THE JOURNEY

Poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “The only journey is the one within.”

The basic structure of a good story is a good premise, strong character development, action, reaction, conflict, choices and a journey's end.

The quintessential story arc in this generation is Luke Skywalker's journey to become a Jedi. From humble beginnings, a tragedy propels a naive young man into a dangerous adventure across the galaxy in search of truth, purpose and family. But throughout, the journey was within Luke's heart and soul - - - the mixed emotions, conflicts, set-backs and new friendships that affect how he would become a man.

Did anyone in LOST have such an heroic journey?

Sun defied her rich and overbearing father by marrying a poor fisherman's son, but her life did not end well.

Locke tried to rebel against his miserable life without a family, only to be crippled by his own father which led to a lifetime of mistrust and failure. His life did not end well either.

Kate was a bored, troublemaker as a child who kept her selfish ways of manipulating others in the forefront of her personal survival game. She had an opportunity to change (as did all of the characters) but she did not. She could never find true happiness in her life.

Sawyer was a vengeful boy who turned into the man he despised for destroying his family. But when he could have had a chance to led a family, he turned his back and fled responsibility. He took the easy way out because his personal bitterness and torment was his own internal best friend.

Sayid led a life of struggle and burden of responsibility. He did the dirty jobs. It affected his mental state. When he left Iraq and found his true love, it was taken away from him. In his journey to find her, he failed the woman he claimed to be the love of his life - - - and wound up with a woman he had only a short affair.

Hurley was an introvert scarred by his father's abandonment. He felt he was unlucky at life and that he was the sole cause of his own problems. But when he got lucky and won the lottery, a life changing event, he willed himself into more bad luck. In order to keep himself together, he invented his own best friend and checked himself into a mental institution to be safe from the world that brought him only bad luck. Even when he tried to change his life (by finding the meaning of the numbers), his plane crash lands on a dangerous island. He has an opportunity to re-invent himself but he never does. We don't know how much of Hurley's experiences and thoughts were real or imagined as some theories believe.

Jack may have been the closest to a clear path journey. His story starts as being a highly successful surgeon. He is at the top of his profession. He is well respected. He holds life and death decisions in his hands. But his demon is the lack of love from his father. His relationship with his father eats away at his soul to the point of jealousy, ire and mental breakdowns. The fact his father dies in a Sydney alley causes Jack to begin a journey into a downward spiral of personal torment. He becomes the reluctant leader of the survivors. His decision making becomes fragmented between himself as being the leader and good of the group. He decides to hide his island past when he is rescued, causing even more pain and suffering to the people around him. When Locke is killed, Jack has his final mental breakdown - - - the illogical quest to return to the island to fulfill some unknown reason. At this point, objectively he lost his ability to be rational. But since he left enough of the old Jack in the minds of his island mates, they joined him on a fateful journey back to the island. But the resolution on the island did not solve any of Jack's life problems. It was merely murky waters of his own discontent to the point of a suicide pact with the Man in Black as they went down into the Light Cave. Jack did not die a hero's death, but a foolhardy attempt to runaway from his problems. He did not have a personal redemption. He did not find the solution to save his friends. He did not get them off the island or home.  Jack's journey was the reverse path of Luke's. Jack did not find his journey's end with true answers to make his life great.

AN EXPLANATION OF LOST ELEMENTS

Three of the oddest plot points in LOST may now have a theoretical scientific basis.

Scientific America reports that Spanish physicists have crafted a wormhole that tunnels a magnetic field through space.

"This device can transmit the magnetic field from one point in space to another point, through a path that is magnetically invisible," said study co-author Jordi Prat-Camps, a doctoral candidate in physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. "From a magnetic point of view, this device acts like a wormhole, as if the magnetic field was transferred through an extra special dimension." 

The idea of a wormhole comes from Albert Einstein's theories. In 1935, Einstein and colleague Nathan Rosen realized that the general theory of relativity allowed for the existence of bridges that could link two different points in space-time. Theoretically these Einstein-Rosen bridges, or wormholes,  could allow something to tunnel instantly between great distances (though the tunnels in this theory are extremely tiny, so ordinarily wouldn't fit a space traveler). So far, no one has found evidence that space-time wormholes actually exist.

The new wormhole isn't a space-time wormhole per se, but is instead a realization of a futuristic "invisibility cloak" first proposed in 2007 in the journal Physical Review Letters.  This type of wormhole would hide electromagnetic waves from view from the outside. The trouble was, to make the method work for light required materials that are extremely impractical and difficult to work with, Prat said.

This discovery gives some basis for several bizarre and troubling aspects of the LOST story.

First, many fans theorized that the island was at the gateway of a space-time vortex, a wormhole, as a gateway to explain why the island would shift in time when the light cave FDW was turned. Since wormholes are not controllable (they are destructive galaxy inhalers), it was hard to wrap a scientific basis for this plot element. But if the island was conducting electromagnetic experiments, the Dharma-military complex could have been attempting to create an artificial "wormhole." It makes sense that Dharma would be funded as part of black ops defense budgets. A space-time device would be a radical new weapon to actually "replay" and re-position assets to guarantee victories.

Second, the artificial wormhole could be used as a "cloaking device." This would explain how the O6 helicopter "saw" the island disappear. In our known physical universe, an island is attached to the ocean bottom miles from the surface. If the island vanished as seen, the displacement of millions of square feet of earth in the ocean would have caused a massive whirlpool tsunami effect. But none of those physical ocean changes were seen by the O6 survivors. The conclusion was that the island had to have been cloaked (and in the confusion the pilot overshot the island and crashed in the ocean.)

Third, the idea of an artificial wormhole with layers of invisible EM energy would help explain why the island was hard to find. It would also explain the light differentials Daniel observed on the island (because the island shifts between dimensions in order to be obscured, and more energy would make the island then shift in time.)

TEST OF GREATNESS

A really great man is known by three signs: generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in the success. - - - Otto von Bismarck

Three elements:  

1. Generosity
2. Humanity
3. Moderation in success.

A person who is generous is usually found to be compassionate, caring, loyal and comforting.

A person with humanity cares and thinks about other people above themselves.

A person who moderates in success is a humble individual with less grand personal ambitions for fame or fortune than the average celebrity wannabee.

If these elements comprise the definition of a "great man" (or woman), LOST failed us.

For example, viewers would scream that Jack was the greatest character on the series. He fits the definition of a great man.

Was Jack generous? We don't know about his own charitable principles. He was caring and comforting to his patients, but he also imposed his own ego in their diagnosis by promising "miracle" cures.  False hope is not compassion, but a form a cruelty.

Did Jack have humanitarian qualities? A humanitarian is concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare. Jack tried to get the original survivors on the same page, to work together in order to live on the island (especially when rescue was a lost cause). But over time, a dark side of Jack appeared; instead of trying to find "diplomatic" solutions with the Others, he was an advocate of ambush. And once his leadership was questioned, he withdrew.

Was Jack humble in his successes? In fierce arguments with people like Locke, not really. In order to be the alpha male, he had to back down and belittle his opponents. When Ben was captured on the hike to the tower, Jack snapped and beat him senseless even though Ben was in no position to undo Jack's successful mission. As the series went on, Jack did want to get more and more acknowledgement from the people around him. As such, he became more reckless in his actions.

Under this definition of greatness, not even Jack can pass the test.

THE BEST AND WORST ELEMENT: THE HATCH

If there was one element, set, storyline and place that showed the best LOST to offer and then the worst, it was The Hatch.


In the first season the castaways are thrown many mysteries,  but the build up was the greatest with a mysterious metal hatch found buried in the ground. While Locke and Boone tried to force the hatch open, Michael and three other survivors  attempt to leave on a raft that they have built. Locke had started off on his own vision quest that somehow his destiny was tied to the island and its secrets. Locke had been set aside in his brief power struggle with Jack over the leadership of the beach camp. Locke's desire to be acknowledged, respected and followed was answered when he found the mysterious Hatch.

Locke discovered the Hatch after an unsuccessful hunt for Ethan Rom. Returning to camp, he tossed Boone a flashlight, which fell on the steel hatch with a clunk. The two men spent the weeks excavating the hatch in secret, uncovering a large round steel tunnel leading down into the earth, topped by a steel door with a small rectangular glass window. They built a trebuchet to try to break the glass open, but it failed to damage the glass, split apart on impact and wounded Locke's leg. The next night, after taking the dying Boone to the caves, Locke banged furiously on the Hatch door, questioning the Island's demands of him until a light turned on from within, restoring his faith.

At this time, viewers were just like Locke, in the dark as to the purpose of the Hatch. Was it a shelter? Was it nothing? What was the light? Was this the Other's base camp?  What danger lied below?

Locke did not realize that he had alerted the Swan's occupant, Desmond Hume, that life continued outside the station. Desmond felt that he was a lone on the island, trapped in the Hatch, and unable to leave to return to his girlfriend, Penny. The banging on the Hatch door stopped Desmond from killing himself and convinced him to continue the station's essential protocol of entering The Numbers every 108 minutes.

Thus, the elements of the prison aspect of the island came into the story. Desmond was trapped on the island. There was no escape. The Numbers became an overwhelming clue that baffled viewers because it could not be a coincidence that the Numbers were now showing up everywhere. It led to another great mystery of why a computer control needed manual input of numbers every 108 minutes in order to avoid something bad.  Computers can be programmed to send signals at stated time intervals. Why is a man needed to run this simple task? Was it really needed or was it a psychological test of a prisoner's will? It would seem that people on the island may not control their own destiny.

Jack decided to open the Hatch to use as a safe hiding place for the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, following a warning from Danielle Rousseau that the Others were coming, ostensibly to kill them. Jack, Locke, Dr. Arzt, Kate, and Hurley went on a dangerous mission to recover several sticks of dynamite from the shipwreck of the Black Rock to blow the Hatch open. Hurley protested at the last second, noticing that the Numbers that he considered unlucky engraved into the side of the Hatch. In the final shot of Season 1, Locke and Jack gazed down the Hatch into the long, dark, narrow vertical shaft below. 

Locke lowered Kate into the Hatch. Soon after, she was pulled down as a large beam of light came out of the shaft entrance. Desmond had used the beam to blind Kate while he captured her and brought her into the Hatch. Locke descended after her, and Jack lowered himself in soon after. In a stand-off, Desmond remembered Jack from his run at the LA stadium. Desmond took the chance to educate then abandon the station to the castaways.

But instead of using it as a safe, secure and armed place to protect everyone in the beach camp, Jack used the Swan station as a leadership command center. It never made sense not to bring everyone to the Hatch. It was also unnecessary to keep it a secret for so long since it had the supplies for survival. The idea that leaders would keep the luxuries to themselves shows human behavior corrupting them; some people are more equal than others.

While the second season dealt with the growing conflict between the survivors and the Others,  the theme of the clash between faith and science (Locke vs. Jack) continued in the operation of the Hatch.  A power struggle between Jack and John over control of the guns and medicine located in the hatch develops, resolved in "The Long Con" by Sawyer when he gains control of them. New characters are introduced, including the tail-section survivors (the "Tailies") and other island inhabitants. The hatch is finally revealed to be a research station built by the Dharma Initiative, a scientific research project that involved conducting experiments on the island decades earlier. 

The third season had the Hatch being the turned into the scene of horrible violence. In a gripping twist, Henry Gale was revealed as a spy for the Others under the brutal torture of Sayid. This guest appearance led to Michael Emerson becoming a regular cast member. The Hatch was also the scene for the senseless violence, when Michael killed Ana Lucia and Libby, then covered it up by saying Ben did it in his escape.

But the Hatch also served as the conduit for confusion. When Locke decided NOT to put in the Numbers, believing that it was all a cruel joke, it brought down the doors revealing at first the Blast Door Map, another monumental clue for fans, and later the fail safe key protocol that Desmond used to destroy the station. Now, how it worked was never explained as there was a giant explosion with the Hatch door landing on the beach, and a giant implosion which left the Swan station a crater. Despite the massive explosion-implosion, Desmond was miraculously not killed - - - but suddenly had vivid premonitions (which many turned out to be false like Claire leaving the island by helicopter).

The Hatch was also a focus in the muddled time travel story arc. When flashing through time after Ben turned the frozen wheel, the survivors hiked to the hatch crater as a reference point to determine the date. When they arrived, the hatch was still a crater, but after time shifted again, the hatch returned to how it had been before the survivors discovered it.

When the survivors found themselves in the 1970s, they got to see the Swan's construction by the DHARMA Initiative. Hurley and Miles witnessed DHARMA workers engrave the Numbers onto the Hatch, and were able to see the shaft itself being constructed. Following the Incident, where Juliet attempted to activate a bomb, but the work site imploded instead, the survivors returned to 2007, where they found themselves near the Hatch, an imploded crater once more. 

The Hatch contained some of the best moments and some of the worst story lines. For some critics, the LOST adventure veered off course in Season 3 and fell off the cliff in Season 6. Whether the Hatch itself was a missed opportunity to actually answer the big questions is a point of endless debate.

LOGO

The slowly spinning and drifting LOST opening credit logo.

In stark black and white, a color theme in the series.

Blackness as in the vast void of space. The unknown dimensions for which time and space resides.

Darkness, another theme of the series. Good against evil; science against faith.

The word "lost," which infers definitions like misguided, fear, troubled, misplaced, forfeited, neglected, fallen, irredeemable, irreclaimable, irretrievable, past hope, past praying for, vanished, strayed, condemned, cursed, doomed. All words which could describe elements in the series.

Is the LOST logo opening the perfect symbol for the show?

It probably can mean that viewers got "lost" in the various mysteries, twists, Easter eggs, red herrings, blind corners, pseudo-science, theories, counter-theories and relationship twists.

It probably can mean that the producers-writers got "lost" in their flashback format, their editing techniques to drive up emotions or drama, background details, cliffhangers and supernatural elements to concentrate on a coherent final season script.

It may also in the annals of television history a "lost" opportunity to be the greatest show ever; one with total critical, peer and viewer overwhelming approval.

CASALOST

You can wrap a rich story around a simple idea. For example, in Casablanca, the story world centered around a simple piece of paper called Letters of Transit, which allowed the holder free access out of  war torn North Africa to America. The establishment of this simple idea, freedom by means of a piece of paper, cascades into a series of mysteries, deals, romance, betrayals and resolution of some big concepts.

LOST also featured a large cast of character actors like Casablanca. But while the Bogart film centered around a bar, the LOST world was spread out over an island, then dimensionally, all over the world.

LOST started off with a simple plot point: rescue. Rescue meant hope to the survivors just as the possibility of receiving letters of transit meant hope for those refugees trapped in North Africa.

One could see Jack as being the Bogart character, Rick, who even though he did not want to be a leader of any cause, was caught up in the middle of most every other character's life.

Kate would have been Ilsa, the woman for whom Rick won then lost due to the war. In the end, Rick had to let Ilsa go on the plane, just as on the island, Kate left with Jack's rival, Sawyer, the Victor Laszlo character who would never get along with Jack.

Ben could be symbolic of the loose power manipulation of Capt. Renault. The Nazi major could be played by Widmore.

Hurley "fits" the Sydney Greenstreet role in size of his suit, as well as being a background supporting character consumed with the idea of controlling supplies in Casablanca.

Peter Lorre's character, Ugarte, was a hapless dreamer who overplayed his hand with the letters which eventually cost him his life. Locke had a similar role in LOST; he had a chance for complete rescue of his heart and soul, but misplayed the cards dealt to him.

But what would have been the letters of transit in CasaLOST?

Season 6's conclusion apparently states that the transit point for the main characters was the sideways world, an after life destination, where the lost souls from the island could reunited and remember their lives together, in order to "move on." Bogart's resolution in Casablanca was to hand freedom to the woman he still loved by putting her on a plane to America, sacrificing his own happiness and fortune, for a greater purpose. LOST has no such noble ending for Jack or the other characters. Heaven is a nebulous concept in LOST, just as the fog was symbolic of change in the end of Casablanca.

LOSTOZ

For an unrelated reason, the childhood film, The Wizard of Oz, popped into my head.

Many fans have thought to find parallels of other literary works in LOST. The Hollywood saying is that nothing is ever original. I don't recall whether anyone actually made an illusions to the Oz story framework to the LOST adventure story.

It does have some of the general elements. There is a dog. There is a girl. And there are some mixed up people found in a weird, supernatural place.

As Oz is a nickname for Australia, which played a prominent setting in the series.

So whether the LOST saga is a re-telling of the Oz story is going to be a stretch. But, why not?

The easiest connection to both is the dog; Vincent as Toto. But that leads to an immediate problem. Walt was the owner of Vincent, and he left the island fairly early in the story line. Toto's owner, Dorothy, was the centerpiece character. Walt was not. But later in the series, Shannon took over care and custody of Walt.

Shannon was supposed to be a more important character in the original writer's guide. She was not the girl next store type (like Kate), but an attractive, selfish, rich snob who would have been totally out of place on the island. The idea that the island survival world would be filtered through such a character would have been okay.

Which character needed some courage? Hurley would have been a prime example of a shy, self-conscious individual who needed support to do just about anything, including asking a girl out on a date. The island would give Hurley many opportunities to learn and apply courage.

Which character needed some heart? Sawyer only held a black heart close to his vest. He did not feel for any other person; it was all a means to a con man's end. His life was solely focused on revenge for his parents deaths. The island would give Sawyer the opportunity to feel compassion and purpose.

Which character needed a brain? Locke did not think things fully through (most of the time). He had difficulty putting his ideas into reasonable action plans. He was a horrible judge of character. He rarely learned from his mistakes. The island would give Locke opportunities to learn about himself, learn to interact with other people, and learn to judge character.

So it is possible to fit LOST characters into the format of the Oz story. In fact, the original story line had Sawyer and Shannon becoming a couple, which would solve two problems: Shannon "finding" a purpose in her life, and Sawyer finding a person he could love. Hurley would find the courage to ask Libby out; and later, the courage to accept responsibility to the island protector. Locke would let his emotion override his brain's common sense, but he was the first person to figure out that the island was a magical place that needed his protection.

But the Oz story had a linear path. The gold pavers were to lead the cast to the Wizard, and for Dorothy, her wish to return home. In LOST, there was no golden road to a castle. The closest thing would have been the lighthouse and Jacob as the man behind the curtain.  But of the LostOz cast, only Hurley got to that lighthouse. And that meeting with Jacob did not give Hurley any more courage to forge ahead to confront MIB.

One could argue the golden brick road was symbolic as the characters path to heaven. Heaven (sideways world view) was the alleged end game to LOST, but not to Oz.

LOST ELEMENTS EXPLAINED

There were several major elements in the LOST saga which do not appear to be compatible.

The first, and most confusing aspect to LOST, was time travel. The idea of a human being going back and forth to the past or the future is physically impossible. It is pure science fiction. It is a device to throw a character into an unknown situation in order to elicit a reaction.

Second, there was concepts of the supernatural. The smoke monster does not exist in our current world. It has to be something supernatural, beyond nature, because we know that smoke cannot aggregate, travel with intelligence, steal the minds of individuals and transform into human beings. This is also science fiction.

But every person today time travels. People time travel every day of their lives, and not just in the linear clock from dawn to dusk. People who access their memories are effectively time traveling back to their past. Those memories can be good or bad.  But they are strong enough emotionally to be stored in one's long term memory.

People also time travel to the future. It is called dreams. The element of subconscious interplay with memories, experience, emotions and events creates a fantasy scape similar to the manifestation of a smoke monster. Depending on whether a person can control their dreams, then act upon them during their waking lives, is transformational.

A child could dream to one day become a fire fighter. He can imagine himself as a grown man riding in a hook and ladder engine racing to a blazing fire. He takes those dreams and places them into his memory. He uses his subconscious to help him run scenarios on how to achieve his goal. As he grows up, he channels his time and resources into becoming a fireman. He goes to school. He stays physically fit. He enrolls in the academy. He works on his training. He reaches his goal and then assigned to a fire station.

It may take years in order to accomplish such dream. But that is why people need to sleep - - - to recharge their physical body, but also organize their mind to meet their dreams. A cluttered or disrupted mind will not help a person achieve their goals; it may create the situation where nightmares begin to control their thoughts - - - making them a mental wreck.

The time travel and supernatural elements to the series may be only metaphors for a series of character developments as individuals try to take control of their own fantasies without applying their dreams in their waking lives. It is only when a person has the courage to take action on their inner feelings in their waking life can there be true change and new beginnings. Instead of "what could be" a person who awakes with road map to a goal, can achieve that goal - - - whether it be a career, a project completion, or even relationships.

LORD OF THE FLIES

SPOILER ALERT: This post details the William Golding novel, The Lord of the Flies, which was part of the inspiration of the original screenwriter for the series LOST.

There were some clear elements of the novel, The Lord of the Flies, incorporated into Jeffrey Leiber's original LOST script (called Nowhere) and in the original series writer's guide. For those who have forgotten the story from their high school English classes, the story is set on an island where a group children have landed after surviving a plane crash.

In the midst of a raging war, a plane evacuating a group of schoolboys from Britain is shot down over a deserted tropical island. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch shell on the beach, and Piggy realizes it could be used as a horn to summon the other boys. Once assembled, the boys set about electing a leader and devising a way to be rescued. They choose Ralph as their leader, and Ralph appoints another boy, Jack, to be in charge of the boys who will hunt food for the entire group.
 

Ralph, Jack, and another boy, Simon, set off on an expedition to explore the island. When they return, Ralph declares that they must light a signal fire to attract the attention of passing ships. The boys succeed in igniting some dead wood by focusing sunlight through the lenses of Piggy’s eyeglasses. However, the boys pay more attention to playing than to monitoring the fire, and the flames quickly engulf the forest. A large swath of dead wood burns out of control, and one of the youngest boys in the group disappears, presumably having burned to death.

At first, the boys enjoy their life without grown-ups and spend much of their time splashing in the water and playing games. Ralph, however, complains that they should be maintaining the signal fire and building huts for shelter. The hunters fail in their attempt to catch a wild pig, but their leader, Jack, becomes increasingly preoccupied with the act of hunting.

When a ship passes by on the horizon one day, Ralph and Piggy notice, to their horror, that the signal fire—which had been the hunters’ responsibility to maintain—has burned out. Furious, Ralph accosts Jack, but the hunter has just returned with his first kill, and all the hunters seem gripped with a strange frenzy, reenacting the chase in a kind of wild dance. Piggy criticizes Jack, who hits Piggy across the face. Ralph blows the conch shell and reprimands the boys in a speech intended to restore order. At the meeting, it quickly becomes clear that some of the boys have started to become afraid.

The littlest boys, known as “littluns,” have been troubled by nightmares from the beginning, and more and more boys now believe that there is some sort of beast or monster lurking on the island. The older boys try to convince the others at the meeting to think rationally, asking where such a monster could possibly hide during the daytime. One of the littluns suggests that it hides in the sea—a proposition that terrifies the entire group.

Not long after the meeting, some military planes engage in a battle high above the island. The boys, asleep below, do not notice the flashing lights and explosions in the clouds. A parachutist drifts to earth on the signal-fire mountain, dead. Sam and Eric, the twins responsible for watching the fire at night, are asleep and do not see the parachutist land. When the twins wake up, they see the enormous silhouette of his parachute and hear the strange flapping noises it makes. Thinking the island beast is at hand, they rush back to the camp in terror and report that the beast has attacked them.

The boys organize a hunting expedition to search for the monster. Jack and Ralph, who are increasingly at odds, travel up the mountain. They see the silhouette of the parachute from a distance and think that it looks like a huge, deformed ape. The group holds a meeting at which Jack and Ralph tell the others of the sighting. Jack says that Ralph is a coward and that he should be removed from office, but the other boys refuse to vote Ralph out of power. Jack angrily runs away down the beach, calling all the hunters to join him. Ralph rallies the remaining boys to build a new signal fire, this time on the beach rather than on the mountain. They obey, but before they have finished the task, most of them have slipped away to join Jack.


Jack declares himself the leader of the new tribe of hunters and organizes a hunt and a violent, ritual slaughter of a sow to solemnize the occasion. The hunters then decapitate the sow and place its head on a sharpened stake in the jungle as an offering to the beast. Later, encountering the bloody, fly-covered head, Simon has a terrible vision, during which it seems to him that the head is speaking. The voice, which he imagines as belonging to the Lord of the Flies, says that Simon will never escape him, for he exists within all men. Simon faints. When he wakes up, he goes to the mountain, where he sees the dead parachutist. Understanding then that the beast does not exist externally but rather within each individual boy, Simon travels to the beach to tell the others what he has seen. But the others are in the midst of a chaotic revelry—even Ralph and Piggy have joined Jack’s feast—and when they see Simon’s shadowy figure emerge from the jungle, they fall upon him and kill him with their bare hands and teeth.

The following morning, Ralph and Piggy discuss what they have done. Jack’s hunters attack them and their few followers and steal Piggy’s glasses in the process. Ralph’s group travels to Jack’s stronghold in an attempt to make Jack see reason, but Jack orders Sam and Eric tied up and fights with Ralph. In the ensuing battle, one boy, Roger, rolls a boulder down the mountain, killing Piggy and shattering the conch shell. Ralph barely manages to escape a torrent of spears.

Ralph hides for the rest of the night and the following day, while the others hunt him like an animal. Jack has the other boys ignite the forest in order to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place. Ralph stays in the forest, where he discovers and destroys the sow’s head, but eventually, he is forced out onto the beach, where he knows the other boys will soon arrive to kill him. Ralph collapses in exhaustion, but when he looks up, he sees a British naval officer standing over him. 

The officer’s ship noticed the fire raging in the jungle. The other boys reach the beach and stop in their tracks at the sight of the officer. Amazed at the spectacle of this group of bloodthirsty, savage children, the officer asks Ralph to explain. Ralph is overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is safe but, thinking about what has happened on the island, he begins to weep. The other boys begin to sob as well. The officer turns his back so that the boys may regain their composure.

Many of the key opening elements of the novel are incorporated in the original ideas of LOST: surviving a plane crash, electing a leader, finding food, building shelter, laziness, malaise, fights over what do to, people doing their own thing instead of group needs, and violence.

There are even key aspects or events tied into the LOST mythology: the island monster that terrifies the castaways; the first boar hunt with Locke taking his victory into trying to become the group leader; the inability to fashion a rescue fire; a parachutist landing on the island (or even Henry Gale the balloonist); the power struggles and lack of trust; the missions into the jungle; the breaking apart of the main group into two camps; and betrayals from within the group.

LOST wavered off the Golding story path. Instead of focusing in on the survivors, the LOST writers continually threw non-group characters into the mix to force the action. Instead of the castaways trying to build a new society, it became more of a mixed-message game of follow-the-leader.

There is a similarity between the novel and show. The boys were too young to realize the morality of their actions. Their primal instincts took over any notion of right or wrong. Likewise, in LOST, the characters did not dwell on any moral or ethical aspects of their decision making or actions. At times, the castaways acted more like naive children than grown adults. In the novel, much of the problems were self-created by the children themselves, while in LOST, much of the problems were created by the writers forcing various tangents into the main story line.

The novel concludes with a much more realistic end to the saga than the LOST finale.

BASIC ELEMENTS REVIEWED

This diagram shows the connections between characters with the same first letter in their names. It is hard to remember that so few letters were used for names. For example, you have Jack, Juliet and Jin; Sawyer, Shannon and Sun.

But two characters pop out alone: Penny and Eloise.

They are related by marriage. Penny is the daughter of Widmore. We can infer from his back story that when he left the island to the main land, he had a child (Penny) which led to his banishment. He later married Eloise and together they had a child, Daniel, the scientific genius for whom Eloise desperately protected in the sideways world.

Penny grew up as part of the privilege class in England. She has aspects of being spoiled, but also has a rebellious streak against her father (as would later turn into her affection for Desmond). Desmond was the anti-Widmore, a man with little ambition, unmarketable skills and lack of commitment. Dez was a drifter, a loner, and man without a cause. Penny never needed Desmond, but when Desmond tried to win her back and lost at seas, he found out that he needed her.

Eloise was part of the plot to get Desmond away from Penny. Eloise was the watch clerk who told Desmond about life's "course correction," people die no matter what events intervene to delay it. Desmond was told he had a great role to play, but he did not believe it. That role was to set sail in a solo race to crash into the island - - - to be trapped there pushing a button that would keep the island in a snow globe.

The reason why Eloise wanted Desmond removed from Penny's life was that she was protecting Daniel from awakening. She knew that Penny had feelings for Desmond, and if Penny re-awakened those feelings in the sideways world, Eloise fantasy after life would be destroyed. So she kept Penny's happiness at bay for the sake of her own selfish goal of being with her son forever.

Her son, if he remembered Eloise killing him in the time travel episode, could have gone off with the other island castaways to the church and into the light, never to be seen again. Sending Desmond to the island prison was a way to prevent that event from happening.

Without that, Eloise would have no bonds to keep her in the sideways dream. Her perfect marriage to Widmore was a ruse since he had not awakened to the island past - - - and their feud/break-up over the island's control. Penny would not be awakened if Desmond was kept at bay, traveling the world at the behest of Widmore (or more likely Eloise's prodding him). Penny would have continued on in a privileged status that she had pre-Desmond relationship, not knowing what she was missing in her life.

If the baseline for the show was love, then the stories of Penny and Eloise demonstrate two sides of the same coin. Penny, in a blissful ignorance and Eloise, in a conning manipulation in the sideways realm. But in the island sphere, it is proactive Penny trying to re-connect to lost Desmond, while Eloise tries to right her wrong caused Daniel. One is a mother's love to an extreme, and the other is a couple's triumph over tragedy.

GROUPING ORIGINAL ELEMENTS

If one looks back at the original writer's guide as the story outline for the series, it is clear that there would have been many different connections to explore amongst the various groups.

The proposed island inhabitants would include four groups plus the smoke monster:
1. The savages who attacked Vincent;
2. The others who would attack/abduct 815 castaways;
3. The survivors of Flight 815; and
4. The submariners, a military group, that runs ashore at the outer reef.

All these groups have the following common traits:
1. The will to survive.
2. Territorial protection of the island.
3. The need to gather, store and consume necessary resources.

There are three basic grounds proposed in the guide:
1. The 815ers beach camp;
2. The jungle; and
3. A vast underground facility which would be found later in the series.

The inference is that the underground facility has been abandoned, so the castaways would move into it as their home base on the island. This also means one of two things: the facility had a prior island group that was wiped out (like the Dharma story line), or the Others abandoned their facility to live on the land.

I like the idea that the island has multiple groups competing against each other for survival. I like the idea of a band of island savages, a primal group that would seek to cut off expansion of any new group on their island. I could see this primitive group worshipping the smoke monster for protection.

The Others on the other hand are a mixed bag. They could be other people who shipwrecked on the island like the 815ers, which would put them into same mindset as the castaways (as allies). However, the story lines indicate that the Others would be attacking the castaways, so is this island group the remains of a failed scientific research facility, abandoned military outpost or some other group such as prisoners sent off to rot on a penal colony?

The submariners add the twist of adding a group with the actual means and skill set to leave the island with modern technology. It could be that they could team up with the 815ers to use the underground facility to manufacturer and repair the submarine for seaworthy rescue. Or, the submariners could be a trap to confine, enslave or wipe out all people on the island to reclaim it as their own secret base. As indicated earlier, we don't know who these military men are because the uniforms are different (leading to the possibility that they are even time travelers, for whose existence must be kept secret from the rest of the world.)

One could imagine the various branch story lines from the interaction between these groups. The 815ers and Others could be at odds, but there could be some castaways, led by Locke, who could splinter off and join the Others. Likewise, there could be some in the castaway group who would want to try to communicate, trade and find peace with the savages, especially as a means to acquire the island power to fight off the Others' attacks. The submariners could be the wild card, playing each group off each other to achieve their own goals.

The key to control of the island appears to be the underground facility. Whether it is functional, operational is an open question, but it would provide the best secured location on the island. Once it is found, it could lead to a siege by the other groups who want or need it.

ORIGINAL PAIRS

In the LOST Writer's Guide, which attempted to outline the first season of LOST, there were several clear pairings of main characters that would be part of the foundational story line of the show.

Jack and Kate were paired as the original leaders of the group, with Kate slowly becoming the more practical leader amongst the group. Off to the side, Locke would take his chance to be the leader of the group, mostly through his hunting skills. He would have a run in with both Jack and Kate, especially when she defends a drug-withdrawing Charlie on the charge of murder. Charlie would become Jack's island assistant.

The first romantic relationship mentioned is a Sawyer-Shannon connection. This makes some sense because both characters have a back story of "using" other people for profit. There would be a kindred spirit between the two - - - just do enough to get by on looks or charm. It was described as Boone having a violent relationship with Sawyer; the two brawl over an unknown issue.

The second romantic relationship mentioned is a Sun and Michael flirtation. Sun is supposed to become an independent woman on the island, free of the control and Korean traditions of Jin. Since Sun speaks English and has herbal medical and nursing skills, she becomes a valuable member of the group. As such she takes care of Claire. In the mean time, since she could not have children, she may be drawn into the Michael-Walt family dynamic. The Michael-Sun pairing will have a negative impact on Jin and Michael, since Jin is still her husband. The guide indicated that Jin would have to get back his standing by learning English - - - so he turns to Walt for lessons.

The other pairing is one of practical problem solvers. Both Hurley and Sayid are described as problem solvers - - - men who have experience getting things done after evaluating the situation. They would be more likely to be neutral in the politics of group leadership, thereby enduring themselves to most everyone in the group. Hurley repo negotiating skills could turn him into a valuable mediator and mission leader, and Sayid has the drive to seek rescue, including taking the plane raft out to see to find help in the shipping lanes.

These initial pairings are quite different than in the actual show.

Instead of JACK and KATE, the first seasons have JACK andLOCKE in the leadership box.
Instead of SAWYER and SHANNON, it is SAWYER and KATE who get it on.
Instead of SUN caring for CLAIRE, it is CHARLIE.
Instead of SHANNON with SAWYER, there is a brief fling with SAYID, who retains his problem solving role.
There is only the brief SUN and MICHAEL flirtation which amounts to very little in the series.
WALT does not connect at all with JIN.
And BOONE winds up as LOCKE's handy assistant.
But the biggest change is HURLEY, as he is paired with no main character, in romance or skill set. His biggest contribution is humor and levity.

DOUBTS

One thing is clear from reviewing the LOST's Writer's Guide, the creators and network executives had some doubts whether the idea of lost survivors could be a sustainable series. It is also clear that the producers of the show DID NOT have the main story line set in stone from the very beginning, including the end.

Even after the grand, cinematic pilot episode was finished, the producers still had to sell the network to green light an entire series. How could TPTB maintain the survivors' stories? How could a diverse ensemble of characters sustain the stories over several seasons? And the unanswered question: what would be the payoff to the viewers?

There were many things in the writer's guide that I found good and interesting concepts or story ideas.

Fans today have a wishy-washy opinion on Kate. We now know that Kate was supposed to be a stronger character in the series. But Kate's role changed from a co-leader to a wishy-washy secondary player/love interest. Even her revealed deep, dark secret of murder was blotched by poor writing and unbelievable plot twists. Instead of the spunky Midwest girl-next-door character, Kate turned into a loathsome cardboard figure to some fans.

The same holds true with Hurley. The original Hurley character was supposed to be an international repossession man, which means that he had well developed problem solving skills and social charm to be the top in his profession. Instead, the writers downgraded Hurley to a meek, loner with mental problems.

Also, instead of dancing around the mental issues floated during the series, the original guide had us headbutting with a more developed character of Boone, a dangerous schizophrenic off his meds. The original Boone would have been headstrong, confrontational, abusive, and paranoid, which would have immediately set him off from the other characters. It would have created a major predicament for the survivors camp unable to handle a deranged mental patient - - - what to do with him? Banish him (and lose Sawyer's stash of supplies since he was to hook up with Shannon early in the show), cage him like an animal or kill him? The latter would hark to elements of Lord of the Flies, and the harsh judgments in places where there is no civilized law and order.

Even Shannon was supposed to have a bigger role. She was going to be the "it girl," the one the island men would want to be around. She would use her good looks to play them off each other. In the pilot, Charlie was immediately enamored with her, so much so when she went on the first mission he joined in even though he had nothing to contribute. If Shannon was to hook up with Sawyer, that would have caused more tension in the beach camp - - - the means of creating splinter groups within the whole community. People having to take sides would have brought out more character development.

Even the undeveloped concepts of a new visitor no one expects to parachute into the story, or the human bite mark on Vincent's ear, or the mysterious fruit orchard and cocoons, or the Others, or the military submariners, do lead to possible interactions, clashes or alliances of the 815ers with other islanders. The guide actually points to numerous groups on the island besides the Others: the submariners, the primitive inhabitants who attacked Vincent, and a flight path for potential smugglers, drug dealers, explorers, etc.

What the guide does not extract is the supernatural elements that found their way into the series. In fact the more supernatural elements that were brought into the show, the more the show started to come off the rails because there were no plausible explanations presented to explain the diversion from original concept. In fact, the use of supernatural elements (such as time travel, immortal beings, magic, smoke monsters, shape shifting, and unique light force energy) opened the door to criticism of the entire premise of the series (including it being all in the after life, to it all in Hurley's head.)

What was really lost from the guide's original proposed story line is the sense of building a new community on the island. All the elements in regard to re-creating a new society, a potential utopia, were discounted and disregarded by the writers. It seemed that the writers fell into a format of throwing something strange at the main characters to just get a reaction. There was no practical application of action to build a better settlement, to instill a moral code or rules on their own behavior, or a sense of community to work together to solve problems. It was all individual decision making that moved the stories forward with no touchstone of community belief. So nothing that was done could truly be deemed right or wrong.

Also, many of the story ideas in the guide had the group muster themselves "to action" such as salvaging a reefed submarine in the hope that it could lead to rescue. But in the story format that was in the actual show, the characters merely "reacted" to things happening around them. Initiative, questions, demands for answers, and open problem solving discussion were sparse to non-existent in the group.

Another thing that led LOST off its story rails was leaving the island. No one should have EVER LEFT the island. In retrospect, all the off-island stories were sub-par to unbelievable. If the goal of the show was to have a sense of community building along with the hope of rescue, rescue should have never been accomplished because the "returns" to the island by characters made little to no sense.

Many people had no doubts when the producers told the viewers that they had "everything" worked out to the climatic end of the series. Well, there is no evidence that is true. Instead of building a solid foundation of characters and continuity facts, the show began to meander its own course, especially in the realm of not resolving mysteries from episode to episode. The biggest failure of LOST was the fact it did not follow its original network mandate: self-contained episodes with a beginning, middle and end. By stringing along mystery upon mystery, the writers were only stringing along viewers to continue watching the show. If the writers had doubts on whether they could answer the questions or mysteries they posed in the series, then they should not have done it. But I guess the overriding concern from TPTB that LOST had to have its own edge, and constantly be "unexpected." As a result, you have a series of edgy plot points that never got resolved or at best, abandoned, contradicted or lost in continuity errors.

The recent weeks of posting the writer's guide with commentary was to further explore the show which most fans never really get to see: what the insiders themselves were thinking about at the very beginning. With that insight and with hindsight of the actual series, there is no doubt in my mind that there were several core concepts that the writers did not use that would have made the series much better.

THE HARD SELL

The conclusion to the LOST's Writer's Guide is entitled "The Hard Sell." It really is a summation to the network executives on why ABC should pick up the series and let TPTB create LOST.

The guide was the means of selling the show, its elements and concepts to the network in order to get a green light to produce the series. It was critical that what was said in the guide was truthful and useful to the network in its decision making process.

The guide concluded:

LOST is a unique animal in the television landscape. When we first considered bringing this idea to life just three -months ago, our knee-jerk reaction to what is - at its purest level, a castaway show- well, quite frankly, we didn't think it could be done.

We've changed our mind.

There is a show here. Not just a few episodes, but a real series. 

Hopefully, we've answered some concerns. The story ideas really are limitless- in fact, we've had several conversations about what a second and third season might look like. We've discussed ways to have characters recur and how to figure out limited arcs that don't infringe on our "self-contained" episodic mandate. Please remember, this format is just a SUMMARY of all the work we have done in the past nine weeks. 

We really believe that LOST is unlike anything we've seen before on television. From the unbelievable setting to the unique cast made up of mostly new and exciting faces (not to mention the largest ensemble of any show on the air), LOST offers something for everyone - a show tailor-made to appeal to the broadest audience possible.

Hip. Frightening. Funny. Mysterious. Romantic. Cinematic.

But more than anything, unexpected.

We thank you for your time. Your consideration. 

And again, the opportunity. Hopefully, we can all get LOST together. 

There are a few key statements to pull from this conclusion:

1. The writer's guide took 9 weeks to prepare.
2. TPTB admit that they had a network "mandate" to have "self-contained" episodes.
3. The story ideas, while limitless, were not fully fleshed out in the guide summaries.
4.  TPTB admit they had their own doubts about showrunning a purely castaway show.
5. TPTB state that they have only had "conversations" about what the second and third season might look like.
6. Everyone wants to appeal to the "broadest audience possible."

The credo for the show was stated as being hip, frightening, funny, mysterious, romantic, cinematic and unexpected (which must mean out-of-the-blue plot twists). Those are lofty goals, but used to help sell ABC on buying the LOST franchise.

There really is nothing contained in the guide that shows that the producers could actually pull off three seasons of LOST. To the contrary, it seems that the sales pitch was more on general expectation of greatness than a solid foundational mythology and direction for the show. The producers made their hard sell and won. But did the hard sell actually meet fan or network expectations in its story execution?

After 9 weeks of guide preparation, the producers found only 30 story ideas in which to cull a first season. For some reason, that seems kind of sparse. One would have thought it would raise a red flag that the producers had "doubts" about their ability to carry a survivor in lost paradise story for more than a season. But they only had ideas to bolster their own view that they could pull off something unique to television (what that unique aspect of the show was never addressed in the guide itself). The guide could have sprouted brain storm ideas with the network or other writers which would shape the first season, but that would seem to defeat the point of creating the plots in the guide. The network wanted to see a truly full formed series before green lighting the project. There were several good story ideas and character traits listed in the guide, which would be the foundational starting point to create a deep and layered continuity book, but for no apparent reason many of those elements were quickly abandoned or changed by TPTB. 

From a historical perspective, some of the ABC executives who were initially in on the LOST presentations left the network. There were new people who inherited the project, and may have either dismissed the prior briefings or decided it was best to give Abrams carte blanche to create the series he wanted to make (since he was the hottest talent in Hollywood at the time). But Abrams would soon not be a hands on producer for the show - - - he had bigger fish to fry in the movie world. So it could have been the timing of network approval, and schedule shifts and new production staff which caused LOST to lose its original guide outline focus to spin into supernatural tangents and character changes as the seasons progressed during the show.

GUIDE STORY IDEAS PART SEVEN

The final four story ideas contained in the original LOST writer's guide are below.  They bring into play more dangerous elements to the original story of survival.

THE SKY IS FALLING

Hope flickers when a small plane flies over the island- but moments later it bursts into flames. Before it crashes into a mountainside, a SINGLE PARACHUTER leaps from the plane. Despite vast distance and impending nightfall, a rescue party immediately organizes,  but what they find when they reach this new visitor is the last thing anyone expects. 

In these final ideas, a very strong theme of "hope" emerges as a means of churning the rollercoaster of emotions for the survivors. In the actual series, hope faded quickly after two weeks on the island.When Jack made his speech to live together or die alone, it was pretty much settled that the idea of rescue was fruitless (even though Michael would build at raft and try to leave). The small plane may have been a means to introduce a new character (or a "rare" guest star) that would cause the group to take sides or distrust one another. The guide does not state who this parachuter would have been or why he crashed on the island. This idea does house the multi-season run of group "missions" through the jungle where anyone who wanted to go do something, did. The question asked in this story line is what was the last person the group would expect to jump out of a plane? But the story does not say it is even a person! "This new visitor is the last thing anyone expects." It could have been many things that were later tied to the Beechcraft: the parachuter could have been the priest, Yemi, who would have suddenly tried to impose religious morality on the group. Or it could have been Eko, a drug dealer, who could have corrupted addicts like Charlie into his fold of new island criminal gang. Or it could have been an animal - - - like another polar bear! If the series was going to go weird, that would have been major league weird. The parachute drop feature was used in the actual series with Naomi's arrival, where she told the group that everyone on Flight 815 was dead. Maybe fans saw that episode, DOA, as confirmation that the major series premise was that the characters were in some sort of hell or after life limbo. But this story idea or the guide does not make reference to any change in reality or realms as being the location of the island.

BLACK BOX

The castaways find the FLIGHT DATA RECORDER from the cockpit. After undergoing a massive technological journey just to listen to it, what they ultimately redefines everything they thought they knew about what caused the crash. 

Now, one will have to suspend most facets of belief that the castaways could actually get information from a flight recorder. After finding the black boxes, investigators take the recorders to a lab where they can download the data from the recorders and attempt to recreate the events of the accident. This process can take weeks or months to complete. In the United States, black-box manufacturers supply the NTSB with the readout systems and software needed to do a full analysis of the recorders' stored data. If the FDR is not damaged, investigators can simply play it back on the recorder by connecting it to a readout system. With solid-state recorders, investigators can extract stored data in a matter of minutes. Very often, recorders retrieved from wreckage are dented or burned. In these cases, the memory boards are removed, cleaned up and a new memory interface cable is installed. Then the memory board is connected to a working recorder. This recorder has special software to facilitate the retrieval of data without the possibility of overwriting any of it. So in reality, it would be nearly impossible for the castaways to retrieve any flight recorder data because the airplane does not contain the the readout systems or software necessary to retrieve the data. How the castaways would have "massive" technology journey (no one was viewed as an expert in the field) and since they may not have found the underground bunker system, would make this story line implausible and unbelievable. It would have detracted from the show. Further, the pilot told them that they were off course due to an electromagnetic issue. Unless the FDR information shows location coordinates in outer space, or under the ocean surface, what would drastically change the survivors perception of where they are? Lastly, the black box was used in the series as a prop in a con on Widmore's boat to give the survivors false hope. Again, it is not possible that a private party would have in its possession the black boxes from an airline crash.

THE SUB

The shores of the island yield yet another mystery when a body dressed in an unidentifiable military uniform washes up on the beach near the fuselage. The gruesome discovery turns into a new hope for the castaways, who spot a SUBMARINE run aground on the barrier reef. Realizing the sub represents potential salvation, a group of our survivors cross the treacherous reef to find that it is not quite abandoned... 

The submarine as a vehicle was used in the series, as a Dharma transportation vehicle, and the last minute escape plan by the remaining 815 survivors at the end of Season 6. And the image of a washed up person on shore was used in the freighter arc to show the time distortion from the boat to the island. But this submarine plot is more straight forward. The idea of a grounded submarine with new people on board (military perhaps) adds to the confusion and danger the castaways have to meet head on. Unidentifiable uniforms could hark to the future - - - that the submarine somehow time traveled back to the island. Or it could mean that the survivors are actually in a different dimension, a parallel universe, after their plane went through an electromagnetic portal. Or, this could be a fuller introduction to the Others, not being the wild inhabitants of the island, but a military order. Again, this story line pushes the group into "action," as a means of maintaining their hope for "salvation." But this story line was never used in the series.

HURRICANE

No longer able to agree about the simplest of things, our group is on the verge of splitting into two when dark clouds appear miles off the coast. It soon becomes clear that a massive hurricane is heading their way, threatening not only the makeshift settlement they've worked so hard to build, but their very lives... 

 This is probably the most realistic story line in the guide. The fierce aspect of nature causes the group to react to a threat that is totally beyond their control. It puts life and death front and center. It defuses hope if their settlement and its coveted resources are destroyed. This panic situation would have created the drama the guide promised to the network. But it was never used in the series. Instead, a weaker version of the group "split" occurs in haphazard fashion. Locke tries to break the group along ideological lines. Later, Flocke (MIB) divides all the groups into followers and enemies.  But most of the 815 camp splits are issue to issue, with characters changing sides all the time. There is no cohesive structure of camp life that actually brings about a true "split." The community on the beach turns more sheepish than proactive. There is no formal structure to their routine. No one wants to build a long term community, yet they have lost all hope for rescue. One could consider this mass depression or surrendering to fate. But the original guide had the group being more assertive, hopeful, and taking action to change their situation.

Besides the black box story idea, the other three concepts would have made good shows. And each one of those mysteries or events could have been concluded in an hour format.

GUIDE STORY IDEAS PART SIX

The LOST Writer's Guide continued with more story ideas for Season One.

LAMAZE

Coming to grips with the reality that she's actually going to have her baby on the island, Claire finds herself getting pre-natal preparation from an unlikely source when an emergency forces her into a CAVE with Sun and Jin, a couple now at war with each other. 

This would have been a normal, human interest story, and jumping point for a Claire flashback on how she got pregnant and her internal struggles whether she would keep her child. It would make sense that some of the castaway women would be drawn by their maternal instincts to "help" Claire. Again, Sun was supposed to be a second doctor (with more holistic, Eastern philosophy) so Sun caring for Claire would make sense in that story line. The "emergency" that forces her to a cave is unclear - - - was it a safety issue from the beach camp and threats of attacks from the Others, or was it a medical emergency to keep her sheltered from the elements? It would seem it was more an outside danger if Jin was assigned to help "protect" her. But if that is the case, why would not the entire camp seek the safety of the caves? The viewpoint of Claire into the marital strife between Jin and Sun could have been the contrast to her own back story with her boyfriend. This story idea makes more logical sense than what appeared in the series. Jack gave Claire no pre-natal instruction. The only person who gravitated toward her was Charlie, in order to find what he was looking for in his life, a sense of family. But it was Kate, by accident, who would deliver the baby in the show, an entirely different outcome than originally proposed in the guide.

THE RAFT

Sayid salvages a package from the debris field that could change the lives of the survivors: a fully- functional inflatable escape raft from one of the plane's exit rows. While some argue that the raft would be an invaluable addition to the survivor's camp (as waterproofing or a device to collect water), Sayid announces his intention to get off the island - hoping to drift into a shipping lane and initiate a rescue. 

Again, another "common sense" story idea. If major parts of the plane fell to the island such as the fuselage, then there would have been one or two life rafts among the plane debris since the crew and passengers had no time in which to evaculate the plane. When the survivors scavenged the plane for food, clothing, medical supplies, why did they not find the life rafts? I never thought about that until now - - - and it is such a head slap that it hurts. The castaways should have found the rafts, or at the very least looked for them. So the writers had the vehicle for an island escape already thought out - - - but for no apparent reason totally changed the premise. Instead of Sayid drifting off to the shipping lanes for rescue, the show had Michael suddenly becoming a ship right to build a raft. The Sayid adrift idea may have been recycled into the Desmond back story (to a point), but there was no real reason why the Sayid raft story was not used in the series.


SOLDIERS, WORKER, QUEEN

A patch of wild berries used by the castaways is found stripped clean and it soon becomes clear that the island is being subjected to a marching swarm of ravenous SOLDIER ANTS (this is not the "Arachnophobia" treatment, the ants are microscopic). With their own society in its most fractured state, Kate emerges as the clearest thinker, establishing herself as a true leader when the alpha- males of the island are unable to resolve their differences. 

Again, another common sense them of the survivors battling nature in order to survive. The idea of a swarm of tiny ants invading the camp is one of those Saturday afternoon B-movie monster films from our childhoods. But it would be the type of real life conflict that survivors would have to deal with on a strange island. The theme of society building was also part of this story idea - - - that there would be a split among the group: male dominant posturing versus practical woman ideas. How Kate would have solved this problem is unclear, but the writers were going to continue to elevate Kate as a co-lead character with Jack. In the actual show, Kate never reached the leadership role that TPTB originally envisioned for her.


RETURN OF THE GUN

Having lived quite comfortably in a world free of firearms, Sawyer and Sayid both discover that their respective pieces of the gun - divided between them by Kate in the pilot - have been stolen.
Although the two immediately suspect one another, they eventually team up to find the culprit. 

Drawing up an actual scene in the pilot, the stealing of the gun (and its associated power) would have been a group conflict of suspicion, betrayal and mistrust. Again, the guide appears to want to show two characters who dislike each other put into a situation where they have to cooperate and resolve their differences, at least temporarily, to solve a problem. In this case, the lost gun would have been a real problem to solve in order to maintain some standing in the new community. And which person actually took the gun would have something to answer - - - why. If it was Jack or Kate, they could claim they needed it to protect the group. If it was Locke, he could claim he needed it to hunt. But if it was someone else, a lesser character like Charlie, or a dangerous mad man like Boone who was paranoid about everyone around him, that could have led to greater conflict. But the series did not use the gun or any other object as a touchstone to create a dramatic story line. Once the Hatch was opened and the arms locker found, the idea of one person having a weapon was moot. Originally planned, the gun would have symbolized power amongst the group of survivors desperate for safety and security from the island's elements.

Each one of these four story ideas had real merit. Again, why the writers failed to follow through on any of them is another puzzling mystery.

GUIDE STORY IDEAS PART FIVE

The LOST Writer's Guide continued with three story ideas on the same theme.

MURDER
When a murder takes place in the camp, Locke uses the fear and suspicion of the castaways to start a witch-hunt and ultimately it is Charlie who becomes the most likely suspect - a situation exacerbated by the onset of Charlie's WITHDRAWAL and more importantly, the fact that he himself is unsure as to his innocence or guilt. TO BE CONTINUED IN ~ 

KANGAROO COURT

While Locke would like to see Charlie bum at the stake, Kate steps forward as the voice of reason and calls for a fair and unbiased presentation of the facts - but civility goes out the door when
justice can only be reached by full consensus (think TWELVE ANGRY MEN, Survivor-style). Ultimately, Kate plays defender to Locke's prosecutor in a trial which is just as much about the "outing" of Charlie's addiction as it is a presentation of the considerable evidence against him. 

ABDUCTED
Kate wakes up to find herself bound and gagged in a dark cave, a captive of the Others. Without knowing why she's been taken or what they plan on doing with her, Kate is entirely helpless - -  until another captive is thrown into this makeshift prison- Locke. Despite their differences up to this point, the two must work together in order to escape their mysterious captors. 

I have been critical of how LOST made basic and critical legal errors throughout the series. Setting those plot execution errors to the side, one major theme in the original LOST writer's guide was going to be "crime and punishment." In the three ideas above, there was going to be plan on how the castaways were going to deal with crime as they built their new community.

One standard mystery is the solving of a murder, so it is no surprise that this was an original story idea. It would appear that this story idea was going to be an early one, since Charlie's withdrawal symptoms would start to manifest shortly after his small stash was consumed. The idea that strangers would begin to suspect each other for a camp crime is believable considering their current ordeal. And the idea that Charlie does not know because of his medical condition is plausible. So the premise of this plot is reasonable.


It is where the kangaroo court gets involved where things get tricky. The guide had indicated that early on the group dynamic would not be workable until a single leader, Jack, would emerge from the chaos. The idea of a court of law on the island is noble, but its execution as a process would seem flawed. It seems that TPTB wanted to meet the network executive's original vision of the series as being a "real" Survivor show by incorporating elements of that reality series, such as the elimination/judgment ceremony. So this story plot point fit into the wheelhouse of network expectations.

One could see the game role of Locke being the accuser/prosecutor to try to persuade the other camp members to take his side. But at the same time, the guide indicated that the group distrusted Locke because he was secretive about his hunting finds. Also, the idea that Kate would be "the voice of reason" to become a defense attorney for Charlie would be a stretch considering how Kate was actually portrayed in the series as a criminal on the lam.

The guide does not state how Charlie's trial was going to end. In the actual series, actual crimes against people on the island did not have the formality of a trial or punishment. In fact, one of the main criticisms about the show was its lack of a moral center when it came to bad behavior.

None of the beach camp legal system made it into the show. The producers did not incorporate the outside world view of a structured civilization upon the survivors camp.

Now, the idea of castaway abductions was used repeatedly during the actual series. It was a means of introducing the concept of "The Others," mysterious inhabitants of the island who apparently have evil intentions.  The idea that Kate and Locke would not get along is fine. The idea that Kate would be kidnapped then have to work with her camp nemesis, Locke, in order to escape could have been on the edge of stereotype storytelling. The guide does not tell us the reason why Kate or Locke were captured and put into a prison. And that gets back to the idea that the producers did not have a defined main story line after the pilot episode.

If the writers could have made a reasonable story arc about how the castaways would deal with internal crime and punishment, it would have been okay. It could have stood as a contrast on how the Others perceived crimes against them and their brand of punishment. But this plot idea was never truly explored in the series - - - as the characters were basically on their own in a Wild West fashion.

GUIDE STORY IDEAS PART FOUR

The LOST Writer's Guide continued with more story ideas for the first season of the show:

JEALOUSY
An unexpected flirtation begins to build between Michael and Sun and both their counterparts ain't too pleased about it. Eager to win his wife's affection back, but too entrenched in his own cultural bias, Jin finally caves and allows Walt (feeling abandoned and thus motivated to throw a wrench in his father's new romance) to begin teaching him English lessons. 

In the actual series, there was a very short flirtation between Michael and Sun, but that was abruptly stopped when Michael backed off. That made sense in a way, since Michael was trying to create a family bond with Walt, so destroying a marital bond between Sun and Jin would make little sense. Jealousy would be a minor theme throughout the series. In the actual series, Jin did try to win back Sun after their marital arguments, but his solution was to help build the raft to get her rescued off the island. As stated previously, the Jin being able to understand English without lessons was another story hole that TPTB let slide through. The idea of Walt teaching Jin English would have corrected that plot issue, but it was never done in the series.

THE CAT PROBLEM
A series of flashbacks drastically counterpoint Locke's former life as an office drone with the warrior he has always dreamed himself to be when he boldly decides to hunt down the three PREDATORY JUNGLE CATS that are raiding the camp and devouring the dwindling food supply. 

This story idea was never used in the show. There are a couple of problems with the concept. Jungle cats avoid human contact. They live off capturing fresh meat, something the beach camp would not have out in the open. Even with a boar catch, 48 people would quickly consume the meat, or if not, would have to smoke it, make jerky, etc. in order to preserve it. Locke as the self-proclaimed hunter would have probably wanted to take down dangerous animals to increase his status amongst the group, but once the smoke monster was introduced in the pilot, what could be more dangerous than that?

THE DIG
When the survivor's discover a tiny piece of metal jutting from beneath the rocky ground, a massive attempt to UNEARTH it begins... but the digging instruments are rudimentary and put a strain on already scarce resources. The dig continues, however, ultimately revealing a LOCKED HATCH- impossible to breach, but offering up a fascinating new dimension to the island's unexplored territory. 

Instead of hunting jungle cats, Locke became obsessed with the Hatch. His belief that the Hatch would answer all their questions about the island (which would be wrong) led him to recruit a few members of the group to open the facility. We assume that in the guide's earlier sections, this hatch was supposed to be the gateway into a huge underground complex where the 815 survivors would move to en mass. But that never happened. The core leadership kept the Hatch, and its comforts, to themselves. Some fans to this day believe that the Hatch story line was a fumbled opportunity to enrich the series mythology. But the reason for the input of the Numbers, the incident, and what was the unique electromagnetic energy were never clearly answered in the show.

THE STILL
Fed up with Sawyer's-monopoly on alcohol, Michael and Hurley decide to build their own still, requiring considerable outside-the-box thinking and a fascinating MacGyver-esque version of Island invention. But when Sawyer finds out what they're up to, we learn what INDUSTRIAL SABOTAGE looks like on a tropical island... 

The idea that Sawyer turned into an alcohol robber baron may have been appealing to a writer's group, but it would have been out of character. Sawyer understood and respected the "every man for himself" mentality. He would selfishly guard his material stash, not necessary to barter or exchange, but more to consume himself since he had the ability to con material goods from other people. This idea also reinforces the original description of Hurley being a more "doer" than causal observer. The still story line was also not used in the series, even though there was some brief conflict over resources after the initial crash.

TWO DAYS OF DARKNESS
After a 48-hour ECLIPSE, the castaways are intrigued by the appearance of thousands of strange viscous COCOONS in and around their camp. Curious, but unwilling to cut one open and investigate, a debate rages as to how to deal with this bizarre new development. And the cocoons are HATCHlNG... 

Now this story idea would place LOST into full science-fiction mode. In an earlier (not used) story idea about unidentifiable fruit, the emergence of strange "vicious" cocoons surrounding them would create an immediate danger that would have the survivors in real peril. One could readily imagine that the placement of the cocoons around the camp meant that the emerging beings would be close to their new food source: humans. This adds to the other non-used Vincent story idea that the dog was bitten on the ear by a human. Potentially, the group has to deal with two savage predators on the island. 

It would seem that farther along in the original story line list, the less likely it was for the writers to actually use or incorporate fully these ideas. There may have been some pressure not to use too many sci-elements in order to concentrate on character development through the means of constant, long form flashbacks. However, the 48 hours of darkness/cocoon story as well as a strong, take charge Hurley character would have been a interesting development in the show.