and Aaron get on a helicopter?
h. What does it mean to be “bad guys” in Ben’s terminology?
24. Jack
a. What lie did he tell that has him so distraught after his return to L.A.?
b. Why does he want so badly to return to the island?
c. How did the man of science become such a man of faith?
d. What’s so inappropriate about having Sarah give him a ride home from the E.R.?
e. Why did Jack tell the new Chief of Surgery "Go get my father"?
f. What is the other half of Jack's tattoo all about?
25. Kate
a. Was she pregnant? With Sawyer’s baby?
b. Boy or girl?
c. Does the baby know about the sister (Cassidey’s baby)?
d. Who was the “he” Kate needed to return to? Is it Sawyer, the Floridian sheriff she left at the alter, her son, or someone else?
e. Are she and Jack the only flight 815 survivors to make it back to civilization?
f. Why wasn't Kate immediately arrested as a fugitive when she arrived back home?
26. The Funeral
a. Who was in that casket?
b. Why was the funeral in South Central L.A.?
c. Why did nobody aside from Jack show up?
d. Why did Jack think Kate would be at the funeral?
e. Why didn’t Kate go to the funeral?
f. Who is J___ntham of New York (the subject of the obituary that informed Jack about the funeral)?
g. How did he die?
27. The Caves
a. Who were Adam & Eve?
b. How long ago did they live there?
c. What was the significance of their white and black rocks?
d. Why did "Christian" lead Jack to the caves?
28. The Swan Hatch Mural
a. Who painted it? What was its significance?
b. Who are the black man and white woman in the painting?
c. Why were the black man's eyes scratched out?
d. Is there a significance to the number "108" appearing in the center of the sun?
e. Is there a significance to any of the other symbols?
f. When was the mural painted? Was it painted during DHARMA experiments or after the purge?
29. The Beechcraft
a. How did the drug plane carrying Yemi's dying body end up on the island?
b. How was Locke able to discover the plane's exact location via a dream?
c. In that dream, how was Locke able to learn that Boone's nanny had died when she fell and broke her neck?
d. Why did Locke temporarily begin to lose feeling in his legs until he found the Beechcraft?
e. Assuming the dream and the failing legs were the island's way of leading Locke to the Beechcraft, why was he unable to find the Pearl hatch until after spending weeks in the Swan hatch?
f. Assuming Locke has some connection with the island that makes his beliefs somewhat valid, why did the island demand Boone's sacrifice in the Beechcraft?
30. The Black Rock
a. How did a slave ship that departed from Portsmouth, England bound for Africa get marooned on an island (presumably) in the South Pacific?
b. Was Magnus Hanso already aware of the island, and in fact looking for it with his slave mining crew, when he set out?
c. How did the ship end up in the middle of the jungle?
d. Why didn't the dynamite blow up when the ship was transported to the middle of the jungle?
e. How did Magnus Hanso actually die (there is a reference to his known final resting place on the Swan blast door map)?
f. Is Magnus's getting marooned on the island connected with Alvar's knowledge and exploitation of the island through the DHARMA Initiative?
g. Is the name "Black Rock" connected to the imagery of black rocks sprinkled throughout Lost (i.e. Claire's dream of a black rock, Adam and Eve's black rock, Locke's teaching Walt that Backgammon is a game between "black" and "white")?
h. Is there a "White Rock" somewhere, corresponding with the white rock held by Adam and Eve, and the white backgammon pieces?
i. What happened to the people on board who were not chained-up slaves?
j. What were the chained-up slaves fending off (see the position of their arms in "Exodus Part 2" - fending off something)?
k. Is it significant that Locke had Sawyer kill Cooper in the brig of the Black Rock?
31. General and Thematic.
a. Which direction is Lost headed: into sci fi or supernatural? Or is it a combination of both? Perhaps it might even seem to be one or the other, when in the end it is neither.
b. What is the significance of the six degrees of separation?
c. What was the inspiration of making Lost a serial mystery instead of a straight forward drama? d. What is the reason for it's popularity? Is it simply the mystery element, or is it the audience's response to their own feelings of being 'lost.' What does this say culturally?
e. The literary references in the show are numerous and significant. How does the process of integrating these works and references into the scripts take place?
f. Who keeps track of the time line?
g. Does the writing staff have a master list of questions? I assume they have a bible of the characters, references and details. Will something like this ever be published? Will the DHARMA maps and manuals ever be published?
h. What was the original inspiration for the concept of Lost? How long was the concept shopped around? What was the original pitch for the show?
So that's my list. I'm going to let this sit here for a while, and give you all a chance to respond. Later this summer, I will send this list to Jeff Jensen at ew.com, Michael Ausiello at tvguide.com, Kristen at E!, Doc Arzt at thetailsection.com, and, with a little luck, to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, to see what any of them has to say about this. So please do jump in on this one. Until later, Namaste.
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