Dharma Secret’s LOST-n-Found: A Blog Dedicated to the T.V. Show Lost

From EW.com:

Oh, for the days when the Tailies first appeared on Lost and I would think to myself, ‘’Wow, that’s a lot of new characters to keep track of.'’ Or maybe I said it out loud; I don’t remember. If many of those castaways hadn’t been killed (RIP, Nathan, Cindy, Libby, and Ana), I wouldn’t have room in my brain to give a Smokey’s snarl about Juliet, Carl, Colleen, Danny, and Ben. This season it’s raining Others, but for the love of Kelvin, what are they all doing?

We’re definitely filling up on 31 flavors of who, when what we really need is more why. There’s the forced labor at the construction site, Alex hiding in the bushes to ask about Carl, and Ben’s voyeur routine inside the Hydra. And why haven’t we seen the Other called Ms. Klugh since last year? Did she free Hurley and fall off the pier?

Of course, I don’t crave answers only about the O’s. Why does Sayid, an experienced soldier, make remarkably boneheaded plans for signal fires and stakeouts and the like — then top it off by taking a pregnant woman on a nocturnal trek through the jungle? When did that become a smart idea? With every fiber of his tank top, our brooding alpha male obviously wants revenge more than he wants to save the day. I’m holding out for a hero, but I’m casting my hopes elsewhere — perhaps Hurley will step up. Or Locke. Or Rose. (It could happen. She’s magicky.)

This episode, ‘’The Glass Ballerina,'’ belonged to Sun and her flashbacks. As a privileged little girl, she had no problem telling big lies. (She blamed the housekeeper for breaking that figurine even after her father warned her the maid would be fired as a result.) Perhaps cultivating a skill at deception gave her a sense of power in a stifling environment. I wonder if Sun went forth in life burying guilt or simply not experiencing very much of it. It was the beautiful opening shot of the ballerina falling to the floor that gave me the saddest insight into Sun’s life: A dancer, like anyone, needs freedom of movement. But the glass ballerina is frozen, manipulated by an artist into one perfect position — destined to be nothing but a pretty object whose only possibility of change is to be shattered. (Cue the shattering.)

The big Sun revelation is her baby daddy’s identity. A prior flashback already told us Jin (unbeknownst to him) was the sterile one in the marriage, and now, a new flashback of Sun in bed with Jae Lee leads us to conclude her baby is Jae’s. Yunjin Kim was fantastic in the scene where Sun’s father finds her in her lover’s bed and brusquely departs to settle the matter in his own manipulative, murderous way. I’d love to know whether Jae did actually jump (from room 1516, did you notice?) and whether Sun blames Jin for Jae’s death, despite Jin’s last-minute display of mercy. Or did she follow Jin to the hotel and trigger the suicide by rejecting Jae, whose dead hand was clutching the pearls he had bought for Sun?

Aboard Desmond’s sailboat, Sun’s burgeoning self-confidence resulted in violence below deck when she was confronted by the militant Other named Colleen (Danny’s apparent paramour). Before taking a bullet to the gut, she startled Sun by calling her by her full name and claiming there were five Others on board, adding, ‘’We are not the enemy.'’ Sun, unconvinced, shot her anyway. Jin and Sayid raced toward the sound of gunfire, which may fall under that previously mentioned category of boneheaded behavior (but I’m not a soldier). And, recalling the season 1 finale when all hell broke loose on the raft, Jin dove into the ocean and swam himself silly, this time looking for his wife. Their dog-paddly reunion was sweet, but once they got onshore, I caught a moment when Jin’s touch seemed to upset Sun more than comfort her.

The lives of the three captives remained miserably oppressive. Kate and Sawyer were marched to a construction site (are the Others really building something, or was it another day in the neighborhood of make-believe?) to dig up and haul rocks. On impulse, or to provoke their guards, Sawyer flouted a ‘’no physical contact'’ rule by passionately kissing Kate. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to cheer Kate up or advance their relationship; it only caused the stun-gun-happy Others to go ballistic. Still, being near Kate seems to intoxicate Sawyer lately. When she asked how she was expected to work wearing a dress, Sawyer forgot himself and silently agreed with Danny’s lecherous reply, ‘’You can take it off if you want,'’ until Kate’s withering gaze caused him to muster an uppity, hilarious ‘’How dare you!'’

Unlike last week, this episode saved Ben-related shockers for the final minutes. Jack’s silent treatment toward Juliet prompted Ben to formally introduce himself to Jack, presumably to get him talking. ‘’My name is Benjamin Linus,'’ he calmly stated. He also claimed to have lived on the island his whole life. And in an effort to prove he was in contact with the outside world, Ben played Jack footage of the Red Sox’s World Series win on videotape. Finally, Ben made a promise: ‘’You cooperate with us, and I will take you home.'’ Jack is no Dorothy, so that bait might not work, but he’s in a shaky place emotionally. Oh, and naturally, Ben wouldn’t define ‘’cooperation.'’

A speculation: I suspect the Others are primarily interested in one of their three captives. It could be that the prisoner in isolation, Jack, is not their ultimate prize and that the men are pawns. Here’s to my friend Holly for tipping me to her supersinister theory: It’s possible that Ben’s ‘’two weeks'’ comment in the season premiere, over breakfast with Kate, is an indication that the Others know her ovulation cycle and want to inseminate her, perhaps with a mini-Ben! Kidnapping Aaron didn’t work out; the new plan may involve impregnating our feisty but healthy fugitive.

What do you think? Why would the Others drive a wedge between the captives by isolating Jack and strengthening the bond between Kate and Sawyer? Is Ben being truthful about his identity? Is Alex a rebel Other, or is she setting a trap? And will Jack betray his friends for another look at ESPN?

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From EW.com:

The long, dry season is over.

When we said adieu to Lost last May, the story had reached a fever pitch. All the hullabaloo culminated in one very exciting season finale (Michael retrieving Walt, Fake Henry reappearing as the chief Other, a Locke meltdown, a Hatch meltdown, a shocking phone call to Desmond’s ex), but I dare say every bit of it was topped by the opening minutes of season 3’s premiere episode.

I’ve been on my share of face-freezing theme-park roller-coasters, but that was a ride. Talk about a new perspective. (First of all, that island is humongo. How could a land mass that big be unknown? Can a South Pacific expert — the region, not the musical — please explain?)

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Just listen to the rhythm of the gentle bossa nova! In a parallel to season 2’s premiere, a lilting pop ditty once again underscored our thrillingly disorienting introduction to a new setting. Who can forget our first glance at life inside the Hatch, as Mama Cass entreated Desmond to ‘’Make Your Own Kind of Music'’? This time, we encountered both a new setting and a new character, with the soothing sounds of Petula Clark’s ‘’Downtown'’ playing inside the modest, modern house of a woman who was later identified as Juliet. Now, normally I’d resist the idea of another lead player joining such a sprawling cast, were it not such an immediately impressive addition: the talented Elizabeth Mitchell, who redefined ‘’inner monologue'’ in her first 30 seconds on screen. Give that casting director a raise.

(FYI about ‘’Downtown'’: The 1964 hit was written by Tony Hatch. Seriously.)

In an episode overflowing with stellar moments, my favorite was this first glimpse of Juliet. She opened her eye, started her CD player, and approached a large framed mirror on her wall, lost in thought. I was transfixed: What was upsetting her? Trouble at the office? Bad breakup? She kept fighting the tears, but why? (It’s all right to cry. Rosey Grier? A little help?) She subtly, decisively blinked away her blues and then reality, in the form of burnt muffins, called. Food tumbled from oven to floor just as her first book-club guest arrived. Another harried start to another ordinary day in suburbia.

Except, of course, it wasn’t. As soon as a book clubber mentioned an absent Ben — whose opinion was clearly valued by many in the room, though not Juliet — I recalled last season’s fretful exchanges between Others (in the medical hatch and on the pier) about a nameless ‘’him.'’ Well, he’s nameless no more. A loud, earth-shaking rumble brought all of Juliet’s neighbors out of their houses, including Fake Henry, whose real name we promptly learned. (I may have to call him Benry for a while. First impressions and all.) Can I get an amen for the return of Michael Emerson? Those eyes! That voice! That receding yet still very sinister hair! Those eyes!

So far we’ve seen the crash of Oceanic 815 from two very different perspectives. Now a third point of view: a small community of neighbors staring into a bright blue sky, witnessing a jetliner full of people break in two. What’s arguably just as horrifying as the interior shots of the disaster that we’ve previously seen is Benry’s reaction to the tragedy overhead. He quickly dispatched Ethan and Goodwin, like two clean-cut soldiers in ‘’sleeper cell'’-mode, to infiltrate the survivors. His orders — ‘’Don’t get involved….I want lists in three days'’ — were chilling.

I have to applaud the choice the writers made in structuring the rest of the episode. After the jaw-dropping aerial shot showed us a well-hidden, well-manicured Othersville, the episode sharply narrowed its focus, mostly to explore Jack’s state of mind. We haven’t spent this much time with our hero in ages, and it felt great to care about the guy again! In flashbacks, we learned more than ever about the nature of his emotional burden and Dad-related regrets. (Meanwhile many Sarah-related questions were raised: In the heartbreaking scene in which she and Jack met to finalize divorce terms, was she walking away smirking?) Inside the Jack-jail, he kicked and screamed and heard possibly hallucinatory voices through a possibly defunct intercom, then met his interrogator, Juliet. She informed him he’d been drugged, offered him a grilled cheese sandwich, and pretended to know little about him before eventually sharing the contents of a dossier that had been compiled about his life. (Let’s quote Michael here: Who are you people?) At the same time, she exhibited fleeting signs of genuine concern for him. Was that an act? Just when we started to think Jack was no match for a manipulative Other, he lured her into an ambush and dragged her toward a door that she was terrified to open. Benry popped into the hallway to warn Jack, who opened the door anyway and unleashed a wall of water — at which point Benry had the bad manners to slam a different door in Juliet’s face as he rushed to save himself, causing her to nearly drown. Could that have been an accident? No. It could not.

Throughout, we got a just-right dose of Sawyer and Kate, bringing the total of original castaways in this episode to three. Unlike Jack, Sawyer adapted to his captivity with enough of a cool head to keep himself calm (and fed). At first I thought the lab-rat metaphor going on in his cage was overkill, but as usual, it may not be what it seems. For that matter, Chachi, a.k.a. Carl, may not be either. Kate’s disconcerting breakfast at Benry’s Seaside Bistro left her shaken — frankly, I failed to see the point of the scene. But have we ever seen Sawyer as tender with her — or anyone — as when he shared his Dharma cookie with her? She’d had a hard time, what with her clothes disappearing and her wrists being handcuffed again. I had to wonder if even more was said to frighten her than what we saw. What did Benry mean, anyway, telling her the next two weeks would be very unpleasant? Was there more to the exchange we’ll learn about later?

Which brings me back to perspective. The island is being shown to us from entirely new angles, the way we continue to see the characters in new ways that turn what we think we know on its head. The producers may be promising more action this season, but I’m dying to know whether we’ll ever learn any one character’s full story. If that’s even possible.

Here’s the obvious downside to focusing so exclusively on Jack, Kate, and Sawyer this week: We’re already one hour into the season with no idea what’s happened to another key trio, Locke, Desmond, and Eko. Surely, they haven’t all met their end, though the Hatch seems likely to be gone for good. Call me impatient, but how soon can we find out what all the noise and glowing fallout was? We’re still essentially in season 2 as far as the original Lost characters are concerned. Perhaps we should look at this as a month of Lost premieres, as there are now so many castaways to catch up with.

What do you think? Are Desmond, Locke, and Eko alive, and are you upset that wasn’t addressed in this episode? Is Juliet a threat to Benry’s authority? Was Sawyer’s brief escape a setup? And was Jack channeling Ugly Betty when he walked into a glass wall?

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Originally posted on the forum by dharma_infinity

Right…I was on Lostpedia when I ran across this…

By Colin Mahan - TV.com
September 19, 2006 at 10:24:00 AM

No more skinny-dipping on Hawaiian beaches for stars of hit ABC show.

Lost producers said season three would be the sexiest season yet, but they didn’t mean this.

Matthew Fox, Dominic Monaghan, and Josh Holloway, who play Jack, Charlie, and Sawyer, respectively, on the ABC show, have been ordered by show runners to stop doffing their clothes and swimming nude in the warm Pacific waters.

The actors have all spoken of their love for skinny-dipping. Fox appeared on Oprah and said, “I do [swim] nude–and I coax other people to go nude as well. I have a reputation of being a skinny-dipper. I own it!”

Show producers are worried that paparazzi may sneak a snap of the naughty actors frolicking and splashing naked in the waves. Contact Music cites a show source as saying, “Producers are worried they are taking unnecessary risks in terms of their image.”

Lost returns October 4 to ABC. Show executive Carlton Cuse said over the summer that this season would be “sexier” than previous seasons.

Source ~ http://www.tv.com/story/story.html&story_id=6384

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After watching the season three premier at the “Sunset in the Park” event here in Hawaii, my inner theory monger started itching again. Warning, this theory does have spoilers from the season three’s first episode.

1

In the opening minutes of the premier, it is revealed that the Others have a modern community established on the island, similar to any suburban community anywhere in the United States. It is alluded to by comments in the episode that they were involved with the research done on the island. It is also said in the Lost Experience’s Sri Lanka video that the Dharma Initiative failed, and has since been disbanded. However, the question that these two things leave us with is why are they still there?

The resources available to the Others in their community (Which I will refer to henceforth as “Erewhon”); Juliet’s CD player, an active book club, and that Juliet had detailed information on Jack’s pre-crash life, all indicate that they have contact with the outside world, and that they have some sort of means of getting things too and from the island. All of this adds to the question of why they choose to remain on the island, when it is obvious that they have the ability to come and go as they please.

Although, according to the Sri Lanka video, the Initiative failed to change the core values of the Valenzetti Equation, I believe that the Initiative did succeed in achieving much of their research goals. As the Initiative was disbanded, it became obvious to those on the island that their research had several military applications. It is because they did not want their research, developed with the intentions of benefiting human kind, being used as a weapon that they chose to stay on the island in voluntary seclusion.

Through the use of their research, and possibly financial assistance from Alvar Hanso before being forced into seclusion my Thomas Mittelwerk, the Others abandoned the various stations, and started Erewhon. They equipped it with all the feature comforts of modern living, and have lived there unknown to the rest of the world for years.

Another question that arises from the Other’s choosing to remain on the island is, why is it that if they have a failsafe device that can stop the electromagnetic anomaly in the Swan hatch, that they did not use it. It is my contention that the periodic magnetic discharge had a beneficial side effect, which masked the island from being probed by radar, satellite, or any other means of detection aside from visual sighting. By continuing to purge magnetic energy from the island, the Others assured that they would not be discovered by nefarious elements.

To further protect themselves, the Others activated the island security system to patrol the jungle, as deterrent to keep anyone (i.e. random people who may stumble upon the island) from exploring too deeply, and finding Erewhon. As more and more people found their way to the island, the Others used their remote viewing abilities; (which were developed as a result of the Accelerated Remote Viewing Training Facility on the island) to monitor, their whereabouts on the island. Their presence made evident by the whispers heard in the jungle.

At this point, it does not appear that Mittelwerk has had total access to the research from the island. This is probably due to the fact, also mentioned in the Sri Lanka video, that only Alvar Hanso and Degroots knew the exact location of the island. After being forced into seclusion by Mittelwerk, Hanso knew that he had to protect the location of the island, and the researchers living in Erewhon. The only research available to Mittelwerk at the time of the Lost Experience was most likely based on tidbits of information about the Initiative’s research at the Hanso Foundation headquarters.

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Neither Cough nor Work, nor Cold of the head will prevent me from watching LOST Episodes, and these were just a few of the things I had persevered through to see the Season three premier at the “Sunset at the Park” event here in Hawaii today.

I showed up at the park at about 4:30 Hawaii Time, and there were already over 10,000 people there. By the time the show started, there were about 15,000 people there for the premier.

The entire cast was there, including new cast members Kiele Sanchez, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Rodrigo Santoro. Unfortunatly, Damon and J.J were not able attend.

A list of Spoilers are available on the forum, and you can read them here.

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