Sunday, September 24, 2006

'Lost' - What We Know

Lost begins its eagerly anticipated third season Wednesday, October 4, at 9 PM ET/PT in most viewing areas. Will we find out more answers to questions posed? Are The Others really a force for good? And, where did that dang huge polar bear go?

It's hard for a mere fan of the show to digest all the clues put forth and I know I miss some every show I watch. If you haven't watched the show, it may be hard to jump aboard the Lost island, but it's not impossible. As a prelude to the new season, I'll go into some of what we know and some of the riddles posed. For every mystery, a new mystery seems to arrive. Are they making it all up as they go along? Well, yeah... it's fiction, you know! But, hopefully, the writers do have resolutions for mysteries posed. Either way, I'm hooked.

Here are the basics:
  • Oceanic Flight 815, which could seat over 360 passengers, on a flight from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles, California, crashed somewhere over the Pacific Ocean possibly near the Fiji Islands. The crash was due to instrument failure. Although it's not known how many passengers were aboard, we know that at least 70 survived the crash.
  • The plane broke into three parts as it went down - the central fuselage contained 48 survivors (believed to be 49 at first, but one was not from the flight), the front section contained only the pilot, and the tail section had 23 more surviving passengers. The three sections landed in various parts of the island.
  • In the Season 2 finale, it was revealed that the failure to push a mysterious button on schedule caused an electromagnetic field disturbance which affected the plane's instruments, resulting in its crash.
  • Each character, or plane crash survivor, has his own story and some interweave with the lives of others on the plane. The show uses flashbacks to show life events of each leading up to the crash.
  • In Season 1, there was a huge polar bear. He has not been seen since and his importance (or lack thereof) is not known.
  • The first season focused on the passengers from the fuselage and they were unaware that others from the tail section survived.
  • The fuselage survivors determined "Others" were on the island and that the "Others" were an evil lot, kidnapping children and just plain ol' evil nefarious stuff going on. There are also monsters or some unseen force which sounds as large as dinosaurs crashing trees in a dark wisp of smoke.
  • There's a mysterious French woman on the island (not a crash survivor) who tells tales of the Others and evil stuff.
  • A hatch (one of more than a few on the island) was found on Season 2. In it, Desmond (on the island previous to the plane crash), had been entering numbers and pushing a button every time a timer hit the number 108, supposedly to save the world. The failure to push the button one time is what has been indicated to cause the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Desmond ran away, leaving new crash survivors the task of saving the world on a scheduled basis.
  • In exploring the hatch, the survivors found out about the DHARMA Initiative, a research project, from an orientation video. DHARMA stands for Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications Initiative. Okay. The definition of "heuristic" (hey, I didn't know) is: A replicable method or approach for directing one's attention in learning, discovery, or problem-solving. Hmmm.
  • The DHARMA Iniative was sponsored by the Hanso Foundation.

Are you confused enough yet? Wait! There's more!

  • Mysterious numbers keep recurring on the island and in the backstory of one of the focal characters, Hurley. Hurley believes that his winning lottery numbers brought him bad luck (along with several million dollars). His lottery numbers - 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 - have played a prominent role throughout the show as the numbers needed to input before pushing the button to "save the world" and more.
  • Last season marked the discovery of Others who survived the plane crash in the tail section.
  • But they're not the only Others, and they're not the true Others about whom the French woman feared.
  • The real Others, in pirate-like appearance, kidnapped Walt (a young boy from the fuselage). His father, Michael, will do whatever he has to do to get Walt back.
  • It's possible that a real Other has been captured with the find of one Henry Gale who supposedly crashed his air balloon on the island. (Reference back to The Wizard of Oz.)
  • In regard to the numbers game of Lost, when they showed Henry's address, he lived at 815 Walnut Ridge - the same number as the flight. Once again, numbers play a huge role in the plot and its clues. And, the 108 timer flip (to save the world) is the sum of the lottery numbers.
  • There isn't space, nor the time in the day, to go into each character on the Island, but you can read up on them on the episode recaps on the ABC Official Lost website. There are murderers, thieves, a man who couldn't walk but now can, and a dog named Vincent (as opposed to a dog named Boo).

Are you still with me? Today, Sunday, September 24, there will be an Internet radio show at 11 PM ET (8 PM PT) in which DJ Dan is supposed to "blow the roof off of the Hanso Foundation" exposing new clues as we go into the third season.

LOST. It's more than just a television show. It's a never-ending mind game of clues, adventure, and odd bed-fellows. But, I'm going to be watching.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so grateful for this Jackie! Thanks!

quixoticelf

Anonymous said...

What about the fact that...wait...is it 3 survivors of the plane crash have died? Also, the survivors are now getting more violent themselves as they begin to think about building an army and attacking the Others without really understanding yet who they are and what their motives are. Then there is the mystery of the contamination. The original inhabitants of the hatch had to wear contamination suits when they were outside the hatch and the Others have innoculated a baby against something but noone is getting sick so why the concern about contamination? Very odd. Just some of my meandering as I wonder what will happen next because you certainly can't predict it.

Dove

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna give Lost another chance this season. I missed the first half of last season and when I tried to get caught up, it was impossible!!

Another Jackie fan gave me this site to get caught up with. I read the recaps of Season 1 already and the author of this blog is really good (although not as good as Jackie!). It's Filmfodder: The Lost Blog.

Enjoy!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the info "mommy" and Dawn...I too am a new Lost fan...because of Jackie's wonderful work of course...and I'll do my best to catch up so I can participate. Love this blog Jackie...you are greatly appreciated. Sue in NE

Anonymous said...

For anyone who wants to review happenings to date the Entertainment Weekly mag with the Battle Star Galactica people on the cover has a really fantastic pullout section inside with anything and everything you need to know about Lost.

Lili

Anonymous said...

HI JACKIE JUST WANTED TO LET ANYONE KNOW THAT THIS WEDNESDAY THEY ARE AIRING A NEW LOST RECAP. ONE THEY HAVEN'T SHOWN BEFORE TO CATCH EVERYONE ONE UP QUICKLY. IT'S A RECAP FROM SEASON 1 AND SEASON 2 ALL IN AN HOUR. HOPEFULLY FOR THE NEW LOST FANS OUT THERE IT WILL HELP A LITTLE. FOR ALL US OLD FANS, IT WILL BE ONE OF THOSE RECAPS THAT THEY ALWAYS SHOW BEFORE THE NEW SEASON 3 STARTS. MAYBE WE'LL SEE SOMETHING WE DIDN'T NOTICE BEFORE. I'M GONNA WATCH IT SINCE IT IS NEW. NOT A NEW EPISODE, BUT A NEW RECAP. I LOVE LOST. ANYTHING TO DO WITH LOST I'M ON IT.

DIANE

O MY I JUST REALIZED I TYPED THIS WHOLE THING IN CAPS. I'M AT WORK AND WHERE I WORK EVERYTHING HAS TO BE IN CAPS. AGAIN I'M SORRY, BUT I DON'T WANT TO RETYPE THIS WHOLE THING