ALL IS NOT LOST

The only question to be answered in the pilot of Wrecked, the new TBS series, is whether the show is worthy of die hard LOST fans' appreciation.

It is very difficult to bridge parody, comedy and amusing situational comedy on the backbone of a legendary dramatic series like LOST.  Could the creators of Wrecked do it?

No.

The characters were flat, the performances stiff and the story line non-existent.

It seemed the writer's room had a bunch of index cards with words or scenes from LOST then they tried to make a joke about one or two. The ensemble cast had no continuity.  There was no connection to the characters so I could not remember any of their names.

The irony of the pilot episode, "All is Not Lost," was the fact that the dashing, handsome leader of the castaways, a 10 year special ops soldier from Australia, was killed by a falling plane part just as Jack was supposed to have been killed in the LOST pilot.

There were some strange set-ups with no pay-off. A guy addicted to technology gathers up all the cell phones to try to get a signal to phone for help (another LOST scene). But when he gets a signal, none of the people can remember an actual telephone number. The scene painfully stalls quickly. It takes one of the oldest bits about answering machine fake-out messages, last used recently in the animation series Archer.

Another scene had a character's ghost father berate his son for being a coward and a loser for being freighted about removing dead bodies from the airplane. The character wanted people to respect him so he lied and said he was a police officer. The resolution of that snippet was the character going back in the plane to yell back at his ghost dad.

There was no one funny joke or humorous spit-take in the entire hour of the show. It was a train wreck. There are many shows that can make gallows humor work; M*A*S*H jokes in the ER to the gross humor of South Park. But nothing showed up in Wrecked. The xfinity Dish diss commercials were more entertaining that the show.

Verdict: PASS.  The show is not worth a view even as summer filler.

X-FILES REVIEW

The X-Files ran on Fox TV for 9 years, ending in May, 2002. It returned to the small screen after a 13 year hiatus through the work of the original creator, Chris Carter, and the original cast.

It started as a cult hit then morphed into a cultural phenomenon. The government conspiracy theories of the show's mythology hit a cord in the public, and spawned other science-fiction series and "alien" speculative shows that congregate today on the History Channel.

So I wanted to believe that the show re-boot could be well made. However, I did not have high expectations because the show leveled out and then faded away with answers to most of the big questions that the show runners had posed early on in the series.

By the end of the series it was revealed that a stealth group of men, The Syndicate, acted as the  liaison between mankind and a group of extraterrestrials that intends to destroy the human species. They were usually represented by "The Smoking Man," a ruthless killer, masterful politician, negotiator and the series' principal antagonist. As the series went along, Mulder and Scully learn about evidence of the alien invasion piece by piece. It is revealed that the extraterrestrials plan on using a sentient virus, known as the "black oil,"  to infect mankind and turn the population of the world into a slave race. The Syndicate—having made a deal to be spared by the aliens—have been working to develop an alien-human hybrid that will be able to withstand the effects of the black oil.

In between that main story arc, FBI agents Mulder and Scully went on paranormal and monster investigations of strange cases. Scully, a physician, was skeptical at first but slowly turned as she started to not being able to explain away conflicting scientific evidence. It was the chemistry between the two main characters that made the original show very good.

But in the re-boot premiere, there was no real chemistry between the main actors. David Duchovny went on monotone rapid fire speeches and Gillian Anderson looked tired and wooden in her performance. The only believable actor was John McHale's protrayal of a conservative conspiracy nut who has made a personal fortune out of poking a stick at government shadows. It is through McHale's character's television show connections that Mulder resurfaces from his apparent Unibomber retirement existence, while Scully is working with surgeons at a hospital who correct rare birth defects in children.

Part of the problem of the premiere was the forced writing to bring a new audience up to speed with the 9 years of past episodes between the main characters. It did not work.

The main reason Mulder and Scully are re-united in a new investigation is to meet a young woman named Sveta, who claims to have fragmented memories of having her fetuses stolen from her during her alleged alien abductions. She hints that Mulder had interviewed her and her family before, but may not have believed her. If she does possess alien DNA, Mulder asks Scully to run a DNA test.

 Later, McHale's character, O'Malley,  takes Mulder to a secret location where human aircraft built from alien technology is being housed by the next generation of the Lone Gunmen, but with much more resources and capital. Mulder is amazed by the alien spacecraft replica that runs on "free" energy and can disappear/teleport. We are led to believe that this is what the bad guys are after.

During her medical examination, Sveta makes several observations which allude to Scully's strained relationship with Mulder, making her uncomfortable. She remarked at one point that it was very difficult for her to contact Mulder, who appears to be living underground in some state of echo paranoia.  There is a throw-a-way line from Sveta that infers that Mulder and Scully had a child. When the test results on Sveta's blood come back, Scully orders it re-examined but we don't know why. Later, Scully herself takes a blood test to check herself.

Because of what O'Malley has shown him, Mulder comes to believe that he and Scully had been misled all along during their original career with the X-Files. Mulder's suspicions are confirmed when he with the old doctor from the Roswell crash site. Mulder tells him that he believes that alien technology was used on people and made to look like aliens had done so. He also outlines a global conspiracy involving hoarding and testing alien technology to prepare for an attack on America. The old man tells him he is close to the truth.

Following these revelations, Mulder begins to doubt his belief that aliens are the primary force behind the global conspiracy against humanity, but is instead a group of violent ultra-fascists armed with alien technology attempting to subvert democracy and assume power over the United States and then the Earth. He rattles off a list of government intrusions into America's private lives, liberty and constitutional rights since 9/11 (all done for "national security") plus the "distraction" of many different wars across the globe.

However, at a meeting Scully lies to Mulder and Sveta about the DNA test results. She states that she found no alien DNA. This puts a major hole in the hole conspiracy evidence chain. It unravels Mulder's entire theory.

Before O'Malley can go public with his claims, there is a counter strike: O'Malley's website is shut down, Sveta goes on TV to tell the world that O'Malley is a liar and a fraud, the replica space ship and scientists are killed by men dressed in military uniforms, and a UFO stops then destroys Sveta's car, seemingly with her inside. Mulder and Scully meet in a dark parking garage and Scully reveals that she has alien DNA, just like the girl O'Malley introduced to them. Mulder states that she is the key to exposing the testing and those responsible.

The episode ends revealing the Smoking Man, cancer having taken his throat,  alive in the present day, stating that the FBI unit, the X-Files,  has been re-opened to apparently re-start an investigation into his sinister group.

It is okay to manipulate and twist the main character into doubting his old past into a new conspiracy direction, but the premiere did it too swiftly and awkwardly to make us truly want to care about what is about to happen. By turning the original premise that aliens were coming to Earth to set the stage for a global invasion and world enslavement on its ear may not sit well to original fans by now claiming that the aliens are not the enemy but a band of human Illuminati taking alien technology to rule the world.

For the first part of the premiere, it was underwhelming. The second part of the premiere needs to bring back the action and clever writing between the main characters or the short series will turn into a very bad relationship counseling session between two old, tired and uninteresting main characters.

NEGATIVE SMARTS

Here is an odd bobble from the interwebs of social media culled by WIRED:

it seems the more negative in one's comments, the more intelligent the commentator appears to others.

The reason is"hypercriticism." When we hear negative statements, we think they're inherently more intelligent than positive ones. Teresa Amabile, director of research for Harvard Business School, began exploring this back in the 1980s. She took a group of 55 students, roughly half men, half women, and showed them excerpts from two book reviews printed in an issue of The New York Times. The same reviewer wrote both, but Amabile anonymized them and tweaked the language to produce two versions of each—one positive, one negative. Then she asked the students to evaluate the reviewer's intelligence.

The verdict was clear: The students thought the negative author was smarter than the positive one—“by a lot,” Amabile tells me. Most said the nastier critic was “more competent.” Granted, being negative wasn't all upside—they also rated the harsh reviewer as “less warm and more cruel, not as nice,” she says. “But definitely smarter.” Like my mordant tweets, presumably.

This so-called negativity bias works both ways, it seems. Other studies show that when we seek to impress someone with our massive gray matter, we spout sour and negative opinions. In a follow-up experiment, Bryan Gibson, a psychologist at Central Michigan University, took a group of 117 students (about two-thirds female) and had them watch a short movie and write a review that they would then show to a partner. Gibson's team told some of the reviewers to try to make their partner feel warmly toward them; others were told to try to appear smart. You guessed it: Those who were trying to seem brainy went significantly more negative than those trying to be endearing.

Why does this bias exist? No one really knows, though some theorists speculate it's evolutionary. In the ancestral environment, focusing on bad news helped you survive.

Some may say this site has had more negative LOST posts, but not really if you consider there still are posts long after the series has concluded, so that must be a positive.

If LOST was truly a character study, does one pointing out the negatives in a situation appear to be smarter?

The cursory results are mixed.

Jack quickly became the leader because of his positive outlook, demeanor and his known important medical skills.

Locke was more visceral against Jack's positions, pointing out flaws or different ways of doing things. Other castaways did not find Locke "smart," more like crazy in some of his viewpoints.

There is an irony here because when Flocke and Jack are helping Desmond re-set the cork, Jack admits that the real Locke was right about everything associated with the island.

Hurley was always upbeat and positive. He tried to keep his friends happy and entertained. No one called Hurley a genius. At the same time, Sawyer was constantly a negative, counterproductive presence in the camp. Most people knew he had some street smarts, but he never wanted to let anyone in past his personal firewall.

Kate's personality really lacked common sense because she continually compounded her mistakes in the real world as a fugitive. On the island, other women came to her for personal advice. Kate was neither smart or dumb; she was an independent survivor.

Ben was highly critical and negative towards his subordinates. In fact, so vicious that he would have them killed for disobeying him. As a result, people feared his evil genius.

In real life, people will gravitate toward upbeat and happy people. This may be instinctive to share positive emotional bonds with others. Negative people tend to drain the energy from a room and make people uncomfortable. It seems in the social media webs, the exact opposite happens. This touches briefly on the mirror theme: what is seen may be the opposite of reality.

WIRE TO WIRED

With all the time shifting devices, DVD box sets, and people having a little too much time on their hands, "binge" viewing of television shows is getting more in vogue.

WIRED Magazine recommends one show to binge this summer, but couches its recommendation like that of a roller coaster, abusive relationship. Here is how the writer "sells" LOST:

If nothing else, let J.J. Abrams go down in history for his singular knack for torturing his fans. From the aughts’ Felicity and Alias to Fringe and the Star Trek from which we expected so much more, the Hollywood impresario has for decades kept audiences, all of them millions-strong, leaning forward on their couches, howling at unbearable cliffhangers, and convening in huddled enclaves to debate intricate theories and minute plot details. But perhaps the best brain-bender he ever orchestrated was his and Damon Lindelof’s profound, infuriating, terrifying, bizarre, exhilarating philosophical thriller Lost.

When it began, the show attracted viewers by masquerading as a clean-cut adventure show about an airplane full of people who crash-land onto a seemingly deserted island and have to figure out, as protagonist Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) puts it, how to “live together or die alone.” Of course, that simple intrigue was short-lived, and before you could say, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” the show’s turbine engine had sucked you into its vortex of insanity, a nonstop barrage that kept audiences’ jaws on the floor as they turned to one other to ask in disbelief: “What the hell is going on?” Thanks to these infinitely cryptic puzzles and mythologies, Lost quickly and easily became one of the prototypical “prestige” dramas that truly cultivated the kind of raging, passionate online discussions that have only accelerated in Lost’s wake to become an inextricable cornerstone of how audiences consume television today. (Its intellectualism even made it into the halls of the academic elite.)

But of course, that kind of breakneck velocity and teeming volume has a cost, one that has, in in the four years since the show ended its final season, become somewhat of a cautionary tale, even to its creators. What with electric black smoke monsters that violently murder people (but sometimes choose not to?), polar bears that menace the survivors for a season and then inexplicably disappear, confusing deities that have been waging war on each other for centuries, time-travel and parallel universes, curses, haunting numeric patterns, and general existential despair, there were so many things happening on that damn island that by the show’s final season audiences were overtaken by the sinking realization that there was absolutely no possible way that every question stuffed into every corner of this beloved hellhole could possibly be answered. That, of course, is why Lost has gone down in history as one of the most frustrating, fascinating, and ultimately doomed shows of all time.

Which of course, isn’t to say you shouldn’t binge-watch the hell out of it anyway. While its narrative waxed incredibly heavy-handed at times (a bunch of characters are named after philosophers and characters from The Wizard of Oz, for example, just in case you were in danger of forgetting just how much attention the Lost writing staff paid to completely meaningless details), Lost’s insanity is what makes it so incredibly fun, especially for intrepid television adventurers. As long as you go into this show with the expectation that you won’t know all the answers, and you won’t know which details are important until the very end, not only will you successfully side-step having to talk about the ending in therapy, it will be one of the most fun shows you’ll ever watch.

Why You Should Binge:

Listen, I’m not going to lie here: There’s a very good chance you’re going to come out of this with more than one chip on your shoulder about having to spend over three straight days of your life on this infuriating piece of television history. Still, as I mentioned before, keeping this fact in mind will make it better. It’s still a fantastic ride, one that has become, in just a few short years, a classic. It’s also got a deep, involved, and kind of scary fandom who have put together any and all materials and answers you might need—philosophical, academic, narrative or otherwise. Plus, it’s important you know these references!

Well, if that does not get a curious "new" LOST viewer into the fold, what will? Anyone who wants to know American culture needs to watch a "prestige" show and LOST will be "one of the most frustrating, fascinating, and ultimately doomed shows of all time." 

WIRED also gives a potential viewer some clues on how much investment is needed to watch the series. The time requirements are 90 hours (3.75 days). Each episode averages about 43 minutes, so if you clock 10 hour-days (600 minutes, or about 14 episodes) on Saturdays and Sundays, it’ll only take up a cool 4.5 weekends, or nine days, of your life. Wanna stretch it out? Watch four episodes per night (that’s three hours) for 30 days. (That’s without going back and re-watching episodes to pick up the minutiae, in which case, may the gods have mercy on your—nay, our—souls.)

DEAD ENDS

The problem with time travel science fiction is that you have to get it right or it is a mess.

Time travel was a recurring theme of the series, and referenced in different ways such as the Island "moving" and teleportation of the user of the ancient frozen donkey wheel under the Orchid station.  It was said that the electromagnetic power on the Island allows the inhabitants to travel through time. However, the narrative changed when characters began to consciously time travel (not physically)  which often end with death, due to the inability to find a "constant."

Here were the writer's various explanations for time travel during the series:

1.  Faraday says the island is like a spinning record on a turntable, but now the record is skipping after Ben's turn of the FDW. He said it may have "dislodged" us from Time.

2.  In the Orchid orientation film, it was stated that Dharma was "to conduct unique experiments of both space and time." Candle placed rabbit number 15 inside a device he called the "vault", which was constructed adjacent to "negatively charged exotic matter." He explained how the rabbit would travel 100ms ahead of four dimensional spacetime - three consisting of space and one of time.

3.  When Desmond had time skipped into the past, he went to Oxford to find Faraday. Faraday demonstrated to Desmond that he could transport a lab rat's consciousness forward in time. He did that by using a machine he designed which emitted an unknown radiation, set to 2.342 and oscillating at eleven hertz. Once exposed, the rat was able to move directly from one end of a maze to another.  Faraday explained that he was not going teach the rat to run the maze for another hour. Later, however, the rat died of what Faraday said was likely a brain aneurysm.

4.  Desmond's  consciousness randomly traveled through time between December 24, 2004 and an unknown date in 1996. Faraday stressed that for a mind to survive the continued transitions of temporal displacement, and to make it stop, it needs to find a "constant," or anchor, to focus on. This constant must be something that means a great deal to the person, and it has to be present in both time periods. For his constant, Desmond chose Penny.

5.  When Desmond first encountered Eloise Hawking, she explained there are rules for time travel: that "the universe has a way of course correcting or fate may intervene to any changes. If a man was supposed to die in an accident but survived, fate would create another event in which the man would die.

6.  The effects of time travel on the traveler seem to be similar whether the travel is physical, or where just the consciousness travels. In both cases, temporal displacement causes nose bleeds, headaches, forgetfulness, and in the worst cases, death by apparent brain aneurysm. However, the severity of the effects appears to differ from person to person. However, people right next to a time skipping person, such as Danielle with Jin, were unaffected by the time displacement.

So which explanation of LOST's time travel is correct?

One would have to conclude that none are the correct answer. The conclusion is based upon the fact that each alleged time travel rule was inconsistently applied through the story line. If one person is affected by physical or mental time travel, but the person standing right next to him (under the same conditions) does not have any time travel affects, the explanation is a nullity.

If the island was Faraday's conscious time machine but in a scaled up version, then everyone on the island would have been affected with mental time skips. But that did not happen. The same is true with the physical time travel: only a few of the 815 survivors were teleported back to the Dharma 1970s while the others were stuck in the present.

But the most egregious violations of time travel rules occurs during the physical skips. When Locke skips in front of Alpert, it makes little sense considering that Alpert had been on the island longer than Locke. Common sense would state that Alpert should have skipped along with Locke. In addition, when Faraday is killed by his mother in 1977, how could he have been born later? The same is true for Charlotte, who claimed to have returned to the island but died during time travel. Lastly, when Juliet is trapped in the hole with the atomic bomb, she is in the 1970s Dharma era. When there is the final time flash, she blurts out "it worked," but we still don't know what she is talking about. She dies in the rebooted present. Is that course correction at work? And did this change Juliet's past life, i.e. in the sideways world ending she had no contact with her sister, her closest friend, who would have been her "constant."

In fact, the whole notion of needing a constant was ridiculous. Under the definition of a constant ("something that means a great deal to the person"), everyone has multiple constants in their lives to focus upon, including parents, spouses, children, family, friends and even favorite sports teams. Minkowski had a family; Charlotte had her "work." Therefore, neither should have died as a result of failing to have a constant in their lives.

The physical time travel story arc led to a dead end, since the alleged explosion of the atomic bomb did not change anything. Desmond's mental time skipping to the past or future did not change anything - - - people still died. In fact, all these time story lines led to dead ends.

In show biz that is called "filler." The principle is to throw new tangents in order to keep the audience engaged. But adding filler tied to science concepts without a reasonable explanation of how things are applied to all the characters is poor execution. You could cut out all the time travel story plot lines from the series and viewers would not miss anything.

We cannot even say the time skipping created any alternative universe. TPTB continue to claim that all the island events were "real," but one can question in what "reality?"  The notion that the numerous time skips did not cause massive changes in the course of non-island events is also hard to believe if the island was the source for life, death and rebirth (in essence the creator of time and space itself). But the writers never tackled that concept or the unintended consequences of throwing in time travel into an adventure-survival story.

Some fans still believe the time travel arcs in LOST were the most disappointing feature of the series. It is even more so when the character "experts" in the show itself, were wrong in their explanation of events. Time travel in the series was like white noise, TV static or a blank box.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 8

The last of this series of reviews of theories prior to Season 6 involves time travel. The theory is that the island was a Time Machine.

Once the writers put the matter of time travel on the table, we as fans had to deal with it.

We were familiar with the general literary rules of time travel: you don't go back in time to kill a parent to create a present paradox; changes events in the past can have unintended consequences in the future, etc.  In H.G. Wells' Time Machine, we know a brilliant scientist created a sled with a dial that when activated would send him to the time coordinates. But the machine did not move in space; it was stationary. Once those caveats were established, the viewer accepted the machine and its abilities.

But LOST's time travel references were more missing puzzle pieces than an actual functional machine.

The clues to the idea of an island time machine were sprinkled throughout the series.

The premise is that Oceanic 815 flew through a rift in the time/space created by the island's unique electromagnetic properties, and are now the passengers are lost somewhere in the past.

Time is an important theme,  making many appearances throughout the show. Flashbacks and Flashforwards show the lives of characters during a different time other than on the Island. The Island is known to have a different concept of time, as it moves at a different pace, as seen in Daniel's experiments. Time travel, both physically and through the conscious are also concepts that have been witnessed in the later seasons.

Time has been a clue mentioned in various context during the show:

Season 1:
Sayid comes to the conclusion that the distress signal has been playing for 16 years. ("Pilot: Part 2")
Would a distress signal really play for sixteen years with no one finding it?
During the discovery of Adam and Eve, Jack claims that they have been dead for 40-50 years. ("House of the Rising Sun")
Sawyer reads A Wrinkle in Time. ("Dues Ex Machina")
Kate and her childhood sweetheart Tom bury a time capsule and open it years later. ("Born to Run")

Season 2:
There is a countdown timer in the Swan station, which is reset every 108 minutes with the numbers. ("Adrift")
Mr. Eko does not talk for 40 days after he killed an Other. ("The Other 48 Days")
Michael meets with captive Walt for three minutes, which is also the name of the episode.
A system failure occurred at 16:16 on September 22nd, the time the plane crashed.

Season 3:
Ben explains to Jack what events have happened off the Island during the 67 days he has been there. ("The Glass Ballerina")
Aldo was reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. ("Not in Portland")
Richard Alpert shows a scan of a womb that Juliet believes is of a 70 year old woman, when in fact she was 20. ("Not in Portland")
Juliet said that she has been on the Island for 3 years, 2 months, and 28 days. ("Not in Portland")
Mittelos is an anagram for "Lost Time". ("Not in Portland").
Desmond relieves part of his life after the Swan imploded. ("Flashes Before Your Eyes")
The clock reads 1:08 in Desmond's flat. ("Flashes Before Your Eyes")
Ms. Hawking has many clocks inside the jewelry store. ("Flashes Before Your Eyes")
Richard appears to not age, after young Ben encountered him in the jungle in the 1970s. ("The Man Behind the Curtain")
Ben looks at his watch when he kills his father in the Purge; the time was 4:00. ("The Man Behind the Curtain")
Ben orders to kill Sayid, Jin, and Bernard while giving Jack a minute to respond. ("Through the Looking Glass")

Season 4:
Daniel does an experiment involving time. He launches a payload from the Kahana, and waits for it to arrive. It eventually arrives, 31 minutes later than what the time is on the Island. ("The Economist")
The perspective of the time it takes for the helicopter to travel from the Island to the Kahana is different from the Island and the Kahana. ("The Constant")
Desmond, Minkowski, and Brandon suffer from their conscious traveling through time without a constant. ("The Constant")
Ray washes ashore on the Island dead, but does not die on the Kahana until a couple of days later. ("The Shape of Things to Come")
The Orchid was built to experiment time travel. Ben turns the wheel underneath the Orchid to move the Island through time. ("There's No Place Like Home: Parts 2 & 3")

Season 5:
Daniel explains that the Island is skipping in time, causing the Island to travel through different time periods erratically. ("Because You Left")

For all the time references in the series, time travel like most things had no rules.

When several characters time skipped to 1977, there were other humans on the island at the same time who did not time skip. There was never an explanation for that different treatment. The same is true when the O6 returned to the island, a few time skipped to the 1970s while Sun was left stranded in the present.


The same inconsistency holds for the change to "mental time skips." If Desmond became a mental time skipper because of the Hatch implosion, then Charlie and Eko who were also in the station would have experienced the same side effects. They did not.


Then, the concept that the freighter crew led by Minkowski only visited the island for a short time, returned to their boat to have sudden and quick mental melt downs because their brains were time skipping makes no sense considering that the 815ers who made it to the freighter had no such symptoms.

The writers did not treat Time as a key element in the story mythology, but as a plot trick to drum up new story arcs. It was not even mentioned by men like Widmore as motivation to get back to the island or to control it because it was a Time Machine. And if it was truly a time machine, when Jack suddenly gained all knowledge of the guardians, would he not have considered using the island's powers to go back and not allow 815 flight path over the island to save all those people (Jack was a healer).

But the problem is that the writers did create two different and conflicting versions of time travel in the series. The physical time travel of people into the past, and the mental brain time skips that Desmond had after the Hatch implosion. Further, a few of Desmond's mental time skips were actually wrong (such as his vision that Claire, holding Aaron, would leave the island in a helicopter.)

A few viewers believed that LOST "jumped the shark" when it introduced the time travel story lines. In retrospect, that may be true. But the writers had the opportunity to make some plausible argument why time travel was an important part of the final season's conclusions, but they did not do so.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 7

The military used the island to store atomic weapons.
The Dharma construction on the island was a costly, secret science station.
The military style food drops continue even after Dharma was eliminated.
The Widmore conspiracies on the fate of Flight 815 smelled like the cover-up of cover-ups.

This led many to believe before Season 6 that there was a secret or shadow government as a major actor in LOST. Our government funds a wide range of research, development, health, safety, and weapons technologies. All those aspects of research found their way to the island. L.O.S.T. could be code for "Land Of Scientific Testings."

“It’s All a Government Experiment” theory proposes that all the characters have all been brought here for a purpose, and the island is functioning as an elaborate Skinner Box to gauge their reactions. If this were true, some of the inhabitants of the island, probably the Others, know that it is an experiment, because they have information about the castaways and the outside world.

The discovery of the various hatches and the sketchy Dharma Initiative, which is still delivering food to the island, lend credence to this theory. When you look at why the castaways are on the island you will see that each of them has been told to get the flight by someone else or someone else’s influence has had them make that flight. The characters were corralled onto Flight 815.

So how can a government agency "stage" a chaotic mid-air plane crash just to get passengers to the island so they can conduct experiments on them? With the survival of a mid-air break-up nil, the idea of "drugging" the passengers and taking them to the island "sound stage" is more likely. There is precedent for this in the show itself: when Juliet was drugged then put on board a submarine.

The various Dharma stations lend credibility to the theory. The Hatch was a monitoring station for the unique EM energy field. The Pearl was a place where psychological experiments were conducted on people. There was a medical research facility where electromagnetic activity on the island may have studied as a was the cure of Jin's infertility, Rose's cancer and Locke's paralysis.

Theorists explain that in Season 3's opening episode, with the bear cages, it is hard to argue that there is not an experiment going on there. Perhaps, the project began as experimental research on animals, but when the plane crashed the islanders were finally able to have access to research subjects that would model humans better than anything else- actual humans. They may have had sporadic subjects prior to this (Henry Gale, Desmond, etc) who seem also possible subjects. The  Dharma Initiative would have been the private contractor running the experiments. But then again, perhaps one experiment was how two different cultures, such as science and faith (the Others), would interact in a confined space (a litmus test for the Middle East perhaps).

Inman's involvement might also support this theory. When he was in Iraq with the US Marines, he tells Sayid his torturing skills will be useful later. He would later wind up on the island in the Hatch with Desmond.  He was the last person on the island with Desmond, and he may have carefully orchestrated the cover story of the "fake" 815 plane crash so Desmond could convince the survivors that rescue was never an option.

The series could center around experiments involving the Numbers, representative of
The Valenzetti Equation which predicts the exact number of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself.

During this Season 3 time frame, magazine interviews determined that  most of the LOST actors personally thought this was the premise to the show. Harold Perrineau Jr. said, "I'd always believed the whole government conspiracy thing was great and then I heard that was the boring choice, but I thought it was really cool. But that's been my favorite one so far."

If each person was handpicked to be on the island, that’s a whole lot of planning and coincidence. If, however, each person is there by chance, the theory may hold even more weight.

What do many government funded secret projects have in common? National defense. New technologies from making better soldiers to new weapons systems. Examples of high tech include the sonic fence, the smoke monster, and even the submarine (how many private companies have submarines?)

The experiment could have been as simple as trying to determine if soldiers (Sayid) and criminals (Kate, Sawyer) could re-establish themselves in society; whether they can turn back their own selfish standards to help a group meet certain goals.  It also could have been a ruse to send "dead" people through a dangerous experiment, such as the island as a time machine.

We saw that most of the research stations were closed or not functioning when 815 crashed on the island. However, that does not mean that the experiments stopped. Ben was still getting orders from a man called Jacob, his superior. Ben demanded lists, reports, information from his subordinates. He gave out deadlines. He demanded results. If the Dharma scientists were gone, why would Ben still be conducting research? The assumption is that the research never stopped.

But in the grand scheme of things, a government controlled island of human experiments did not give us any concrete results. What were the goals of the experiments? What were the results? Why were the main characters part of the experiment? If the main characters did not change their personal behavior, were the experiments a failure?

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 6

This is still a popular theory/explanation for LOST: Dreams.

The whole show was an elaborate dream in the mind of one character.

The most likely candidate to be the series Dreamer would be Hurley. He had mental issues. He was a loner. He liked fantasy elements such as comic books and Star Wars. During the early seasons, ABC requested script changes because the story line was getting too clear that it was all in Hurley's head. It was around the time of the "Dave" episode, where Hurley had a "real" imaginary friend who tried to get Hurley to change, to rebel, to escape from the mental hospital. Later on, Dave re-appears on the island to try to convince Hurley that nothing he is experiencing is real; the island is fake; everything happening to him is a false - - - he is still back at the mental hospital. Dave tries to convince Hurley that he is dreaming by trying to convince him to jump off a cliff. Hurley is just about ready to jump, when Libby stops him.

Now, we learned that Libby was also a mental patient in the same day room as Hurley. However, on the island, Hurley never recognizes her. This is very strange considering that Hurley is extroverted when he is in  the hospital. He feels safe and secure at Santa Rosa. This allows him to relax and let his mind wander. Why Libby does not introduce herself to Hurley as a fellow patient is mysterious. Does she have an ulterior motive to keep Hurley "on" the island? Is she a devil on one shoulder whispering in Hurley's head while Dave is on the other shoulder?

But even if Hurley was shy around women, he would have still known about Libby at Santa Rosa because the day room was small and open. And because of that fact, Libby would have been a memory, a character, in Hurley's own mind.

And Hurley's mind contains more fantasy than educational science. It appears that Hurley never went beyond high school. He was in dead end fast food career path. This would explain the "sci-fi" nature of the LOST universe, its inconsistent theories and scientific applications, because the source material is found inside Hurley's limited knowledge bank.

Hurley could have won the lottery in real life. He could have had the curse of the Numbers. He could have gone to Australia for answers. And when he got onto Flight 815 after his long trip, he would have seen all the passengers in their seats. It would have been stored in his short term memory. He had been reading a comic book about a polar bear on a tropical island. That also would have been stored in his short term memory. And when Hurley fell asleep during the long flight, he would use those elements to construct a fantasy tale about the island and his fellow passengers.

How can one cram six years of events into a 15 hour flight from Sydney to LA? It is easy because when a person dreams (REM sleep), a six minute dream may seem to last for hours. It is compressed imagery that the mind can process faster than in real life. But how can a person control his dreams to make complex stories? Researchers have found that some people can "set up" or manage their dreams by creating various stories, with or without themselves as main components. Other dreamers let their mind wander so they can experience new things or nightmares. Dream researchers believe that sleep is an important component to brain and human body functions. The rest period allows the physical body to recover from a day's work. The brain also needs time to "reboot" and organize itself. Many areas of the brain have less activity during sleep, while the creative side has an increase in activity.

Also, researchers believe that dreams play an important role in people's lives. Some believe that dreams help a person understand themselves. The dreams can be symbolic problem solving, taking real world issues and run various "solutions" that a person could remember and use in the future.

So it is possible that a person with an active imagination could dream a complex action-adventure in his sleep. And the clues that Hurley was being guided by Dave to free himself from the mental institution grasp parallel the grasp that the island had on him. Remember, Hurley is the last person on the island standing when the series ends. As such, Hurley could be considered the real man behind the curtain.

But that would be countered by the fact that the story ended in the sideways church, with Jack as the focal point. But, we do not know whether it was truly real. It could have been a reunion of Hurley's "imaginary friends" just as much as real friends.

There is a corollary to the Dream theory.  I once proposed that it was not one person's dream, but a "collective, interactive" dream with all the 815 passengers. It would have been caused by the plane flying over the unique electromagnetic energy of the island, which could have altered the dream patterns of the sleeping passengers (since the human brain uses neurons and electric pulses to function). Under this theory, a person "dies" on the island (dream state) when he or she wakes up and is no longer connected to group. This also follows the unexplained concept of "awakening" in the sideways world. Awaken from what? People only awake from sleep - - - deep sleep or even day dreams where your subconscious takes over from your conscious state.

Then there is a third dream theory which seems strange. Instead of the whole story being in the mind of Hurley, it was all in the mind of the one survivor of the plane crash, Vincent. Vincent was the first "character" to move the story line forward in the pilot, and he was the last actor moving into position at the end.

Researchers believe that some animals do have dreams. Most land mammals experience the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep where dreams mainly occur, but since they don’t keep dream journals, scientists tested rats to see what was going on in their brains when they slept. According to a 2001 report, MIT researchers Daniel Bedore and Matt Wilson placed trained rats on a track and monitored their brain activity while they moved towards their edible reward. They then monitored the rats’ brain activity while they were in a REM cycle. After examining the data, they saw that some activity in a sleeping rat’s brain matched some of its waking activity. The identical patterns led the scientists to believe that not only were the rats dreaming, they were dreaming about running on the track.
Dr. Stanley Coren, a psychology professor and neuropsychological researcher, writes in his book How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind, that dogs also dream. Like rats, dogs dream about common scenes they have experienced in their waking lives. Dr. Coren also notes that the smaller a dog is, the more it will dream: a small dog, such as a toy poodle, may dream once every ten minutes, while a dog as large as a mastiff or an Irish wolfhound may spend an hour and a half between each dream.

So, Vincent's laying down next to Jack at the end may have actually been the beginning after Vincent had surveyed the debris. Man's best friend trying to keep the dead passengers alive, at least in spirit.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 5

The producers were adamant that the characters were not dead, they were not in purgatory, and that the events on the island were real. That is what they said outside the context of the actual show. They never explained within the show those alleged facts. They have only painted a large canvas with gray mud.

But many people believed that the characters "Had to Be on the Island for a Reason."  Otherwise, what would be the point.

Supporters of this point of view try to connect the pre-island dots or interactions between the characters. Their conclusion is that all the survivors were fated, as John Locke has said, to be on the Flight 815, and to end up on the island. In other words, the island chose them to do something important.

No one has pieced together The Six Separations of Jack Shepherd but it would probably not be too difficult. Those with connections to Jack through his father included Ana Lucia as Christian's bodyguard and Sawyer as Christian's drinking buddy. The pre-island connections between castaways keep adding up. And incidents like Claire’s psychic convincing her to take the fatal flight (and playing a part in Eko getting on), Hurley making the flight despite all odds, Jack talking his way (or, his dad's body's way) on board and Sawyer getting deported lend a lot of support. But then again, it gets weak with characters like Sayid who had no connections to the US until he was deported from Australia after a botched CIA mission against his childhood friend.

The strong assumption is that every character we see seems to have had a reason for being on Flight 815 instead of other flights. But the reason why everyone had to be on the island was never stated to us.

First, we were led to believe that this was a mere survival story. "Lie together or die alone."
Then, we were led to believe that this was a rescue story with Michael's raft.
Then, we were led to believe that this was a story of conflict between the survivors and the Others, who claimed the island for themselves.
Then, we were led to believe that this was a story about human redemption in the face of cruel behavior, manipulation, threats and pain such as the conflicted decision of Jack to sacrifice himself to save others in exchange to heal Ben's condition.
Then, we were led to believe that the characters were needed to save the island from destruction, especially when it began to time skip.
Finally, we were led to believe that the characters were needed to save the world from MIB escaping the island.

Looking back,  the main characters never really accomplished any of those story lines. The characters ran around the island like rats in a laboratory maze. Any accomplishments were minor and short lived. Some leaders became followers, some followers became leaders, and many ended up as mere pawns.

The producers had said "there’s a rational, scientific explanation for everything that’s happened so far," was received with a lot of skepticism when the story lines turned toward new themes such as the faith and mysticism. The reason why the characters had to be on the island is still unknown. Statements such as to "fulfill their destiny" or "redeem themselves" don't make sense in the isolation of the island. The main characters on the island did not change their behavior much. Sayid came to the island as a torturer and died a tortured man. Kate came to the island as a escapee and escaped the island as a runaway from responsibility.

Evangeline Lilly once said, "Lost is a very big metaphor for every single character's mental state of being, psychological, and emotional state of being and we're on this island to be mentally, psychologically, and emotionally found. We were all chosen specifically because we will facilitate that for one another."

If the reason the characters were brought together for "group therapy," I think that reasoning would irk fans more than the purgatory theory.

Reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. There has to be good or obvious cause to do something: to survive, to get rescued, to work together to make a new society. The last season did not give our characters any reason to fight for or against Jacob and MIB. There was no goal or tangible reward for any character that was directly related to defeating MIB.

No logical presumptions support LOST's final conclusion. There needs to be a close connection between reason and emotion; what is right, practical, or possible.  Common sense dictates that we think, understand, and then form judgments by a process of analysis entirely from facts. The fact is that we still do not know what MIB/Flocke is/was. We still do not know why MIB could be "killed" when he was never human in the first place. And the finale "gotcha!" moment with Kate shooting MIB and Jack kicking him over the cliff did not resolve any emotional attachment between Jack and Kate. She left him to die alone.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 4

A lesser known theory about LOST was we could call today "Children at Play."

It is based upon fragmentary observations throughout the series about how children were used and perceived in the story lines. Overall, children were not well received or well established. Which was very odd considering one the key mid-point story lines centered around the infertility problem.

After the plane crash, there are only four new children to the island: Emma and Zach in the tail section group and Walt with unborn Aaron with Claire on the main beach camp. Of these four children, only Walt, the eldest, was called "special." He was the only one allowed to voluntarily leave the island.

Juliet was manipulated, coerced, kidnapped and taken to the island because she was a fertility expert. She had miraculously given her cancer patient sister a chance to conceive and give birth. Ben seemed to be obsessed with this problem, even though Alpert would remark to Locke that this was a waste of time and not part of the Others mission.

 But one of the shortest and most disturbing scenes from the tail section arc was the adult survivors hiding in fear in the brush when a group of ill-clad, bare foot  "Others" walked by who looked like a band of children. This led me to speculate that there actually could be two sets of Others - - - an adult band and a splinter tribe of children. This could be the reason why the adult Others like Ben were obsessed in finding a new source of children.

A band of children roaming the island brings to mind the classic story of The Lord of the Flies. That story has several similar themes to LOST, including power struggles, corruption, greed and the collapse of a loose island society.

But how the adults on the island acted was also very childlike. Locke had the naivety of a small child when he interacted with others in his group. Ben had the petty anger of a school yard bully. The love triangle story between Jack-Kate-Sawyer was very high school soap opera.

By the end of Season 5, we still did not know who were The Others, the original inhabitants of the island. We did not know if they had any real purpose except to kill off strangers on their island. But the Others had two factions: the post-Dharma Ben group who embraced the technology brought to the island, and the Alpert group who lived in nomadic tents in the fields. Again, it appears to be two school clicks.

The question raised is why if children were so important in the mission statement of the Others, why were they treated so badly by the Others. One reason could be that children treat other children badly because of their own immaturity.

Which leads to the premise that despite appearances, the island is made up of children "playing" castaway survivor. The clues are the common behaviors: in-fighting, control, temper, tantrums, and playing games. The original island inhabitants, being children, never wanted any more children to ruin their island. And when they mentally grew into young adults, and their attitude towards their themselves began to change, they were eliminated by rebellious children.

But how can children look like adults? That could be answered by the fact that the island's unique magnetic properties coupled with its time distortions could physically age children into bodies of adults, but their mental intelligence would lag far behind in development. 

One could look at it that Dharma represented the parental figures on the island while the Others were the wild, undisciplined children. Such symbolism would be in step with a major theme of the series: the daddy issues that many of the main characters had in their own backgrounds.

The structure of the series had the feel of kids in the backyard. There was a whole past generation of children who played outdoors instead of becoming video TV couch potatoes. Kids used to play with other kids in games like War, combat, capture the flag, baseball, football  - - -  using both imagination and athletic strength.  The island would be a wonderful playground for imaginative children.

It would explain all the inconsistencies in science and story continuity during the series. Children may have no knowledge how the real world or real science works. But their imagination can conjure up anything to "fix" a situation or opponent like the sonic fence, or the creation of the smoke monster. The island would give the children supernatural abilities to act out their own fantasies as adults. It may be why a few children, like Emma and Zach, did not want to play with the others. There are always wallflowers, loners and quiet children in the background of any group.

So how did all these children arrive at the island? If we look to the final season for a clue, we would find that they were probably kidnapped or captured by the island guardian. And what would happen to lost children over time? Children without guidance will have self-doubts about their worth. They would sting with rejection. They would "fight, destroy and corrupt." And this cycle appeared to last for centuries.

The one thing that this theory has that may help explain the sideways church reunion, where the souls reunited after people died long before and long after Jack, was nostalgia. If life is a full circle, the adult in most people find nostalgic memories of their childhood in their advanced old age. Why these good memories surface in elderly patients is not known. But many adults regret that the vast majority of their lives were spent working hard, problem solving, juggling financial and family issues to the point of simple romantic notion of the freedom and carefree times spent as children with their friends. If the main characters were in fact children, in a fantasy world of their own creation, they possibly could reunite in the after life if those innocent times were the best memories of their lives.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 3

In the next examination of the popular theories prior to Season 6, a lesser viewed notion that the series was about the Island as a mothership.

This theory ties in with the deep American notion that the Rosewell UFO story was true. And plays into the conspiracy theories that surround most government dark projects.

This theory speculates that the island is not an island. We know that the island does not act like a Pacific land mass: it moves, it cannot be seen from the air, it can disappear without displacing a gallon of ocean water, it moves through both time and space at different rates than Earth.

It was called a "snow globe" by Desmond because those on the island could not go through its outer invisible barrier.

Further, the high tech science experiments conducted on the island further bolstered the notion that the supernatural elements inferred that a supernatural race of beings were controlling everything from behind the curtain. In Star Trek, the episode called "The Cage" explored a superior intellectual race viewing human behavior by capturing several star ship crew members to observe human behavior. Likewise, some speculate that the "coincidence" that all the 815 passengers had past connections and/or common personal issues too good to be not forced together by a third party.

As a result, the main characters were “Abducted by Aliens.” The island is not part of Earth. It could be cloaked in a stealth mode between our time and the alien's time.  The survivors may no longer on Planet Earth, as the island is a space ship that re-creates Earth like a holodeck, so the aliens can take back these human beings as examples for further experimentation, or be part of an alien collection such as a zoo exhibit.

The smoke monster, as a high tech alien security system to keep the exhibit pieces on the island, is an explanation for the strange events on the island. It would appear that all the Dharma stations could have been set up to keep the human captives "busy" and pre-occupied so they don't realize that they have left their own solar system.

Early in the series run, Damon Lindelof shot down this theory.  “There are no spaceships. There isn't any time travel,” he told Sci-FiWire.com. However, he also indicated that there was no purgatory, but the cast wound up in purgatory in the end. The series also featured both mental and physical time travel by various characters. The showrunners have always been inconsistent with their defense of the series against fan speculation to the point of being obstructionist. Again, there would have been nothing wrong with a premise that the 815 survivors were "captured" by aliens as the plane was about to crash into the ocean and teleported to their island cage for human behavioral experimentation. In fact, such a premise would actually lead the characters to rebel against a "real" foe instead of the illusory Jacob-MIB stand-off.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 2

In the next installment of popular pre-Season 6 theories includes the collective notion that the characters have fallen by accident into a time rift.

There are many clues which supported this theory: the fact the island's time was different than the freighter's; that the light refracted differently on the island than on the sea; that the rocket experiment showed a major difference in both space and time (as the results indicated that the island was moving away from the freighter, perhaps going faster than the rotation of the earth because of a time shift); that several characters began to time skip while on the island; that Ben traveled off the island by turning the FDW but to arrive at a different date in the Arab desert; and that the island was "difficult" or impossible to find.

A few commentators tried to establish a purpose for this Earth bound time anomaly.  Why was the island so important that powerful men would kill in order to control it? And why was the military and science community (Dharma) so eager to set up stations on the island?

When viewers realized that the Numbers may represent the The Valenzetti Equation which is the mathematical equation developed by the reclusive Princeton University mathematician Enzo Valenzetti.  It was created following the Cuban Missile Crisis by the United States and the Soviet Union to find a solution to the hostility and danger of imminent global disaster created by the Cold War. The equation was secretly commissioned through the UN Security Council and is used to predict the time of human extinction.

According to the 1975 orientation film,  the Valenzetti Equation "predicts the exact number of years and months until humanity extinguishes itself."

Some propose that the island was the receiver for messages from mankind's future. The island had to straddle the time continuum of the present and the future in order to send/receive information.

As such, some speculate that some major disaster has happened in the future, and those in the future have managed to alert some people in the past by sending messages back in an attempt to prevent it. These futurists were attempting to alter the island present in tiny ways hoping that it will cause a chain reaction that will eventually lead to the prevention of the disaster. The theory believes that everyone on the island has a part, big or small, to play in eventually stopping this future disaster.

Because the island has a strange magnetic field,  futurists are able to focus their messages to the island so they can be understood by a less advanced human race. As such, they may have used symbolic meaning for complex subject matter, which may have led to a series strange things happening, such as the creation of the smoke monster from the messages or memories of those human receivers in the past.  The power to hear what could only be perceived as messages from the heavens may have been  discovered by Dharma, or possibly the original Others.

To some these future messages are just images, random things like the numbers appearing on objects. Other people can understand the messages better, such as the Others on the Island and possibly those on Jacob's  List. To the chosen ones,  the messages may be clearer. The chosen ones may be in a position to decode the messages in order to the disaster.

Ramping up to Season 6,  the issue of past and present and time have become quite important, especially with Desmond's developing story arc of having time flashes into the future.  Sub-conscious messages from the future could also explain how certain characters and supporting characters seem to know what is going to happen, or why everyone in the show appears to be some how connected.

The future disaster may have  something to do with fertility. The Others have always seemed interested in children, especially Claire's baby. In Season 3,  we were shown a scan of a 27 year old woman with the womb of a 70 year old.

The Others keep saying they are "the good guys," which could mean that they God's chosen people to receive his messages to save mankind. They at least believe that they are doing good work. The List they have might be warning about who is useful in preventing the disaster, or who might cause the disaster. It opens the spiritual context to the show.

The concept that LOST could have been centered around alien messages (as opposed to aliens themselves) is a good sci-fi basis in which to develop a complex story line. However, we are never told what the future "disaster" is that our heroes need to prevent. No one in the series explains to us the messages other than the vague excuse "this is what Jacob wants."  We will learn that the immortal Jacob is the island's guardian, but he does not divulge anything about the future to the island inhabitants. He is only concerned about finding his successor. It is sort of like a lonely light house keeper trying to trick another individual to take his place on a cold rock so he could escape his island prison. It may be noble work; but it is not rewarding to the light house keeper.

If the future messages were sent to create change for the planet, none of the main characters had the ability to make any global impact. Yes, a few were wealthy like Sun or Widmore, but they did not show any humanitarian purpose in their actions surrounding the island. And as Season 6 would unfold, the time angle of the series became moot. There was no great cry to save the human race from destruction. It was a temperate plea not to let Flocke escape the island, for some unexplained reason. Even if Flocke represented the devil who would be unleashed on mankind, there was plenty of back story evil in the world that that event would not make much of a difference one way or the other.

It is clear this sci-fi theory did have roots in the early plot lines of the series, but in the end science fiction was cast to the curb and not a factor in the main characters personal story endings.

REVIEW: THEORIES PART 1

For the next few posts, we will review the popular theories that the LOST community thought were important as the final season was about to begin for our island castaways.

The first, and probably least popular theory was Purgatory.

The barrier to acceptance of the theory by a vast majority of viewers was a) the people looked alive and so they survived the plane crash; b) they were alive because people "died" on the island; and c) viewers wanted to vicariously "live" through their favorite characters.

This fourth wall in television may have led to some viewer confusion and bitterness when the series ended in the sideways world church.

The purgatory theme was what many people immediately thought of when the pilot episode ended. It was based upon several critical observations. First, it was highly unlikely that the passengers would have survived a plane break up at 35,000 feet. Second, there were inconsistent injury patterns such as the lack of broken bones on impact. Third, the plane's engine which was disconnected from its wing (and fuel) source continued to run. Fourth, John Locke miraculously could walk again. Fifth, Rose's cancer pain was cured. One can only release the physical pain and constrictions of injury or disease in the after life.

Further clues include the dramatic demise of passenger Gary Troup who was sucked into the mysterious still active jet turbine. His name was an anagram for "purgatory."

Throughout the series, there were many clues that the main characters were actually dead. When Naomi arrived on the island and was told that the survivors of Flight 815 were present, she was in shock. She told them they found the plane wreckage, and they were "all dead."

Purgatory, which is a different realm than life on earth, would explain why women cannot give birth to children conceived on the island.

Further, the appearance of the smoke monster, a dark nebulous mass of evil, is a statement on where the characters are located, in an after life state.

Also in the episode “The Brig” when Sawyer asks John’s father, Anthony Cooper, how he got to the island, he explains that he was in a car accident and the next thing he knew, he was tied to a chair and gagged and looking at his “dead son," John Locke. Sawyer asks if he thought Locke was dead because he threw him out of a window and Cooper replies: “He’s dead because a plane he was flying on crashed in the Pacific.” Sawyer doesn’t believe him, then Cooper says: “If this isn’t hell, friend…then where are we?”

In “A Man Behind The Curtain”, there are a few things that support the purgatory theory. One is when Young Ben sees his mother, who died when he was born, on the island. Another is that when we see Richard in Ben’s flashbacks, he appears to be the same age. We would learn that Richard crashed on the island, was attacked by the smoke monster and became "immortal" which could be a synonym for "dead."  Also, Jack sees his dead father and Kate sees her dead horse on the island.

Many people do not believe that the sideways world was "confirmation" of the island purgatory. They point to the position that people left the island and returned to their old pre-crash lives. However, as the clue in the marina stated, all the post-island events could have been illusions. Besides, it is clear that the sideways world ALL of the characters were dead. When they all died is open to interpretation.

In the the purgatory theory, everyone on the island is actually dead and their actions on the “island” determine where they end up: heaven or hell. In order to help in the "soul sorting" process, people on the island have a serious set of common issues in which they have to figure out both alone and in the group dynamic. The island gives the souls a proving ground for redemption.  Now, some religious students disagree that the island would function as a purgatory since teachings indicate souls in leave Purgatory will leave for  heaven - no one in Purgatory goes to hell it is a period of purgation of sin before facing God not an in between place with an option for heaven or hell.

But in the context that the sideways church represents all facets of religions, there is a hybrid or literary reasoning behind the purgatory theory.

In Dante Alighieri's, The Divine Comedy, the author describes heaven (paradiso), hell (the inferno), and purgatory (purgatorio). He provides a diagram of purgatory. The first thing you enter when you come to purgatory is called "The Island." Perhaps this is where the survivors are. The ones who have died (Boone, Shannon, etc.) have moved on to the other levels of purgatory after being "purified" on the Island. Dante had to wash the stains of hell from his face and the film of hell's vapors form his eyes. This could be all of the bad things that the survivors have done. It seemed that whenever a character had redeemed themselves, they "died." This could have been because they had cleansed themselves and were moving on to the next level.

For example, according to Dante, greedy people go to the fifth terrace of purgatory where they are forced to lay face down on the ground and are unable to move. Nikki & Paulo (done in by their own greed) end up being buried alive while paralyzed.

So it is possible to view the Island has a series of hellish levels of post-life existence for the main characters to traverse (which is similar to the ancient Egyptian ritual writings that a soul must pass through a dangerous journey in the underworld in order to be judged then reach paradise.)

Many people, including the writers and producers of the show, are adamant that the show was not set in purgatory. But where did the show actually end up in the Finale?  There is nothing to say that when the characters "died" on the island, they were "created" in the sideways holding realm until their souls could work out their moral issues and "remember" their own demise and judgment.

There is also no rule against having a show about souls running the gauntlet of the underworld seeking personal salvation. See, Dante's master work above. But since TPTB said this was not purgatory after Season 1, people believed them. But the entire show was about lies, deceit, betrayal, misdirection and mistrust. Why believe the TPTB who had a vested interest in keeping the audience for Season 2?

Based upon the show's ending, the purgatory theory continues to be the most plausible explanation for the supernatural elements of the island events and location.

ELEMENTAL ASPECTS

In any grand storytelling, the main characters are pushed along by events in order to come to some final revelation or conclusion to the ills that had befallen them. The means of moving the story along is through the use of secondary characters, interesting settings, conflict, actions encouraging reaction and resolution.

We know how LOST ends. But what were the fundamental or core elements in the six seasons that made that conclusion possible. As millers would say, one has to separate the wheat from the chafe.

The final scenes involve two different places: the sideways church and island. Were they both critical to the resolution of the characters fates? Yes and no.

The church was used as the meeting place for the lost souls who found themselves in friendship and common adventure. They had to "wait" until Jack arrived, and apparently the only way to get Jack to the church was to stage his father's funeral. The reunion could have occurred anywhere in fake LA, at the concert or at the hospital. What the church provided was some symbolism that the main characters were dead.

The island was used as the back drop for most of the conflict, terror, betrayal, learning lessons and bonding moments between the main characters. Was the island itself a necessary aspect of the conclusion? Could one have used a different setting to bring together the characters together to ward off supernatural plot lines? Perhaps, but the use of a "plane crash" as the impetuous to throw diverse characters together in one perilous group was a good dramatic choice.

So there is some valid reasons that the island and the church were used to develop and end the LOST saga.

Then, we must peel back the need for all the characters present at the church. Were they necessary parties to conclude the story?  Doubtful.

Now most religions, agnostics, and spiritualists cannot believe that there is nothing after one dies. Since human beings are highly intelligent but cannot answer the fundamental questions of their own existence, the conclusion is that there has to be a greater being, a greater purpose or "something" else when one's mortality ends. What is next is unknown, and a great many writers throughout history have given their speculative prose on the subject. But the LOST writers did not. We were bathed in the white light wash of nothingness; no explanation what was next for the characters.

If you believe the story was really Jack's story, then meeting his father was a "key" resolution. But even at the meeting at the coffin, there is very little interaction or resolution to their personal conflicts or bitterness. Once it is known that they are dead, nothing seemed to matter to them. All one's cares, emotional baggage or regrets vanish when you are dead (is that the lesson of the series?) So if this was Jack's story, it could have ended with Christian taking Jack into the church to meet his mother or other family members to move on together, as family, into the after life.

But that did not happen. When Jack enters the nave of the sideways church,  he is greeted by Locke, who kindly tells him, "We've been waiting for you." He then greets Desmond, Boone, Hurley, Sawyer and Kate. Joining them are Charlie, Claire, Aaron, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Shannon, Rose, Bernard, Juliet, Libby and Penny. Along with Christian, these are the only characters who find their end.

Why were all these people in the church "more" important to Jack than say, his mother, or his hospital colleagues, or any friend from his childhood? This aspect of the conclusion literally wipes out the meaning and consequence of all the back stories, and all the back story secondary character involvement in the plots.

The writers probably thought that many viewers had emotional connections with the various characters so they needed to give those viewers some closure in the final scenes. This catch-all type of sentimental ending is a growing trend in American entertainment. In  recent American entertainment, characters act like clowns, fools, and unlikable jerks only to turn icky sentimental in the last reel.When main characters like that have a sentimental, happy conclusion for no apparent reason, the viewers become lost.

To conclude Jack's story,  did Christian, Locke, Desmond, Boone, Hurley, Sawyer, Kate, Charlie, Claire, Aaron, Jin, Sun, Sayid, Shannon, Rose, Bernard, Juliet, Libby and Penny have to be there at the church?

Rose and Bernard: no. This couple's real connection was between themselves. They did not Jack or the others to find happiness or peace. On the island, they went off on their own to get away from those people. Clearly, Rose and Bernard's presence at the church was unnecessary, immaterial and counter-intuitive to the characters own actions.

Sayid and Shannon: no. Besides the fact that Sayid pined for another woman throughout the series, there was no connection with Shannon to any other character, including her brother Boone. Sayid was a second class citizen to an outcast in the survivor beach group. He turned evil in the end, so his presence is no support to Jack's awakening or conflict resolution.

Desmond and Penny: no. Desmond tried desperately to get away from the island and the people who were there. He was not part of the 815 group. He was a loner who only wanted to have one person in his life, Penny. And when he did, he cut all ties to the O6 crew. Penny had no connection with anyone else at the church. So like Rose and Bernard, their presence at the church resolves nothing in the Jack story.

Jin and Sun: no. Like the other married couples, Jin and Sun led an isolated existence on the island. Sun made a slight connection with Kate, but not enough to call her a close friend. Jin's only connection to the group was his loyalty to Sawyer, during the time skip to 1970s Dharmaville. It would seem that Jin and Sun would more likely find final comfort with themselves and their child in the after life than at Christian's funeral.

Charlie, Claire and Aaron: maybe. If this was about Jack's passing, then his step-sister has a place but during the course of the series she was odd footnote in Jack's life. But then again, if this weak "family" tie brings this sub-group to Jack's conclusion, where is Jack's mother? She was more important in his life than Claire or Charlie.

Hurley and Libby: maybe. Jack had no connection with Libby. She is only deemed Hurley's "reward" for being a good person. Hurley himself had an odd relationship with Jack. He was a follower. He was also the butt of Jack's irrational wrath at times.  One cannot say they were ever as close as blood brothers. But since Hurley was such a beloved character by fans, he had to be present at the end, smiling to the camera as if to say to the audience "everything is cool."

Locke, Boone and Juliet: no. If Locke was a symbol of Jack's professional failings, then there should have been other patients with greater impact on his life present at the church than Locke. Boone was a true island medical failure - - - Jack could not save him. If Boone represents the regret or guilt of Jack, then that has no place in a sentimental wash of resolution conflict with his father. Juliet was one of Jack's tormenters in both existences: as an island captor and in the sideways world as his ex-wife. She only had a passing connection with Jack so her presence in the church does not add element of resolution conflict in the Jack story.

Sawyer: a probable yes. If there was any rival in Jack's life (besides his father), then it was Sawyer. Sawyer brought out the best and worst in Jack's personality. Sawyer's actions led to Jack turning away from his scientific, analytic anal retentive ways to turn into a human being. That being said, Sawyer was not by Jack's side fighting the final battle. So, Sawyer's presence at Jack's after life launch may be puzzling but could have its place in the broad specter of Jack's character growth.

Kate: an improbable yes. If Jack's story boils down to a love story, he winds up with the flippant Kate. Why the light switch turns on for Kate when there back story is filled with troubled times is another one of those wishy-washy boilerplate endings that many people loathe. Why was Kate of all the women characters in the series, the "right one" for Jack? And why did Kate wind up with Jack when she was married to and in love with a Florida policeman (and to our knowledge, never divorced). Even non-Kate haters hated this aspect of the ending. The only explanation was that Kate "saved" Jack by shooting Flocke. But even in that emotional moment, Kate did NOT stay by Jack's side. She fled the island. So where was that everlasting connection?

So, if one really wanted to focus in on Jack being the story of the series, the final resolution could have happened anywhere - - - surrounded by Christian and/or Kate. The rest of the ending presents conflicting and more unanswered questions.

If the sideways world was a mirror image of what the characters truly wanted in their lives, Jack's mission statement of "Live Together or Die Alone," has the aspect in the conclusion of one "Die Together or Live Alone."

REBOOT: EPISODES 1-4

A four hour G4-TV block of LOST viewing is more daunting than first realized; plot information overload happens as bits and pieces of the character’s backstories are jumbled together with island mysteries in the context of knowledge of the series conclusion. However, it has led to some new observations, new clues and a new theoretical understanding of the show which makes a new dynamic storyline for the series.

Reboot: Episodes 1-4: Days 1-6 on the Island

Recap: Oceanic Flight 815 from Sydney to LA is 1,000 miles off course when it breaks a part in a mid-air disaster, crashing to earth on a mysterious deserted Pacific Island. The 48 survivors gather around the destruction on the beach, in shock, and many are horrified by the dying and death around them.

The survivors of a plane crash have to get over the accident and collaborate to stay alive in a dangerous, mysterious island in South Pacific. They quickly encounter an unseen but destructive creature in the jungle (Smoke Monster).  On a hike to try to transmit a distress call, Kate, Charlie, Sawyer, Sayid, Boone and Shannon agree to keep the French transmission that jams all other frequencies secret from the other castaways. Locke organizes a hunting party with Kate and Michael. Locke’s background story reveal he came to Australia for a spiritual retreat.

Science: Can a human free fall from 40,000 feet and survive? A human being reaches terminal velocity of 122 mph in 1880 feet. The 815 passengers and crew would be plummeting to the island at a great rate of speed. In 1972, a stewardess survived a 33,000 plane explosion because she was wedged between a seat, trolley and another person, and she landed on a snowy Czech hillside and slid into a stop, effectively diminishing the impact forces of the free fall. It is the impact that counts. Popular Mechanics stated the only way to remotely survive a free fall from high altitude is “debris riding,” meaning that if you are in or on plane debris, it will decelerate your fall and take some of the impact. It is the de-acceleration that kills; water is the worst substance to land on because it has the density of concrete. The statistics show survival from falls to be extremely remote. Fifty percent of children die from 5 story falls or less. In recent history, plane accidents over the open ocean have left zero survivors. In later episodes, we get the plane crash from The Others perspective, which shows a “different” plane crash scenario than in the first episode; the plane seems much closer to the ground upon mid-plane separation and at a level flight path than original in-cabin viewpoint, and the separation appears in the middle and not in three pieces. (Whether this new shot was somehow made to lessen the first criticisms of the that all the passengers would not have survived a plane crash at 40,000 is unknown.) In all recent mid-air break ups of airplanes, there have been no survivors.

In other plane flashbacks, we can observe that the turbulence rocks the plane down at near 45 degree angle. Approximately 50 seconds later, the plane. A descent at 340 feet/second for a plane at 500 mph would mean the plane could have dropped 17,000 feet. As a result, the break up would have happened at approximately 23,000. However, this still means the passengers would be falling to the ground at speeds of more than 120 mph. Survival of even one passenger is remote - - - but 48 is not realistic.

Improbabilities: On the beach, a jet engine separated from the plane wing continues to run at full throttle. This is impossible as the fuel and power supply was already been severed from the engine. The impact on the actual engine should have exploded the engine and fan blades into shards. The idea of the running engine was purely a fiction to support the horror of a ‘survivor” being sucked through the turbines to a create a dramatic, gruesome death. It is one thing to suspend “disbelief” and accept the survivors of a plane crash, it is another to defy basic mechanical engineering to create a explosive action scene.

This leads to the early conclusion that the series is science fiction based drama. The early mysteries and show themes set the stage for future episodes:

Mysteries:

1. The Island
2. The Smoke Monster
3. The Signal
4. Dead Father in the Jungle

Themes:

1. Personal egos; people think they know more than they really do.
2. Overcoming Fear
3. Games people Play; Black and White sides
4. Manipulation of People, Souls
5. “Miracles”
6. Lies, Secrets and Trust Issues
7. Main characters really have no true friendships; loners

Clues:

When Jack tells Kate that it does not matter what they did before the plane crash (“I don't want to know. It doesn't matter, Kate, who we were - what we did before this, before the crash. It doesn't really... 3 days ago we all died. We should all be able to start over.”) was this the series’ Big Tell: that the characters are dead in reality but somehow alive on the island? As we know, only people Jacob wants come to the Island (usually by some horrible accident like the Black Rock’s monumental ship wreck, Rousseau’s party’s ship wreck or Desmond being lost at sea).

Discussion:

Since Jacob is the gatekeeper for anyone who arrives at the Island (to the dismay of his brother, The Man in Black), why the 815 souls were brought to the Island is the core question that needs to be rationally answered. It is not really if or why they survived the crash, because in certain respects it is irrelevant (Christian’s circular explanation to Jack in Eloise’s church in The End that their dead-sideways world and the Island time were “both real” is humanly impossible).  As with numerous future references to Time, our understanding of Life itself is a linear construct: one is conceived, one is born, one lives and then one dies. The circle of life. But in some ancient cultures (including the Egyptians who would later come to dominate religious symbolism in the series) believed that Life did not end on Earth, but each person’s soul began a long journey through the afterlife (including possibility several layers of the underworld; to be worked, tested and then judged before passing on to the next level of existence).

The Big Premise Revisited:

The original premise of LOST was 48 plane crash survivors trapped on a mysterious and dangerous Pacific Island. How the characters were survive this Robinson Caruso-Survivor reality show meets Jurassic Park sci-fi setting would be the main story engine for the show. But if we downplay the survivor elements, we are left with fantasy elements as the foundation for the show. 

If we put LOST in the context of a maze, things may be more plausible in the end. A maze is a puzzle with dead ends. It tests a person’s mind, logic and spirit. Corn mazes are still popular in rural areas. Ancient people have used natural deception to fool their enemies. Pagan Britons build Maiden Castle with a series of ramparts and mounds to create a maze to guard their hill fort. Their enemies would be confused by the winding paths and unable to find the main gates of the fort. If we apply the context of a maze to Jacob’s motivations for the Island characters, do we find clearer meaning of the action in the first four hours of LOST?

Magic/Supernatural/Elements:

The wheelchair bound Locke now has regained full use of his legs as a result of the crash while being rebuffed on his Australian spiritual retreat.  We will learn later that Rose believes her cancer has been cured by the Island. How can that happen? Some postulate that the unique electromagnetic field could act upon human tissues to regenerate nerves or destroy cancer cells. Others postulate that “carbon copies” of the survivors were created by the magic of the Island for the amusement of its guardians, Jacob and his brother, The Man in Black. Purgatory theorists believed that combined with Egyptian themes, the characters died in the plane crash, but their bodies and souls were separated into different forms (or realms including the sideways) in order to travel in the afterlife paths of redemption). Themes emerge in regard to life and death; personal miracles, second chances;  and trust issues.

Last Lines from each episode:

EP 1: CHARLIE: [pointing up to the pilot in the tree] Guys? How does something like that happen?

EP 2: CHARLIE: Guys. Where are we?

EP 3: JACK: Okay.

[Hurley listening to his headphones. Jin looking at a sleeping Sun, touching her hair. Boone gives sunglasses to Shannon. Sayid tosses Sawyer an apple. Charlie writing "late" on his finger tapes. Claire sitting on the beach. Michael bringing Vincent to Walt with Locke looking on—nice song fades to creepy music.]

EP 4: CLAIRE: Millicent Louise D'Agostino. Teaneck, New Jersey.

[Shot of fuselage on fire. Locke looks over at the wheelchair and smiles.]

The endings of each episode tell us something important about the current path of the series: what is the monster?; what is the Island?; even bad human relationships can show kindness; and evil can hide in plain sight.

New Ideas/Tests of Theories:

When watching the first four hours of LOST, I was struck by several small points that could easily be glossed over as trivial but may have real substance in trying to find a universal theory to explain Everything. When the series first started, we are led to believe that the Island is merely a deserted Pacific Island. Later in the series, we are told that the Island is a “snow globe,” that is is moving, that it is hard to find, with strange light properties, and that Time itself can be altered by turning the Frozen Donkey Wheel. 

We also were told that the Island contains a Life Force that is a part of everyone and everything. We learn that the Life Force was being guarded first by the Crazy Mother (who was not the first guardian), and then by Jacob. But what is the Island itself? Clearly, is the Land of the Smoke Monsters. Monster(s) because the idea of immortality and ability to shape shift matter (MIB turning into Evil Locke) is the key component to how the Island operates.

And it appears that the Smoke Monster(s) can inhabit, possess, or reincarnate a human body (Evil Locke) and also change appearance (from smoke to humanoid form). A new theory emerges from the first four hours: the Island is the home of a small group of Smoke Monsters. As with any species, they need to feed and breed. They bring doomed souls to the Island, to manipulate events in order to feed off their emotions and fears. They possibly take over the souls by a slow “infection” until a soul surrenders and is transformed into a new smoke being (like Crazy Mother taking Jacob and MIB from their real mother and transforming them into smoke beings). From this context, we suddenly have a new perspective on the series: a new LOST, from the perspective of the supernatural beings.

There appears to be four main smoke beings on the Island. The first is spying on the survivors from the jungle. It is either Jacob or Crazy Mother (who did the same when the Romans arrived) as Vincent. How else can one find out information about the captives but to infiltrate the camp in a way as not to draw suspicion. Information contained from the collective memories of all the souls who have been brought to the Island creates the Island elements. For thousands of years the smoke beings have learned about human emotion, intelligence, egos and manipulation. The guardians own character could be that of tricksters, immortal child like super-beings in a setting of The Lord of the Flies. They see their life as a series of games between themselves with the lost souls as their game pieces.

The other smoke being is Jacob’s brother, MIB, who I now believe inhabited Locke’s body when he awoke on the beach. This is a major revelation while re-watching the first four episodes of the series.

 By taking over Locke’s body, MIB had access to all Locke’s memories and his dreams/fantasies of being an Outback Hunter. MIB had not been in a human body for so long, he is amazed by its function, including the ability to walk. We think it is just Locke sensing his "miracle," but it can be also MIB finally being able to get back into a human form. In human form, MIB gets to experience the human frailties of the physical human condition (like adrenaline) but also wrestle with the mental aspects of decedent’s personality and free will.  When we see Locke’s face, it contains the scar over the eye; in ancient Egyptian culture, The Eye of Ra was part of the ancient rituals of the afterlife. We see the mood of Locke centric episodes turn to a evil pallor as he stands off to the side “watching” the survivors in camp. He has the same expression will we see later on in the series as Evil Locke in Season 6.  And how better to feed off their survivors panic like from the boar attack than experiencing it with them by being right in the middle of their camp. We also see a tell on MIB’s shape shifting ability, as he creates a vision of Jack’s dead father at the tree line. As Jack comes to investigate, he runs into Locke dragging a dead boar back to camp. Too coincidental not to be an MIB manipulation.

Remember, Kate returned with an injured Michael believing Locke was dead because the monster was heading straight for him. We saw that Locke merely stood his ground and looked up at it. Later in the show, Locke says he looked at the monster and “saw the Island.”  What we could theorize is that Locke looked up and saw one of his own kind; as Crazy Mother had ruled thousands of years earlier, the brothers could not kill each other. It may be true than no smoke being can destroy another. It also brings into consideration that the smoke beings may be able to divide into several different forms at the same Island time frame (one human being, one smoke being). For if they can manipulate matter at will, in reality or by illusion, then they could literally be in two places at once.

On another hike, Kate and her group are chased by a monster. A familiar theme of a survivor running desperately through the underbrush away from the monster clearly creates an emotionally charged situation. When Kate hides inside the banyan tree roots, she breaks down and cries out for Jack. But Jack had gone back to save Charlie. In some ancient cultures, the banyan tree and its roots were a sanctuary that could ward off evil spirits. By running into the tree roots, Kate was safe. (This repeated itself later when Juliet and Kate hid from the monster in tree roots). It may also explain why the smoke monster destroys trees. The "rules" of the Island may have clear boundaries or safe zones.

After Kate returned to camp, there was one line that really rang out as odd but telling: Kate said in explaining the encounter with the Smoke Monster, “he” got Locke. How would Kate know the Smoke Monster was a “he?” Shouldn’t she have said “it” got Locke? Then with the fact that Kate returned the broken antenna to Sayid, really in the form of sabotage, we learn that Kate really does not want to leave the Island. Yes, we know that Kate is a fugitive, but she was a born "runner." However, could it be possible that Kate in this form “cannot” leave the Island (as MIB would state later in the show). The Island may be a preserve or a prison for the smoke creatures. They may be able to create vast complex sets (like Star Trek episode “The Cage.”) After this mission, Kate no longer seems emotional; but more cunning and even manipulative as she gets Sawyer to attempt to kill the Marshal. So the question becomes, was Kate “infected” or is she really another smoke being - - - perhaps Crazy Mother? It fits one personality flaw that both characters had: mother issues and the repulsion on how to be a mother. I am not certain, but it would be a plot twist of sinister complexity since Kate is on all the missions and secrets of the castaways, and later pits Jack against Sawyer in order to experience their emotional roller coaster.

Then, there is one more possible Smoke Monster inhabiting the body of a survivor. Who else could immediately stop the rain when Michael said that when the rain stopped, he’d go out and look for his dog? Walt, who throughout the show were are told is “special,” clearly had the ability to manipulate the environment in order to get Michael into the jungle. And once in the jungle, a creature chased him into small clearing where Sun was partially naked. This chase scene will create personal danger and tension between Michael and Sun’s husband, Jin, who is a over-bearing and jealous man. Did Walt set up Michael in order to kill him off? We also saw Walt reading a comic that contained a menacing polar bear. Later, we see a polar bear attack a group on a mission hike. Walt clearly wants to stay on the Island (or again, cannot leave it) so he will later sabotage the escape raft. The evidence is strong that Walt is possessed or is a smoke being. Who has the power to create such “magic?” Jacob.

The symmetry of Locke (MIB) and Walt (Jacob) playing backgammon on the beach is a mirror image of later seasons of the two playing Senet on the beach thousands of years earlier. Senet is one of the oldest board games known to man. In ancient Egypt, Senet had become a kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism, it was believed that a successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the national pantheon: Ra, Thoth and Osiris.  Consequently, Senet boards were often placed in the grave alongside other useful objects for the dangerous journey through the afterlife. And this symmetry and afterlife gamesmanship sets the tone for the real, underlying premise of LOST.

Viewing the show from the theory perspective that Jacob, MIB and their Crazy Mother are existing characters inhabiting major roles from the beginning of series is something I never thought of until yesterday. It makes sense. Why else would you bring human souls to the Island unless you planned on interacting with them. A child plays with his toys when the package is opened, just as Jacob and his fellow beings are playing with the 815 survivors.