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whathoThis is a lengthy, rambling post-in-progress about Lost that I've been updating in secret as and when things occur to me. It's very unfinished. It's really just to organise my thoughts and to give me something to check back on as I discover more things about the series, and to amuse those who've already seen my theories exploded. That's why I'm putting it public. For your general entertainment. Please don't let me know if my theories have been exploded. Just laugh behind your hands.
This is, of course, totally spoilery for the whole of Season 1. There's also a section of Season 2 spoilers I've already had, right at the end, with a bit of warning space.
Let's open with my dwindling sense of shame.
At times, I'm still quite annoyed with myself for liking Lost as much as I do to the extent that I feel the need to open a post about Lost with a sort of apology for quite (very much) liking it.
I own that it is seething with flaws that are too obvious to note in detail. And that it looks like a ratings grabber, pure and simple. Most problematically, if the revelations are not equal to their setup, the whole series will fall flat and leave a nasty taste. 'Course if it gets it right, that'll make for amazing television. Lost has such potential for both fantastic success and hideous failure.
Mostly though, it's just really great fun to watch in a strangely old-fashioned way. It has cliffhangers and mysteries and conflicts and pirate ships in the jungle. It's like a really freaky version of Neighbours. It's also, in many ways, a bit of a cheap con - even if it's patently going to the bad, I'll still want to watch just in order to find out what such-and-such meant or how such-and-such happened. But in the meantime, when it hasn't yet let us down (too much), I'm quite happy to assert that there are lots of things Lost does really, really well. Like creeping me out in disturbing dream sequences (Locke's eyes! Terror!). And suspense. And humour. It's very funny. Hurley makes me laugh every time he wandered blithely onto the screen. And Locke made the Operation noise when he was handling the dynamite, which is a thing of joy. And it has Locke. If the show was about Locke's days in the box company's offices, I'd still watch. Locke is wee-hee.
What's it all about?
Purgatory
I'm not interested in the idea that they all died in the 'plane crash and are currently in Purgatory as anything other than a vague allegory or narrative-frame for the whole, basic survival story. I'm also quite sure it's not what the writers are thinking of: I reckon the premise has to be at least half - if not precisely half - grounded in cold reality. See the science/faith thing for more on this.
Conspiracy Theories
If the Purgatory thing is the utterly supernatural version of the story, this is the one totally grounded in reality: that a group of living, breathing people, The Others, wants the 'plane crash survivors on the island for some reason or other. That the disease really is a disease, not a freaky figment of Rousseau's imagination. That the monster is The Island's security system. This doesn't eradicate the supernatural elements entirely: The Others could want the psychics in the party.
I don't want it to be anything quite so logical, to be honest. Well, I sort of do. But I want there to be a great big lovely allegory behind it all. I think there will be. I talk about it two points down.
Pandora's Box
Well. I think the most obvious reference currently biffing about is Pandora's Box. They're not even being subtle about this one. Locke thinks hope is inside the hatch. Hope of what, I can't quite imagine, seeing as Locke doesn't actually want to get off the island and back to his cosy box factory. But the whole first season does seem to have lead, one way or another, to the hatch. We had another reference to Pandora's Box in Hurley's episode, 'Numbers' - the fellow who'd been crazed by the numbers told him that by using the numbers to play the lottery, he'd 'opened the box' in a moment of darkly amusing lucidity.
So I don't think this is really open for questions anymore: the hatch and the opening thereof are somehow going to mirror Pandora's Box (and the opening thereof). Bad things are going to come out, like evil people and nasty diseases. And then they're going to find something that offers 'hope' - but not necessarily hope of getting off the island. Maybe a more...universal thing. Maybe we'll find out there's a more universal problem: after all, we have no idea what's happening in the wider world, or even if the wider world's still fine and dandy. Or there.
Or. A marriage of one of Lost's several binary oppositions (black and white, etc.) could bring hope in a vague, extra-societal sort of a way. I'm thinking primarily of:
Man of science v. Man of faith.
In terms of what the series is about ideologically, the writers now seem to be setting up a Locke vs. Jack scenario. The last shot of the first season was the pair of them looking into the hatch; more significantly, the last flashback lingered on their very first, very fleeting contact. I think a direction is being suggested.
When Locke first stated explicitly that he was a man of faith and Jack was a man of science (Exodus III), I was slightly freaked out because I seemed to be thrilling to the representative of quite the opposite side of the debate from my usual. I don't like Jack. Most of my favourite episodes belong to Locke. Now, technically, that shouldn't be. Locke is so in thrall to 'the island' that he's willing to accept its desire for sacrifices (as he sees it) as a matter of duty. Which isn't, you know, terribly safe or good or desirable. I appreciate that Locke's brand of faith is not exactly blind: the island apparently gave him back his legs. But he doesn't know why. Locke cannot imagine that the island might be anything other than benevolent, though there's every possibility he's being used by whomsoever for dark and dismal purposes. Personally, I think the island wants his other kidney. And even so, one should only go so far in one's thanks. 'Go on then, have Boone' is a step beyond. On the other hand, Jack's method isn't perfect either. He's so lacking in imagination that he can see only two possibilities as to what lies inside the hatch: supplies or, at worst, a place to shelter. Which, considering where they are and what they've seen, is just bizarre.
It's a character thing. The trouble is that I absolutely can't stand Jack. He's so boring and bland and I really couldn't care less about anything to do with him. What's worse, he's the sort of lead character that this sort of drama believes it absolutely has to have to succeed. See also Michael Kuzak in LA Law. While Locke is simply fascinating, scene-stealing and has a genuinely interesting backstory. So I go 'oooh, Locke' and 'yawn, Jack'. The same thing happens with Sawyer, who is wrong in every possible way. But he's not Jack. That's a big, big plus.
Anyway, they do seem to be setting up a real sense of conflict between the two characters and therefore the two ideologies and whatnot (and incidentally, I don't think this was signalled terribly well: Jack vs. Locke just wasn't a dynamic that really occurred to me). Why? (I'm not really asking) Are we heading for some kind of union of the two positions? An acceptance of Otherness? Are the networks really that brave? Science cannot exist without faith...well, no. I think that makes little sense. But you know. That sort of thing. Like I said somewhere else, I think the premise has to be half-grounded in reality and in the rational and half in, if not blantant divinity or supernatural stuff, at least in the unknown and inexplicable (the psychics, for example: they seem indisputably to exist in Lost's universe, and we simply don't know whether or not there can be a rational, realistic explanation for their existence). And not just those two positions: is there going to be a general theme of marrying opposites with each side having to give a bit of ground? From the whole survival point of view, I suppose it's fairly likely.
Sayid represents the pragmatic yet open-minded middle ground between Jack and Locke (as in he doesn't worship the metal hatch but he has the sense to expect Nasty Things to come out of it). Maybe I should cultivate my love for him.
Other Unknowns
The Monster.
I am coming to the conclusion that the monster is, to some extent, an empathetic shape changer. Locke, for example, did not see the same thing twice: the first sight he had of the monster was the most beautiful thing he'd ever witnessed. The second scared him out of his wits. Or into his wits.
I have a notion that it's playing on their fears of the moment. The noises it makes seemed, up until the finale, to be more or less the noises the 'plane made while it was breaking up (shearing metal and howling wind) and while it lay on the beach being dangerous (the turbine slowing and speeding up again). That'd be a good sort of a noise to make if you want to play on these people's collective sense of terror. But now it's making noises like a chain's being winched in. Like, perhaps, an anchor chain. They've just come across a scary slave ship full of dynamite. I wonder if they have collective survivors' guilt.
Also, in Exodus, we apparently (and at long last) saw something of the monster, as did a few of the characters. It was black smoke...just after black smoke became a signal of The Others and thus a thing to be feared. Having said that, there's been a lot of black smoke in the series thus far.
I don't know about Rousseau's security system thing. It's a bit too grounded. I don't know about The Island as a sentient being - by and large, I think not, though I quite like referring to it as though it is.
But yes. Basically, the monster is everyone's personal monster.
The Others.
In one episode, possibly the one after Claire returns, the phrase 'the others' is spoken about a half a dozen times in as many minutes, always in reference to various members of the group. That was when I became fairly convinced that 'the others' where probably nothing of the sort and that 'the others' referred to would, in some way, turn out to be themselves...at least until they overcame the sense of otherness that they perceived in one another.
And then the boat people came along. But I doubt we have so many such references to 'The Others' for no reason. I will be quite disappointed if The Others turn out to be nothing more than The Island's managers or the people behind the conspiracy theory. I want people we know to be The Others too.
What's going to happen.
I don't know! Chuh. Ultimately, it could end with their being faced with a decision of whether or not to leave the island. It could end like The Prisoner, with our thinking they've escaped and finding that they haven't really, and never really can.
But I have a suspicion that Locke's going to lose the use of his legs again in a moment of tragic betrayal. Bad island.
What I want to happen: one day I might try and write a proper synopsis using canon info thus far for my version of events. But I want it to be a big playing field for science vs. faith. I don't know who could have set it up or why. I want science to win with a dollop of the good things about faith. Which are...I'll come back to this. It can drive good people to do good things. Perhaps opening the hatch will turn out to be a good thing, or at least a necessary thing. And I want Locke to realise he's been duped and to do something that actually makes people like him and respect him and give him all the things he wanted his faith to provide. I possibly want the numbers to be genuinely magical. I just like magical numbers.
Oh a thing
My brother says the Oceanic Flight logo is a nazar wattu or whatever Kipling called it. A symbol to ward off the evil eye. The island is seething with eye imagery. So you have to look at this thread from either a completely symbolic or a thoroughly supernatural point of view: a portion of the people on the flight were saved because of the nazar etc. The island itself brought them down. I don't answer questions that begin with how.
Lost Fandom.
I know nothing about Lost fandom and can't really delve into it for fear of being horribly spoiled for season 2. It's been really strange - any other programme and I'd be running to the internet to see what other people made of it and how the fanfic's going and what the actors have been saying in their interviews and all sorts. I can do none of that with Lost, so I have no idea who's been paired with whom in the fic, if the fic is mostly missing scenes or wild speculation or how various characters are going down in various countries. I can't even type things like 'Pandora's Box' into Wikipedia for fear of getting unwanted references.
It's also just occurred to me that this is the first time in a good long while that I've cared about an open canon, which is great fun. There are episodes still to come and things that might still happen. Though I was a little horrified to hear one of the producer chaps saying they had a good idea of where the story would go in the first, say, five or six years. I'm not sure people want to be kept waiting for their answers quite that long: surely Lost isn't that open-ended a premise. Or it shouldn't be.
ETA. I have actually now looked at Channel 4's spoiler free forum. Thankfully, it was. Some of the ideas in this post are seemingly well discussed in the fandom, including Pandora's Box and the whole melding of binary opposites. And a little about The Others. But not the personal monster theory. And there's a lot of stuff about black smoke monsters in the pilot (my opinion is that they're flecks on the camera lense) and nanites. Nanites built the island, rebuilt Locke's spine and cloned everyone. Lots of clone theories. I don't really see the point in their being clones though. And one about how Locke's parents aren't Locke's parents and they didn't really steal his kidney. They implanted a remote control for his legs. No way, says I. That would be a textbook lesson in how to eradicate the impact of the series' most powerful story.
Thoughts on Individual Episodes as they Arise.
I haven't been doing much of this, but here be a couple of sentences.
Deus Ex Machina
I love this episode. It's my favourite episode. It's very, very good. You should watch it.
Locke's mother was admitted to the same institution as Leonard 'The Numbers' Man, and presumably, as Hurley. I don't yet know about Hurley, but I can't think what else he was doing there.
First noticed the Hatch noises here, when the thing lights up. Then noticed that they also occur in the pilot, when Jack goes onto the beach. I don't know what it means or anything. I'm just mentioning it.
Do No Harm
I hate this episode. It's my least favourite. Locke isn't in it (this has to be a major missing scene) and Jack has a flashback about his wedding.
But...Jack says 'Don't tell me what I can't do,' which is Locke's repeated line. Locke tends to use it in reference to what he can and can't do for himself, while Jack uses it in relation to what he can do for other people. Bally hero. Don't know if that's significant. Like most things in Lost.
Random Statements.
1. Terry O'Quinn seems to have lost a lot of weight during the course of the series. He was a tad stocky to begin with, but now he looks rather like a tortoise.
That's it.
Now. Spoiler space. Here come my second season spoilers. None of them are so massive that I particularly care about them: mostly they're episode and character names, but there are a few plot points in there as well. Here they come.
***
***
***
List of Second Season Spoilers:
* The tail section people have survived and are going to be introduced in the second season, but I'd worked this out from canon anyway.
* One of the survivors is Ana Lucia, who turned up in Exodus and who is so loathesome that she makes me quite like Jack. Oh my, she's foul. 'You're dad's dead then. How did he die? Don't you drink? I drink. Maybe later we can have sex.' I hate her. She's slightly spoiling my whole looking forward to the next season thing. What is the point of giving screen time to hideous and uninteresting new characters who are not, for example, Locke?
* Another new character is a psychologist called Libby. I don't know if she's one of the survivors or not.
* A third new character is played by a British actor, but is not a British character.
* From the trailer: Jin survives the whole raft business, and possibly starts speaking English. I don't know. I think Michael survives (NEW: The Beeb tells me that he does. Gee. Thanks, Beeb). I don't know about the fates of either Walt or Sawyer. My theory about Walt is that they're keeping the boy in the wings until he's gone through puberty. That's what happens when you let 12 year olds play 10 years olds.
*Update: I do know about Sawyer. I saw a picture in a magazine. He lives.
* From the trailer: Jack goes down into the hatch, which has corridors. There are several boxes with Quarantine written on them and a countdown, but I don't know if these things are found in the hatch.
* From a picture online: Locke at an apparently non-functioning computer terminal in somewhere that might've been the hatch, with a man in a boiler suit standing nearby. I have no idea what that means.
* Episode titles: Man of Faith, Man of Science (or vice-versa); ...And Found; Everybody Hates Hugo (awww); Fire and Water (I think); The 23rd Psalm (boring choice); The Hunting Party.
* My brother has encountered a fascinating thematic spoiler that he found while searching for something he thought was unconnected on Wikipedia. He says it'll be revealed to me in episode 2.3 and may well make me fear for the future direction of the series. Ulp.
* NEW: I just discovered this spoiler myself. It is as follows: Flann O'Brian's 'The Third Policeman' appears in the series and is included for a very specific reason. The obvious answer is that...I'm spoiling The Third Policeman if I say the obvious answer. I'll change that. The obvious answer is that the survivors share the same fate as that book's narrator. Alternatively, the very specific reason could be 'a red herring'. Because I sort of thought the writers had dashed down that particular possibility anyway. So that's odd. It doesn't actually make me fear for the future direction of the series just yet, because I'd prefer this option to everything's being explained by a massive kidney-theft conspiracy operation. Something else annoyed me though.
* I then looked up 'The Third Policeman' on Wikipedia just to see exactly what my brother saw, which turns out to be much more than 'The Third Policeman's becing a massive influence on the narrative. It said something about someone's being asked to input(?) the numbers or do something with the numbers, or they'd, like, die. Then I looked away. Okay, that doesn't look half so bad now I've written it down. It still doesn't really tell me anything. Much. Except that there are probably buttons. I don't know into what the numbers have to be fed or why they'd die if they got it wrong or what's going to happen if they get it right or, like, why. Okay. That could be worse.
* The whole scheme is being run by Q. Actually, that was just a dream.
I listed them to see if I felt overspoiled. These were mostly accidental spoilers found in the course of looking for other stuff. I don't think I feel overspoiled anyway. I know nothing essential. I suppose I know that there's electricity in the hatch, but we knew there was a power source. And that's not much of a thing to know anyway. And possibly there's internet access, but I don't know how or why. And a man in a boiler suit. Actually, it all looks rather like a Tomb Raider game.
That's the answer.
This is, of course, totally spoilery for the whole of Season 1. There's also a section of Season 2 spoilers I've already had, right at the end, with a bit of warning space.
Let's open with my dwindling sense of shame.
At times, I'm still quite annoyed with myself for liking Lost as much as I do to the extent that I feel the need to open a post about Lost with a sort of apology for quite (very much) liking it.
I own that it is seething with flaws that are too obvious to note in detail. And that it looks like a ratings grabber, pure and simple. Most problematically, if the revelations are not equal to their setup, the whole series will fall flat and leave a nasty taste. 'Course if it gets it right, that'll make for amazing television. Lost has such potential for both fantastic success and hideous failure.
Mostly though, it's just really great fun to watch in a strangely old-fashioned way. It has cliffhangers and mysteries and conflicts and pirate ships in the jungle. It's like a really freaky version of Neighbours. It's also, in many ways, a bit of a cheap con - even if it's patently going to the bad, I'll still want to watch just in order to find out what such-and-such meant or how such-and-such happened. But in the meantime, when it hasn't yet let us down (too much), I'm quite happy to assert that there are lots of things Lost does really, really well. Like creeping me out in disturbing dream sequences (Locke's eyes! Terror!). And suspense. And humour. It's very funny. Hurley makes me laugh every time he wandered blithely onto the screen. And Locke made the Operation noise when he was handling the dynamite, which is a thing of joy. And it has Locke. If the show was about Locke's days in the box company's offices, I'd still watch. Locke is wee-hee.
What's it all about?
Purgatory
I'm not interested in the idea that they all died in the 'plane crash and are currently in Purgatory as anything other than a vague allegory or narrative-frame for the whole, basic survival story. I'm also quite sure it's not what the writers are thinking of: I reckon the premise has to be at least half - if not precisely half - grounded in cold reality. See the science/faith thing for more on this.
Conspiracy Theories
If the Purgatory thing is the utterly supernatural version of the story, this is the one totally grounded in reality: that a group of living, breathing people, The Others, wants the 'plane crash survivors on the island for some reason or other. That the disease really is a disease, not a freaky figment of Rousseau's imagination. That the monster is The Island's security system. This doesn't eradicate the supernatural elements entirely: The Others could want the psychics in the party.
I don't want it to be anything quite so logical, to be honest. Well, I sort of do. But I want there to be a great big lovely allegory behind it all. I think there will be. I talk about it two points down.
Pandora's Box
Well. I think the most obvious reference currently biffing about is Pandora's Box. They're not even being subtle about this one. Locke thinks hope is inside the hatch. Hope of what, I can't quite imagine, seeing as Locke doesn't actually want to get off the island and back to his cosy box factory. But the whole first season does seem to have lead, one way or another, to the hatch. We had another reference to Pandora's Box in Hurley's episode, 'Numbers' - the fellow who'd been crazed by the numbers told him that by using the numbers to play the lottery, he'd 'opened the box' in a moment of darkly amusing lucidity.
So I don't think this is really open for questions anymore: the hatch and the opening thereof are somehow going to mirror Pandora's Box (and the opening thereof). Bad things are going to come out, like evil people and nasty diseases. And then they're going to find something that offers 'hope' - but not necessarily hope of getting off the island. Maybe a more...universal thing. Maybe we'll find out there's a more universal problem: after all, we have no idea what's happening in the wider world, or even if the wider world's still fine and dandy. Or there.
Or. A marriage of one of Lost's several binary oppositions (black and white, etc.) could bring hope in a vague, extra-societal sort of a way. I'm thinking primarily of:
Man of science v. Man of faith.
In terms of what the series is about ideologically, the writers now seem to be setting up a Locke vs. Jack scenario. The last shot of the first season was the pair of them looking into the hatch; more significantly, the last flashback lingered on their very first, very fleeting contact. I think a direction is being suggested.
When Locke first stated explicitly that he was a man of faith and Jack was a man of science (Exodus III), I was slightly freaked out because I seemed to be thrilling to the representative of quite the opposite side of the debate from my usual. I don't like Jack. Most of my favourite episodes belong to Locke. Now, technically, that shouldn't be. Locke is so in thrall to 'the island' that he's willing to accept its desire for sacrifices (as he sees it) as a matter of duty. Which isn't, you know, terribly safe or good or desirable. I appreciate that Locke's brand of faith is not exactly blind: the island apparently gave him back his legs. But he doesn't know why. Locke cannot imagine that the island might be anything other than benevolent, though there's every possibility he's being used by whomsoever for dark and dismal purposes. Personally, I think the island wants his other kidney. And even so, one should only go so far in one's thanks. 'Go on then, have Boone' is a step beyond. On the other hand, Jack's method isn't perfect either. He's so lacking in imagination that he can see only two possibilities as to what lies inside the hatch: supplies or, at worst, a place to shelter. Which, considering where they are and what they've seen, is just bizarre.
It's a character thing. The trouble is that I absolutely can't stand Jack. He's so boring and bland and I really couldn't care less about anything to do with him. What's worse, he's the sort of lead character that this sort of drama believes it absolutely has to have to succeed. See also Michael Kuzak in LA Law. While Locke is simply fascinating, scene-stealing and has a genuinely interesting backstory. So I go 'oooh, Locke' and 'yawn, Jack'. The same thing happens with Sawyer, who is wrong in every possible way. But he's not Jack. That's a big, big plus.
Anyway, they do seem to be setting up a real sense of conflict between the two characters and therefore the two ideologies and whatnot (and incidentally, I don't think this was signalled terribly well: Jack vs. Locke just wasn't a dynamic that really occurred to me). Why? (I'm not really asking) Are we heading for some kind of union of the two positions? An acceptance of Otherness? Are the networks really that brave? Science cannot exist without faith...well, no. I think that makes little sense. But you know. That sort of thing. Like I said somewhere else, I think the premise has to be half-grounded in reality and in the rational and half in, if not blantant divinity or supernatural stuff, at least in the unknown and inexplicable (the psychics, for example: they seem indisputably to exist in Lost's universe, and we simply don't know whether or not there can be a rational, realistic explanation for their existence). And not just those two positions: is there going to be a general theme of marrying opposites with each side having to give a bit of ground? From the whole survival point of view, I suppose it's fairly likely.
Sayid represents the pragmatic yet open-minded middle ground between Jack and Locke (as in he doesn't worship the metal hatch but he has the sense to expect Nasty Things to come out of it). Maybe I should cultivate my love for him.
Other Unknowns
The Monster.
I am coming to the conclusion that the monster is, to some extent, an empathetic shape changer. Locke, for example, did not see the same thing twice: the first sight he had of the monster was the most beautiful thing he'd ever witnessed. The second scared him out of his wits. Or into his wits.
I have a notion that it's playing on their fears of the moment. The noises it makes seemed, up until the finale, to be more or less the noises the 'plane made while it was breaking up (shearing metal and howling wind) and while it lay on the beach being dangerous (the turbine slowing and speeding up again). That'd be a good sort of a noise to make if you want to play on these people's collective sense of terror. But now it's making noises like a chain's being winched in. Like, perhaps, an anchor chain. They've just come across a scary slave ship full of dynamite. I wonder if they have collective survivors' guilt.
Also, in Exodus, we apparently (and at long last) saw something of the monster, as did a few of the characters. It was black smoke...just after black smoke became a signal of The Others and thus a thing to be feared. Having said that, there's been a lot of black smoke in the series thus far.
I don't know about Rousseau's security system thing. It's a bit too grounded. I don't know about The Island as a sentient being - by and large, I think not, though I quite like referring to it as though it is.
But yes. Basically, the monster is everyone's personal monster.
The Others.
In one episode, possibly the one after Claire returns, the phrase 'the others' is spoken about a half a dozen times in as many minutes, always in reference to various members of the group. That was when I became fairly convinced that 'the others' where probably nothing of the sort and that 'the others' referred to would, in some way, turn out to be themselves...at least until they overcame the sense of otherness that they perceived in one another.
And then the boat people came along. But I doubt we have so many such references to 'The Others' for no reason. I will be quite disappointed if The Others turn out to be nothing more than The Island's managers or the people behind the conspiracy theory. I want people we know to be The Others too.
What's going to happen.
I don't know! Chuh. Ultimately, it could end with their being faced with a decision of whether or not to leave the island. It could end like The Prisoner, with our thinking they've escaped and finding that they haven't really, and never really can.
But I have a suspicion that Locke's going to lose the use of his legs again in a moment of tragic betrayal. Bad island.
What I want to happen: one day I might try and write a proper synopsis using canon info thus far for my version of events. But I want it to be a big playing field for science vs. faith. I don't know who could have set it up or why. I want science to win with a dollop of the good things about faith. Which are...I'll come back to this. It can drive good people to do good things. Perhaps opening the hatch will turn out to be a good thing, or at least a necessary thing. And I want Locke to realise he's been duped and to do something that actually makes people like him and respect him and give him all the things he wanted his faith to provide. I possibly want the numbers to be genuinely magical. I just like magical numbers.
Oh a thing
My brother says the Oceanic Flight logo is a nazar wattu or whatever Kipling called it. A symbol to ward off the evil eye. The island is seething with eye imagery. So you have to look at this thread from either a completely symbolic or a thoroughly supernatural point of view: a portion of the people on the flight were saved because of the nazar etc. The island itself brought them down. I don't answer questions that begin with how.
Lost Fandom.
I know nothing about Lost fandom and can't really delve into it for fear of being horribly spoiled for season 2. It's been really strange - any other programme and I'd be running to the internet to see what other people made of it and how the fanfic's going and what the actors have been saying in their interviews and all sorts. I can do none of that with Lost, so I have no idea who's been paired with whom in the fic, if the fic is mostly missing scenes or wild speculation or how various characters are going down in various countries. I can't even type things like 'Pandora's Box' into Wikipedia for fear of getting unwanted references.
It's also just occurred to me that this is the first time in a good long while that I've cared about an open canon, which is great fun. There are episodes still to come and things that might still happen. Though I was a little horrified to hear one of the producer chaps saying they had a good idea of where the story would go in the first, say, five or six years. I'm not sure people want to be kept waiting for their answers quite that long: surely Lost isn't that open-ended a premise. Or it shouldn't be.
ETA. I have actually now looked at Channel 4's spoiler free forum. Thankfully, it was. Some of the ideas in this post are seemingly well discussed in the fandom, including Pandora's Box and the whole melding of binary opposites. And a little about The Others. But not the personal monster theory. And there's a lot of stuff about black smoke monsters in the pilot (my opinion is that they're flecks on the camera lense) and nanites. Nanites built the island, rebuilt Locke's spine and cloned everyone. Lots of clone theories. I don't really see the point in their being clones though. And one about how Locke's parents aren't Locke's parents and they didn't really steal his kidney. They implanted a remote control for his legs. No way, says I. That would be a textbook lesson in how to eradicate the impact of the series' most powerful story.
Thoughts on Individual Episodes as they Arise.
I haven't been doing much of this, but here be a couple of sentences.
Deus Ex Machina
I love this episode. It's my favourite episode. It's very, very good. You should watch it.
Locke's mother was admitted to the same institution as Leonard 'The Numbers' Man, and presumably, as Hurley. I don't yet know about Hurley, but I can't think what else he was doing there.
First noticed the Hatch noises here, when the thing lights up. Then noticed that they also occur in the pilot, when Jack goes onto the beach. I don't know what it means or anything. I'm just mentioning it.
Do No Harm
I hate this episode. It's my least favourite. Locke isn't in it (this has to be a major missing scene) and Jack has a flashback about his wedding.
But...Jack says 'Don't tell me what I can't do,' which is Locke's repeated line. Locke tends to use it in reference to what he can and can't do for himself, while Jack uses it in relation to what he can do for other people. Bally hero. Don't know if that's significant. Like most things in Lost.
Random Statements.
1. Terry O'Quinn seems to have lost a lot of weight during the course of the series. He was a tad stocky to begin with, but now he looks rather like a tortoise.
That's it.
Now. Spoiler space. Here come my second season spoilers. None of them are so massive that I particularly care about them: mostly they're episode and character names, but there are a few plot points in there as well. Here they come.
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List of Second Season Spoilers:
* The tail section people have survived and are going to be introduced in the second season, but I'd worked this out from canon anyway.
* One of the survivors is Ana Lucia, who turned up in Exodus and who is so loathesome that she makes me quite like Jack. Oh my, she's foul. 'You're dad's dead then. How did he die? Don't you drink? I drink. Maybe later we can have sex.' I hate her. She's slightly spoiling my whole looking forward to the next season thing. What is the point of giving screen time to hideous and uninteresting new characters who are not, for example, Locke?
* Another new character is a psychologist called Libby. I don't know if she's one of the survivors or not.
* A third new character is played by a British actor, but is not a British character.
* From the trailer: Jin survives the whole raft business, and possibly starts speaking English. I don't know. I think Michael survives (NEW: The Beeb tells me that he does. Gee. Thanks, Beeb). I don't know about the fates of either Walt or Sawyer. My theory about Walt is that they're keeping the boy in the wings until he's gone through puberty. That's what happens when you let 12 year olds play 10 years olds.
*Update: I do know about Sawyer. I saw a picture in a magazine. He lives.
* From the trailer: Jack goes down into the hatch, which has corridors. There are several boxes with Quarantine written on them and a countdown, but I don't know if these things are found in the hatch.
* From a picture online: Locke at an apparently non-functioning computer terminal in somewhere that might've been the hatch, with a man in a boiler suit standing nearby. I have no idea what that means.
* Episode titles: Man of Faith, Man of Science (or vice-versa); ...And Found; Everybody Hates Hugo (awww); Fire and Water (I think); The 23rd Psalm (boring choice); The Hunting Party.
* My brother has encountered a fascinating thematic spoiler that he found while searching for something he thought was unconnected on Wikipedia. He says it'll be revealed to me in episode 2.3 and may well make me fear for the future direction of the series. Ulp.
* NEW: I just discovered this spoiler myself. It is as follows: Flann O'Brian's 'The Third Policeman' appears in the series and is included for a very specific reason. The obvious answer is that...I'm spoiling The Third Policeman if I say the obvious answer. I'll change that. The obvious answer is that the survivors share the same fate as that book's narrator. Alternatively, the very specific reason could be 'a red herring'. Because I sort of thought the writers had dashed down that particular possibility anyway. So that's odd. It doesn't actually make me fear for the future direction of the series just yet, because I'd prefer this option to everything's being explained by a massive kidney-theft conspiracy operation. Something else annoyed me though.
* I then looked up 'The Third Policeman' on Wikipedia just to see exactly what my brother saw, which turns out to be much more than 'The Third Policeman's becing a massive influence on the narrative. It said something about someone's being asked to input(?) the numbers or do something with the numbers, or they'd, like, die. Then I looked away. Okay, that doesn't look half so bad now I've written it down. It still doesn't really tell me anything. Much. Except that there are probably buttons. I don't know into what the numbers have to be fed or why they'd die if they got it wrong or what's going to happen if they get it right or, like, why. Okay. That could be worse.
* The whole scheme is being run by Q. Actually, that was just a dream.
I listed them to see if I felt overspoiled. These were mostly accidental spoilers found in the course of looking for other stuff. I don't think I feel overspoiled anyway. I know nothing essential. I suppose I know that there's electricity in the hatch, but we knew there was a power source. And that's not much of a thing to know anyway. And possibly there's internet access, but I don't know how or why. And a man in a boiler suit. Actually, it all looks rather like a Tomb Raider game.
That's the answer.
