Lost TV Show on ABC

OK, my favorite TV show up until this time has been ABC's Alias. Now, I'm hooked on Lost, as apparently are Terry from Pruitt Communications and Jared from Mysterium Tremendum. Terry has written a blog post about it and Jared left a very good comment on my blog about it. So, I guess this officially makes me a J. J. Abrams junkie.

First of all let's admit, as Jared did, that we're all giving too much thought to a TV show. Sins having been confessed, let's dive in a little deeper.

When I was at the store today I saw this week's TV Guide and it's cover has a picture of Dominic Monaghan, Evangeline Lilly, and Matthew Fox, who play Charlie, Kate and Jack in the show. The cover is "Secrets of Lost." Yep, that's right, I wasted $2.95 on it - I'm a sucker. I won't tell you all of the secrets in the story because some of them are related to the stars off-screen antics. I'll just highlight some of the things that have to do with the show.

First of all, let me congratulate Jared from Mysterium Tremendum for being especially prescient in his comment on my last post. He got one thing wrong in that he said that the mysterious guy in the suit may represent the grim reaper, he hadn't seen this week's show where we found out that it was a hallucination of Jack's dad. However, as I will say later, I'm not 100% convinced it was a hallucination. But, having said that, Jared said that he thinks that the island is a kind of purgatorial limbo. Those who are alive on the island still have issues and conflicts to work out. Ding Ding Ding, he couldn't have called it any better. In the TV Guide article, secret #7 is this:

The castaways may actually be dead and stranded in an island purgatory. At least that's one theory that has fans buzzing, though, naturally, Abrams will neither confirm nor deny. "I don't want to ruin any potential fun that people will have tuning in," he says before quickly adding "but the thoeries are exactly the kinds of things I would be doing if I were a viewer." Monaghan, for one, likes the idea "Whether or not it makes sense for J. J. and Damon I don't know, but I think it's fantastic. The island represents our fears and insecurities (my note - remember the first episode when Jack told Kate how he deals with fear by counting to five and allowing fear to do its worst, then moving on), and I think purgatory is a place that consistently reminds you of what is wrong with you." Lilly, however, isn't buying it. "I have a scene in the [seventh] episode where Sayid says 'How is it possible we survived?' and I say, 'So what, we're all dead?' I put that out there as an impossibility."

So, Jared's on to something here.

Here's a few more secrets. As to why the characters aren't losing weight, like Hurley especially, the answer seems to be that they aren't paying any of the actors enough money to go on a serious diet. So, to compensate they'll be showing lots of scenes of the characters finding food. Besides, don't forget that each show only encompasses a day or two on the island. It makes sense that thus far they've been on the island for only about six or seven days and they've had all of the leftover food from the plane, plus the boar so they wouldn't be showing a tremendous weight loss as of yet.

Also, Kate's status as a fugitive is a tip of the hat to The Fugitive TV series and movie. Which makes me think that, as the season goes along we may find out that she has been falsely accused. The producers do say that we'll learn more about her crimes throughout the end of the season.

Secret #10 says that there may be some rhyme and reason as to who survived the plane crash. The two story method of the show - i.e. on the island and flashbacks - will show that these people's lives have been intertwined in ways they may not have known. That one has me puzzled. The story couldn't make any sense if it turned out that there was some kind of purpose behind downing the plane and causing these particular people to survive. J.J. wouldn't do that, it would stretch our credulity to the breaking point. This leads me to think there is some kind of supernatural or metaphysical thing going on here. I can't see how they would be connected unless it is in some kind of metaphysical sense. Hence, even if it turns out that these folks are still alive and this isn't a purgatory, there must be some kind of spiritual/metaphysical undertones. What they are, I have no idea. Another thing that adds to this is the lady who said her husband wasn't dead but was looking for her, hmm are all of the passengers in some kind of afterlife state waiting to find each other?

Jared also nailed the polar bear/comic book connection. As Jared said, in the same episode where the polar bear was killed we saw Walt reading a comic book with a polar bear in it. The producers say that every prop has a purpose, thus the comic book may hold a key to understanding the story.

The comic is actually a Spanish translation of "Green Lantern/Flash: Faster Friends," Part 1 which chronicles the superheroes attack on an alien that turns out to be peaceful. Says Abrams, "We definitely chose that story for a reason."

This is something that J. J. Abrams likes to do. Some folks have pointed out that Alias has a recurring Alice in Wonderland theme, so maybe this comic holds some clues to the show the way Alice does for Alias.

OK, with that, here are some of my own thoughts on the whole thing.

In the last episode I assumed that Jack's dad was simply a hallucination. But now I'm not so sure. For one thing, the hallucination/dad led Jack to the fresh water which was also obviously a crash site. I assumed that this crash site was the crash site of a group of people who produced the tape recording that had been playing for 16 years. There was a casket there that I assumed was from that crash, but I'm pretty dense and that doesn't make sense. For one thing the casket looked pretty new, if it had been sitting there for 16 years it would have looked a lot more aged. Also, Jack evidently recognized the casket and opened it up expecting his dad to be there and he wasn't. Hence, I'm suspecting that the hallucination/dad will show up sometime later. What I don't get now is Jack's sense of peace after he destroyed the casket. That was a turning point for Jack because he goes to the casket not wanting to be the leader of the group and after that he comes back and accepts his role as leader. Hmm . . . don't know what to make of it. Anyway, what happened to dad's body? That's got me puzzled.

I'm still trying to make sense of Locke's encounter with the beast, or whatever it was. Why did it kill the pilot but not him? In the last episode he says he had looked into the eye of the island or something like it. I'm thinking there is a tie in between that incident and the idea of the peaceful alien.

The kicker for me in the TV Guide article is that it says that before the end of the season one of the major characters is going to die. Let the speculation begin!!!

I'm thinking it can't be Jack or Kate, that would be like killing off Sydney or Jack Bristow in Alias, the show wouldn't be the same without it. Terry O'Quinn, who plays Locke seems to be a disposable actor for J. J. Abrams - remember he played Kendal in Alias for a year then was pretty much written out of the show for season #3. I'm trying to put myself in J. J.'s head and figure out who he would kill. The question is "do you kill off a sympathetic or an unsympathetic character?" You would get a bigger reaction out of killing a sympathetic character and I'm thinking Locke would be the most likely choice. Hurley is sympathetic as are Michael and Walt, the father and son, and so is Charlie and Sun, the Korean lady. If he kills off a sympathetic character, killing off Locke would do the most to raise the level of angst/conflict for the show. Locke is essential to the survival of the castaways. He knows how to hunt, he can find water and he has been instrumental in the survival of the castaways so far. If anyone else goes (besides Jack or Kate) it would be sad, but wouldn't hurt their chances of survival. If Locke goes then they are faced with having to survive without the one who knows what's going on. I guess I'm trying to picture who would be the biggest loss for the castaways to lose.

If it is an unsympathetic character who dies, then there are all kinds of choices. No one likes Jin, the Korean man who dominates his wife. To me, Sawyer needs to stay, he's kind of the bad guy/nemesis that the good guys need to play off of. He's kind of like Sloan in Alias - you need a good bad guy to keep the show moving. But, if an unsympathetic character gets killed off, I'm thinking Boone would be a good one to kill off. In fact, we may have gotten a little foreshadowing this past week when Boone nearly drowned and Jack saved him. Also, Boone is being set up to be a really bad guy by stealing the water. If he got killed off it could create another good plot line dealing with how his sister Shannon copes with his death. Maybe his death would cause her to reexamine her life and her shallowness.

So, I'm going with either Locke or Boone to be killed off at the end of the season. Does anyone else who watches wanna venture a guess?

And, by the way, for those of you who are wondering why I'm wasting so much time blogging this - I'm off today, not much going on - it's fun to speculate? I'm thinking we could start something here - on Thursday's a bunch of us could blog our reactions to the show.

BTW - does anyone out there like Alias?