Lost TV Series News and Theories

In a recent Lost Podcast, Damon and Carlton spoke of a critical clue which has been frequently missed by many fans, on viewing the Pilot episode. They did not say what this was.

Having just rewatched the Pilot for the umpteenth time on Tivo, here are a few of my ideas:

1. There’s Something About Rose

The night after they hear the “monster” sounds, a group is talking out of focus, in back of Jack.

Charlie: So it didn’t sound like an animal, did it?

Man offstage: Not exactly.

Rose: That sound that it made, I keep thinking there is something that is really familiar about it.

Woman offstage: Where are you from?

Rose: The Bronx.

(Offstage, not clear–Something about it not sounding like monkeys, a distraction takes them off the subject)

Rose is different from the others. She was found technically dead, from cardiac arrest, when Jack first finds her on the beach, but is revived through CPR (a rare thing in real life, but this is TV, so I’ll give them that). She is also *sure* that Bernard is still alive in future episodes. She and Bernard are also two of the few named characters on the show that we don’t yet have backstories/flashbacks about. Does a vital clue lie in her memory that could lead us to the identity of what’s been plaguing the lostaways?

2. Kate: The Wild Card?

We don’t see her as one of the initial characters on the beach, as Jack scans the crash site. Later on, we find her secret: that she was the one the marshall was escorting back in handcuffs. She clearly says to Jack “I was awake through the whole thing, it was horrible”. In her flashback, we see she is the last to get the O2 mask on securely. The marshall is conked on the head by the falling suitcase, and Kate tries to reach for the masks, but is unable to, and must first fumble with the keys to the cuffs and free her hands. She then tries to help the unconscious marshall, and knocks her own mask off again. When she finally gets hers on, we can clearly see her eyes are wide open and terrified, but we can’t see if others are still awake. Does she remember something the others don’t about the 815 incident?

3. The Ole’ Shell Game

There’s some issues with seating arrangements on the plane. Jack is supposed to have sat in first class (where no survivors were later found), but gave up his seat to “some 600 yr old lady who says she’s never flown before”… “I’m sure it’s an act”, he says. Charlie was in the back bathroom, snorting drugs, and is chased by the stewardesses into a seat farther front in the plane. Later on (in another episode?), we find that Shannon & Boone were also booted out of their first class seats. Was it fate? Were they ‘supposed’ to have played the roles that they do on the island?

4. Black & White

Locke sitting on the beach playing backgammon. Walt comes up, and Locke talks about this being one of the oldest games known to Man, and explains that “one side is light, one side is dark” (dual theme again), implying he must choose… very Matrix-esque. Then he says “I have a secret”, and goes off camera.

5. You Are What You Eat

Claire was worried since the 815 went down that her baby has died; she has not felt it move. Jin offers her some uni (sea urchin) he has collected from the beach. She reluctantly eats it, and suddenly, she feels the baby kick. If there’s something intrinsically strange about the island, could it affect the members through consumption of things that grow there? Just a thought, though this is more of a stretch as a clue, I think.

Those are a few of my favorite ideas. Do you think you can spot the missed clue? Do you think this was just a publicity stunt to get people to rewatch the recently reaired Pilot? There’s already been a lot of mass speculation as to what this one clue could be, in a 2 hour show. I suggest that if you try this, do this from a taped version or a DVD, don’t do it from memory; as the show teaches us, memory can play tricks on us.

If there is one character on LOST everyone likes, it is Jorge Garcia’s Hurley.

“The thing that Jorge brought to Hurley is something we could never have written,” Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof says. “He’s the everyman. He’s funny without trying to be funny. On an island full of people with dark secrets, Jorge just brought a sense of fun and lightness that created real balance not just in the cast, but in the show. More importantly, he’s such a genuinely sweet guy that it oozes into his performance and has the effect of everyone rooting for him.”

Jorge was recently interviewed by The Trades. In the interview, Jorge talks about his close friendship with the other LOST actors, and what he thinks a LOST video game should be like if one was ever made.

“You’d really have to be able to make it like one of those big sandbox format video games, where you can go off and go to a lot of different areas. I think the best way to do the game, too, would be after you solve it at the end, if they let you restart the game as an Other.”

Read the entire interview at The Trades but be advised, it contains a minor spoiler related to a future episode.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, prominent writer and supervising producer on LOST, and probably the crew member most involved with the online LOST community, writes on his site that his work on LOST is done and that he is leaving the island.

…two years ago – almost to the day – i was hired on a start-up television series called “lost.” the gig was supposed to be two months at staff writer pay to work with a small think-tank in developing the long term arcs of a show that had not only not been picked up to series – the pilot had not been written!

four months later, i sat in the audience at the san diego comic-con, watching “lost” with an audience of three-thousand – stunned by how quickly it had gone from a glimmer in jj abrams and damon lindelof’s eye to one of the best television pilots i have ever seen… and, ultimately, a popular-culture phenomenon.

two incredibly exhausting and eventful years, seven scripts, forty-eight episodes, a shelf-load of awards, several convention appearances, many great friendships, hundreds of messages in “the fuselage,” and one hanging hobbit later, the time has come for me to leave the island.

Don’t worry, Javi wasn’t fired, but felt it was time to work on other projects, maybe even his own show. The second volume of Javier’s action comic The Middleman was also recently released so I’m sure Javi has many interesting ideas planned for the future.

Good luck “making your own kind of music” Javi!

Read Javi’s entire post about leaving LOST on his site.

As I watched the two LOST pilot episodes I noticed something. I’ve been searching some forums and even tried google-ing it but have not been able to find an answer…

In Pilot part 2, when the losties are walking in the jungle and get attacked by the polar bear, Sawyer doesn’t run so Kate stops and screams “Sawyer!”. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but Sawyer never revealed his name before that moment, so how could Kate know what he was called?

The possibility that he revealed his name but that the writers simply didn’t include it in the script exists, but the whole thing just feels a bit strange.

Any thoughts on this?

There is a pretty cool collection of photos and screenshots from LOST episodes over at Flickr.

The LOST – the series pool contains a large number of screenshots of strange things seen on LOST, including shots from the promo for the next episode so if you don’t watch the promos you might want to skip this link. Otherwise this ever growing collection is a great resource for all the conspiracy theorists out there.

Get LOST in the picture pool.

First off, thanks to Andreas for giving me a platform to share some of these ideas. It began shortly after I found some interesting connections while researching the source of the Dharma Initiative symbol, found within the hatch & other places in the show in slightly varied configurations:

A little background, in case not everyone has heard the origins of this symbol yet. I came across it myself while noting the similarities to the modern day South Korean flag (right)— the same yin yang design in the middle & the markings at the perimeter. I then found an ancient Korean flag (left) that bore an even closer resemblance.


(more…)

According to an article at Metromix, LOST might be more inspired by Buddhist teachings than you would think.

Episodes aired in the fall revealed that the island is an experiment run by a collective known as the Dharma Initiative. Dharma is the word used to describe the collected teachings of the Buddha.

Other possible connections to Buddhism have also been seen in recent episodes:

The computer that must be tended to every 108 minutes may be a reference to the 108-bead string, or mala, that some Buddhist practitioners use during meditation.

Read the entire article

If you never saw the first episodes of LOST now is your chance.
“Pilot – Parts I & 2″ will air Wednesday, Feb. 22 at 9/8c.

It’s a special two-hour broadcast of the pilot that started it all. After Oceanic Flight 815 crash lands, the 48 survivors find themselves on an island of harsh terrain, cruel weather and dark secrets, including a frightful creature that stalks the jungle. Strangers all, even those related by blood, the survivors’ pasts – their ethics, religions, politics and attitudes – threaten to jeopardize the group’s ability to endure.

The praise for LOST never ends. The Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films has nominated ABC’s LOST for several Saturn Awards.

LOST is nominated for Best Network Television Series. Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly are nominated for best actor and actress in a television series. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Terry O’Quinn and Michelle Rodriguez are nominated for best supporting actor and actress. Even the LOST Season 1 DVD has been nominated for a Best DVD Television Release award.

The Saturn Awards show will take place on May 2. Good luck to everyone!

Spoilers if you have not seen “One of Them”

Unlike some LOST “fansite” writers, I found One of Them to be a very interesting episode. I don’t get why some people dislike the flashbacks. Like I might have written in a previous post or comment, I feel the flashbacks are essential to make us understand the characters and move the story forward. In the case of this episode we got to know more about Sayid’s dark side. Naveen did a great job, as did the rest of the actors.

We also saw a connection to Kate in the last part of Sayid’s flashback. For those who didn’t notice – The soldier with the photo in the truck was Kate’s step dad and the girl on the photo looked very much like a young Kate.

Besides the flashback-fun, two very interesting things happened on the island. Danielle Rousseau trapped a man in the jungle and the dreaded countdown reached zero…

Who is Henry Gale?

The man Rousseau found in the jungle said his name was Henry Gale and that his hot air balloon crashed on the island while he was trying to cross the pacific. Just like Caroline mentioned in the comments of this post, it turns out that Henry Gale is the name of Dorothy’s uncle in The Wizard of Oz. In the same movie/book, Dorothy uses a hot air balloon to get back home from the land of Oz.

The Wizard of Oz also features a cowardly lion called.. Zeke. Probably not a connection, but who knows?

Did anyone else notice that when first asked, “Henry” says “we crashed” and then when Sayid is torturing him Henry says “we landed”? Could be proof that he is making the story up, could be the actor changing the lines. Personally, I’m convinced that he is an “Other”, but that does not necessarily mean that he is evil.

Why am I convinced that Henry is an Other? Well, besides what I wrote above, the episode is called “One of Them”, Henry said that he “was rich” which was a bit odd, he looked to the left when answering Sayid (a sign of making things up) and he looked strangely well groomed for a man who has been living on his own on a tropical island for the past four months (longer than the losties).

Henry also said that his company mined non-metallic minerals. After reading a bit on some forums, it turns out that there is a non-metallic green emerald called Malachite. In The Wizard of Oz, there is a city called “Emerald City” which is completely green. One possibility is that Henry is making things up based on his favorite movie, another possibility is that the non-metallic minerals where used when constructing the hatch since it probably contains a large electromagnet (remember Jack’s key being drawn to the walls and The Hanso Initiative for Electromagnetic Research project on the Hanso Foundation site). Maybe Henry’s company is “Widmore Construction”, the company which Damon and Carlton told us would play a larger part in future episodes than just showing up on a blurry sign when Charlie spoke to the music video director in Fire+Water?

The Hieroglyphs

When the countdown reached zero the numbers where replaced by red Egyptian hieroglyphs (how can they just get replaced like that?). Naturally, this was the part everyone started discussing after having seen the episode. A number of “translations” have been made, among them “cause to die”…

What interests me though is what actually happened when the countdown reached zero. Listening to the loud sound, my guess would be that the large electromagnet in the hatch started charging. Now why would a electromagnet start charging up?

It is very possible that the electromagnet could create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), destroying all electronic equipment within a radius depending on the size of the magnet, but it this case, probably covering the entire island. The electromagnetic pulse could for example destroy any equipment or electronic weapons used by The Dharma Initiative to prevent them from falling in the wrong hands. The button and the countdown would in this case be a failsafe to protect something of large value or danger.

The mystery is solved

We finally got to know how Hurley has managed to keep his weight up despite being stranded on a “deserted” island. Turns out Hugo has been eating of the Dharma Initiative food they found in the hatch. I bet this will result in hostilities later on when there is no food left, so that’s an episode to look forward to. If Henry doesn’t eat the losties while they sleep that is…

Please use the comments to post your theories on the episode.