customers served (give or take a few hundred thousand) since September 2004!
Comments and opinions expressed on THE KNIGHT SHIFT are those of Christopher Knight and not necessarily those of subjects discussed in this blog, of advertisers appearing on it or of any reasonable human being. Any correspondence/irate letters/lawsuit threats/Nigerian e-mail scams can be sent to theknightshift@gmail.com.
It was twenty years ago tonight - September 22, 2004 - that arguably the greatest television series of the new millennium premiered.
Lost was an instant sensation and for six seasons its tale of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 gripped the world's consciousness. ABC's hit broke all the rules, subverted expectations, and cooked long-held tropes like so many White Castle hamburgers. Lost was television of the highest order of storytelling. Yes, its story ended without every mystery getting a solid answer... and many maddeningly unresolved. But some things should be left to the imagination and Lost certainly provided viewers with fresh new enigmas seemingly every week to ruminate upon.
I think that Lost wasn't so much about the riddles as it was about the characters. That was the greatest ensemble cast assembled in the modern history of the medium and they brought to life some incredibly deep and multi-layered personas. My most favorite character was John Locke: the crippled "man of faith" who inexplicably regained the ability to walk after Oceanic 815 crashed on the island. There was so much about him that resonated with me. And I also came to have some sympathy for Benjamin Linus, perhaps the most flawed of the show's characters. I like to think that Ben found redemption in the end, and truly repented of his ways. It was as good an end to his arc as there could probably be had.
I'm not going to post about Lost without mentioning my personal favorite theory, something that I've never seen anyone else posit. I think that David, Jack's son from the flash-sideways world, was the child who came about when Jack and Kate made love before taking off on the Ajira flight. Eloise had told the people who came to the Lamp Post that they had to recreate as closely as possible the conditions of the original flight. What she told Kate was that she had to conceive a child so that Kate could be a proxy for Claire, who had been pregnant on the Oceanic 815 flight. Well, David had to come from somewhere. And he even looks like he could be a child of Kate and Jack, too. He was very well cast.
I also think that the Man in Black wasn't Jacob's brother at all. As evidenced by the hieroglypics that Ben found, the Smoke Monster had existed on the island long before Jacob's mother came. The Monster simply assumed the appearance of Jacob's brother. Jacob found his brother's body, it hadn't been transformed at all. Again, just a theory.
Well, I could go on. This show left us with so much that we're still discussing and debating fourteen years after its final episode. That says something about any series's timeless quality. And I doubt that in another twenty years we'll be too exhausted to still be talking about it.
So, let's raise our glasses of Dharma Initiative cola and toast Lost on its twentieth anniversary! Just as amazing today as it was in 2004.
It seems like an entirely other world ago now. When the wait between new episodes could be not just weeks but months away. There was no "binging" a series on a regular basis. And streaming television was still yet to come.
I was in a different place also. Still reeling from a divorce. Wrestling with the worst symptoms of manic depression. Alone. Confused. And, well... lost. Looking for a purpose, as John Locke was.
There had never been a television series like Lost. And there never will be again, ever. At least, there never can be for me.
The medium has changed too drastically. Viewer expectations have become too impatient. The audience demands definitive answers, when once upon a time such a thing as "exercise for the reader" was a treasured virtue. To be sure, some series - such as The Walking Dead and Game Of Thrones - followed admirably in the wake of Lost. But those are basic and premium cable, absent the restraints of broadcast network television.
And as frustrating as "The Iron Throne" was to many Game Of Thrones fans, it only remotely approached the level of controversy as did Lost's final season leading up to "The End".
Always live together, and you'll never die alone.
Lost's series finale came ten years ago tonight. It capped off six years of a phenomenon that had engrossed millions, fueled so many classroom and workplace discussions on the mornings after, and unleashed countless online forums where fans dissected everything from the sounds of the Smoke Monster to Egyptian hieroglyphics. From those frantic first moments of Oceanic Flight 815's wreckage on the beach of an uncharted island Lost was mythology painted with a broad, broad brush. And it was going somewhere, was set to give us closure. Right? Right?!?
But here we are, ten years later, and the fans seemingly more galvanized than ever about "The End" and what preceded it.
Me? I thought "The End" was not a perfect episode, but it didn't have to be. It was as fitting a conclusion to Lost as there was likely to be. And while we will forever be debating whether there was some master plan that was followed - with every element having an appropriate reason and backstory behind it - it must be admitted, however begrudgingly, that "The End" was pure Lost. And really, would we have wanted it to be any different?
Others will have already written with more eloquence about "The End". But on this occasion, I thought it might be fun to share some of the theories I've had over the years about Lost. A series that we will forever be theorizing and conjecturing about. Why not add my own into the mix?
First off...
WHERE was the Island? How can it move?
I don't believe the Island was something "movable". It had a solid geological basis somewhere and we can know that because of its volcanic origin. But I do think that access to the Island was something fluid and malleable. It's the approach to the Island that is constantly moving. Going back to the quantum physics that the DHARMA Initiative boffins were messin' around with, the Island is somewhat "superpositioned" in the real world. It might be geologically located in the midst of the Pacific, but the access points to it change from time to time so that someone flying over the Atlantic might come upon one of the "windows" that Eloise described. Or arrive at the Island by boat in the Mediterranean (as Claudia and her people did). So think of the Island as a fixed point, with spacetime warped around it seemingly haphazardly. Going back again to what Eloise told Jack and his friends however, the windows through the warp could be calculated (with the help of an Apple II computer and that really strange Foucault's pendulum down at The Lamp Post station).
So no, the Island itself was not moving. But how you came to the Island certainly was!
How old is the Island? When did the Egyptians, the Romans etc. get there?
The Island itself is probably a few million years old, give or take an eon. But we're wondering how long people have been coming there.
A major clue comes in "The End", when Desmond enters the Heart of the Island. See those characters carved in the walls and on the "cork"? Those are Phoenician: predating ancient Egypt. It can be surmised that the Heart of the Island was primarily the work of this earlier culture. As for what purpose: who knows. But they're the ones who are ultimately responsible for all of the crazy on the Island.
The Egyptians came some time after, and they built the statue of Taweret, the wheel chamber, etc.
Then came the Roman castaways of which Claudia was one. And who gave birth to Jacob and his brother.
Wait... it was the Man in Black and the Romans who built the wheel, right?
The Man in Black and his compatriots were building a wheel, not THE wheel. Not the one that we see Ben Linus turning in the fourth season finale.
The evidence? The Egyptian hieroglyphics on the wall of the chamber. The fact that Mother destroyed the Man in Black's own chamber before he could finish his wheel.
Are you saying that Jacob and the Man in Black came after the Egyptians were on the Island?
Yup.
That's impossible! The Egyptians had the Smoke Monster in their wall carvings. So the Man in Black was before they came!
The Man in Black and the Smoke Monster were two different entities.
Work with me here. We ARE theorizing after all...
The Smoke Monster has long, long been part of the Island's place in the scheme of things. Way before the birth of Jacob and his brother. The Smoke Monster is a tangible representative of evil itself and that evil must always be contained. Just as Jacob told Richard when he was showing him that bottle of wine: the Island is a "cork" keeping the bottled-up darkness from spilling out. And for a time, whether by the Phoenician culture or the Egyptians, that representative was held back.
Until Jacob threw his brother into the Heart of the Island. Which was the catalyst for everything that came after.
Entering the Heart killed Jacob's brother. We can know this after the tearful farewell that Jacob gave his brother and the Mother. Jacob didn't treat the Smoke Monster as if it were a new incarnation of the Man in Black. But what happened at the Heart did free the Smoke Monster from captivity. And Jacob would spent the next two thousand years trying to make up for his mistake.
What would happen if the Smoke Monster got off the Island?
Hell would come to the world.
We got a glimpse of it with Sayid, after he was resurrected in the corrupted water at the Temple. It was "the sickness" that had been spoken of before, and now we know what it did: it darkened the heart of the infected. As Lennon translated from Dogen, Sayid had been "claimed" by the darkness. And later on Sayid described how he couldn't feel anything: that he had become emotionally deadened.
Now imagine that same deadening happening to millions, if not billions of people across the face of the Earth.
Jacob was right: the Island was a cork and it was holding back something that if it became free, it would spread.
Maybe "The End" didn't make it clear enough but those were REALLY high stakes that Jack was playing for when he fought the Smoke Monster's Locke form.
What is the meaning of "the numbers"?
Ahhhh yes: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. And how mad we did get trying to figure those out.
The answer is at once ridiculously mundane and metaphysical. And it helps to bear in mind the Valenzetti Equation that was written about on the blast-door map. In The Lost Experience real-life game at the time, it was revealed that the numbers are factors in the Valenzetti Equation: a formula calculating how long manking has before driving itself into extinction. One of the purposes of the DHARMA Initiative was to change at least one of the factors, and thus stave off that extinction.
Basically, the numbers are intrinsic to the fabric of the universe. THAT is why they keep showing up. They surface because... well, it's their nature. And DHARMA is trying to change the numbers and consequently, the universe itself.
So the numbers are at once pretty boring and also utterly fascinating.
Who was that in Jacob's cabin?
My gray matter has discombobulated itself a zillion ways from Sunday trying to figure out who it was we briefly saw in that chair when Ben took Locke to the cabin. And later the same figure apparently appeared very briefly when Hurley found the cabin.
It wasn't the Smoke Monster-as-Christian Shepherd, we can disregard THAT possibility by process of elimination. And it obviously wasn't Jacob himself. Even though it seems that Jacob was using the cabin at some time or another, given the dialogue when Ilana and Bram arrived with their group.
I've no idea who it is and the showrunners probably never knew who it's supposed to be either. It's almost a disappointment, albeit an intriguing one.
What DID happen at the Swan site?
Basically, Daniel screwed up with his calculations. And the Island proved him wrong: changing the variables did not affect the past. Jack, Kate, Sawyer etc. had to be on the Island in the present day, and the Island brought them there. That's the best that I can come up with.
What about the polar bears, the "Hurley-bird", the source of the DHARMA food shipments, some other stuff?
Those got answered in "The New Man In Charge": the eleven minute "mini-episode" that was included in Lost's home release. Here it is if you've never seen it. It's pretty much the very last moments of the Lost mythos that were produced.
Who was David? Jack never had a son in life. Why does he have a son in the "flash-sideways" afterlife?
Of all of my theories, this is my most favorite. Because not once have I ever, ever seen anyone who has come up with this...
David Shepherd is the son of Jack and Kate.
Dylan Minnette was perfectly cast as David. I mean, just look at the features he shares with Jack and Kate. Especially Kate's eyes. And Jack's hair.
But how and when did David come about? Ahhhhh... now that IS an interesting question and the answer is an astounding one.
Before leaving for the Ajira Airlines flight, Kate came to Jack's home and was pretty adamant about the two of them making love. I believe now that doing so was part of the plan: that Kate had to become pregnant
Because... what did Eloise tell Jack, Kate and the rest? That they had to replicate, as closely as possible, the conditions of the original Oceanic 815 flight. Which, among other things, had a pregnant young woman aboard.
Kate was proxying for Claire, who was nine months along with Aaron at the time of the Oceanic crash. Locke's dead body was proxying for that of Christian and now it was Kate who was a stand-in for Claire.
Nine months later, after Kate and the other survivors returned home, she gave birth to David. And it was in the flash-sideways that Jack got to be the father he never had the chance to become in life, to his own son.
That is where David came from. He wasn't some "figment" of the flash-sideways. He was flesh and blood, and presumably lived a long life and then was united with the father he never knew.
That's my VERY longtime theory about David Shepherd. And I'm quite proud of it.
And the voices?
The Island's mega-electromagnetic qualities "trap" the souls of some. The ones who can't "move on". But as "The New Man In Charge" implies, such people are not beyond the realm of helping. And that's the very best that I can come up with. Okay smartie pants, what about...
I would love to be able to figure out the reason for the Egyptian characters on the Swan Station's countdown clock: the one that turns red and black if the numbers aren't entered in time (some have translated it to mean "cause to die"). Why did women who conceived on the Island die during pregnancy (a fate Sun avoided after escaping and giving birth in the outside world)? How exactly did that lighthouse - the thing that spied on more people than Alexa - work? Who was...
Look, I am not going to attempt to answer ALL of the mysteries about Lost! That's for others to work out on their own. Who am I to deprive others of intellectual exercise? Just watch the show and suss it out for yourself! Besides, it's more fun that way.
Anyhoo, here's saluting you, Lost. Gone, but NEVER to be forgotten.
It's been ages since anything Lost-related has appeared on this site. Someday I'll try to write up an essay that's been percolating for a year or two: how the answers to everything we'd been looking for really, honestly were revealed or explained by the time of "The End" in 2012. Including how the Island could move (there's a scientific theory for that!).
Until then, it's nice to see that Lost still resonates. Enough so that CollegeHumor.com explored the notion: "What if Lost was a computerized role-playing game?" Sorta in the style of Dragon Warrior running on a Super Nintendo...
Am enjoying it right now. This is by far the most intimidating behemoth of a box set that I have ever added to my personal library. I mean, you not only get a whole heapin' bunch of Blu-ray discs (or DVD discs if that is still your flavor) but also a touchy-feely relief map of the Island, a Senet board with black and white playing pieces, a cryptic note, and an even more mysterious DHARMA Initiative pen-sized dark light that can be used to illuminate the box (and finding hidden... stuff, with it).
Watching Season 6 at the moment. Am pleased to report that picture and sound quality is amazing. But the absolutely first thing that I had to watch was "The New Man in Charge": the 12 minutes-long "mini episode" that follows up on the events of the series finale. And in twelve minutes we get to see darn nearly and maybe all of the still-lingering questions get answered! Wondering about the food drops, the "Hurley-bird", Room 23 and Walt? Well those and many more matters get addressed to satisfaction.
If you're thinking about getting this set soon, you might wanna drop by your nearest friendly neighborhood big box store and get it this afternoon or evening: they were going fast at the nearest Best Buy (in fact mine was the last copy they had and the nice lady at the register said people had lined up outside the store this morning to buy the Complete Collection and the regular Season 6 set that also came out today). If you're anything at all a nut for Lost, this is definitely a must-have :-)
(And I learned yesterday that the Lost Season 6 soundtrack CD will be out next month! Followed in October by the 400-some pages Lost Encyclopedia.)
EDIT 7:35 p.m. EST: I just found the hidden disc. Yup, there is another disc in this set and you have to look for it: it's not anywhere that you can readily spot. And this is a huge box set. I'm beginning to wonder if it might be booby-trapped...
First of all, and I don't know if anyone else has made note of this but this final season of Lost borrowed a lot from Marvel Comics' Earth X trilogy that Alex Ross and some others did about a decade ago. If you're not familiar with the series, a big part of the story (which consisted of Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X) was about an "afterlife" that the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe were stuck in, unaware that they were dead and because of that, unable to move on. The Kree hero Mar-Vell winds up getting himself re-born in the real world even as he's still in the realm of the dead (much like Desmond was working in the real timeline and the "alternate" timeline). In the end heroes and villains alike realize their state and get to "let go and move on" to a new world that Mar-Vell had been conspiring across space and time to prepare for them. All except people like Kingpin who decided they wanted to have power in the world of the dead just as they had in the living. The only other ones who didn't move forward were people like Captain America who - very much like Benjamin Linus did - chose to "stay behind" awhile and work some things out before being able to let go.
I've been thinking that ever since reading the title of the sixth season's premiere, "LA X", that the Lost showrunners might be more than paying a homage to what happens to be one of my favorite Marvel stories. And, looks like I might have been right :-)
Anyhoo, the series finale aired almost 36 hours ago but the discussion and debate is just getting started... and threatens to continue for the next thirty or forty years. It's pretty clear by now that we won't be getting solid answers to everything (and I'm glad that we aren't) but lo and behold we have got a few answers to some burning questions, thanks to Kristin Dos Santos from E! Click on the link to watch the video which puts to rest a bunch of mysteries. Such as... the Man in Black's REAL name!
Yup, he had one even though it wasn't ever mentioned on the show. But it did appear in the scripts though Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof decided against letting the audience in on it.
But in case you're wondering, the Man in Black's real name is Samuel (an old Hebrew name meaning "man of God"). Jacob and Samuel: I like that. Has some symmetry to it.
Other things noteworthy from the video: the "Kwon" written on the wall of Jacob's cave was Jin, since Sun was removed from consideration as a candidate by Jacob because, like Kate, she became a mother. Whoever it is that is protector of the Island can cause the Island's weather to also change (which will no doubt have many going back to look for the times when it started raining during dramatic moments). The voice that Locke heard in the cabin in "The Man Behind the Curtain" was that of the Man in Black/Samuel.
And the DVD/Blu-ray release will reveal what happened to Walt. I'm thinking that he has already "moved on" but his time on the Island wasn't as important as it had been to Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest. Walt still had all his life left to live and prepare for that moment, in his own way. Who knows: maybe Michael also was able to finally enter into it, eventually. And I'm wondering if that scum Keamy is now eternally damned because he chose to remain the bastard that he was when he was still alive. I can't remember any other time during the "flashsideways" that a character was shown to have died, and I can't imagine him ever wanting to go inside the church... but who knows?
Indeed, who does really know? Lost's departure with so much unanswered still, well... more and more I'm seeing how that's a good thing. It kept drawing faithful viewers because we all loved speculating and analyzing stuff, and set itself up to keep doing that even after the show itself had "let go".
In a cyclical sorta way, I find that rather appropriate :-)
...and I am still stunned and numb by how powerful and poignant that was.
I don't mind sharing this at all: the closing minutes of the series finale of Lost, very beautifully articulated many of the hopes that I have come to have across my life.
If you want to know what Chris Knight's image of Heaven is like, that final scene inside the church is pretty darned close: reunions, reconciliations, rejoicings... and moving on together.
This finale hit me in places that I didn't realize needed hitting upon. Lost on the morning after, and somehow I'm feeling more appreciative. More thankful. More hopeful.
This was only the second television series that I've followed this intently in my life. The first was Babylon 5. And in the end both of these shows brought me to tears for all the right reasons. But I don't know if anything has been as emotionally jarring as Lost became. Maybe that's because I watched it through all the way to the end with more lifetime behind me to make me consider it more.
Honestly don't know what else to say about this folks. I am just plain overwhelmed by this story and its magnificent conclusion.
Dear Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and everyone who has been involved with Lost during the past six years:
That was time well spent. All of it.
And in "The End", you brought it to a perfect, astounding and beautiful conclusion.
The greatest praise that can ever be given a story is the sense that the reader or the viewer is coming away from it a better person than he or she was before picking up the book, or tuning in to the show. And that the story now belongs on the shelf with the others, to be brought out again and enjoyed many more times in years to come.
Lost made me think a little more, cry a little more, laugh a little more... and it's leaving me a better person. And I shall certainly enjoy rediscovering this story and these beloved characters many, many more times during the rest of my life.
Best. Series. Finale. Ever. And just as Lost should, it leaves one having to think things through, even now.
To all of you on the west coast: you have no idea what awaits you. Nothing in your wildest dreams can prepare you for how good "The End" is.
But I give you fair warning now: keep the tissues handy.
To everyone involved with Lost: Thank you. You have delivered the greatest mythology that the television medium has ever produced. Thank you for bringing us along for such a remarkable journey.
This is Chris Knight, Lost viewer and blogger since 2005, signing off on the last post-show reaction to a Lost episode that I'll ever write.
It was during Jacob's little campfire get-together that the image of a key came into mind. And that key went into the lock (or perhaps "Locke") in the door of six seasons' worth of mystery on Lost... and began to turn.
Can you see it? Could you feel it too, watching "What They Died For"? That all the threads are coming together in the tapestry that is Lost. The sense that this has been a well-orchestrated symphony of mythic storytelling, even during those times when some of us had doubt (witness the reaction many had to last week's "Across The Sea", which tonight's episode tremendously heightened appreciation for).
Everything has come full circle at last. Seeing our heroes on the beach, watching Jack crudely suture-up Kate just as she did in the very first episode, and then realizing that Jack is assuredly not that man of science any longer. He is now and forever a man of faith and the cup has been passed to him, both literally and figuratively.
Then there is Ben. He is going to keep us guessing right up until the very end. Even now, we don't know whose side is he on. But would we really want it to be any other way?
Everyone is coming together whether they realize it or not. From across the Island. From across space and time. From across an entirely other universe. The pieces are in place for the final gambit of this game that we've watched unfold for the past six years.
And in true Lost fashion, we have no clue how it's going to come down.
A brilliant, brilliant episode. It gets my full 10 out of 10.
And fittingly, there are 108 hours between now and "The End".
One week from tonight, the story of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 will draw to a close as the final episode of Lost airs on ABC.
I do not know if there will ever be another television series that has so captivated me. That has compelled me to tune in as Lost has. I am not much of a television viewer at all: a show has to sincerely earn my attention and respect, for me to devote my time toward it. And that, Lost has done.
"What They Died For", the last regular episode, airs two nights from now. There'll be a two-hour recap next Sunday followed by the two and a half hour "The End".
And some dude/dudette in London has spliced together this spellbinding trailer for Lost's series finale. It's so entrancing that none other than Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof Twitter-ed about it earlier this morning! This bit o' video cuts right to the heart and soul of what has made Lost so good.
In case you're wondering, the music is "Shooting Star" from the Stardust soundtrack.
And there'll no doubt be plenty more Lost posts between now and next Sunday night (and probably beyond...)
This is probably the most mythos-packed episode of Lost, ever. And I've no doubt that many might not care much for that aspect...
...but I thought that "Across The Sea" was a very strong entry that answered bunches of questions while simultaneously not answering some that I was expecting and in fact added at least one big new question (with three and a half hours left to wrap up the tale of Lost and its myriad of mysteries).
"Across The Sea" was also the longest flashback episode in Lost history: the entire chapter takes place an indeterminate amount of time in the past, and that's bugging me. Is this meant to be pre-ancient Egypt? The hieroglyphics we've seen at the Temple and that this is apparently before the Statue of Tawaret was built would suggest it. That potentially places "Across The Sea" more than four thousand years before the present time. To quote Tommy Lee Jones from what has become one of my favorite movies: "Who are these people?"
I suppose that one of the reasons I'm wondering about how far back "Across The Sea" takes place, is that a bigtime mystery from Season 1 got answered tonight and it doesn't quite jibe with Jack's expert opinion on the matter. And speaking of that: I'll wager an RC Cola and a Moon Pie that just as many people will be outraged by tonight's episode as they were by "The Candidate" last week, accusing the showrunners of "cheating" with "Across The Sea" and all those theories that had abounded.
And what's the Man in Black's real name? Producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have said he's got one and that it's important to the story. Well... considering how we now know what he wants and why he is the way he is (even though I don't understand why that happened, the "birth of the Smoke Monster" sequence was awesome) seems like his name would have been the cherry on top.
I'll give "Across The Sea" a 7 out of 10, and I'd love to give it an 8 but something... seemed lacking. Maybe I'll reconsider after watching it again (and again and again). And who knows: perhaps in retrospect this will prove to be a much-appreciated breather before "The End" a week and a half from tonight.
Only one more regular episode. Next Tuesday night: "What They Died For".
(And the teaser for next week's Lost was one of the best ever! Using "The End" by The Doors like that was a stroke of genius :-)
It's the Lost Season 5 Soundtrack CD! It won't hit retail until this coming Tuesday, but a copy arrived here a few hours ago from somewhere among my nebuluous network of insiders and associates (or perhaps it was the strange time-shifting qualities of the Island that made it possible)...
I'm now on my second time of playing through it and once again Michael Giacchino has turned in a mesmerizing score (but those of us who watch Lost know that already :-) There are 23 tracks on this thing. The ones I've most been looking forward to having are "The Swinging Bendulum": the theme that was first introduced when we saw the Lamp Post in the episode "The Lie". That, and "The Tangled Web", better known as Jacob's theme. Unfortunately "The Tangled Web" does not trail off into the score that we heard when we got our first real view of the Statue of Tawaret in the prologue of "The Incident", which I thought was really majestic and mysterious. But hey: we do get the main vibe of Jacob's theme, so that's still fine. And there is plenty of reprising of "Dharmacide" (from the Season 3 soundtrack, which most people know as Ben's theme), which has also been one of my most favorite bits of music from the show.
Per my usual practice, I'm going to purchase a copy at retail this coming week (something that I did with Transformers: The Scoretwice when it came out a few years ago :-) to make up for having this one sent. And if you love Lost and the work of Michael Giacchino, I'm gonna heartily recommend that you buy it too. 'Tis well worth plunking down hard-earned coin for.
The producers of ABC's hit drama have shot so much crucial material for the show's hugely anticipated series finale that the network has agreed to extend the last episode by an extra half-hour.
When the "Lost" finale airs Sunday, May 23, the episode will run from 9 to 11:30 p.m. The overrun will air instead of the local news, with the "Jimmy Kimmel Live: Aloha to Lost" post-finale special remaining at 11:30 p.m. ABC is expected to announce the plan on Tuesday night's episode of Kimmel.
The night before "The End" airs, ABC will also broadcast the pilot episode that first aired on September 22nd, 2004, as one of those "enhanced" editions that pops up factoids about the story on the bottom of the screen.
I don't know if there's going to be anything like Lost that I'll be watching again anytime soon, seeing as how I'm so extremely finicky about how I choose to devote my precious time on television. The last time a show captivated me this much, it was Babylon 5 more than ten years ago. If there's nothing else on the horizon, this might be the most zeroed-in on the boob tube that I'll be for a long time to come...
...so at least for the weekend of May 22-23, I'll get to go out with a bang :-)
I'm going to be as un-spoilerish as I possibly can be after seeing this episode...
Goin' be LOTS of people all kinds of angry and crying tonight after watching "The Candidate". The Intertubes might just burst from the wrath being poured into keyboards between now and the next several hours.
At least with Blake's 7, Terry Nation waited until the absolutely final episode of that show to force viewers to watch the main characters gets killed off one by one. Lost still has four hours left before its final moments: what the $&@# could showrunners Cuse and Lindelof possibly have left to hurt us with?
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Whether alive or dead or undead, John Locke just can't stop playing with C-4. Jack has finally and firmly emerged as the man of faith: exactly the mirror opposite of what he started out as. And it was great to see Anthony Cooper again...
...but it was Hurley's breakdown in the final moments which is still resonating mightily in my gray matter. That... and one very particular tragic moment that we saw before the final commercial break... said it all.
Has any other show done so magnificent a performance at building up characters that we've come to care for, only to force us to... to watch as that happened to them?
Well played, Cuse and Lindelof. Well played.
But it's not "The End" yet.
And we shall see what lies "Across the Sea" next week.
Until then, "The Candidate" would get a 10 out of 10 from this viewer... except that it broke clean off after pegging the needle so hard.
It's been two weeks since the last fresh installment. Last Tuesday night was a repeat of "Ab Aeterno", the long-awaited and wildly acclaimed Richard Alpert backstory episode that aired a few weeks ago.
Tonight's episode, "The Candidate", is being said by those who have seen it already to be exceptionally good. And I'm hearing even better things about next week's "Across the Sea", which is said to answer a wazoo of questions (including the origin of the frozen donkey wheel, and how Jacob and his "friend" came to the Island). No, I don't know what those are: I'm discovering 'em along with everyone else. And don't e-mail me with answers either: I know when real Evil Incarnate is reading my blog, so it would be too easy to track you down too if I had to :-P
"The Candidate" airs at 9 p.m. EST, and is gonna be one of those episodes of Lost that is extra-long by two minutes. Plan your DVRs accordingly!
Depending on who you are, tonight's Lost either confirmed or imploded a whole lotta theories that have been building up over the past six years. While at the same time going off the tracks with all kinds of crazy goodness!
"The Last Recruit" felt like an episode and a half, if not more even. The answers keep coming hard, even if they aren't explicitly "spelled out". That dialogue between Jack and the Man in Black toward the beginning of the episode? And a bit of what Claire said? When you think about it all that's maybe two or three longstanding mysteries that were laid bare. I love how this show makes the viewers work things out on their own. And in that respect Lost stands tall as some of the most intelligent storytelling for the television medium in history.
I am soooo not spilling the beans on what was the best moment of an episode abundantly blessed with excellent moments, for sake of those on the west coast who won't be seeing it for another two and a half hours.
The flashsideways timeline: whatever the heck this is headed to, I am totally digging it now. And I think that there might have been a clue here as to the identities of "Adam and Eve". Hint: apple. 'Course I might just have been seeing too much there.
Must. Watch. Again. And I hope y'all DVR'ed it anyway 'cuz there's no new Lost next week: instead we get a repeat airing of "Ab Aeterno", which was the episode that gave us Richard's backstory, so it's all good. The next week though will bring us "The Candidate". And after that "Across the Sea", which I know nothing about other than word is rampant that this is going to be a massively major episode (one rumor is that it will give us the story of Jacob and the Man in Black).
Five more hours of Lost left. And I'll give "The Last Recruit" a full 10 out of 10!
I am officially saving up all hyperbole for whatever Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have schemed up for the final six hours of Lost. Good thing too 'cuz I would have shot the whole wad on "Everybody Loves Hugo" tonight.
WOW!!! Okay, along with "Numbers" from Season 1 this has to rank as the all-time greatest episode focusing on Hurley. This felt like an episode and a half and all those 'splosions didn't hurt at all (bye-bye Ilana, but I saw that caked-on nitro on the dynamite sticks and knew then this was gonna end badly). Hurley's destroying the Black Rock: is it just me or did y'all also think that signified this series' finality? The Black Rock had been one of the most long-standing mysteries of the show, and now that we know everything about it and to see it go "boom" like that...
It was one of the best visual effects I've seen in television history. A foreshadowing, no doubt, of things still to come before "The End".
I thoroughly approve of how Michael was brought back to the story... and bringing the long-sought answer about the whispers with him. But it was Libby's return that I most appreciated of "Everybody Loves Hugo". I'm almost sorry for saying this but Libby never really "clicked" for me during her appearances during Season 2. But now after seeing this episode, and thinking back to how she was in Santa Rosa with Hurley in the "main" timeline well, can't help but wonder if there was "method to the madness" all this time and we're just now realizing the extent of it.
Speaking of timelines, I am now totally digging what is going on in the alternate universe and how the two realities are interacting. That revelation has come pretty late, and I was worried for awhile that it was going to be delved into at all. But now the answers are coming as hard and fast as alt-Desmond's leadfoot on the pedal (you'll understand when you see the episode, y'all on the west coast :-)
"Everybody Loves Hugo" gets a 15 out of 10 from this fan.
Six more hours of Lost remaining. "The Last Recruit" is found next week.
A little more than a month from now on May 11th, you and me and all the other Lost fanatics will finally get to buy the soundtrack from Season 5. Click here to pre-order it from Amazon. It'll street for $17.98 but you're likely to find it for less depending on where you look.
Lost is the only television series that I've ever gone to the trouble of buying the soundtrack CDs, and I'm looking forward to putting more of Michael Giacchino's beautiful work on my iPod. And Season 5 had some of the best music of the show's run. What I'm eager for most: getting that theme that we first heard during the Lamppost scene in "The Lie", and what most fans are calling "Jacob's Theme" that was introduced in "The Incident, Part 1".
(Incidentally Mr. Giacchino, if you ever read this: I would love to have a bunch of the score from "Happily Ever After" on the Season 6 soundtrack when it comes out next year. Especially everything from Desmond and Daniel's dialogue on through the end when Desmond asks for the manifest :-)
Before uttering a word about Lost, I just wanna say that Buzz Aldrin was all kinds of kewlness on Dancing With The Stars and even though he's gone from competition, his was a presence that truly moonwalked on the dance floor. Looked like he had a heck of a fun time!
Now, on to "Happily Ever After"...
The episodes of Lost that center on Desmond Hume have been some of the very best of the show's entire run: witness "Flashes Before Your Eyes" and "The Constant". "Happily Ever After" is likely the last time we'll see an entire episode devoted to Desmond and the Lost showrunners went all out to make this an electrifying episode (yes I'm being quite punny tonight :-).
(Part of me wants to say that maybe this episodes should have been titled "Flashes Between Your Eyes", in keeping with the names of some of this season's episodes and how they're a play on words of past seasons' episodes. 'Twould make heaps o' sense, but at this late in the game I can understand it.)
So apart from the prologue (featuring Desmond breaking bad on Charles Widmore's ass and didn't EVERYONE holler "GO DESMOND!!" when we saw that?) and the extreme beginning and end of the episode, "Flashes Before Your Eyes" was all about Desmond in the flashsideways timeline: a universe where he's seemingly a happy globetrotter who gets treated at last to Charles Widmore's 'spensive bottle of booze. As such the more longstanding mysteries of Lost were barely addressed at all, which with seven hours left for this show to wrap up everything is ordinarily a bit troubling. But "Happily Ever After" did give us hard answers at last to this season's biggest quirk: the flashsideways-es showing us what the world would have been like had Oceanic 815 landed in Los Angeles.
I thought this was a brilliant episode. And it would be destined to be a fan favorite even if it hadn't seen the return of so many familiar faces, like Charlie Pace and Daniel and Eloise (who just as in the regular timeline apparently knows more than most) and even George Minkowski. And then there's Penny: anyone else catch how without stating as much, that she is Desmond's constant even here in the alternate reality? Is that related in some way to why Widmore had Desmond brought back to the Island?
Can you tell I've watched this episode a few more times since it aired yesterday evening? :-)
I'm gonna say that "Happily Ever After", when all is said and done, is going to prove to be one of the most pivotal episodes of Lost's entire run. And for that alone, it gets the full 10 out of 10 from this viewer.
First things first: Whoever it was at ABC that thought it would be a "brilliant" idea to put that blood-red V countdown bug in the lower right-hand corner of the screen needs to be dragged out into the street and shot. I've never seen such a nuisance more distracting from what should have been a completely enjoyable experience of watching an episode of Lost.
(It was enough to make me not want to stick around long enough to watch V tonight, if that says anything.)
But as for "The Package" itself...
EXCELLENT episode! Maybe even as good as last week's that gave us Richard's backstory. And so far as the Sun/Jin-centric installments are - which have become some of my favorite - "The Package" may have been one of the best. Good thing too, since this is probably the last Lost episode ever that will focus on our Korean lovebirds.
I'm starting to wonder if the "flashsideways"-es have something to do with what Hurley told Richard last week: that if the Man in Black isn't stopped then "we all go to hell". Last month I posted my theory that the Man in Black could be trying to escape not just into the world but in another world (like Mephisto in the Earth X Marvel Comics trilogy). Perhaps the flashsidewaysies are showing us the universe where the Man in Black is running rampant. How this is going to figure into a storyline with only seven episodes left to wrap up its mythology, I haven't a clue... but the Lost showrunners had better get hopping. After the past three or four episodes though, I'm still confident that they'll deliver.
There were two people that I thought over the past couple of weeks would be behind the door on the submarine. And who we saw being taken off of it was one of them. I wonder if we'll see the other one. Which also reminds me that it was nice to see Room 23 again... and that does make me think that we shall see that other character again soon.
A very, very solid episode. I'll give it a 10 out of 10.
They chose this as the title because they want to make it stark clear that there will be no spinoff series, no movie, no anything. There's supposed to be an official Lost encyclopedia book coming out at some point but so far as the story of Lost goes, this will indeed be THE end.
