Series I Want to Watch

HBO’s version of David McCullough’s biography of John Adams, recommended here.

Slings and Arrows, recommended by Mental Multivitamin.

Cranford and North and South, both series based on books by Mrs. Gaskell.

Brideshead Revisited based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. I already have the first two episodes of this mini-series, via Blockbuster Online, and I’m just waiting for Eldest Daughter to find time to watch with me.

The new season, fourth I think, of House.

Those ought to take me through the end of the year 2010 at the rate I watch movies.

LOST Returns: Next Thursday

Apr16

While I was watching the first half of season four of LOST I was taking a blog break for Lent, so there were no weekly LOST posts here at Semicolon. Now, in honor of the return of LOST in just one week, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the first eight episodes of the season.

It seems that each of the Oceanic Six, except baby Aaron, has entered into his own personal nightmare. Each one has become what he least wanted to be. Jack is an alcoholic, drug-addicted, suicidal, washed-up surgeon just like his father. Hurley’s back in the mental hospital, talking to dead people, and acting paranoid. And he hasn’t lost any weight either. (Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t necessarily mean They aren’t out to get you.) Kate is trapped in a Monica-like life with a child for whom she’s responsible and a court settlement that restricts her movements. She can’t go anywhere, and she certainly can’t run anymore. She’s also trapped inside a lie that makes her out to be a heroine, and she can’t tell the truth or she’ll lose the baby and maybe more than that. Sun has lost her husband, the one person she’s spent the entire island-time trying to hang onto. Sayid’s become a contract assassin, working for Ben, of all people. Sayid said in the third episode of season four that the day he started believing Ben would be the day he “sold his soul.” It looks as if Jack, Hurley, Kate, Sun, and Sayid have all lost their souls, their identities, the essential character that vindicated each of them on the island.

Hurley has a sudden talent for deception. Before they went Through the Looking Glass, Hurley couldn’t keep a secret and couldn’t lie his way out of a paper bag. In episode three, Hurley manages to deceive Sayid, the Human Lie Detector and betray him to Locke. How did Hurley become a deceptive Judas in league with Locke? And Sayid, on the other hand, didn’t even know at first that his girlfriend in Berlin was a liar and an enemy. He’s lost his ability to detect lies and regained his talent for torture and murder. Jack’s no longer a leader; even Kate won’t follow him when he tells her they need to go back to the island. Since when did Kate not follow Jack into the jungle at a moment’s notice?

Have they sold their souls, their integrity, to their rescuers for a mess of pottage?

Stay tuned next week. Same LOST time; same LOST station.

LOST Rehash: The Beginning of the End

Jan31

Lost

Poster

Buy at AllPosters.com

SPOILERS ————–SPOILERS ————– SPOILERS———– SPOILERS

The Oceanic Six: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Claire, Sun, and Jin (with Baby Aaron as a bonus). Or maybe Sawyer instead of Jin.
Why? Because Desmond saw Claire get on the helicopter and because Sun will die if she doesn’t have the baby off island. And Jin wouldn’t let her go without him. But maybe Jin gets left behind somehow, and Sawyer, who’s always looking out for number one, gets himself rescued.

The Secret Jack doesn’t want Hurley to tell: The six who were rescued told their rescuers that they were the only survivors left on the island, that there was no one else still living on the island. They did this to protect the others who escaped and/or didn’t want to leave.

New questions:

How do the Six get isolated from the others and rescued with the rest left behind?

What kind of trouble are the people left on the island having, and how can Jack and Crew help if they go back?

Is Penny still looking for Desmond?

Who was the guy who came to see Hurley in the mental hospital, and why does he want to know about survivors left on the island?

WHY does Jack think he should grow a beard?

Did Hurley’s dad spend all of his money while Hurley was gone?

And I’m still wondering, who is the someone Kate has to get back to when she meets Jack at the airport?

I’m looking forward to the episodes that we get for this fourth season, and I hope that we get all sixteen promised episodes before too long a wait.

Shannon’s LOST post.

Bill’s LOST post at Thinklings.

J. Wood’s LOST post for this week. This guy does the best literary analysis of LOST that I’ve seen anywhere.

Time Series by Caroline B. Cooney

Jan27

It’s been my month to discover the young adult novels of Caroline B. Cooney.

First I read a historical fiction novel, Goddess of Yesterday set in ancient Greece. Good solid story.

Then, I read Fatality, a thriller about family secrets and suspected murder. I really liked it, too.

Next, I picked up all four of the books in a series about time travel; a girl, Annie Lockwood, from the 1990’s travels back a hundred years to the 1890’s and experiences romance, but also confusion and betrayal. The four books in the series are:

Both Sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

Out of Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

Prisoner of Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

For All Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

Even though I thought some of the period details and the characterization of the 1890’s as a time period were a bit simplistic, reading the first book was addictive. I had to read the other three to find out what would happen to Annie and to her 1890’s beau, Hiram Stratton, Jr.

The second book in the series takes the reader into both a mental institution and a tuberculosis sanatarium of the late nineteenth century. Reading this story of a young man confined in an insane asylum by his evil, rich father complemented the factual information that I gained from reading this book, also earlier this month. I love it when my reading dovetails that way.

O.K., the series is YA romantic froth, but froth goes well with hot chocolate and cold January evenings. I went back to the library a few days after reading these books and picked up another very different series of four novels by the same author.

BY the way, speaking of time travel, Cindy asked the other day if I was looking forward to the season premiere of LOST. Yes, we’ve being re-watching all the episodes from the beginning to prepare ourselves for the fourth season. And, yes, I know it’s nerdy, but we enjoyed it. I’ll probably post this week, before Thursday, on what I’ve learned by re-immersing myself in LOST. However, the short version is: not much and I’m still confused.

LOST Returns

Dec19

Wednesday used to be LOST day here at Semicolon. Since we’ve been on LOST hiatus and since my LOST reading project has been derailed by Cybils reading, I’ve been neglecting LOST. So here’s a trailer to whet your appetite:

I stole the trailer from the Thinklings blog. Wow! It looks as if there are other Others who are out to . . . do what? And they have to follow Locke, my least favorite character on the island, in order to survive?

We’ve been reviewing the first season of LOST here, and I’ve noticed a few things already.

Several of the characters really have grown and developed over the course of the show: Jack has become more confident and more humble at the same time. Sawyer isn’t as interested in punishing himself as he was in the first few shows. Sayid realized at some point that he could be a leader and still submit to authority when necessary. Charlie, of course, changed from an addict into a hero. All the Losties, or at least most of them, learned to “live together” instead of dying alone, except for those who died alone.

Kate remains annoying and untrustworthy, as far as I’m concerned.

LOST returns January 31, 2008. At least I suppose it does, if the members of the writers’ guild and the powers-that-be in Hollywood have learned to live together by then.

LOST Reading Project: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Jul18

Ambiguity. Spectres, ghosts, and apparitions. Good versus evil. Children captured by Others. Illicit or unrequited passion. Incipient insanity.

These are some of the elements that The Turn of the Screw shares with the TV series LOST. In a season two episode (Orientation), Desmond tells Jack and Locke that the DHARMA Initiative orientation film is on the shelf behind The Turn of the Screw. As anyone who’s been watching the show for a while knows, the books that are featured or mentioned are there for a purpose. James’s ghost story, The Turn of the Screw shares quite a bit in common with LOST.

First and last, there’s the ambiguity. I read James’s story to the tragic end, and my first thought was, “I don’t get it.” I re-read some sections and became even more confused. I wondered whether the narrator was at all trustworthy, whether she was sane, whether the ghosts were real or imaginary. (LOST fans: do those questions sound familiar?) The “screw” of the narrative does turn around and around, presenting a different view of the events in the story with each turn.

Ghosts appear —or are they real? Are the appearances in LOST real, or do they only appear to those who see them as some sort of aberrant psychological experience? Lots of dead people have appeared in LOST to various of the survivors: Jack’s dad, Yemi, Ben’s mother, Boone, Ana-Lucia. Are these messengers from beyond the grave evil or good? Then, there’s Hurley’s imaginary friend who leads him to the edge, both literally and figuratively, almost exactly the same thing that happens to the governess narrator in The Turn of the Screw.

The two children in The Turn of the Screw are also ambiguous characters. They may or may not be innocent children. They may be influenced by the evil spirits that the governess sees. According to the governess, the spirits are trying to capture the children and lead them to the pit of hell. In LOST, there’s a similar motif of Evil Others who capture children and do something to them or with them. Or the Others may not be evil at all.

The governess who narrates James’s story, who is the only one who says she sees the evil apparitions, admits from the beginning that she is in love with her employer, a shadowy figure whose main concern is that he not be bothered. Is she making up all the supernatural events in the story to impress her employer? To get his attention? Are the LOST characters also trying to get or to escape attention?

Are they all mad? Is the island imaginary or does it exist in another parallel universe? Do the ghosts that the governess sees exist in a parallel universe, or is she simply psychologically disturbed?

James leaves the ending to his story deliberately ambiguous. I certainly hope the writers and producers of LOST don’t do the same. From a review in Life magazine, 1898 by reviewer “Koch”:

Henry James does it in a way to raise goose-flesh! He creates the atmosphere of the tale with those slow, deliberate phrases which seem fitted only to differentiate the odors of rare flowers. Seldom does he make a direct assertion, but qualifies and negatives and double negatives, and then throws in a handful of adverbs, until the image floats away on a verbal smoke. But while the image lasts, it is, artistically, a thing of beauty. When he seems to be vague, he is by elimination, creating an effect of terror, of unimaginable horrors.”

What effects are the LOST writers producing as they turn the screw around and around from one season to the next? Are the LOST characters headed on a downward spiral into madness and death, or are they moving toward a resolution of their emotional and psychological dilemmas as they redeem themselves through suffering on the island?

We’re back to unresolved ambiguity —so far.

LOST Reading: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

Jun20

I’ve heard of Ambrose Bierce’s short story, but I don’t remember ever reading it. According to Wikipedia, “Kurt Vonnegut referred to ‘Occurrence’ in his book A Man Without a Country as one of the greatest works of American literature, and called anyone who hadn’t read it a ‘twerp’.”

I guess I just escaped twerpdom, thanks to LOST. In the second season episode entitled The Long Con, “Locke is shown holding this book (Occurrence) upside down, in the Swan, flipping through the pages as if he’s trying to find loose papers between them.” So, getting overly-analytical as I’m prone to do, I wonder what Occurrence has to do with LOST? (If you haven’t read the short story, there are spoilers ahead.)

In Bierce’s story, Peyton Farquhar is a Confederate sympathizer who falls into a Union trap and tries to burn down a bridge, Owl Creek Bridge. He’s about to be hanged from said bridge and in the brief interval between drop and death, he imagines that the rope breaks, he escapes, swims downriver, and returns to his home. Alas, the return home is only a figment of his imagination, and at the end of the story, Farquhar is dead; “his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of Owl Creek Bridge.”

Bierce plays with Time in this story just as the writers of LOST play with Time and Space in their story. There’s also a possible analogy between Peyton Farquhar’s supposed escape from death and the near-miraculous escape of the LOST survivors. (People don’t usually survive in a plane that breaks in half in mid-air and falls from the sky.) Are they really dead, as Naomi indicated when she said that the plane had been found and the passengers mourned? Maybe they’re caught somewhere between the final moments of life and death, and the Island itself is just an illusion? In the story, Farquhar imagines an alternate series of events in which he escapes the noose, escapes the bullets of the Union soldiers, and returns home to his wife, and the reader is conned into thinking that the escape is real. It feels real in the story; the circumstances surrounding Farquhar’s escape are described vividly.

So, is LOST a “long con”? I don’t really think so, but if we find out at the end that everyone’s really dead, that the entire six seasons were only a brief imaginary interval, a great many viewers are going to be unhappy. People don’t like being swindled, even by such a handsome devil as Sawyer/James/Josh Holloway.

“Doubtless, despite his sufferings, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have travelled the entire night. . . . As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!”

Lostpedia on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Read Bierce’s story here.

More information about Semicolon’s LOST Reading project.

LOST books

Jun6

James Brush at Coyote Mercury has been reading the books referenced on the TV series LOST. An interesting reading experiment. What if you deliberately concocted a TV series or a movie that would spur the American public to read more books? That stir curiosity through literary references embedded in a story? I’m not talking Oprah’s Book Club or Reading Rainbow, although both of those are creditable efforts.

Has any TV series stirred more curiosity than LOST? (Dallas: Who shot JR?) I wonder if the books featured on LOST have risen in Amazon rank or in total sales and popularity since being shown or mentioned on a LOST episode?

Lostpedia says that the following books have been mentioned or shown or alluded to in LOST episodes:

After All These Years by Susan Isaacs.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.

Bad Twin by Gary Troup.

Bible, especially the book of Exodus and the 23rd Psalm.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Carrie by Stephen King.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Dirty Work by Stuart Woods.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

Hindsight by Peter Wright.

I Ching

Island by Aldous Huxley.

Julius Caesar by William Shakepeare.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.

Lancelot by Walker Percy.

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabakov.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

The Moon Pool by A. Merritt.
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce.

The Odyssey by Homer.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.

Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien.

Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

Watership Down Richard Adams.

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

Other books that seem to be related to LOST;

The Stand by Stephen King. Damon Lindelof has said that Stephen King’s novels, especially The Stand are an influence on LOST.

On Writing also by Stephen King. James writes about this writing reference book in relation to LOST at Coyote Mercury.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner. The Dharma Initiative is said to be partially inspired by the work of behaviorist B.F. Skinner.

Lost Horizon by James Hilton. In the season 3 finale, Through the Looking Glass, Jack acts like a man who is trying to return to Shangri-La, the utopian paradise in the Himalayas where people never (?) die. This fictional cmmunity was the creation of of author James Hilton. LOST Island was no Shangri-La, but perhaps the two places have some features in common: prolonged life for some inhabitants and difficult entrances and exits.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I tried reading this famous novel a few months ago, but I suppose I quit before I got to the good part.

Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

I’m definitely going to try to read and review some of these this summer —along with all my other reading projects.

LOST Names

May31

There’s no LOST (TV series) until 2008, and some of us are going through withdrawal. I have a few LOST posts saved up or planned for posting on Wednesday or Thursday —when I was posting my LOST Rehash, an analysis of the most recent episode. Maybe I can get through this dearth of LOST with a little help from my (blog) friends. 🙂

The names of the characters on the TV series LOST seem to have been chosen with an eye to symbolism and significance. I’m sure with all the LOST fanatics out there someone has done quite a bit more work than I have on this subject, but I think it’s fascinating to see what I can come up with on my own. I do a little LOST reading at Thinklings, where the guys live-blog the program almost every Wednesday, and at Powell’s where J. Wood, who is I’m sure some famous guy that I should know all about but don’t, blogs about the previous night’s episode on Thursdays. He particularly notes the symbols and literary allusions in the program. So, some of these guys probably have contributed to the ideas here, but otherwise I thunk it all up myself. And I may be reading way too much into the names or be way off base. But I’m having fun.

Jack Shephard: Jack does become the shepherd of these lost sheep survivors. He’s also forced to become, not just a doctor, but a jack-of-all-trades, doing whatever needs to be done to ensure the survival of the Losties. Jack’s father is Christian Shephard, but his father doesn’t live up to his name. In one recent episode, Jack said the only thing his father ever taught him how to do was drink. Nevertheless, Jack is the Christian “shepherd” that the LOST survivors need, in spite of his self-described lack of faith, and he seems to be able to do whatever needs to be done from carpentry to ping-pong to shooting a gun to negotiating a hostage release. Somebody must have taught him to be a shepherd and a doctor in spite of his father, or maybe his father wasn’t all bad after all. Now in the light of the third season finale, I think Jack’s going to shepherd the Losties all back to the island.

James Ford “Sawyer”: A sawyer is a wood worker, but Sawyer isn’t James’s real name. And Sawyer isn’t much of a worker of any kind. He stole his name from the con man that caused his parents’ deaths, and he became the con man that he hated. His real name “James Ford” sounds like a typical Southern good ol’ boy name, just who Sawyer pretends to be. But no one ever calls him Jim or Jimmy, do they? Not even in his back-story.

Katherine “Kate” Austen: Not much connection with the only Austen that comes to mind, Jane Austen. I guess Kate is attracted to both a “bad guy,” Sawyer, and a “good guy,” Jack, just like Elizabeth Bennett is attracted to Wickham and to the distant Mr. Darcy. Jack’s a little distant, too, got some pride going there.

Boone Carlyle: The LOST writers like philosophers’ names. Carlyle wrote a book called Heroes and Hero Worship, and of course, Boone had a bad case of hero worship with Locke. Boone also wanted to be a hero, but that didn’t work out too well.

Shannon Rutherford: Shannon sounds like a cheerleader name, and sure enough she’s a self-absorbed cheerleader type. Poor little rich girl.

Sayid Jarrah

Michael Dawson: What happened to Michael anyway? Part of his name is “son,” and of course, Michael’s overriding concern was his son.

Walt Lloyd (Dawson)

Vincent, the dog: What happened to Vincent? Is he still on the beach?

Claire Littleton: Claire’s almost a Madonna figure, but her name is Claire, not Mary. I am reminded of Clare of Assissi, who founded the female counterpart to St. Francis’s Franciscans.

Baby Aaron: Aaron was Moses’s older brother in the Bible, the spokesman for the speech impaired leader of the Exodus. Is Aaron the forerunner of Sun’s baby, and will Sun’s baby be the Moses who will lead them out of bondage, off the island?

Charles Hieronymus “Charlie” Pace: Hieronymous Bosch was the guy who did all those wierd pictures, like the one I’ve posted here. It looks like bad drug trip, doesn’t it? But it’s called The Garden of Earthly Delights. What kind of mother would name her son Hieronymus, even as a middle name. Then, too, Charlie is just a “good-time Charlie,” always following, along for the ride, out to have a good time. Until the final episode. Then we find out there’s more to Charlie than meets the eye.

Hugo “Hurley” Reyes: Hugo is, obviously, huge. He’s also the King, the richest man on the island, the luckiest, the wisest. I think Hurley is the Wise Fool whose backstage managing has done as much if not more to save the LOST survivors as Jack’s more up-front leadership. Hurley’s the king in disguise, alway managing things behind the scenes, always cutting through the complicated bull with a salient statement of common sense —or a van in overdrive.

John Locke: Locke was another philosopher. He wrote stuff that influenced the founding fathers of the American Revolution. He was an Enlightenment kind of guy, big on reason, but John Locke sees himself as a “man of faith.”

Jin-Soo Kwon

Sun-Soo Kwon

Danielle Rousseau: Another philosopher name. She lives in the wild, like Rouseau advocated. She’s untamed, a child of the jungle.

Eko Tunde

Juliet Burke: Juliet, as in Romeo and Juliet? Burke is another philosopher, but I don’t know anything about him.

Benjamin Linus: Benjamin means “Son of my Right Hand,” changed from Ben-oni, Son of my Sorrow because the Biblical Benjamin’s mother, Rachel, died giving birth to him. Benjamin was Joseph’s younger brother in the Bible; he caused his mother Rachel’s death in childbirth. Ben says he was born on the island; at least he’s lived there most of his life. Yet now the Island people can’t give birth, and the mothers die, too. Ben’s mother died, and he somehow survived. Linus reminds me of lying, something at which Ben is quite adept despite his protestations to the contrary. Linus is also the Charlie Brown character, and Ben resembles him with his beady eyes, glasses, and diminutive stature. No security blanket, though, that I can see.

Mikhail Bakunin: Mikhail Bakunin was a philosopher also, an anarchist philosopher. The name could relate to Island Mikhail’s fondness for guns, violence, grenades and shooting at people. Island Mikhail seems like a bit of an anarchist, a wild card at the very least.

Ana-Lucia Cortez

Desmond David Hume: Hume was a Scottish philosopher. He was a skeptic, and Desmond’s an ex-monk who thinks he’s being led/tested by a Higher Power. Desmond is something of a mystic; he has visions.

Alex Rousseau or Linus: Alexandra. She has a Russian princess name, or is it French like Danielle? Alex is a sort of a rebellious princess. She’s probably not Ben’s daughter, but she doesn’t know who she is.

Nikki Fernandez

Paolo

Rose Henderson Nadler

Bernard Nadler: He’s kind of like a St. Bernard, isn’t he? Faithful, bumbling, and loveable.

Elizabeth “Libby”

Penelope Widmore: Obviously, she plays Penelope to Desmond’s Odysseus. She’s waiting for him to come back from his trip around the world. But she’s a bit more proactive than the classical Penelope, looking for the lost Desmond rather than weaving and unweaving.

Naomi Dorrit: I’ve never read Little Dorrit by Dickens, but surely her last name is a reference to that book.

Jacob: Jacob in the Bible is a twin (Esau’s twin), a conniver and con artist; the name means “supplanter.” Is Jacob someone’s twin? Has he supplanted someone to become the dictator on the island?

LOST Rehash: Through the Looking Glass, or When Are We?

May25

C.G. Son is smarter than the average bear, er, LOST writer or fan. He says that at the beginning of the finale episode after Jack’s first flash forward,Â he said, “Let me guess. Five years earlier on the island.” Of course, I didn’t hear him say it, but he’s the genius nevertheless. He knew from the start that Bearded Suicidal Jack was after the island, not before.

SO we tried to work out a timeline, but it keeps getting more and more complicated and confused. (I know there are timelines in other places on the internet, but we like to work out our own thoughts.)

1970 The Dharma Initiative starts, sends people to the island to do utopian experiments.

late 1960’s Ben is born prematurely, killing his mom.

late 1970’s Uncle Rico WorkmanÂ and Ben come to the island to work for Dharma. Ben makes contact with the Hostiles following the ghost (?) of his mother.

late 1980’s Ben grows up, goes to work for Dharma, and joins The Hostiles to kill the Dharma people and take over their town —and their identities?

about 1988Â Danielle Rousseau and her team are led to the island by the numbers transmission. Danielle changes the numbers transmission to a distress call three days before Alex is born. Danielle’s team dies or she kills them;Â then the Hostile Others kidnap Alex and tell her that Ben is her father.

1991 The Gulf War. Sayid, and the guy who was in the hatch with Desmond are both in the Gulf War along with Kate’s father.

1991 or 1992 Soon after the Gulf War, Guy-in-the-hatch finds a job with Dharma and starts pushing buttons. (So Ben knew he was in there. Did Ben ever communicate with the guys in the hatch?)

1994-2000 Sometime in here Mr. Eko is running drugs in Africa, gets his brother killed, and becomes a fake priest. His brother’s drug plane crashes on the island.

2000 Around this time stuff is happening to the other Losties. Kate’s on the run, Jack’s having daddy issues, Sawyer is looking for Sawyer, and Locke isÂ giving his daddy a kidney. In return Locke gets thrown out a window and becomes paralyzed.

2001 Desmond gets a boat given to him by Libby, enters a race around the world, and shipwrecks on the island. He becomes Guy-in the Hatch’s partner in pushing the button.

2001 Juliet arrives on the island.

2003 Hurley wins the lottery. Locke decides to go on walkabout.

September 22, 2004. Oceanic Flight 815 crashes on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Desmond kills Kelvin but misses the button pushing time. Ben sends spies to get names of all who were on the plane.

late 2004- beginning of 2005 Season 3 Finale—Through the Looking Glass. The Losties get rescued but can’t forget the island.

2007 Bearded Druggie Jack tries to commit suicide and becomes a hero for the second time when he rescues a kid and his mother from a burning car. Someone (Ben or John Locke?) dies, and Jack is the only one at the funeral. Tortured by his memories, Jack realizes that the Losties who were rescued must return to the island to finish what they started.

Here’s what we think the next three seasons will feature:

Season 4: Jack Shephard “herds” the LOST survivors together and convinces them that they must return to the island. The season 3 finale was the Losties “exodus” but they weren’t supposed to leave the island. They are now wandering in the desert, so to speak, but Jack/Moses will gather them and lead them back to Promised Island. We are treated flashbacks that explain what has happened to each of the Losties during the time they’ve been off-island and that show us something about what unfinished business they have on the island.

Season 5: The Lost Team finds the island again, encounters the enemy, and begins the fight for control and the quest to find the meaning of the island itself. Locke, who stayed on the island, is the leader of those who escaped deportation, and Jack and his people must confront Locke’s guys and the “bad guys” who have taken over the island.

Season 6: All questions are answered. All loose ends are gathered. All viewers are satisfied. But at the very end the writers leave us with a twist that makes everyone keep talking and buying the past seasons’ DVDs to see if there is something they missed.

It’s a theory, anyway. I like it, but I hope the LOST writers throw me a few surprises and conundrums along the way. I don’t really like the “alternate future” theory —too complicated and unworkable really.

Questions to be answered in future posts or future episodes:

What will happen to the rest of the Losties post-rescue?

Will Sun and her baby be OK since the baby was conceived on the island?

Is Kate pregnant?

Are Walt and Michael still alive? If so, where?

Did anyone stay on the island, and if so, who? Rousseau said she wouldn’t leave, and Locke didn’t want to leave and indeed ran away. Does Alex stay with her mother? What about Karl? Ben’s Others were going to the Temple, so I doubt Naomi’s boat people found them. Ben didn’t want to go, but may have been compelled by Jack. Does Desmond go on the boat or the helicopters, or is he too suspicious because of Charlie’s dying message?

Speaking of Karl, where did he come from? He’s about Alex’s age. If the Others can’t have children, and Alex is only there because she was conceived off-island, where did Karl get conceived and born?

Did Charlie really die? I think he did, but it seems that he thought he had to do so since there were several ways he could have tried to save himself.

Is Jack’s dad, Christian, alive? How? Where?

Who was in the coffin?

Is a Locke a Christ-figure or a cult leader?

Did Ben ever tell the truth? When he said they would all die if they called the boat, he was either mistaken or lying unless he meant that they would be subject to death back in the world. (Like outside the Garden of Eden.) Does the Island confer immortality on some of its inhabitants? Mikhail? Jack? Richard? Not Ben.

Who was it who would be wondering where Kate was when she met with Jack? Sawyer? Someone else?

Why is Kate free and not in prison?

What do the numbers have to do with the meaning of the island?

Who is Jacob? Is he in God-like control or is he a captive?

Who are the “bad guys” that Ben is so afraid of? What is Ben’s bottom line motivation for all he’s done?

Where is the island? How do you get there? How do you get away? What is so special about this island?

What happened to the plane Naomi said was found with all their bodies in it? Was it a fake? Who faked it? Why? Or was Naomi lying? Why?

Will all the Losties “get a second chance” or be redeemed in some way? What about those who died?

If you’ve written about LOST on your blog and would like to leave a link to the post, please do. If you’d rather leave a comment, you’re welcome to do that, too. How will we wait until 2008?

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

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