'Lost': Live chat this Wednesday!
As you know by now, there's no new episode of "Lost" this week. Because it would be far too easy to hold off new episodes until January and then run them in a weekly fashion, apparently. ABC decided to pull a Benjamin Freakin' Linus on us and toy with our fragile minds. Fantabulous. But luckily, I've got your Wednesday plans all covered. And I'm bringing someone along for the ride.
I'm more than stoked to have the one and only Erika Olson joining us for a live chat this Wednesday, April 22nd, starting at 8:30 pm EST. We'll chat for about half an hour, at which point "The Story of the Oceanic 6" will start up over on ABC. We're going to see their story from a whole new perspective. Don't believe me? Watch this.
See? I told you. That'll teach you to doubt me. Anywho, these types of clip shows are always fun to break down, and occasionally (often by complete accident) make us see certain events in a new light. So we'll incorporate the special into the chat. But mostly Erika and I will be here to field your questions, offer our insights, and potentially fight to the death. OK, maybe not the latter. I know better than to challenge her to a duel. She's way crafty.
Erika's blog, "Long Live Locke," is on my "must read" list, and should be yours. She's got insight, she's got humor, she's got skillz. So by all means, check out her site, and mark your calendars for this Wednesday. Should be a fun time. Be sure to bookmark this page as well, since the chat window below is where it'll all go down later this week.
Updated: Thanks to all who came by! And major props to Erika for stopping by. If you missed the chat, click below for a full replay.
Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude. He invites you to join the hundreds already in Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group. He also encourages you to subscribe to the Zap2It's Guide to Lost Twitter feed.
Questions for Erika (or Ryan or anyone else):
1) How in the heck would a one-off (more or less) hatch cover have a serial number of 4,815,162,342 (as opposed to say, one or ten or maybe twenty)?! They made nearly five billion hatch covers?
Stuff like this makes me feel like I am listening to the writings of (hack) writers, not watching a great story unfolding before my eyes.
2) How, in three years, would Miles have never heard (from Sawyer or whoever) one mention about all the time they spent in the hatch? (After all, Sawyer even spent time recovering from his bullet wound there, not to mention the rather memorable end to the hatch.)
Again, pulled me right out of the episode and made me think of hack "Eggtown Murder Trial" type writing.
3) How can ANYTHING be "in the shadow of the statue" permanently? Even in Chicago (to use a totally random example) (ahem), even an object directly on the north side of the statue would only be in shadow during the winter (when the sun never rises very far in the southern sky), but [I think] it would be exposed during parts of summer days, correct?
And for an Island in the Ocean that has Hawaii type weather and is closer to the equator (regardless of whether north or south of it), the winter shadow would be even smaller I think.
I'm hoping this question turns out to be much more metaphorical than we all seem to be ***uming, because I just don't see how anything can literally always be in the shadow of the statue. (Then again, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so maybe I'm just missing something.)
4) Speaking of "what lies in the shadow of the statue?", my bet is that it's the H-Bomb.
But I'm not sure if somebody else posted that already. (I wasn't sure if that's what the post meant or not when I read it, and I'm too lazy to try to find it and re-read it again now.) (So if that's what you meant, I don't mean to take credit for your idea.)
This is my guess not only because "the well" (leading to the FDW) seems too obvious (and I'd like to point out that our freinds weren't in shadow when looking at Anubis or whatever it is), but because of the old rule about not introducing a gun in act 1 ("Jugghead") unless you are going to use it later (the season climax).
But I hope I'm wrong and it turns out to be something (preferably metaphorical) that really blows our minds.
Clarification: I LOVED the fact that Hurley's restored car had the numbers, as that could actually happen (using the tenths and the trip odometer the way they did). I thought that was very clever and engaging and it drew me further into the story.
Whereas finding out that the reason the numbers were stamped on the hatch lid was because that was the serial number to me did not seem possible, and thus I momentarily dropped out of the story and thought "I wonder if this episode ws written by the same people who gave us the Eggtown Murder Trial".
Especially since it was pretty clear that this was the Swan being built (we had seen a model in a previous episide, etc.) -- we didn't need to have it hit over our head.
(Repeatedly, painfully, in fact, as we were expected to believe that Miles had never heard of the hatch.)
As far as I can tell there was absolutely no reason for the "serial number" bit except to fill a little time (which I always hate) and for an opportunity to treat the audience like they can't figure out simple things unless they hit us over the head with it (which I don't much care for either).
It seems primarily like it is the non-Darlton writers who are almost always responsible for this hack writing, but I still blame Darlton for not reigning them in and demanding higher quality work or else kicking them to the curb.
Which reminds me -- when I watched the episode a second time (hoping I'd like it better the second time around) I noted the names of the writers and thought: "wasn't one of them not even a writer originally, but a production designer or something?"
If so, that would explain a lot. Can anyone else confirm (or deny) this?
I happen to love the recap specials simply because I can sit my wife in front of the tv for an hour and get her caught up, or reminded, on the intricacies of the plot.
Amen, BotN! I do the same thing to my husband. He watches the show with me every week, but he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. The "specials" help him get caught up without him looking at me like I'm crazy because I "know" things about the show.
djc--there should be a marriage support group for the non-linear-plot-challenged couples. Though really, I married UP in the brains department. My wife has a masters in engineering, but for the life of her, she can't keep up with the twisty turny plot on LOST. (she loves the show) We both have common-ground on Chuck, however. Love that show on a different level than LOST. If Chuck gets canceled, a little part of me will die.
Brian: With you on the "Chuck" cancellation. Last night's episode was all sorts of awesome. Easily their best ever. It's our favorite non-"Lost" show on air.
To Concerned -
I'd like to take a shot at those questions.
1. I'm not sure that it is established a serial number - but if it is - the number could be derived from a variety of ways such as 4 Type 8 Size 15 Composition ... etc ... I have a feeling they will explain it more. That shot the other day was a teaser.
2) You're dead right and it is a big problem with me as well. It's not just Miles, it's all of the Losties and the fact that not a one of them is particularly curious AT ALL about the island, the DI, their time travel, whatever. There just happy to mop up cl*** rooms and fix vans. The only way I can justify it is that the writers have run out of time to tell those stories but, the blame is still on them because they went to such great lengths to add unneeded off island mystery. They should do more Missing Pieces minisodes or something to correct this.
3. Riddles and their answers are often poetic and I think it is not meant to be literal.
In all, Lost is better digested in chunks. It's hard to know if the writers are on their game or not because it has such a huge leading edge of mystery with the show. I have a feeling you will have a pretty solid knowledge of the show's quality by the end of this season.
I really don't have a problem with the writers hitting us upside the head with stuff from time to time. It's good for the more casual fans, many of whom are constantly living up to the show's title.
Those of us who read and write about the show a lot have a good grasp of what's going on, of course, but we are an extreme minority when it comes down to it. And even we screw things up from time to time. Heck, even the actors screw up from time to time --- remember this gem from the interview with Sterling Beaumon? "we don't know who Locke's father is!"
So cut 'em some slack, they're all doing a fine job keeping things together...
Brandon: Is that really a screw-up, though? We honestly have no proof Anthony's his father. Heck, we have no proof that "Anthony Cooper" is anything more than another alias.
@Ryan: If you're going to donate a kidney, wouldn't they do a whole DNA workup and everything and figure out pretty dang quick that you're not actually related after all? Hospitals tend to be fairly thorough about that sort of thing. Plus, didn't the Others sort of confirm that Cooper was his father? I'm going to have to back and watch the Locke/Cooper episodes again to see just how possible it might be that they're not related... but I don't think it is. Nothing against Sterling, I still think he's awesome, but I do think he was just plain wrong on that one.