Jin

Our apologies for being away so long, but now that Lost-related news is heating back up in preparation for Comic Con, you will be seeing more frequent updates. Most of you that signed up to the Octagon Global Recruiting website after the finale of Season 4 probably have already received, or will receive this email sometime this morning:

Octagon Global Recruiting, on behalf of the Dharma Initiative, is pleased to announce that Dharma’s Head of Recruiting, Mr. Hans Van Eeghen, has confirmed his availability for the launch of our latest recruiting drive at Comic-Con 2008.

“My colleagues at Octagon Global Recruiting assure me that Comic-con hosts some of the brightest minds in the country,” said Mr. Van Eeghen. “As Head of Recruiting it is my intention to personally assess the very best of this talent in the hope that they may join us.”

The Dharma Initiative will be conducting eligibility assessments at Booth 3529 at Comic-Con, San Diego between July 24th - 27th.

If you are attending Comic-Con and would like to submit your name for a randomly selected drawing to secure one of ten (10) pre-release appointments with one of our recruiting officers, please click here.

The volunteer eligibility assessment will be available online from July 28th for a limited time at www.dharmawantsyou.com

The Dharma Initiative hopes you will spread the word. Invite your friends to join the team at www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com

Looks like things will be pretty interesting at Comic Con - a description of the Lost-related panels are below:

Friday, July 25th: 1:45-2:45 Entertainment Weekly’s The Visionaries: Showrunners— Carlton Cuse (Lost), Damon Lindelof (Lost), Josh Schwartz (Chuck, Gossip Girl), Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies), and Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) are the television producers who are changing the face of television with deeply immersive entertainments marked by distinctive, cutting edge storytelling. They have also been at the forefront of bringing “genre programming” or “cult TV” to the mainstream. Prepare for a candid conversation about creative integrity in a commercial medium and the future of broadcast TV in an increasingly digital world. Spoiler Alert! Upcoming plot developments may be teased. Moderated by Entertainment Weekly senior writer Jeff Jensen.

Saturday, July 26th: 12:00-1:00 Lost— If the most recent season finale was any indication of things to come, you will not want to miss this panel. Co-creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse will discuss season 4 of Lost, leading up to the season finale. They will answer your questions and maybe even offer up some surprises of their own.

There has also been a little news that is a derivative of the recent ABC press tour, which included Cuse and Lindelof - most notably the following excerpt, taken from The Star - Ledger:

In terms of actual “Lost” news, the session was pretty light, though Carlton did say Daniel Dae Kim would appear on the show in the future “in some form” — which prompted Damon to add, “In human form!” And when someone asked Carlton how they planned to use next season to set up the final year, he called it “a tricky year for us; like ‘Two Towers.’ It’s the year that links us from the past to the final season… We’ve known a lot of what we wanted to do there for a long time. The challenge we have now is how to make this season exciting and engaging.”

So, let the Jin speculation continue!

In this particular mobisode, we get a little more Michael & Sun interaction, further blurring the lines associated with the question of “Did they or didn’t they?”. In case you have not seen it:

Obviously the suspicion has been there for sometime, but this provides further reason to believe that there could be more to this relationship:

Sun: He’s not the man I fell in love with (referring to Jin).
[Michael hugs her.]
Michael: Maybe he just needs a little time. It’s been hard on all of us. It’s ok. It’ll be ok.
[They pull apart and begin to stare at each other. Michael’s hand is on Sun’s face and as they lean towards one another to kiss, Vincent comes up and barks, ruining the elicit opportunity.]

Again, it will be interesting to see how Michael is interjected back into the story line and how most of the cast will act towards him, now that he is a known murderer and someone that generally turned his back on them. Will Sun have anymore feelings for him, other than contempt?

Video Courtesy of DarkUFO

This definitely contained many more characters than the previous episodes we have seen thus far (Hurley, Jin, Sun, Michael, Dr. Arzt), but aside from comic relief, I’m not really sure what to take from this mobisode, though it was written by Lindelof so maybe there is something here. Arzt mockery of Jack is probably the high point:

Hurley - Hey, if Jack says it’s a good idea, maybe we should, like, trust him.
Arzt - Why? You tell me. Because he’s a doctor? Is that what qualifies him for leadership here? How do we know he’s not a nut case? I want to tell you something. [leaning down and speaking quietly to Hurley and Michael] The other day I’m in the jungle, and I’m taking a leak, and Jack runs through the jungle, crying for his Daddy.

Enjoy!

Tonight’s episode looks to focus on Sun and what effects the island may have on her pregnancy; based on what has already happened to Claire and with Juliet in the picture, things should get interesting in this week’s Lost episode “D.O.C.”

Also, we will find out more about the mysterious parachutist, what her connection to Desmond is, and what her role will be.

Caution, spoilers!

The April 20th podcast told us that we will find out who the real father of Sun’s baby is, and it was revealed that D.O.C. is the acronym for Date of Conception. The last few episodes have spent considerable time making us aware that pregnancy on the island is fatal, with the lone exception being Claire.

Here’s the official description from abc.com for the new Lost episode “D.O.C.”

“D.O.C” - After discovering that all of “The Others’” pregnant women died before giving birth on the island, an extremely reticent Sun allows Juliet to examine her — and uncovers the identity of the unborn child’s father. Meanwhile, Desmond allows an unlikely nemesis to help save the life of a new, mysterious island inhabitant. “Lost” Wednesday, April 25 at 10/9c on the ABC television network.

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:

I have been very busy the last few days so unfortunately I haven’t had time to write any news. Here is what has been happening in the world of Lost during the last few days:

• Lost star Evangeline Lilly will star in her first feature film alongside John Malkovich and Romain Duris.
• Nathan Fillion of Firefly and Serenity fame who played Kate’s husband Kevin says that he would love to appear on Lost again.
• Daniel Dae Kim will appear at The American Red Cross Hawaii’s “Tea at Halekulani” fundraiser event on April 22.
• Lost has been nominated for a BAFTA Award.

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.

The latest Lost character backstories, previously aired flashbacks re-cut into chronological order, have been published by ABC.

The latest part of Sawyer’s flashback as well as the first Sun & Jin backstory video can be seen bellow. The rest of the new videos, as well as the old character backstories are available on ABC.com

Sawyer

Sun & Jin

Over at Sci Fi Wire there is a little interview with Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Jin on Lost. In the interview, Daniel says that when Lost returns next month, the show will get back to basics and move focus from Jack, Sawyer and Kate back to the entire cast.

“We went from an ensemble show to one that focused on a smaller number of characters. So for a lot of us, it’s meant having more free time than we originally thought. But now it’s changing again, and we’re getting back to the island, and we’re finding a rhythm.”

I really enjoyed the first episodes of season 3, but like I’ve written before, it will be nice to see more of the other characters too, so this is good news.

Daniel also talks a bit about what we can expect from the Jin/Sun relationship and comments on the ever recurring rumors about Lost character deaths:

“Our show for some reason has taken on this mystery of who’s going to die next,” he said “And I’m not sure how that happened or why it’s happening. And I’m hoping that it doesn’t become the main focus of what the audience is looking for.”

While I love the concept of knowing that every single character on Lost might die when you least expect it, I wouldn’t say that it’s what makes me watch Lost since there is so much more to the show. What it does though, is to increase the intensity and sense of real danger.

If we didn’t know that any character could suddenly die, scenes like the one where Pickett was going to shoot Sawyer wouldn’t have as much impact since any other show wouldn’t even toy with the idea of killing such a popular character.

Needless to say, I don’t want any of the characters to die (alright, maybe Paulo) since I really like them, but knowing that we might loose them adds to the reality and the quality of Lost.

In the last episode of Lost, Jack, Kate and Sawyer where held captive by The Others at the Hydra station. We found out that The Others have a neat little village on the island and we got to know a few new characters.

The official description of tonight’s Lost episode entitled “The Glass Ballerina” is as follows:

Sayid places Sun and Jin’s lives in danger while trying to locate Jack, while Jack gets a tempting offer from his captors.

Feel free to discuss “The Glass Ballerina” in the comments!