October Lost News Wrap-up

Good morning, Lostophiles. Sorry I've been a bit incommunicado of late - impending fatherhood is really pretty time-consuming. But there have been a few tidbits of Lost information over the past couple of weeks. In no particular order...

Doc Jensen Resurfaces
It seems ew.com's Jeff Jensen is operating on a "post per month" schedule during this long hiatus. The October entry is in (click the title of this post to read all the good doc had to say) and it offers a few juicy tidbits.

After a heavily-bleeped interview with Silent Bob himself, director Kevin Smith, who gushes about the stroke of genius that was the flash-forward in "Through the Looking Glass," Jensen turns to two more bits of business: a question and a theory.

His question - why did Locke kill Naomi? Certainly he had other options to stop the phone call than cold-blooded murder. Again, I refer to you Jensen's column for the full response he got from the show's producers, but here's the nutshell: Locke just "resurrected" himself from the Dharma mass grave based on an image of Walt telling him he still had work to do. Not only do we not know what task Walt may have assigned, we also don't know to what end Locke believes his work will lead. In any case, if that isn't the kind of "burning bush" moment that makes a man believe that God or some other higher being has given him direct communication on what task he must follow, I don't know what is. Also, as Damon Lindelof points out, the death of Naomi was basically secondary to the goal of stopping the phone call. And Locke had been having a rough go of things, so his rational mind may not have been at full power. In any case, his willingness to kill Naomi but not even try to wound Jack is puzzling.

And the theory - explaining why Ben seems so convinced in his innate goodness while acting like such a random evil-doer. The good doc postulates that Ben may have been gifted with Desmond-like predictive abilities. As Desmond explained to Charlie in season 3, the images have to transpire exactly as he saw them or the final event will not occur. Perhaps Ben has gotten a glimpse of truly beneficial end-game but he knows some truly awful things must happen to get to that point. In other words, he's more Machiavellian than "evil," and the ends may very well justify the means.

Another New Cast Member
A few posts ago, I introduced you to several new cast members who had been announced by the producers for Season 4. This week we learned that the role of Minkowski, a.k.a. the voice on the other end of the satelite phone who told Jack rescue was imminent, has been cast and will be played by...Fisher Stevens. Follow the link to Stevens' resume on imdb.com.

A versatile character actor, Stevens is perhaps best known as the bumbling Indian scientist Ben from the "Short Circuit" movies, in which his ability to mangle English colloquial expressions provided all sorts of fantastic humorous shenanigans.

There is no word at this point as to how important a role Minkowski will turn out to be. However, as a character who has already been introduced, the casting is certainly newsworthy.

Finally - What to Watch While We Wait

Originally, this was to be a separate post, but really quickly, here's my take on the new Fall shows:

Hits: "Dirty Sexy Money" (ABC), "Bionic Woman" (NBC), "Pushing Daisies" (ABC), "Back to You" (Fox), "Chuck" (NBC), and "Tell Me You Love Me" (HBO). This last show deserves special attention if for no other reason than a subtantial proportion of the regular and supporting cast are Lost regulars (Sonya "Penelope" Walger and Ian "Boone" Somerhalder, in particular).

Take It or Leave It: "Life" (NBC).

Misses: "Private Practice" (ABC), "Journeyman" (NBC), "K-Ville" (Fox), "Cavemen" (ABC), "Carpoolers" (ABC).

Won't Have Time to Watch: "Reaper" (CW), "Gossip Girl" (CW), "Christine Who?" (ABC), and anything else not mentioned here.

Non-spoiler spoilers

Happy October, Lostophiles. Every new month is one month closer to the return of Lost.

Today, SciFi Wire (the website run by the SciFi channel) put up a little blurb that purports to reveal some Season 4 "spoilers." Click on the title of this post for the full artcile.

I put "spoilers" in quotes because, in my mind, telling what questions will be answered spoils nothing, whereas telling me what the answers will be is a true spoiler. With that caveat in mind, I do not believe what is below, or the rest of the original article, constitutes spoilers, per se. But if you have a different opinion, please read no further.


Okay? You were warned...

• Damon Lindelof revealed: "Michael is coming back. Definitely. As for Walt, we've always known [Malcolm David Kelley] was going to grow faster than we could shoot the show. And we planned for it. Trust us. Please trust us."

• Carlton Cuse said, "Yes, we do know how Jacob will be depicted. Notice the careful wording of my answer. And no, Jacob did not appear before he was met by Locke." Cuse also declined to say whether an actor had been chosen to portray the character.

• Cuse said. "Moving forwards, you'll get a mix. Every week will hopefully be a guessing game as to not just who will be focused on, but when we're focusing on them. Flash-forwards will be a part of season four, yes."

• "The reverberation of [Charlie's] death echoes right into the premiere of season four," Lindelof said.

Finally, responding to an anonymous poster's comment to the previous post, there is no specific start date or time for Lost's return, but the producers are assuming it will be in early to mid February, 2008.

Flight 815 Anniversary Podcast

Today, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse released a "surprise" podcast to commemorate the third anniversary of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. If you click on the title of this post, you will go directly to the podcast, in which D and C call a number of Lost fans who submitted questions (though, of course, not yours truly) and answered their questions on the phone. Some highlights:

• As I observed in my recap of "Through the Looking Glass," the Krazr phone Jack used in the flash-forwards was meant to be a clue as to about how far in the "future" of the crash of 815 the flash-forward was meant to take place.
• The Jack and Kate at LAX scene is by no means meant to be the end of the story (with the remaining 48 episodes designed to catch us up to that moment).
• On the subject of how time travel works on Lost - see Ms. Hawking's self-correcting universe theory from "Flashes Before Your Eyes." In other words, Jack's obsession to get back to the island, and the fact of flash-forwards, are not meant to indicate that it will be possible to go back in time to alter whatever it is that makes Jack so miserable after his return to L.A. What happens on Lost stays happened on Lost.
• The story of Richard Alpert remains "parked" as actor Nestor Carbonnel has been cast as a regular on CBS's new series, "Cane." There is more to this story, but its telling will depend on whether Cane gets a full-season order or, in general, on Nestor's availability going forward. There is some hope for flexibility, however, in that Cane is an ABC studios production, meaning the studio could arrange Cane's schedule to make Nestor available. Sorry, Jimmy Smits, but Richard is too cool, so I hope your new show gets cancelled early...
• The answer to the question of whether Kate is pregnant with Sawyer's baby will be answered by around the fourth episode of Season 4.
• Mikhail is dead. No matter how resilient the guy seems to be, point-blank grenade explosions are awfully lethal. That said, he will in all likelihood appear in future flashbacks.
• Carlton joked that the mysterious occupant of the coffin in the flash-forward might have been John Locke, until Terry O'Quinn had to go and win an Emmy.

Finally, though not in the podcast, TV Guide reported this week that Libby (Cynthia Watros) will be returning to Lost this season for a multi-episode arc (which will, of course, be told in flashbacks) that will fill in the blanks of her story.

So, that's what's new in Lost-land. Happy (?) anniversary of the crash!

Terry O'Quinn Wins Emmy

Kudos to Terry O'Quinn, who last night took home an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work on Lost's third season. Though I admit my vote would have gone to fellow cast-mate Michael Emerson (who gets a great acknowledgement by O'Quinn), O'Quinn's work as John Locke this year was fantastic. As maddening and frustrating as the character may be at times, the performances that captured this award, from confronting his murderous father, to getting Sawyer to do his dirtywork, to meeting Jacob, and to being rescued from his own suicide by a vision of Walt were fantastic.

So rather than lament the fact that Elizabeth Mitchell was robbed of a nomination for Best Supporting Actress by no fewer than three characters from Grey's Anatomy's disappointing third season, or that the brilliantly-executed finale, "Through the Looking Glass," was denied its rightful awards for writing and editing, join me in congratulating Terry O'Quinn on this achievement.

New Faces Join Lost's Cast

As we've seen each of the past couple of years, a new season of Lost brings with it a slew of new characters. Season 2 brought us the "tailies." Season 3 introduced us to a bevy of heretofore unseen Others. Season 3 figures to introduce us to the "not Penny's boat" people. But whoever the new characters are, the actors playing some of them have been identified.

Our friend Doc Jensen interviewed Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse about the new cast members. Click on the title of the post for the full text of the interview, but here are some key excerpts about each of the new cast members (click on each name to see a list of the actor's credits, courtesy of the internet movie database (imdb.com):

Jeremy Davies

Cuse on Davies: "He's one of those incredible opportunities. He's a guy who only does movies, and for him to do a part in our series, it was exciting. He's one of our favorite character actors — a complete chameleon. We both really responded to what he did in Solaris; the way he spun that character was engaging."

Lindelof on Davies: "He's a real actor's actor — there's an intelligence you glean from this guy. He's usually the smartest guy in the room in any part he plays — that transformative quality, plus the tremendous intelligence that seems to emanate from him, sort of seemed perfect for this particular character."

My take on Davies - the actor will always resonate most for his key role as Cpl. Timothy Upham in "Saving Private Ryan," the character from whose perspective the movie's story is told. But beyond being the serious version of R2D2, Upham experienced (as we experienced) the horrors of war, how it can reduce a man to crippling cowardice (remember how he cringed in the fetal position as Adam Goldberg's character was slowly killed by a lone German just up a flight of stairs) and astonishing wrath (when he brutally executed the same German who had been taken prisoner later in that battle). This range of emotions solidified Davies as a masterful actor, even as bigger names (Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Ed Burns) got most of the credit for the film's power.

Rebecca Mader



Lindelof on Mader: "What was really cool about Rebecca's [audition] read was, she did it on tape, but the producer who was with her asked her, ''All these things on your résumé are from the BBC — are you British?'' She said yes, and we asked her to read it again, this time as a Brit, and it opened up another dimension we hadn't foreseen. Now [her character is] English."

Cuse on Mader: "She is a beautiful young British actress. We auditioned actors for this part, but she won us over with her charm and presence and charisma. People compare her to a young Nicole Kidman — she has that strength, beauty, effervescence, and accessibility."

My take - although Ms. Mader was in "The Devil Wears Prada," which I saw twice, I have no memory of her. Still, Damon and Carlton have spotted some real talents in relative unknowns (Evangeline Lily stand out), so I'm eager to see what they do with this woman.

Ken Leung



Lindelof on Leung: "Literally, the morning after his episode of The Sopranos aired, I said to Carlton, ''Have you seen that episode? There's an actor on this show — I'm not going to tell you who he is — and I wonder if he has the same impression on you that he had on me.'' The next morning, Carlton came in and he had seen the episode and said, 'Ken Leung?' And I said, 'Bingo.' We were still [in post-production] on the finale when that aired, in mid-May, so we immediately did an outreach to his people, and we found out he was a New York actor, and that he was getting a lot of interest. So when we came back from our hiatus, we called and luckily he was available and interested. The part he's playing — it's a character we wrote very specifically for Ken. Nobody else read for it. It had to be him."

Cuse on Leung: "In fact, given the construct of the character, it wouldn't have been the same if we didn't have him in the show. It is so specifically geared to what we thought he could do as an actor [that] if he had said no, we would have had to scrap the character and rewrite him and come up with a different one."

My take - speculation on who Leung might play has been rampant on the message boards and blogs. Some think he could be the way flash-forwarded son of Jin and Sun (suggesting she survives the pregnancy). Others note his passing resemblance to the actor who plays Drs. Candle/Wickmund/Hollowax, and suggest Leung may be the pre-Dharma flashback version of the orientation film star. One thing's certain - his edgy role as "Kid Omega" in "X3, the Last Stand" and his even edgier role as Junior's would-be nuthouse protege in "The Sopranos" tells us Leung's character is certain to be a force to be reckoned with.

Lance Reddick

Cuse on Reddick: "We had been interested in Lance back when we were casting the Mr. Eko part, but he was unavailable due to The Wire. When a window of opportunity arose after the recent season of The Wire, we jumped on it, with a part that seemed right for his complete focus and intensity."

Lindelof on the character Riddick plays (described in casting calls as a "corporate recruiter": "Around here at the Lost offices, 'corporate recruiter' means something entirely different than corporate recruiter. Let's just say that part of the character's skill set is coercion. If people are reading into that that he is an Other, or has the same job as [Nestor Carbonell's character Richard] Alpert, we would encourage that speculation, but we wouldn't confirm or deny it."

My take - I know this is sacrilege for a hard core TV-watcher to admit, but I've never gotten into the Wire. That said, Reddick is a frequent guest star as an uber-intimidating g-man type on all sorts of police procedurals, and if Lindelof says he will be all about coercion, I suggest we watch this character with wary suspicion.

Jeff Fahey
Cuse on Fahey: "The Lawnmower Man and The Marshall [a 1995 TV series starring Fahey] are personal faves. And he has the most intense eyes of any guy out there, and I say that as a non-gay man."

Lindelof on Fahey: "Fahey is one of those actors who feels like he fits into the Lost model: He's enormously talented and will be vaguely recognizable to some people, but he'll be able to land on our island without most people going, 'Oh, I know who that guy is.' And especially for the part we cast him for, he has exactly the right sensibilities."

My take - Fahey has always been a perforer who burns with intensity, whether it's the man-child turned psychotic terror in "The Lawnmower Man" or his rugged Bo Derrick-shagging adventurer in the Cinemax classic, "Woman of Desire." The beard suggests a possible flashback Jacob, but Fahey was apparently cast before the beard sprung out, and the producers claim not to know if they'll have him shave it before filming starts.

So those are the new cast memebers. Others wonder whether recurring actor Nestor Carbonell, who plays the only recognizable Other to survive the finale (Richard Alpert) will return, now that he has landed a series-regular role on the Jimmy Smits-starring "Cane." I have to believe that Damon and Carlton can make this work with Carbonell, given that most of the season will be written and well into production before the first episdoe airs (i.e., there is time to go back and film a missing scene even after the cast and crew has gone on to other episodes, in order to accommodate Nestor's schedule). As an intriguing and apparently ageless character, I for one hope he returns with a somewhat prominent role.

So what do you think, Lostophiles? Impressive additions to the cast? Annoying distractions from the characters we care about? Comment away...

Dharma's Wild Orchid

With the master theory project still churning away, I thought I'd take a look at that latest, slightest bit of new material we got, first aired at Comic Con, and then this week on ABC.com. I refer, of course, to the "raw footage" of another Dr. Marvin Candle lookalike trying to shoot an orientation film for an as-yet unseen Dharma site, "the Orchid." If you have not yet watched this footage, it's at the bottom of the previous post on this blog.

What follows is certainly informed by this week's Doc Jensen post on EW.com. To read everything the meandering good doc had to say about this and other Lost hapennings, click on the title of this post.

So, here are my thoughts...

Holy Duplicating Bunnies!!!

The suddenly appearing second iteration of Bunny #15 is cute and wacky, but it does bring up some interesting questions...

First off, could duplication somehow explain why there is a Marvin Candle, a Mark Wickmund and, in this footage, an Edgar Hollowax? Or why "Candle" is missing an arm, while his doppelgangers are not?

And could this somehow explain how it is that the passengers from Flight 815 are simultaneously water-soaked corpses in an ocean trench and the protagonists on the island? More on this below...

There's that Pesky Jacob Feller...

Spliced throughout this footage are a few sudden jump-cut, non sequitur frames. One of these is the eerily familiar text-only frame that reads "God Loves You as He Loves Jacob" that we saw in the freightening aversion therapy montage is "room 23" on Hydra island. There was some speculation that such a bizzarre media creation as the room 23 film was the warped creation of Ben and his cohorts. The inclusion of that frame here suggests that that film's origins date back to Dharma's dominance on the island.

Of course, a link between Dharma and the name Jacob brings up other possibilities. Is mystery-shack-dweller Jacob a remnant of Dharma? Is Dharma the reason he needs John Locke to help him? And what kind of bizzarre experiments or procedures was Dharma using the montage film for?


Casimir for Dummies

Dr. Hollowax mentions a "Casimir Effect" in the film, saying this effect is created by the island's "unique properties." I've done the Wikipedia research on this effect. Unless you are well-versed in theoretical research, don't bother - I will tell you that, in general, this effect involves a charge-free attractive force between two objects arranged in parallel. How that creates duplicating bunnies, I haven't the foggiest. But I can tell you that the truly theoretical, Hawking-type big thinkers have stated that a Casimir Effect can stabilize a wormhole (a portal between different places in space-time that connects them more directly than straight travel can). Other recent reports on the impact of the Casimir effect on nantotechnology suggest that the effect can cause particles of matter to actually spontaneously spring into existence from nothingness. Again, some interesting concepts...

Jump (for My Love)

When the demonstration goes awry, and the second bunny appears, Dr. Hollowax asks his assistant about the jump settings, and she indicates the experiment was set for "9 minutes" but that they have difficulty controlling it. We've already seen time travel, of a sort, in the "Desmond effect." Could the second bunny be the same bunny, but from the past or future?

For that matter, why was Dr. Hollowax so adamant that the bunnies not touch each other? As Doc Jensen notes, there is a lot of sci-fi lore out there suggesting "touch-the-streams bad" outcomes if a time traveller makes direct contact with his past or future self.

Getting Stingy on the Logos?

As we all know by now, each Dharma station has its own unique logo. But Dr. Hollowax's lab coat clearly sports the logo we recognize as the Swan station logo. Doc Jensen has a theory on this, as well - the Swan station is the renamed Orchid station, and the lack of control over the island's "unique properties" demonstrated in this clip suggest whatever experiment was being run at the Orchid may have been the "incident" we know took place in the Swan before the infernal button-pushing became its raison-d'etre.

Putting it All Together

Here's where I get creative...expanding on the Doc's ideas: Dharma finds the island (no surprise, Alvar Hanso's ancestor, Magnus, was marooned there). They discover some bizarre electromagnetic anomaly on the island, a "casimir effect" that can create reality-warping effects like duplication of matter and time travel. They attempt to harness the power of this area in a station dubbed the orchid...but things go horribly awry. Not only is Dr. Hollowax duplicated a couple of times over (with one, flawed copy having an arm; or, alternatively, the duplication process itself may have cost Dr. Candle his arm), but soon Dharma's machinations force this anomaly into overdrive. Realizing that reality as we know it is in jeopardy, Dharma's scientists quickly assemble a jerry-rigged system that allows the anomaly's energies to be contained, but requiring a periodic venting. They re-dub the station where this venting occurs "the Swan," (which is why the Swan blast door map contained no mention of the Orchid station). And the system generally worked pretty well...until one day Desmond failed to push the button. The casimir effect energy built up beyond the system's ability to contain it. Flight 815 was pulled towards the island (and pulled apart)...and a duplicate of the doomed plane was created, which plunged into the ocean. Hopefully, our survivors will never encounter their crash-landed duplicate bodies, or else, there goes the universe!

Of course, there must be more to it, but all of that will have to fit into my Lost master theory...

Until later, Namaste!

Lost Producers at Comic Con

Well, folks, the last "official" Lost news for the foreseeable future took place yesterday at the San Diego Comic Con, where Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse took audience questions. Some intrepid young souls captured the event and posted the videos you see below on YouTube. A bit of context - just before these recordings started, D and C said the bells on their desks were there for each guy to ring if he thought the other was about to give away too much.

So what did they reveal? A few things...

• Libby's story will be told this season.
• Rousseau's flashback will either be late this season or next season, but its timing will be linked to some other plot point.
• Ben did not intend to get captured in Rousseau's net when we first met him, and the destination to which he was headed and what he was going to do there will be revealed.
• The explanation for smokey will come, but it will be like the revelation that Kate really wanted the get the toy plane in that some people might think, "really? that's it?"
• "Cerberus" on the Swan hatch map is a reference to smokey, but it's not the monster's only name.
• "CV" on the Swan hatch map stands for "Cerberus Vent," meaning spots where smokey surfaced from underground.
• The series will not end with Jack and Kate as we saw them in the finale. Flashforwards will come from time to time, and it will not always be abundantly clear how far in the future they will be.
• Flashforwards have been planned since late in season 1, as there can only be so much interesting backstory for these characters.

Anyway, you see the discussion for yourself. But even if you don't want to watch just the talking heads, check out the last video below - apparently raw footage from another DHARMA orientation film...

Michael's back!

Quick bit of news came out today at the Television Critics' Association Fall Preview pow-wow with ABC. While saving most Lost news for tomorrow's San Diego Comic Con panel, the network exec who spoke confirmed that everyone's favorite Machiavellian dad, Michael (Harrold Perrineau, pictured here) will be returning to the case in Season 4. More juicy tidbits are expected with Damon and Carlton address their adoring throngs in San Diego Thursday, so stay tuned...

Emmy Snubs Galore!

So the Emmy nominations were announced this week, and the magnificent 3d season of Lost was largely snubbed.

Kudos to the academy for the nomination of Michael Emerson (Ben Linus) in the best supporting actor category, which he simply must win (even over fellow nominee Terry O'Quinn (John Locke)). And while technical awards are much less interesting amongst the Emmys, I salute the directing and editing nods for the season finale, "Through the Looking Glass." The surprise flash-forward was the most deftly executed plot twist on TV this season.

But the abysmal third season of Grey's Anatomy got a Best Drama nomination over Lost? And Boston Legal, that, while fine as a farcical comedy with occasionally serious overtones, is hardly great "drama" by any stretch? If ABC's other powerhouses - Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty - are considered "comedy," than so should Boston Legal be. And the Sopranos...okay, historically one of the best shows on TV, but the slow, plodding final season(s) didn't hold a candle to 80% of Lost's episodes this year.

Granted, it's hard to judge Lost by the submission of a single episode (which is how Emmy judging goes). But all it takes is one viewing of either "Not in Portland" or "One of Us" to know that Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet Burke) was a shoe-in for Best Supporting Actress. The omission of Ms. Mitchell from the list of nominees is further proof of the sheer pointlessness of the Emmys as any true gauge of the state of the television art form.

Composite Edit of the Plane Crash

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.