Charlie

Not much happening this week in the world of Lost, but I will do my best to recap a few interesting news items:

*The Official Speed Racer website launched this week, complete with a press blitz that featured Matthew Fox. He made a few comments, but the one I found most interesting was that he grew up without television, how is that for irony?

*Emmy Submissions for Lost: Buddy TV is reporting that the following Emmy submissions were made on behalf of Lost -

Outstanding Drama Series
Lost “Through The Looking Glass”

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series
Evangeline Lilly For “I Do”

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Matthew Fox For “A Tale Of Two Cities”

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series
Naveen Andrews For “Enter 77″
Daniel Dae Kim For “The Glass Ballerina”
Michael Emerson For “Every Man For Himself”
Henry Ian Cusick For “Flashes Before Your Eyes”
Josh Holloway For “Every Man For Himself”
Jorge Garcia For “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead”
Dominic Monaghan For “Flashes Before Your Eyes”
Terry O’quinn For “The Man From Tallahassee”

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series
Emilie De Ravin For “Par Avion”
Yunjin Kim For “The Glass Ballerina”
Elizabeth Mitchell For “One Of Us”

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Kevin Tighe For “The Brig”

Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
Stephen Williams for “Greatest Hits”

Though Lost was generally snubbed last year, I think it can only be good for the series to win some of these awards, though that may not be of much import to the overall fan-base. Of those listed above, I would especially like to see Dominic Monaghan nominated for Supporting Actor and Elizabeth Mitchell for Supporting Actress (official nominations will be announced on July 19th). Who do you think is deserving of an Emmy based on the above?

*Elizabeth Mitchell Interview: Variety posted a pretty good interview with Elizabeth Mitchell.

Mitchell may not know if a line or two of dialogue — or even an entire multiepisode setup — is just a ruse because the following scripts haven’t arrived yet. Yet, she’s developed a sixth sense in figuring out Juliet’s true intentions.

“I know when she’s lying, and she’s an excellent liar,” says Mitchell, laughing. “Juliet is so controlled and only allows people to see her in the way she wants to be seen. If she shows too much, she loses all her powers.”

It has been a week now and the dust has settled (mostly) from the mind-blowing Season 3 finale. Though we are undoubtedly left with many questions to keep us occupied until next February, we were provided some closure as well. In summary:

Charlie is dead

There was a lot of commentary associated with the finale post related to how Charlie died and exactly why he did not try to escape from the control panel room as it filled with water. Ultimately Charlie believed that for the Losties to be rescued from the Island, specifically Claire and Aaron, he had to die in the way that Desmond envisioned. Bringing finality to season-long foreshadowing and in truly heroic fashion, he initiated the catalyst that will inevitably cause some of the Losties to get off the Island.

So are 12 Others, Naomi, and (possibly) Mikhail

The action and body count in this episode was unbelievable. We saw the Others’ rank and file decimated throughout the finale, Naomi literally stabbed in the back by Locke, and Mikhail detonate himself via hand grenade. However, I am not going to make the silly assumption that Mikhail is dead; after all, we have now seen him bounce back from the sensor pylons and a spear to the chest. We will probably see him wash ashore in Season 4 alive, but missing his right hand.

Though I generally agreed with it, I thought that Sawyer’s execution of Tom was the foreshadowing of an even darker descent for the character that we will see next season.

“Not Penny’s Boat”

During Charlie’s brief commune with Penny, we are told that Penny does not know of Naomi, which basically begs the question “Who is Naomi with?”. My first guess would be Dharma, or the corporate entity that financed the Dharma Initiative. She obviously has access to sophisticated technology and knows enough about Desmond’s back story to use that as the means to convince the Losties of her motives. Widmore anyone? Hopefully Desmond can get back in time to save the Losties from whomever is on their way to “rescue” them.

Future Jack is Depressing

As Jack is one of my personal favorite characters, I am hoping the flash forward we saw represents a “possible” future for Jack, and not the absolute. If it is Jack’s future, I would hope he finds a way back to the Island to right the wrong he feels needs to be addressed, and to find some greater meaning for his life. J. Wood, whose blog I have read frequently this season, discussed the flash forward in his TTLG post and it is definitely worth reading:

I’m planting a flag here — when Des saved Charlie, he changed that past and present as well as the future. Charlie couldn’t swim in the first season, and he’s all of a sudden a swimming champion who makes an impressive dive in “Greatest Hits,” a dive that Mikhail needed scuba gear for. Like Charlie’s newfound innate swimming ability, perhaps in the re-made past/present/future, Christian Shepherd didn’t die. And maybe that’s why Kate seems to be conspicuously lacking her trademark freckles.

The flash forward itself implies an even greater question for next season, and that is, did the Season 3 finale represent a change in the narrative angle for the entire series? Was the flash forward a one-time episodic plot device, or is this what we can expect moving forward?

Is Ben a bad guy, or a morally-challenged good guy?

Seeing Jack in his current state of depression made me think that Ben is really the only one who has this whole thing figured out, and is ultimately doing whatever is necessary to protect the location of the Island from the people looking to exploit it. There was obviously some merit to his comments about the company that Naomi was keeping, and his dialogue related to Jack’s need to get back to civilization, though stinging, was the truth. Nevertheless, it was somewhat cathartic to see Jack pummel Ben. For those that haven’t seen it yet, there are some pretty good transcriptions of Ben’s diary out there.

Who was in the casket?

There has been a lot of speculation about this; it could be Locke, Sawyer, or Ben, or anyone else under the guise of a different name. In my opinion, it is probably either Ben or someone we have yet to meet on the series. Jack commented that the person was neither friend nor relative, and the reaction evoked from Kate would indicate it was somebody that there was a general level of contempt for.

Season 4 cannot get here quick enough, and I am excited to learn more about everything referenced above, as well as where Locke has migrated off to, where exactly is this temple that Ben has sent the remaining Others to, and did we really see Walt, or was that a reincarnation of Smokey? Could Walt have some tie to Jacob?

We will continue to try and keep things interesting on this blog, following any information released about the series, the actors, and making some changes along the way to prepare for a better Season 4 Lost Blog experience. We are working on initiating a theory-focused contest and will have more information on that in the coming weeks.

Until then, stay Lost.

Yes, it is true, your science professor’s favorite magazine has taken a hard look at the Lost season finale and parlayed it into a quick, humorous read of Sci-Fi Fact vs. Fiction.

What we can offer is a reality check: Writer, filmmaker, military adventurer and former dynamite wrangler Robert Young Pelton weighs in on the good, the bad and the fake from Wednesday’s mind-bending finale. (If you have not seen the two-hour episode, stop reading now!)

Thanks to Matt Sullivan, Online Editor of Popular Mechanics.

Kristin, from E! Online, has posted two post show interviews, one with Lost co-creator and executive producer Damon Lindelof, and the other with Dominic Monaghan related to the fate of Charlie.

Both of these are good reads and the Lindelof interview is especially interesting given that he and Carlton Cuse are going into a self-induced radio silence moving into Season 4, primarily because of the sheer volume of spoilers that were leaked associated with the finale for Season 3. I, for one, find that encouraging for the remainder of the series, even if it means leaving us to relentlessly speculate.

How are you dealing with the Spoilergate aftermath?

Well, with regard to season four, Carlton and I are going into complete and utter radio silence. I know a lot of people are going to be frustrated, but I think if things had gone a little differently in terms of the finale getting spoiled, we might have been a little more open to talking about it.

A few more old Lost flashback videos were recently published online by ABC. I’m starting to have a hard time keeping track of them, but according to TVSquad this is the 8th installment of the videos.

Jack

We start of with one of Jack’s old flashbacks where we found out that Jack’s dad, Christian Shephard has alcohol problems:

Hurley

In Hurley’s flashback we meet Hurley’s imaginary friend Dave and find out that Hurley might have caused an accident:

Sun & Jin

The Sun & Jin flashback takes us back to the time when the couple fell in love:

Charlie

In Charlie’s old flashback, we see how far he is able to go to fuel his drug addiction:

E!Online’s Kristin managed to sneak onto the Lost set in Hawaii to ask the actors about what we can expect from the upcoming episodes. There are some minor spoilers but nothing significant.

Featured in the video are Lost actors Terry O’Quinn, Michael Emerson, Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Dominic Monaghan and Evangeline Lilly.

Dominic Monaghan who plays Charlie on Lost was recently interviewed by MSN. Check out the video at their site or take a look bellow:

I’m working on the code and design so I haven’t had much time to post new stuff, but a few interesting interviews with some of the actors from Lost have been published in the recent days so here is a quick roundup:

Josh Holloway who plays Sawyer was interviewed over at Sci Fi Wire.
Josh talks about the Sawyer/Kate relationship and other things that are on his mind.

TeenTelevision.com has published two interviews. One with Jorge Garcia (Hurley) and another one with Dominic Monaghan (Charlie). Jorge and Dominic answer questions about their characters and their careers. There are some spoilers in the interview with Jorge but the one with Dominic looks pretty clean.

Contactmusic.com reports that Dominic Monaghan, who plays Lost’s Charlie asked the writers about some of his theories about the show:

“One of the theories I came up with was that we’d all in some way pissed off some huge billionaire.

He’d managed to get us all on a plane and have it crash into this island so that he could watch us from his castle with hidden cameras and create a “Truman Show” nightmare for us all.

Maybe I’d s**gged his daughter, or Evangeline’s character, Kate, had stolen money from his bank, or Josh’s character Sawyer, had fandangled money out of him. But it got pooh-poohed by the writers.”

The billionaire Dominic is referring to is clearly either Alvar Hanso or Charles Widmore, with my bet being on Mr.Widmore, the father of Desmond’s girlfriend, Penelope Widmore.

While I agree with Dom that Widmore probably has a lot to do with the larger story of Lost, I don’t think he got them all together and crashed the plane on the island because he was mad at them. It is an interesting theory though.

What do you think about Dominic’s ideas? Did Mr.Monopoly send them to the island?

Animal lover Dominic Monaghan who plays Charlie on Lost is appearing in a new ad for PETA. In the ad where Dominic appears next to a raccoon, he encourages everyone to “share the world”:

“Your actions can and do have an impact on the natural environment around you. Please consider a humane solution to wildlife issues in your community or in your own back yard.”

Take a look at the ad and a video interview with Mr.Monaghan on their site.