# Lost 1/28/09 "Jughead" (spoilers)



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Again, surprised there isn't a thread yet.

Another great episode!!!


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

One of my favorite parts, that almost made me tear up, was the fact that Desmond named his baby Charlie.


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## mattpol (Jul 23, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> One of my favorite parts, that almost made me tear up, was the fact that Desmond named his baby Charlie.


That almost made me tear up too, and I'm not one for that.

And WOW for that Widmore reveal!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

I assume Woman With Gun is Mama Faraday...


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## Turtleboy (Mar 24, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I assume Woman With Gun is Mama Faraday...


I'm assuming it's the woman who Ben saw in the church in Los Angeles in the previous episode.

I'm also assuming the same thing as you.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

mattpol said:


> And WOW for that Widmore reveal!


 Never saw Widmore being an Other. Maybe that's why he hates Ben so much. All macho,"it's my island!"

Loved Sawyers line - "You going to camp crazy or with me to rescue the geek?"


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

So burying the bomb creates the energy that moves the island decades from now, eh?

Widmore on the island was :up:



Who was the sick woman that Widmore is picking up the tab for? Just a test subject of Faraday's, or something more?


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

jkeegan said:


> Again, surprised there isn't a thread yet.
> 
> Another great episode!!!


The episode just finished a bit ago...and I've been having problems loading this website since!

I did cry when Desmond called his boy Charlie. Awe. Pretty sure he's not named after Penny's father.

A young Charles Widmore...wow. What is his deal???

John Locke is the one that sent Richard after himself when we saw Richard quiz a young Locke. I had a feeling it was going to tie into the time jumping somehow. Will we ever find out why Richard doesn't age???


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I assume Woman With Gun is Mama Faraday...


Where was Woman with Gun?


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

uncdrew said:


> Where was Woman with Gun?


The one following/escorting Daniel to the bomb and Sawyer took the gun from.


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I assume Woman With Gun is Mama Faraday...


Wouldn't Faraday recognize his own mother?


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## Turtleboy (Mar 24, 2001)

uncdrew said:


> Where was Woman with Gun?


Girl with gun?


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## brermike (Jun 1, 2006)

unicorngoddess said:


> Wouldn't Faraday recognize his own mother?


Faraday's memory has been messed up since he was introduced last season. Plus he did say she looked familiar.

Great episode, with both great character work and mythology. Love seeing young Charles Widmore and Ellie Hawkong on the islsnd. Plus their accents matched perfectly . Also loved that Richard visited Locke as a child because Locke told him to. Wonder if this means Locke really isn't special?

Season five is on a roll!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

brermike said:


> Faraday's memory has been messed up since he was introduced last season. Plus he did say she looked familiar.


Not only that, but the way he hinted that his interest was not sexual made it very clear to me that he knew exactly who she was.


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## mostman (Jul 16, 2000)

unicorngoddess said:


> Wouldn't Faraday recognize his own mother?


He did! He just didn't come out and reveal it to the viewer. He even had some throw away line about her 'looking like someone I know.'

Its absolutely her. Totally cool.


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

brermike said:


> Faraday's memory has been messed up since he was introduced last season. Plus he did say she looked familiar.


Good point. I forgot him making the comment about her looking familar. Hubby thought it was the same lady Desmond found out about and was in a catatonic state.


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## Dennis Wilkinson (Sep 24, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I assume Woman With Gun is Mama Faraday...


I was thinking she looked like a young Isabel:

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Isabel

but I don't think the ages line up. Mama Faraday is certainly a possibility.


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## mostman (Jul 16, 2000)

So lets just assume - Widmore, Mommy Farraday, and Ben were all on the island together, as Others. Ben wins some sort of power struggle, and the other two leave. The island jumps and Widmore spends the rest of his life trying to find it again. He reaches out to Mommy Farraday for help, who pulls in her son.

Widmore also seems to know about Desmonds 'message.' Wonder how.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Rewatching right now. Here are a few thoughts:

Watching Daniel, Miles, and Charlotte walk through the jungle with two other guys, I immediately thought "Dead! Dead!"

I have the frame paused right now just 2 seconds after the 13 minute mark.. It's a close up of the two guys Locke, Juliette and Sawyer are holding.. The one in the foreground, taking up half of the screen, is Widmore.  Locke states at them, and asks "Who are these people?"  Then Locke proceeds to talk to Sawyer about jumping around in time.. Maybe that's the first time Widmore heard about time travel? Maybe that's why he spent all of the money funding Faraday. Richard didn't seem to know about time travel.

Widmore is an other. Let's think about that for a second.. Widmore is an other, Ben was an other, but they're warring now. Both of them worked with Richard. And Widmore was fine with torching the entire island.

By the way, there was a bit of a gaff in that scene.. Initially they filmed it such that Widmore was on the left (from Locke's point of view), but then they have some other scenes where he's on the right.

By the way, I'm holding open in my mind the possibility that Locke isn't supposed to be on the island - he wasn't anything special, and wasn't anyone's leader (as opposed to the very specific procedure they usually use to determine who their leader is, which Locke failed by the way, as a kid). He goes back, talks to Richard, and instead of saying 'here's your compass', he starts with "Jacob sent me". Richard assumes that has weight, others keep saying "we've been waiting for you John" after the crash, and eventually after going to the cabin Jacob decides to talk to John anyway because Ben is distracting everyone with foolish birth-related nonsense. John now knows Jacob, he goes back and tells Richard, boom - there ya go, credibility. Maybe that's part of why they wanted the time travel device - a damned cool way to have the scenario where the next Dalai-Lama-like island leader was incorrectly picked.

I didn't think Woman With Gun was Mama Faraday.. Instead I thought it was the girl that Desmond found in a picture with Daniel in Daniel's old lab.. the same woman who was lying in a bed, jumping around in time, out of it when Desmond arrived. I think she leaves the island, befriends Faraday because he's from Oxford (and, oh, yeah, she's met him and knows he's from the future), which isn't too far off because one of her colleagues is Charles Widmore.

If there was a huge donkey wheel on top of the bomb scaffolding there, it'd lend more credence to the idea of that being related to the exotic matter, but I don't think so. Plus, the room with the donkey wheel had hieroglyphics in it.. that's an old, old room.

Ok, gonna post now and I'll continue watching, so my comments don't magically turn into smeeks.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

By the way, where did we first actually see Ms. Hawking's first name?

I saw it on the "pop-up-videos" version of last week's 2nd hour which aired tonight at 8pm.

Since technically that might count as spoiler info to someone (unless someone else can tell me another place where we heard her first name, like credits, imdb, etc), I'll spoilerize it and my comment:



Spoiler



It said her name was Eloise Hawking.. What I find interesting about that name is that Eloise (a very uncommon name to my ear anyway) was also the name of the mouse that Faraday sent through time at Oxford. That's the biggest hint yet that she's Daniel's mother (or that at least they know each other).



Again, if someone remembers where we actually heard her name besides the pop-up-videos thing, I'll edit the post to unspoilerize.


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

I don't think the woman with the gun's necessarily Mama Faraday.

But it does ask the question, if this Hawking woman is Faraday's mom (getting closer to it), is she responsible for sending Faraday on this trip -- training him to be a quantum physicist, etc. So, thus she helps send this chain of events in motion. Man, this show's making my head hurt with all these people who are vying for the island.


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

jkeegan said:


> By the way, where did we first actually see Ms. Hawking's first name?
> 
> I saw it on the "pop-up-videos" version of last week's 2nd hour which aired tonight at 8pm.
> 
> ...


I, too, believe the pop-up thing is where we first hear of her first name because I took special notice of it, having not heard it before.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

jkeegan said:


> I didn't think Woman With Gun was Mama Faraday.. Instead I thought it was the girl that Desmond found in a picture with Daniel in Daniel's old lab.. the same woman who was lying in a bed, jumping around in time, out of it when Desmond arrived. I think she leaves the island, befriends Faraday because he's from Oxford (and, oh, yeah, she's met him and knows he's from the future), which isn't too far off because one of her colleagues is Charles Widmore.


But Coma Lab Assistant is way too young to be Woman With Gun. Not to mention that Coma Lab Assistant has a sister in the real world.


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

Favorite line: when Daniel is telling Elly that everything is fine 50 years on the future, and then he says, "well, it's not all perfect, but ..."

I was surprised Penny & Des named their son Charlie, since it is Widmore's first name. I know it was named after DriveShaft Charlie, but still.

No Oceanic 6 tonight at all. Wasn't expecting that.


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But Coma Lab Assistant is way too young to be Woman With Gun. Not to mention that Coma Lab Assistant has a sister in the real world.


Coma Lab Assistant's name is Theresa.

I remember back in S1, when Boone appears to Locke in a dream, Boone is saying "Theresa falls up the stairs; Theresa falls down the stairs." He later told Locke that his babysitter's name was Theresa.

Same Theresa?


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Eh, now I dunno.. The idea that it's Hawking on the island is far more interesting.. and I'm lookng right at the picture of Daniel and the blond girl in a blue dress at Oxford, and she doesn't seem to be played by the same actress as girl with gun..If there's any doubt though, I can at least confirm that side-by-side the girl in the picture IS the girl in the bed (though I think that was heavily implied if not outright stated in the story).


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

mqpickles said:


> Coma Lab Assistant's name is Teresa.
> 
> I remember back in S1, when Boone appears to Locke in a dream, Boone is saying "Teresa falls up the stairs; Teresa falls down the stairs." He later told Locke that his babysitter's name was Teresa.
> 
> Same Teresa?


Good catch!


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

jkeegan said:


> Good catch!


Thanks.

From Lostpedia:



> Theresa was Boone's childhood nanny. Boone loved to torment her by calling her up the stairs all day. One day, when Boone was 6, she fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Boone felt responsible for this. It is not known whether the fall killed her. ("Deus Ex Machina")
> In his dream, Locke sees Boone repeating, "Theresa falls up the stairs, Theresa falls down the stairs," before Boone told him this story. It is this revelation that leads Boone to believe Locke's dream is more than just a dream.


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

I was also thinking while brushing my teeth.

Richard travels to visit Locke while he's a child, expecting him to pick the compass as a sign that this child becomes the same John Locke that went to visit him in 1954. When Locke doesn't pick the compass, Richard gets angry and storms away. (This also explains why Richard was present at Locke's birth, IIRC.)

But he's *forgetting* that John Locke of that time would have no clue to what's going on at the island, so he mistakenly doesn't believe that Locke is special. Either that, or he thinks he has the wrong child.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

I'd maybe have expected Desmond to act a bit more Hurleyish about the door at Oxford having numbers in it (142-08).
That's 42, 8, 108


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

tewcewl said:


> I was also thinking while brushing my teeth.
> 
> Richard travels to visit Locke while he's a child, expecting him to pick the compass as a sign that this child becomes the same John Locke that went to visit him in 1954. When Locke doesn't pick the compass, Richard gets angry and storms away. (This also explains why Richard was present at Locke's birth, IIRC.)
> 
> But he's *forgetting* that John Locke of that time would have no clue to what's going on at the island, so he mistakenly doesn't believe that Locke is special. Either that, or he thinks he has the wrong child.


Makes sense.

And I'm impressed that you can think and brush your teeth at the same time.


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## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But Coma Lab Assistant is way too young to be Woman With Gun. Not to mention that Coma Lab Assistant has a sister in the real world.


Exactly what I was going to post. Girl with Gun shuould be in her 70's now. Coma Woman was no where near 70. Unless Girl with Gun jumps into the future at some point.



mqpickles said:


> No Oceanic 6 tonight at all. Wasn't expecting that.


Or flashbacks, either. Just jumping back and forth between Desmond and the island.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

tewcewl said:


> I was also thinking while brushing my teeth.
> 
> Richard travels to visit Locke while he's a child, expecting him to pick the compass as a sign that this child becomes the same John Locke that went to visit him in 1954. When Locke doesn't pick the compass, Richard gets angry and storms away. (This also explains why Richard was present at Locke's birth, IIRC.)
> 
> But he's *forgetting* that John Locke of that time would have no clue to what's going on at the island, so he mistakenly doesn't believe that Locke is special. Either that, or he thinks he has the wrong child.


Young Locke did draw a picture of a smoke monster...


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## SeanC (Dec 30, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> By the way, I'm holding open in my mind the possibility that Locke isn't supposed to be on the island - he wasn't anything special, and wasn't anyone's leader (as opposed to the very specific procedure they usually use to determine who their leader is, which Locke failed by the way, as a kid).


I've always thought that Locke failed the test on purpose.

Anyone remember the objects from that test? Was the compass one of them?


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## scottykempf (Dec 1, 2004)

"How old is he, anwyay?" referring to Richard. Loved it. 

Cool that we get to see all the way back to 1953. Really nails down the timeline, with Richard, Widmore, and maybe Faraday's mom. So did they make up Dharma? 

How coincidental that Widmore's daughter gets involved with Desmond, then Desmond crashes on the same island that Widmore left. Or is it? 

Unlikely that the H-bomb is the mechanism that moves the island. Maybe they use it as a power source?


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

Jeeters said:


> Or flashbacks, either. Just jumping back and forth between Desmond and the island.


Unless baby Charlie's birth is a flashback. Hard to say. But that event was certainly a couple years ahead of everything else in the Desmond story line.


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

SeanC said:


> Anyone remember the objects from that test? Was the compass one of them?


A compass was one of the objects. There's a comparison photo toward the end of last week's episode thread.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

SeanC said:


> I've always thought that Locke failed the test on purpose.
> 
> Anyone remember the objects from that test? Was the compass one of them?


I had the same thought. I think a compass was one but I can't remember.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Same pop-up-video spoiler reason:



Spoiler



Yup, when Richard enters the tent to talk to them, he says "Ellie tells me that you're not willing to reveal where the rest of your squad is?"

No more mystery. I kinda wish I hadn't seen the pop-up-video episode now.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

And just to toss this out there. Is there any chance that Daniel is Widmore's bastard son? sort of in the same vein as Jack and Claire? Conceived on the island but born off of it?


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Why do you spoilerize things that have already AIRED on ABC?


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Widmore's jacket says Jones on it. He's the one last week that yelled "What are you doing on our island?!" and who was telling them to chop off Juliete's hand to illustrate how serious they were.


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## SeanC (Dec 30, 2003)

DUDE_NJX said:


> Why do you spoilerize things that have already AIRED on ABC?


They are spoilerizing things that did not happen in the show that this thread is about, which is proper forum etiquette.


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## mqpickles (Nov 11, 2004)

betts4 said:


> And just to toss this out there. Is there any chance that Daniel is Widmore's bastard son? sort of in the same vein as Jack and Claire? Conceived on the island but born off of it?


Sure, why not?


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

DUDE_NJX said:


> Why do you spoilerize things that have already AIRED on ABC?


Calm down, no need to shout.

The popup video episodes give extra information that some people probably don't want. I in fact wish they hadn't spoiled the bit I posted about. If it was the regular episode, that'd be different, but these ones give stuff away with writing on the bottom of the screen.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> Calm down, no need to shout.
> 
> The popup video episodes give extra information that some people probably don't want. I in fact wish they hadn't spoiled the bit I posted about. If it was the regular episode, that'd be different, but these ones give stuff away with writing on the bottom of the screen.


Not shouting, it's called an emphasis. 

By that logic, those same people should watch every other episode. That way they'd get even LESS (not shouting) info!

Seriously now: I don't see how shooting the rifle near the bomb is such a bad idea. Hydrogen bombs are not detonated by impact. Unless he was counting on the girl's lack of knowledge to gain advantage.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

So if Locke isn't special, then what a tragedy. Widmore (his enemy) runs away from Locke, Locke aims, but doesn't fire. His reason? "He's one of my people", based on the idea that he has people, since he's special, but in this paragraph he's not. Doh!


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## GDG76 (Oct 2, 2000)

I'm pretty sure Faraday knew he couldn't die in the past.

Much better than last week....


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

GDG76 said:


> I'm pretty sure Faraday knew he couldn't die in the past.
> 
> Much better than last week....


Well, he could get shot "then" and die "now" right after the jump. (see: Charlotte)


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Sure he could have died in the past..
He just knew he wouldn't die from an h-bomb going off.

He hasn't heard of any stories of him from the future..


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

Where did the compass come from? If Richard gave it to Locke in the future, and Locke gave it to Richard in the past; where did it originally come from?


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## Eptiger (Jan 16, 2009)

Wow, you people post faster on this thread than I can read. It took me like 15 minutes to read all of that =P

I was just reading through the Lost wikia to catch up on character backstories I've forgotten about and saw that Ben told Widmore he'd kill Penny. If Desmond goes to LA where Ben is, doesn't that put Penny in danger? I guess that Widmore either doesn't know Ben is there or didn't think Penny would go with him.

Elton


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

unicorngoddess said:


> John Locke is the one that sent Richard after himself when we saw Richard quiz a young Locke. I had a feeling it was going to tie into the time jumping somehow. Will we ever find out why Richard doesn't age???


Well he is very old.
Consider that the Other speak Latin, could that be Richard's native tongue?



jkeegan said:


> Widmore's jacket says Jones on it. He's the one last week that yelled "What are you doing on our island?!" and who was telling them to chop off Juliete's hand to illustrate how serious they were.


Interesting, this also shows that he's nasty from the beginning.
I have to admit that I was floored when it was casually mentioned that he was Widmore.
But then, didn't Ben say to Charles that neither of them could go back?


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## getbak (Oct 8, 2004)

JYoung said:


> Well he is very old.
> Consider that the Other speak Latin, could that be Richard's native tongue?


Maybe he only has 4 toes too. Could the island be Atlantis?


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## Steavis (Dec 27, 2001)

JYoung said:


> Consider that the Other speak Latin, could that be Richard's native tongue?


 You just blew my mind.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> One of my favorite parts, that almost made me tear up, was the fact that Desmond named his baby Charlie.


*snif* I agree.



unicorngoddess said:


> Will we ever find out why Richard doesn't age???


It really was like they slapped us in the face for even thinking that he was a time traveler. I love when they do that.



GDG76 said:


> Much better than last week....


Yeah, but aren't you glad you got all the setup so they could jump right into it this week?



latrobe7 said:


> Where did the compass come from? If Richard gave it to Locke in the future, and Locke gave it to Richard in the past; where did it originally come from?


It came from the land of paradoxia!

Greg


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Steavis said:


> You just blew my mind.


In a good way or a bad way?

BTW, I'm disappointed we didn't see Betty or Veronica.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

JYoung said:


> Well he is very old.
> Consider that the Other speak Latin, could that be Richard's native tongue?


Whoa.



getbak said:


> Maybe he only has 4 toes too. Could the island be Atlantis?


Or from Springfield?


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## woolybugger (Nov 12, 2004)

Great episode! But I have to rewatch it because it blew my mind and now I have no idea what happened!


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## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

DUDE_NJX said:


> I don't see how shooting the rifle near the bomb is such a bad idea. Hydrogen bombs are not detonated by impact. Unless he was counting on the girl's lack of knowledge to gain advantage.


Yes, he using the girl's ignorance of what to her was a new and unknown technology. He convinced her into thinking that if she shot the gun, she'd maybe set off the leaking H2; e.g. Hindenberg.


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## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> Where did the compass come from? If Richard gave it to Locke in the future, and Locke gave it to Richard in the past; where did it originally come from?


Well, it has an 'O' for West, making it likely a Spanish or French compass. Perhaps it has something to do with Rousseau, or perhaps it's even older and is from the Black Rock.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I'm Lost.


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## TonyTheTiger (Dec 22, 2006)

The "Lost" island of Atlantis?

Hmmmm.

It almost makes sense!


(...and NOTHING about this show makes sense!)


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## NatasNJ (Jan 7, 2002)

cheesesteak said:


> I'm Lost.


Yeah. I hear that. Just don't care enough anymore about trying to figure things out. Time travel done over any large scale is just annoying.
I don't even know what I what them to reveal anymore. Show went from a MUST watch to a "I will finish this out since it is so close to done" show.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

mostman said:


> He did! He just didn't come out and reveal it to the viewer. He even had some throw away line about her 'looking like someone I know.'
> 
> Its absolutely her. Totally cool.


Exactly.

I agree 100%.

He was staring at her because he realized it was his mother (recognizing her from old pictures, etc.) Based on his apparent age, we can probably assume Faraday was born sometime in the early 70's. This scene was 1954. So, Faraday would never have seen his mother this young _in person_, but who hasn't seen pictures of their mom as a teen, years before they were born? And, of course, her appearance wouldn't change that much from 1954 to the 70's.

Obviously, "you look familiar" was his cover. It's not like he's going to blurt out, "You're my mom!"

Also, *frigging AWESOME reveal that Widmore was once a faithful "other" on the island!!* :up: :up: :up:

Obviously, he was on the losing end of a power struggle that happened not long after we meet him on the island in 1954. He's probably been trying to kill whoever the "leader" of the others is (Ben from 1980-ish until Locke took over) ever since then.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

jkeegan said:


> .........If there was a huge donkey wheel on top of the bomb scaffolding there, it'd lend more credence to the idea of that being related to the exotic matter, but I don't think so. Plus, the room with the donkey wheel had hieroglyphics in it.. that's an old, old room.


Granted, the wheel is rather large for it, but I have always thought the "donkey wheel" looked like a wheel that would be used to steer an old ship......perhaps an old pirate ship like the black rock.



SeanC said:


> I've always thought that Locke failed the test on purpose.
> 
> Anyone remember the objects from that test? Was the compass one of them?


Wasn't a knife one of them too? Wasn't that also significant in some way? If I am remembering the scene correctly, I think it was the knife, or one like it, that we see John with while onm the Island.



mqpickles said:


> Unless baby Charlie's birth is a flashback. Hard to say. But that event was certainly a couple years ahead of everything else in the Desmond story line.


That would be frakkin' cool if it were the case.



JYoung said:


> Well he is very old.
> Consider that the Other speak Latin, could that be Richard's native tongue?
> ........


Is it not possible that all of the Others were aboard the Black Rock? Granted, they would have had to stow their period clothing, but if the island were moving around in time at that point, it is possible that what the Others are wearing "now" is from other people who have appeared on the Island.



JYoung said:


> In a good way or a bad way?
> 
> BTW, I'm disappointed we didn't see Betty or Veronica.


Honestly, when I saw the title, I was thinking that Daniel looked like jughead from Archie. I'll have to Google....I wonder if any of the famous H Bombs, or test bombs, were named Jughead. I know the two big Atom bombs were Fatman and Little Boy.......



Jeeters said:


> Well, it has an 'O' for West, making it likely a Spanish or French compass. Perhaps it has something to do with Rousseau, or perhaps it's even older and is from the Black Rock.


This connects to my thought about the wheel being from the Ship and the Others all being original sailors on the ship.



TonyTheTiger said:


> The "Lost" island of Atlantis?
> 
> Hmmmm.
> 
> ...


That's heavy!


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Is Faraday ever going to lose the tie? 

I was waiting for Sawyer to rip it off his neck and say something like "Geek boy, it's time you diversed yourself of this thing, now don't you think?" (said with the typical sawyer drawl/saracastic edge)


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## speedcouch (Oct 23, 2003)

Man! I'm surprised so many people thought this was a great episode! I found it painfully slow without much really happening. Also, only two of the original surviviors of the crash (Sawyer and Locke). I find the Faraday story to be very boring really and why on earth did we need to go through that whole birth scene at the beginning? That didn't further the plot at all. Yeah, we get it that Desmond and Penny have a child, but couldn't they just explain that without the painful (to watch) birth scene? IMHO, this episode had as much useless filler as folks complain about on _Battlestar Galactica_.

I found myself dozing off near the end because it was so slow moving...

Cheryl


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

I also wondered if the Doctor may have been someone related to either Miles or Candle Halliwax. I agree that that was a lot of screen time just to show Baby Charlie being born. Of course, if by any chance this was a flashback that would be different. Of course, we have not yet had any mention, at least that I can remember, of Penny and Des having had a baby in the past.


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But Coma Lab Assistant is way too young to be Woman With Gun. Not to mention that Coma Lab Assistant has a sister in the real world.





Jeeters said:


> Exactly what I was going to post. Girl with Gun shuould be in her 70's now. Coma Woman was no where near 70. Unless Girl with Gun jumps into the future at some point.
> 
> Or flashbacks, either. Just jumping back and forth between Desmond and the island.


You forget...woman with gun could have spent a very significant time on the island. A place where it seems to be common that people don't age and can jump through time. So her current age when we see her in a coma shouldn't be relative. She could have become unstuck in time when leaving the island and went to Faraday for help...and he just left her like that.

Oh, and Juliet has a sister in the real world too...that didn't stop her from being an other.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

jlb said:


> I also wondered if the Doctor may have been someone related to either Miles or Candle Halliwax. I agree that that was a lot of screen time just to show Baby Charlie being born. Of course, if by any chance this was a flashback that would be different. Of course, we have not yet had any mention, at least that I can remember, of Penny and Des having had a baby in the past.


No, they just look the same 

Actually, that doctor was really useless. I wouldn't invite a filthy person to the delivery room just so he can look up the chute and yell "push"...


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## danplaysbass (Jul 19, 2004)

I do not think daniel's mom is the lab assistant as some are saying. We saw a glimpse of who I think his mom was at the end of the previous episode...the crazy lady in the lab with the pendulum.


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## BrandonRe (Jul 15, 2006)

jlb said:


> I also wondered if the Doctor may have been someone related to either Miles or Candle Halliwax. I agree that that was a lot of screen time just to show Baby Charlie being born. *Of course, if by any chance this was a flashback that would be different.* Of course, we have not yet had any mention, at least that I can remember, of Penny and Des having had a baby in the past.


I'm not sure what you mean by this. It was clearly a flashback to soon (about 9 months or so?) after Desmond and Penny reunited, based on the age of "Little Charlie". What would be the other option here?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

danplaysbass said:


> I do not think daniel's mom is the lab assistant as some are saying. We saw a glimpse of who I think his mom was at the end of the previous episode...the crazy lady in the lab with the pendulum.


Yeah, this is pretty obviously (to me, at least) a case of people overthinking things. Ma Farraday is Woman With Gun and LA Mad Scientist Lady. Not a shred of doubt in my mind, and I don't think there's supposed to be.


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## Mike Farrington (Nov 16, 2000)

speedcouch said:


> [...]and why on earth did we need to go through that whole birth scene at the beginning? That didn't further the plot at all. Yeah, we get it that Desmond and Penny have a child, but couldn't they just explain that without the painful (to watch) birth scene?


There's already a ton of crazy theories about the child being Drive Shaft Charlie or The Charles Widmore. If we didn't know the true origin of the baby, the theories would run even more rampant than they have been.


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## scottykempf (Dec 1, 2004)

Maybe Daniel's mother and Widmore wouldn't have aged either (like Richard), but they left the island so they did age?


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## 3D (Oct 9, 2001)

danplaysbass said:


> I do not think daniel's mom is the lab assistant as some are saying. We saw a glimpse of who I think his mom was at the end of the previous episode...the crazy lady in the lab with the pendulum.


I don't think anyone is saying that the lab assistant is Daniel's mom. Most seem to believe that the girl on the island with the gun is Daniel's mom, who also happens to be Mrs. Hawking, who we saw at the end of last week's episode. The possiblity has also been thrown out that the girl with the gun on the island is not Daniel's mom, but rather his lab assistant.


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## Mike Farrington (Nov 16, 2000)

scottykempf said:


> Maybe Daniel's mother and Widmore wouldn't have aged either (like Richard), but they left the island so they did age?


We know that Ben ages normally (and was born off island). Since we don't know the origin of the 1953 others, it's hard to say whether they age on the island or not. Unless someone sees a young version of Mr. Friendly or someone else, then we don't know for sure if anyone else in this group is ageless like Richard Alpert.


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## lpamelaa (May 3, 2004)

So if Richard goes to future John and says come visit me in the past. And John visits past Richard and says come save me in the future. Then we and endless loop here. It's like time is skipping, perhaps, like a broken record.


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## Cindy1230 (Oct 31, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> Widmore's jacket says Jones on it. He's the one last week that yelled "What are you doing on our island?!" and who was telling them to chop off Juliete's hand to illustrate how serious they were.


This is probably moot, but an observation... but I didn't realize till the end, that the Others were just using the uniforms of the US soldiers, to blend in. They have plenty of them, since Richard said they killed at least 18.

They had us think last week that they were British soldiers.


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## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

An interesting episode in that it introduced a bit more of the history of the island and touched on the show's mythology, but dramatically it was pretty weak. But, two great moments, so small they were contained in one word each: "Widmore" and "Charlie".

I have no interest in the Faraday-Charlotte romance--I found myself rolling my eyes during their tender moments. 

I hate birthing scenes.

So, the Others speak Latin. Yeah, sure they do. And Darth Vader built C-3PO when he was a boy.

Still waiting for that first great episode of the season. Come on writers, we're running out of episodes. Tighten it up!


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

BrandonRe said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by this. It was clearly a flashback to soon (about 9 months or so?) after Desmond and Penny reunited, based on the age of "Little Charlie". What would be the other option here?


I was going to post the same thing. Of course it was a flashback. A post-island scene that took place before all the other post-island scenes. It's not a big deal flashback, but it was obviously a flashback.

In that scene, they're in whatever foreign country they're in, and baby Charlie is born. Then, we get the traditional flashback whoosh sound effect, baby Charlie is three years old, and they're off the coast of the UK.

Speaking of that, I loved Desmond's story to little Charlie about a beautiful island . . . called Great Britain. 

It kinda sucks that, to name a baby after Charlie Pace, they also have to name him after Penny's evil father. I said last season it was annoying to have two characters named Charles. Now we have three.


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## BrandonRe (Jul 15, 2006)

aindik said:


> It kinda sucks that, to name a baby after Charlie Pace, they also have to name him after Penny's evil father. I said last season *it was annoying to have two characters named Charles. Now we have three.*


I would bet that this will become a plot point at some point in the next 2 seasons. I bet it becomes larger than 1 coincidence (Charlie Pace having the same first name as Charles Widmore) and 1 tribute (naming baby Charlie after Charlie Pace. but, this is Lost, and I am probably wrong.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

jlb said:


> Is it not possible that all of the Others were aboard the Black Rock? Granted, they would have had to stow their period clothing, but if the island were moving around in time at that point, it is possible that what the Others are wearing "now" is from other people who have appeared on the Island.


I agree that some of the Others are from the Black Rock. It's been hinted that Widmore is a descendant of one of them (the Captain? Maybe that's why he thinks he should be in charge).

But we also know they take on new people as time passes. Juliet for one. The flight attendant from Flight 815 for another.
That could mean Richard is the first other and Latin is his native tongue. He formed the Others as more people appeared on the Island.



unicorngoddess said:


> Oh, and Juliet has a sister in the real world too...that didn't stop her from being an other.


Of course Juliet wasn't born on the Island and had an established life and career before being recruited by Richard.


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## BrandonRe (Jul 15, 2006)

jlb said:


> I also wondered if the Doctor may have been someone related to either Miles or Candle Halliwax.


I don't think so. The doctor was Philippino, Candle would appear to be Korean (I think- maybe Chinese) and not sure about Miles, but I'm pretty sure he's not Phillipino.


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

JYoung said:


> Of course Juliet wasn't born on the Island and had an established life and career before being recruited by Richard.


I was just replying to the fact that coma girl coudn't have been an other because she had a sister. I was just pointing out that having a life outside the island doesn't stop one from being an other.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

My head hurts.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

BrandonRe said:


> I don't think so. The doctor was Philippino, Candle would appear to be Korean (I think- maybe Chinese) and not sure about Miles, but I'm pretty sure he's not Phillipino.


Ellie seemed to think Miles was Chinese. Doesn't mean he was, though. She was from the 50s. 

Have we ever heard an other refer to the others as "the others" before Juliet did it last night? I had thought "The Others" was Danielle's name for them.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

In the opening, when Desmond was running around and finally said, "Are you _The Doctor_?" (Emphasis mine) it immediately brought to mind the way they refer to The Doctor on _Doctor Who_. Might be nothing, might be an intentional semi-obscure reference, but I thought it was kind of neat given what's going on.


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

aindik said:


> Ellie seemed to think Miles was Chinese. Doesn't mean he was, though. She was from the 50s.
> 
> Have we ever heard an other refer to the others as "the others" before Juliet did it last night? I had thought "The Others" was Danielle's name for them.


When Juilet had her backstory about falling in love with Goodwin and dealing with his wife, the therapist. Jack said something along the lines of, you people have therapist? And Juliet responded, "It's tough being an Other."


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## mitchb2 (Sep 30, 2000)

NatasNJ said:


> Time travel done over any large scale is just annoying.


Time travel stories seem to ruin all my favorite shows.


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## Paperboy2003 (Mar 30, 2004)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Yeah, this is pretty obviously (to me, at least) a case of people overthinking things. Ma Farraday is Woman With Gun and LA Mad Scientist Lady. Not a shred of doubt in my mind, and I don't think there's supposed to be.


The girl on the Island with the gun is Ellie and the mad scientist with the pendulum is Eloise, so I'd say they're the same person. Ellie is a common nickname for Eloise (I'd guess)


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## Squeak (May 12, 2000)

JYoung said:


> I agree that some of the Others are from the Black Rock. It's been hinted that Widmore is a descendant of one of them (the Captain? Maybe that's why he thinks he should be in charge).


Which is also why he paid so much to get the diary/log from the Black Rock that came up for auction.


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## Squeak (May 12, 2000)

unicorngoddess said:


> When Juilet had her backstory about falling in love with Goodwin and dealing with his wife, the therapist. Jack said something along the lines of, you people have therapist? And Juliet responded, "It's tough being an Other."


Yeah, but I don't think The Others used that term before they became intertwined with the the OC815/Danielle crew.

I wonder what they call themselves?


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Squeak said:


> Yeah, but I don't think The Others used that term before they became intertwined with the the OC815/Danielle crew.
> 
> I wonder what they call themselves?


"We're the good guys."


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## bacevedo (Oct 31, 2003)

I like this episode more than last weeks. I just took last weeks as a set up for the season, and it seemed to playout that way last night.

As for the bomb, my first thought was that is what the hatch was built around. Daniel told them to bury it in concrete. If I remember correctly, the hatch had a very thick concrete wall surrounding something that was magnetic. Maybe the purpose of the hatch was to diffuse energy built up by the leaking bomb? Maybe saving the world just meant that if the bomb went off they thought the whole world would die from it? They may not have fully understood what it was when they built the hatch around it.

Anyway, that's what came to my mind as soon as he said put lead in it and bury it in concrete.

Bryan


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

Squeak said:


> I wonder what they call themselves?


Well, Darma called them the natives...and if they are the natives, I don't think they would particularly need to call themselves anything. To them, all the other groups that have come to the island are "The Others"


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

Oh, I think I forgot to mention this in last week's thread but I was reminded about it again this week. Back in season one, especially, it seemed like Vincent was always running out of the forest or showing up right as something bad was about to happen. What if it is different Versions of Vincent running around the island???


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

unicorngoddess said:


> Well, Darma called them the natives...and if they are the natives, I don't think they would particularly need to call themselves anything. To them, all the other groups that have come to the island are "The Others"


Aren't they the ones Dharma called the "hostiles?" Or is it yet another other group?


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

I can't believe you guys think that the coma lady is faraday's mom.

I'm going to open your eyes.

Anyhow, the coma lady is not his mom, she is the "poor girl" that the maintenance guy was talking about. Don't you remember the scene when DEsmond was talking about how nobody remembers Daniel Faraday and he says, do you blaime them after what he did with that "poor girl", then desmond says "What poor girl", then the next scene you see him following up with the "poor girl". Anyhow obviously faraday experimented on "poor girl" like he did with the rats, and her brain is unstuck in time. 

There ya go, Desmond was just following up on that lead.


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

vertigo235 said:


> I can't believe you guys think that the coma lady is faraday's mom.
> 
> I'm going to open your eyes.
> 
> ...


I don't think I saw anyone mention coma girl was Faraday's mother...


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## ADG (Aug 20, 2003)

I also believe her mind is time-traveling


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## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

unicorngoddess said:


> I don't think I saw anyone mention coma girl was Faraday's mother...


Right, nobody has mentioned such a thing.

I think he's for some reason connecting together the couple theories proposed that Coma Girl was Ellie with the other popular theory that Ellie is Faraday's mother.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

unicorngoddess said:


> I don't think I saw anyone mention coma girl was Faraday's mother...


I thought I did, but if not then you can move along to the next post.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

I guess it's possible that gun girl could be coma girl or faradays mom. I agree that it would be more significant if it was faraday's mom. 

Think about it, she's the one who sends desmond to the island right? She somehow will find out that desmond has to be there and will send him there. 

I also find it interesting that Widmore met the 3 people that he later hires and sends to the island. If they somehow have a hand in kicking him off the island then why does he hire them later?


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## Cindy1230 (Oct 31, 2003)

vertigo235 said:


> I guess it's possible that gun girl could be coma girl or faradays mom. I agree that it would be more significant if it was faraday's mom.
> 
> Think about it, she's the one who sends desmond to the island right? She somehow will find out that desmond has to be there and will send him there.
> 
> I also find it interesting that Widmore met the 3 people that he later hires and sends to the island. If they somehow have a hand in kicking him off the island then why does he hire them later?


Ohhhh.. that's right. They were on the list that Matthew Abaddon gave to Naomi, which we of course now know it was a list made by Widmore. And why Naomi was upset because she thought they were all untrained...

Hmmmm.... so who do we think are Charlotte's parents?
It's still hard for me to believe that Charlotte was the baby Dr. Chang had.


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## bruinfan (Jan 17, 2006)

DUDE_NJX said:


> Actually, that doctor was really useless. I wouldn't invite a filthy person to the delivery room just so he can look up the chute and yell "push"...


well, he did use forceps to deliver the baby



BrandonRe said:


> I don't think so. The doctor was Philippino, Candle would appear to be Korean (I think- maybe Chinese) and not sure about Miles, but I'm pretty sure he's not Phillipino.


the actor that plays candle was born in cambodia, but he may be of chinese descent (francois chau)

miles/ken leung is chinese.

episode gets a :up: from me


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## NoThru22 (May 6, 2005)

I think they revealed exactly what the concrete in the hatch was hiding.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

NoThru22 said:


> I think they revealed exactly what the concrete in the hatch was hiding.


An interesting idea.

If that's what the concrete in the hatch was hiding, what happened to the bomb when Desmond turned the failsafe key and the hatch imploded?

Is it possible that the radiation leaking out of the bomb was somehow destabilizing the time-continuum and entering the numbers every 108 minutes was re-stabilizing whatever the bomb was destabilizing? (The effects of entering the numbers "a little late" would tend to support this.)

Still, where is the bomb after Desmond turned the key and the hatch is "gone"?

The crater it left is nowhere near big enough to suggest the bomb exploded. Had an H-bomb of that type and era exploded, it would have completely destroyed the entire island, not to mention left behind fatal radiation. Imploding the hatch clearly did not leave a harmful level of radiation behind.

Did the failsafe key send the bomb to another time period? This would make it "safe" by removing it from present time. Is it an endless loop? Did the failsafe key send the bomb back to 1954 so that they can bury it "again"?


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

I thought maybe that was the case, but isn't the bomb located near the darma village is going to be? I really doubt they would move the bomb before burying it given the damage involved, I would suspect they would bury the bomb right where it is.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

speedcouch said:


> Man! I'm surprised so many people thought this was a great episode! I found it painfully slow without much really happening. Also, only two of the original surviviors of the crash (Sawyer and Locke). I find the Faraday story to be very boring really and why on earth did we need to go through that whole birth scene at the beginning? That didn't further the plot at all. Yeah, we get it that Desmond and Penny have a child, but couldn't they just explain that without the painful (to watch) birth scene? IMHO, this episode had as much useless filler as folks complain about on _Battlestar Galactica_.
> 
> I found myself dozing off near the end because it was so slow moving...
> 
> Cheryl


I think the opening scene with the birth was significant simply because it shows us that Desmond and Penny were traveling around the world (not in the UK or US) and that they have a kid. The way it was set up, with Desmond running around shouting something in a foreign language was simply the writer's way of confusing the viewer, as has been done at the beginning of many episodes. 


hefe said:


> Aren't they the ones Dharma called the "hostiles?" Or is it yet another other group?


During the episode "Destiny Calls," which was the recap episode that aired last week before the season premier, they referred to the Others as "The Others or The Hostiles." They're the same group.

Great episode. I love how all the various elements of the plot are starting to come together. Prior to this season, we've simply had tons of loose strings out there with no idea if/how any of them fit together. Now this season will start taking those strings and weaving them together and by the end of the season, I think we'll have a pretty clear piece of cloth.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> Great episode. I love how all the various elements of the plot are starting to come together. Prior to this season, we've simply had tons of loose strings out there with no idea if/how any of them fit together. Now this season will start taking those strings and weaving them together and by the end of the season, I think we'll have a pretty clear piece of cloth.


How many episodes are left? They still have a lot of 'splainin' to do. What's the smoke monster? Who is Jacob? Why can't Michael kill himself? Does Miles really have paranormal powers, and if so, why did they bother writing that crap into the show? Is the world doomed because the Dharma initiative failed? I'm predicting a cloth that is totally tattered.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> How many episodes are left? They still have a lot of 'splainin' to do. What's the smoke monster? Who is Jacob? Why can't Michael kill himself? Does Miles really have paranormal powers, and if so, why did they bother writing that crap into the show? Is the world doomed because the Dharma initiative failed?


They've got plenty of time to do that. I think there are still 29 episodes left (16 in each of the last two seasons, three aired so far).


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> They've got plenty of time to do that. I think there are still 29 episodes left (16 in each of the last two seasons, three aired so far).


I thought it was 16 total... with 13 in the season we should be getting lots of juicy answers. Although I doubt we will ever get an answer to the relative success of Dharma, based on what the producers claimed last season.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

TAsunder said:


> How many episodes are left? They still have a lot of 'splainin' to do. What's the smoke monster? Who is Jacob? Why can't Michael kill himself? Does Miles really have paranormal powers, and if so, why did they bother writing that crap into the show? Is the world doomed because the Dharma initiative failed? I'm predicting a cloth that is totally tattered.


There are 31 episodes left.


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## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> Why can't Michael kill himself?


Probably because Micheal's timeline was such that he was going to be on Widmore's ship in the future. Mr. Friendly knew that about his future timeline and so knew that Michael couldn't kill himself. And Mr. Friendly probably knew that he himself was also still alive in the future which is why he knew Michael couldn't kill him, either when he contronted Michael.

And it's probably due to similar reasons for why Widmore knew Ben couldn't kill him when Ben showed up in his bedroom, or when Ben *thought* that Alex wouldn't be killed, etc.


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## tivoboyjr (Apr 28, 2003)

Cindy1230 said:


> Hmmmm.... so who do we think are Charlotte's parents?
> It's still hard for me to believe that Charlotte was the baby Dr. Chang had.


I didn't know anyone thought that. Doesn't seem very likely.

I think there's a good chance "Blondie" was Charlotte's mother. Blondie also looked a lot like the girl that Faraday put into a coma (which is why I believe he said she looked familiar) but I'm guessing that was a coincidence. Or maybe he said she looks familiar because she looks a little like Charlotte.

Maybe Miles is Dr. Chang's son. And did the Changster and the Mrs. have that kid on the island? I thought that couldn't happen.
_______

I liked last night's episode. I loved seeing Widmore as an Other. I generally like it when the Jack/Kate soap opera stuff is less prevalent.

One random note. I got home last night all amped up for Lost, and my 4 year old son told me he had just lost his remote control helicopter. He was flying it in the house and it went up on a ledge and got stuck up there. I got the ladder and looked. No helicopter. We looked all over for it and couldn't find it. I played with the remote to try to get it to make some noise - nothing. I'm thinking maybe in three years, it will just suddenly appear.


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## mikieminnow (Mar 16, 2004)

jlb said:


> Honestly, when I saw the title, I was thinking that Daniel looked like jughead from Archie. I'll have to Google....I wonder if any of the famous H Bombs, or test bombs, were named Jughead. I know the two big Atom bombs were Fatman and Little Boy.......


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_17_nuclear_bomb


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## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

DUDE_NJX said:


> Actually, that doctor was really useless. I wouldn't invite a filthy person to the delivery room just so he can look up the chute and yell "push"...


You might be sorry if something goes wrong during the delivery.


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## unicorngoddess (Nov 20, 2005)

NoThru22 said:


> I think they revealed exactly what the concrete in the hatch was hiding.


I thought there was a huge electromagnet behind the concrete wall. Seems to be that if it was an h-bomb then when the hatch blew up, it would have been much more dangerous for the entire island.


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## tivoboyjr (Apr 28, 2003)

Jeeters said:


> You might be sorry if something goes wrong during the delivery.


Or if you wanted to play some poker while Penny was pushing.


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## flyers088 (Apr 19, 2005)

speedcouch said:


> IMHO, this episode had as much useless filler as folks complain about on _Battlestar Galactica_.
> 
> I found myself dozing off near the end because it was so slow moving...
> 
> Cheryl


I am really trying to figure out who is making it up more as they go along. RDM has the lead but after this week the Lost writers are closing the gap.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

hefe said:


> There are 31 episodes left.


I think this is right. They announced that seasons 5 and 6 would have 17 episodes instead of 16, to make up for the strike-shortened season 4 having only 14 episodes instead of 16. 17+17 -3 = 31.

By "episodes" we mean hours. A two hour episode counts as two.


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

brermike said:


> Also loved that Richard visited Locke as a child because Locke told him to. Wonder if this means Locke really isn't special?
> 
> Season five is on a roll!





lpamelaa said:


> So if Richard goes to future John and says come visit me in the past. And John visits past Richard and says come save me in the future. Then we and endless loop here. It's like time is skipping, perhaps, like a broken record.


It would seem that Locke's specialness would depend on one's perspective. Prior to the crash of 815, he was extremely special to Richard and The Others because he had come from the future and told of events to come eg. his birth. From our objective view he doesn't seem so special. Although the Black Smoke drawings would indicate some sort of prescience. But everything that happens after that is on the presumption that Locke is special.

I think the last turn of the donkey wheel by Ben has caused the loop some others here have mentioned. This loop is only for events on the island. And somehow the return of the O6 will close that loop.

It also seems that John Locke _is_ able to determine/change the past by going back and telling Richard to look for him in the future. We, of course don't know what the original timeline was. But then that would mean that all subsequent events would have to lead to the plane crash that brings John to the island. And makes me wonder what in the original timeline (when Locke doesn't come back from the future) caused Locke to be on the island to go back in time in the first place. Does this make any sense to anyone else?

The other thing is it may not be a loop at all and the time travelers keep going back in time instead of jumping all over as it seemed at first. A freefall back in time. They may get to the arrival of Black Rock. We will have to wait to find out when they are now.

Oh yeah, my head hurts


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

tivoboyjr said:


> Maybe Miles is Dr. Chang's son. And did the Changster and the Mrs. have that kid on the island? I thought that couldn't happen.


Aaron was born on the island. The problem seems to be with babies that were conceived on the island. I think we can then safely infer that Dr. Chang had not been on the island very long at the time they were building the Orchid station and recording the various orientation films.


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## Fish Man (Mar 4, 2002)

teknikel said:


> I think the last turn of the donkey wheel by Ben has caused the loop some others here have mentioned. This loop is only for events on the island. And somehow the return of the O6 will close that loop.


I'm not sure if the return of the O6 is supposed to stop the time-jumping (loop or not) or to correct some other wrong.

Regarding the time jumping (AKA Loop).

It seems that it was unexpected. Ben seemed to think that turning the donkey wheel would "move the island" once, and only once (although he implied it was not without big risks, when he described it as a "measure of last resort").

Remember that "pushing the button" in the hatch was stabilizing something. Failure to push the button created an effect almost identical to the time jumping.

Now the hatch is gone.

I'm thinking that turning the donkey wheel may have created unexpected side effects *because the hatch is gone* and is no longer operating to stabilize whatever space-time effect that it was keeping in check.

The "failsafe" provided some long-term stability, but turning the donkey wheel destabilized things again.


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## Eptiger (Jan 16, 2009)

unicorngoddess said:


> When Juilet had her backstory about falling in love with Goodwin and dealing with his wife, the therapist. Jack said something along the lines of, you people have therapist? And Juliet responded, "It's tough being an Other."


Am I the only person who thinks it's strange that they use the term "Other" to describe themselves? Or is this just when talking to the Oceanic flight survivors? Because they're not really "others", they're island natives. In actually, the crash survivors are others.

Elton


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

flyers088 said:


> I am really trying to figure out who is making it up more as they go along. RDM has the lead but after this week the Lost writers are closing the gap.


Totally disagree. This is the best planned out show I can recall; the end game is far better laid out than, say, "The X Files" or "Twin Peaks". I don't see any comparison to BSG. Battlestar Galactica has pretty much abandoned all pretense of sticking to the original "plan" (pun intended); while LOST is setting up the ending they always had in mind.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

They only use the term while talking to the crash survivors, since that's what they've been calling them.


----------



## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

latrobe7 said:


> Totally disagree. This is the best planned out show I can recall; the end game is far better laid out than, say, "The X Files" or "Twin Peaks". I don't see any comparison to BSG. Battlestar Galactica has pretty much abandoned all pretense of sticking to the original "plan" (pun intended); while LOST is setting up the ending they always had in mind.


I do think it is very well planned out. They certainly are making a lot of effort to tie things together.

What I wonder is how much of this was conceived at the start. I know that they said there is a beginning, middle and end that the story consists of, but it would be interesting to hear what elements were known or not at the time they shot the pilot episode. I mean, was it just a general idea? Have they changed it along the way? How specific was the planning? I seem to remember that the original concept came together rather quickly. Certainly all these elements of the mythology were not present from the outset, I would think.

It will be very interesting to hear the post-series interviews.


----------



## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

Somehow, I don't know if Girl With a Gun is Daniel's mom. We would have seen him much more surprised if that were the case (presupposing that his mom had no hand in setting up Daniel with Widmore).

I always, for some reason, thought that Girl With a Gun aka Ellie, was Dani*elle* Rousseau.


----------



## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

tewcewl said:


> Somehow, I don't know if Girl With a Gun is Daniel's mom. We would have seen him much more surprised if that were the case (presupposing that his mom had no hand in setting up Daniel with Widmore).


He was keeping his cool.



tewcewl said:


> I always, for some reason, thought that Girl With a Gun aka Ellie, was Dani*elle* Rousseau.


So, is the English accent fake, or is the French accent fake?


----------



## Paperboy2003 (Mar 30, 2004)

tewcewl said:


> Somehow, I don't know if Girl With a Gun is Daniel's mom. We would have seen him much more surprised if that were the case (presupposing that his mom had no hand in setting up Daniel with Widmore).
> 
> I always, for some reason, thought that Girl With a Gun aka Ellie, was Dani*elle* Rousseau.


Rousseau's backstory was fairly intricate speaking about being on a science mission and her boat sinking and end up on the island (as I recall). I don't think it could be her. Plus she was constantly paranoid b/c of the others, and had her rifle and traps set up all over the island. If she, at one time, one of them, I don't think it would've been like that. They all seem pretty homogenous and brainwashed.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

tivoboyjr said:


> I didn't know anyone thought that. Doesn't seem very likely.
> 
> I think there's a good chance "Blondie" was Charlotte's mother. Blondie also looked a lot like the girl that Faraday put into a coma (which is why I believe he said she looked familiar) but I'm guessing that was a coincidence. Or maybe he said she looks familiar because she looks a little like Charlotte.
> 
> ...


Bingo about Charlette. I thought the coma girl was either Charlotte or something to do with CHarlotte. My thought was that has something to do with her constantly getting nose bleeds and being sick from the time travel.

But I do agree with the consensus about Faraday's mother being the blonde gun lady.

I'm usually not a fan of time travel shows, because they tend to make whacky things happen and just explain it as a consequence of time travel, but I think it's being done well here. The way it's being done at least makes a modicum of sense in it's way and they are tying things together.

On a side note...when this is done, I'd love to see someone take the whole series and re-edit it in time sequence starting from the originis of "the others" and then moving forward to the latest point in the timeline. It would be fun to watch this AS events occoured rather than flashbacks and flashforwards


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

flyers088 said:


> I am really trying to figure out who is making it up more as they go along. RDM has the lead but after this week the Lost writers are closing the gap.


What is RDM?


----------



## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

Steveknj said:


> What is RDM?


Battlestar Galactica Producer Ronald D. Moore.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

hefe said:


> Battlestar Galactica Producer Ronald D. Moore.


Thanks, I don't watch that show, so I had no idea!


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

hefe said:


> I do think it is very well planned out. They certainly are making a lot of effort to tie things together.
> 
> What I wonder is how much of this was conceived at the start. I know that they said there is a beginning, middle and end that the story consists of, but it would be interesting to hear what elements were known or not at the time they shot the pilot episode. I mean, was it just a general idea? Have they changed it along the way? How specific was the planning? I seem to remember that the original concept came together rather quickly. Certainly all these elements of the mythology were not present from the outset, I would think.
> 
> It will be very interesting to hear the post-series interviews.


I think what the Island is and why the 815ers are there and the series end-game where known to the creators from the start; but there is no doubt that stuff has been woven into the series and changed as it goes - Micheal Emerson as Ben, for example. The producers have repeatedly said that his role was originally intended to be smaller and less significant to the overall story, but that Michael Emerson was so good they kept him around. Also Mr. Eko; the producers have said that there was more planned for him, but the actor couldn't stand Hawaii so they wrote him out.

Of course there are going to be changes and new directions in an episodic TV show over several seasons, but LOST has incorporated those changes into the pre-existing overall story much better than, for example, BSG.

I do often think, though, about what mysteries are going to be left at the end, and which ones would really piss me off if they don't answer them. The Smoke Monster is the biggest, most obvious one; but I am confident that they will explain that, and they've known the answer from the beginning. They've hinted that they may not explain Libby's back story or the Numbers; both of which would bum me out; but I think the ones I'm looking for the most are Danielle's back-story and "the Incident"...


----------



## BradJW (Jun 9, 2008)

I want the full scoop on the numbers. If they don't fully explain the numbers, I'll be really disappointed.


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

They have already explained the numbers to a degree, and said that that's all we'll hear about them, I thought. It was part of the "lost experience" a while back.


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## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

TAsunder said:


> They have already explained the numbers to a degree, and said that that's all we'll hear about them, I thought. It was part of the "lost experience" a while back.


I think you're right...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Experience


----------



## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> Does Miles really have paranormal powers, and if so, why did they bother writing that crap into the show?


Pretty much with this episode we should be putting that one to rest, Miles does certainly seem to be the 'real deal" as far as walking over those fresh graves and knowing about the soldiers under them.



latrobe7 said:


> I think what the Island is and why the 815ers are there and the series end-game where known to the creators from the start; but there is no doubt that stuff has been woven into the series and changed as it goes - Micheal Emerson as Ben, for example. The producers have repeatedly said that his role was originally intended to be smaller and less significant to the overall story, but that Michael Emerson was so good they kept him around. Also Mr. Eko; the producers have said that there was more planned for him, but the actor couldn't stand Hawaii so they wrote him out.
> 
> Of course there are going to be changes and new directions in an episodic TV show over several seasons, but LOST has incorporated those changes into the pre-existing overall story much better than, for example, BSG.
> 
> I do often think, though, about what mysteries are going to be left at the end, and which ones would really piss me off if they don't answer them. The Smoke Monster is the biggest, most obvious one; but I am confident that they will explain that, and they've known the answer from the beginning. They've hinted that they may not explain Libby's back story or the Numbers; both of which would bum me out; but I think the ones I'm looking for the most are Danielle's back-story and "the Incident"...


I think the best previous example of that is Babylon 5, the arc and the core stories were set in stone in the initial season, but there were as JMS has repeatedly said "escape hatches" to get him out of the corners should actors change, die, become unavailable, and I'm really feeling when it's all said and done, Lost will be up there with Bablylon 5 as one of the all time highs of episodic arc shows.

Diane


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

tewcewl said:


> Somehow, I don't know if Girl With a Gun is Daniel's mom. We would have seen him much more surprised if that were the case (presupposing that his mom had no hand in setting up Daniel with Widmore).
> 
> I always, for some reason, thought that Girl With a Gun aka Ellie, was Dani*elle* Rousseau.


Daniel had to know that both his and his mom's research was being funded by Widmore, so it was probably no surprise when he realized that Gun Girl was his mom and that the other guy was Widmore. He has way too much knowledge about the Island for it to have simply come from research. I'm sure he knew (or at least had strong suspicions) that his mom had intimate knowledge of the Island.


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

Squeak said:


> And what was the explanation?


That they are the core values of the "Vanzetti Equation"; a formula that predicts the date when man will destroy himself; however they have not explained why the numbers follow Hurley, torment Danielle or why they turn up so frequently in the story in general.

I did see an interesting theory the other day that the Numbers are the number of years the Losties jump in time each time there is a flash - 4 years back, then 8 years forward, then 15 years back, then 16 years forward, etc...


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

dianebrat said:


> Pretty much with this episode we should be putting that one to rest, Miles does certainly seem to be the 'real deal" as far as walking over those fresh graves and knowing about the soldiers under them.


Could be a time brain thing too, though. I would much rather it be that than some stupid parapsychology BS which doesn't even remotely resemble anything realistic. At least with the time travel thing we can suspend disbelief. I am having a hard time suspending disbelief with this guy or understanding why his character even exists.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> That they are the core values of the "Vanzetti Equation"; a formula that predicts the date when man will destroy himself; however they have not explained why the numbers follow Hurley, torment Danielle or why they turn up so frequently in the story in general.


Spoilers from lost experience junk just in case


Spoiler



Well, they are certain to turn up on the island at least, as the alleged purpose of Dharma was to "change" one of the factors of the equation to prevent mankind from destroying itself


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## bruinfan (Jan 17, 2006)

tewcewl said:


> Somehow, I don't know if Girl With a Gun is Daniel's mom. We would have seen him much more surprised if that were the case (presupposing that his mom had no hand in setting up Daniel with Widmore).
> 
> I always, for some reason, thought that Girl With a Gun aka Ellie, was Dani*elle* Rousseau.


it's not rousseau... she was on the island for 16 years, right? it's 1950's


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> Spoilers from lost experience junk just in case
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...


At best, that begins to explain their association with the hatch, but that's about it. Most of the instances of the numbers occur off the Island.


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> At best, that begins to explain their association with the hatch, but that's about it. Most of the instances of the numbers occur off the Island.


Yep, but I'm not hopeful the rest will be explained based on what was said...


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## flyers088 (Apr 19, 2005)

Did Desmond's adventure last night occur before or after Ben was told they have 70 hours to get back? My guess by sending D/P to La is to set up an encounter with Ben and Penny. If it happened after Mama Faraday said it then at least 24 hours have passed (probably more) and I wonder if Desmond will make it to LA in time for Ben to get his revenge on Widmore?


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## acej80 (Jan 19, 2003)

NoThru22 said:


> I think they revealed exactly what the concrete in the hatch was hiding.


That would imply the hatch was created by the others, I thought it was a Dharma station, or am I misunderstanding your statement.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Eptiger said:


> Wow, you people post faster on this thread than I can read. It took me like 15 minutes to read all of that =P
> 
> I was just reading through the Lost wikia to catch up on character backstories I've forgotten about and saw that Ben told Widmore he'd kill Penny. If Desmond goes to LA where Ben is, doesn't that put Penny in danger? I guess that Widmore either doesn't know Ben is there or didn't think Penny would go with him.
> 
> Elton


I didn't get why Widmore didn't have a PI follow Desmond home so he could find Penny and his grandson.


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## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

latrobe7 said:


> Where did the compass come from? If Richard gave it to Locke in the future, and Locke gave it to Richard in the past; where did it originally come from?


Same place as Kirk's glasses in Star Trek 4.


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## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

Fool Me Twice said:


> Still waiting for that first great episode of the season. Come on writers, we're running out of episodes. Tighten it up!


I would posit that the first episode of this season ("Because You Left", not "The Lie", which I didn't particularly enjoy) was fantastic. This episode was also quite good.


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## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

flyers088 said:


> I am really trying to figure out who is making it up more as they go along. RDM has the lead but after this week the Lost writers are closing the gap.


BSG's writers have admitted to the fact they're making things up - and it is abundantly clear from watching this latest season that that is so. Lost, on the other hand, is slowly clicking the puzzle pieces that they've laid out for us over the years in to place. You can't do a time travel story the way they're doing it and not have it planned out....


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## jamesbobo (Jun 18, 2000)

So Widmore is an other and is now off the island and can't get back.
My guess, he was told to turn the wheel.


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## UTV2TiVo (Feb 2, 2005)

You may be on to something there. Whidmore turned the wheel and has been trying to get back to the island ever since.

But I also was thinking he may have put togehter the Dharma Initiative which wouldn't jibe with this theory because he would have to know where the island is to send Dharma there.


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

My gut feeling is that when characters ask how old another character is, and the answer is always something to the effect of "he's oooooooooold", than we're not talking he's really 90 and looks 40, or he's really 120 and looks 40, but something like, he's really 1000 years old and looks 40.

The whole latin thing kind of echoes that.

-smak-


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## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

I was surprised that in the 50's Richard had no idea about time travel. We're assuming he's been there forever, so there has never been any time travel before then? 

I can't remember exactly, but didn't Sawyer try to shoot Widmore? And Richard said he wasn't really trying to kill you or you'd be dead, but we know Widmore couldn't have been killled way back then. So maybe it was like Michael--bullet bounced off. 

Is Richard the leader of the Others in the 50's? If not, who was? If so, why would he ever give power over to Ben? Richard seems so calm and nice, but lots of the other Others are mean and quick to kill people, both now and in the past. For a close knit group they seem at odds. Maybe they have a warrior class.

Locke couldn't go back with Richard as a boy and become leader because it would change the future too much. You'd think Richard would've known that.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

the real *Jughead*!


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## Mike Farrington (Nov 16, 2000)

stellie93 said:


> I was surprised that in the 50's Richard had no idea about time travel. We're assuming he's been there forever, so there has never been any time travel before then?


I don't think it was until DHARMA technology started harnessing the infinite power of the island that time travel became a possibility. And when it comes to Dharma, they seemed to be working their way up with small experiments. I think that it is perhaps the combination of the hatch explosion and turning of the donkey wheel that is causing this large scale time travel.


----------



## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Jeeters said:


> Probably because Micheal's timeline was such that he was going to be on Widmore's ship in the future. Mr. Friendly knew that about his future timeline and so knew that Michael couldn't kill himself. And Mr. Friendly probably knew that he himself was also still alive in the future which is why he knew Michael couldn't kill him, either when he contronted Michael.
> 
> And it's probably due to similar reasons for why Widmore knew Ben couldn't kill him when Ben showed up in his bedroom, or when Ben *thought* that Alex wouldn't be killed, etc.


Mr. Friendly died before the freighter came, didn't he?

The rest makes sense though. I was thinking along the same lines last night. I hadn't made the connection to Ben/Alex, though. Good one.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

uncdrew said:


> I didn't get why Widmore didn't have a PI follow Desmond home so he could find Penny and his grandson.


At this point, I don't think Widmore wants to know. Ben has sworn to kill Penny; Widmore probably just wants her completely out of the picture so he won't accidentally lead Ben or Ben's minions to her.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

hefe said:


> I do think it is very well planned out. They certainly are making a lot of effort to tie things together.
> 
> What I wonder is how much of this was conceived at the start. I know that they said there is a beginning, middle and end that the story consists of, but it would be interesting to hear what elements were known or not at the time they shot the pilot episode. I mean, was it just a general idea? Have they changed it along the way? How specific was the planning? I seem to remember that the original concept came together rather quickly. Certainly all these elements of the mythology were not present from the outset, I would think.
> 
> It will be very interesting to hear the post-series interviews.


I've always wondered if you could set up a show with lots of random stuff (oh...say... polar bears, old ships washed up in the mountains, smoke monsters, a series of numbers, a huge statue with just a 4-toed foot remaining, some old movie reels, ...) and then put the story together after you introduce all the weird stuff.


----------



## flyers088 (Apr 19, 2005)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> At this point, I don't think Widmore wants to know. Ben has sworn to kill Penny; Widmore probably just wants her completely out of the picture so he won't accidentally lead Ben or Ben's minions to her.


Which is exactly what he did.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

UTV2TiVo said:


> You may be on to something there. Whidmore turned the wheel and has been trying to get back to the island ever since.


Because his life in the real world turned out so horrible. 

It does seem like he's consumed with getting back. I wonder why.


----------



## Mike Farrington (Nov 16, 2000)

uncdrew said:


> I've always wondered if you could set up a show with lots of random stuff (oh...say... polar bears, old ships washed up in the mountains, smoke monsters, a series of numbers, a huge statue with just a 4-toed foot remaining, some old movie reels, ...) and then put the story together after you introduce all the weird stuff.


So you think the pitch meeting was just an improv session gone awry?


----------



## ElJay (Apr 6, 2005)

Put me in the "useless filler" column. This is what they give us for the third hour of the new season? Lotsa talk about the h-bomb that we'll never probably see again. Desmond's journey was uninteresting as well.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> At best, that begins to explain their association with the hatch, but that's about it. Most of the instances of the numbers occur off the Island.


I think the producers have said that they were surprised at how much the fans fixated on the numbers, so they began intentionally inserting them all over the place just to keep the fan frenzy going. Most of the occurrences of the numbers off the island (like the soccer jerseys in the Sydney airport, etc.) are just there for fun.


flyers088 said:


> Did Desmond's adventure last night occur before or after Ben was told they have 70 hours to get back? My guess by sending D/P to La is to set up an encounter with Ben and Penny. If it happened after Mama Faraday said it then at least 24 hours have passed (probably more) and I wonder if Desmond will make it to LA in time for Ben to get his revenge on Widmore?


My guess is the Desmond/Penny events from "Jughead" took place roughly simultaneously with Mrs. Hawking telling Ben he had 70 hours, so that when we get back to seeing the events in LA, not much time will have been lost, but Desmond and Penny will already be on their way. Pretty clear that Des and Penny won't be sailing their boat to LA though.


----------



## tivoboyjr (Apr 28, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> Aaron was born on the island. The problem seems to be with babies that were conceived on the island. I think we can then safely infer that Dr. Chang had not been on the island very long at the time they were building the Orchid station and recording the various orientation films.


I actually knew that about babies being conceived vs. born on the island; I just didn't express myself very well in asking the question.

Your inference is probably correct, but I wouldn't say it's a given based on what we've seen so far.



ElJay said:


> Put me in the "useless filler" column. This is what they give us for the third hour of the new season? Lotsa talk about the h-bomb that we'll never probably see again. Desmond's journey was uninteresting as well.


To me, Desmond is the true central character of the show. All of the Desmond/Penny stuff carries a lot more weight with me than the Jack/Kate stuff, which generally has a lot less substance to it.


----------



## bacevedo (Oct 31, 2003)

You guys crack me up.

So you suspend disbelief about smoke monsters, time travel, invisible islands, and then struggle to figure out why an H-Bomb in a huge concrete case didn't destroy the "magic" island? I don't have an answer for that, but to me, that was the purpose of the H-Bomb - to show us what was in the concrete in the hatch. The Hostiles bury it and it emits energy (or something) because of the magic properties of the island. Dharma then builds a hatch around it for reasons yet to be known.

I know, really hard to believe. 

The whole H-Bomb didn't even need to be in this episode. There were many other ways for all of the information to be shared without inserting an H-Bomb plot. Also, why didn't the H-Bomb detonate the first time around? If the military launched it as a test, and it didn't explode the first time (the whole reason it was even there) what makes you think it exploded when the hatch was destroyed. Does anyone (besides the writers) even really know what happened with the hatch?

Bryan


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

Until we're told so explicitly; I'm not buying that the H-bomb was buried in the hatch. 

What would an H-bomb have to do with electro-magnetism?


----------



## bacevedo (Oct 31, 2003)

Yeah - I can understand that. I should add that I am not 100% positive either, just throwing out a theory. But what cracks me up is that people dismiss it because it's not "realistic". Nothing about this show is "realistic".

What does punching in numbers every 108 minutes have to do with electro-magnetism? 

Bryan


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

bacevedo said:


> What does punching in numbers every 108 minutes have to do with electro-magnetism?
> 
> Bryan


Nothing - it was more all the metallic objects flying around the hatch and the large metal airplane that was brought down that gave me that idea.


----------



## tivoboyjr (Apr 28, 2003)

bacevedo said:


> Yeah - I can understand that. I should add that I am not 100% positive either, just throwing out a theory. But what cracks me up is that people dismiss it because it's not "realistic". Nothing about this show is "realistic".


You want unrealistic? Last week, Hurley cooked a hot pocket without using the crisping sleeve. Who does that?

I have no problem with the time travel and smoke monster stuff, but if you're going to show a fat guy making a hot pocket, you damn well better have him use the crisping sleeve.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

uncdrew said:


> Because his life in the real world turned out so horrible.
> 
> It does seem like he's consumed with getting back. I wonder why.


Maybe he has some terminal illness like Rose.

He needs the healing ability! Also I think you can live forever on the island, see Richard for proof.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Something that hasn't been mentioned: It seems that the Island wasn't so hard to find back in the 50s. The U.S. military clearly found it in order to place their H-Bomb and the 18 dead soldiers there. If I remember correctly, the Others said or implied that there had been more "groups" that they'd had to fend off. So what has changed about the Island in the last 50 years that it was relatively easy to find back then and nearly impossible to find now?

Also, can we assume that everyone from the beach other than those we saw in this episode, such as Bernard and Rose, etc. were killed by the Others and/or the land mines?


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Something that hasn't been mentioned: It seems that the Island wasn't so hard to find back in the 50s. The U.S. military clearly found it in order to place their H-Bomb and the 18 dead soldiers there. If I remember correctly, the Others said or implied that there had been more "groups" that they'd had to fend off. So what has changed about the Island in the last 50 years that it was relatively easy to find back then and nearly impossible to find now?
> 
> Also, can we assume that everyone from the beach other than those we saw in this episode, such as Bernard and Rose, etc. were killed by the Others and/or the land mines?


You would think so, yet when Locke asked Richard how to get off the island Richard seemed to hold back that information.

Wouldn't it also be as simple as, "uh you just get on a boat and leave".


----------



## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

aindik said:


> He was keeping his cool.
> 
> So, is the English accent fake, or is the French accent fake?


That didn't sound like any French accent I'd ever heard.

But I get your point


----------



## sushikitten (Jan 28, 2005)

When woman-with-gun and Daniel were at the bomb and she was asking him how he knew how to disarm it, I kept expecting him to say "Because I built it."


----------



## sushikitten (Jan 28, 2005)

And why would Widmore give up the mama Farraday info so easily? What's in it for him? (I might just be clueless, as it's late and I can't think straight.) Widmore could easily have had Desmond thrown out.


----------



## Dennis Wilkinson (Sep 24, 2001)

hefe said:


> What I wonder is how much of this was conceived at the start. I know that they said there is a beginning, middle and end that the story consists of, but it would be interesting to hear what elements were known or not at the time they shot the pilot episode. I mean, was it just a general idea? Have they changed it along the way?


I've heard the producers say that the overall arc was worked out at the beginning, but that they they've come up with specifics over time (and they never introduce something without knowing how it will finally play out.)



DevdogAZ said:


> Aaron was born on the island. The problem seems to be with babies that were conceived on the island. I think we can then safely infer that Dr. Chang had not been on the island very long at the time they were building the Orchid station and recording the various orientation films.


I was under the impression that the problem with babies being conceived/born on the island was a relatively new phenomenon, not that it had always been the case.



tivoboyjr said:


> You want unrealistic? Last week, Hurley cooked a hot pocket without using the crisping sleeve. Who does that?


Maybe it was one of the half-pounders. They don't come with a crisping sleeve. 



wprager said:


> That didn't sound like any French accent I'd ever heard.


Well, the actress is Croatian. Maybe that's what the French sound like in Croatia.


----------



## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

wprager said:


> Mr. Friendly died before the freighter came, didn't he?
> 
> The rest makes sense though. I was thinking along the same lines last night. I hadn't made the connection to Ben/Alex, though. Good one.


I believe he died the same day the freighter was to appear. Or at least the same day or within a day or two that Naomi appeared.



tivoboyjr said:


> You want unrealistic? Last week, Hurley cooked a hot pocket without using the crisping sleeve. Who does that?
> 
> I have no problem with the time travel and smoke monster stuff, but if you're going to show a fat guy making a hot pocket, you damn well better have him use the crisping sleeve.


Is it not possible he may not like it crispy? Could he like it doughy and gooey? Or after he realized he didn't use the crisping sleeve he then had the perfect excuse to throw it against the wall.


----------



## smickola (Nov 17, 2004)

BrandonRe said:


> I would bet that this will become a plot point at some point in the next 2 seasons. I bet it becomes larger than 1 coincidence (Charlie Pace having the same first name as Charles Widmore) and 1 tribute (naming baby Charlie after Charlie Pace. but, this is Lost, and I am probably wrong.


I think this will wind up being unintentionally meaningful - Widmore asked Desmond if Penny was OK, and said that he hadn't heard from his daughter in three years. He obviously has no idea that he has a grandson - when he finds out that he has one named Charles, maybe he believes it's a tribute to HIM and this will make him finally accept Desmond.


----------



## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

teknikel said:


> .......Is it not possible he may not like it crispy? Could he like it doughy and gooey? Or after he realized he didn't use the crisping sleeve he then had the perfect excuse to throw it against the wall.


[gaffigan] Lost Pocket [/gaffigan]


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## moot (Apr 8, 2006)

I don't have anything much to add that hasn't already been said.

I just thought I'd share that every time I watch an episode with this time travel plot, my mind recalls the Doctor Who episode "Blink", where the Doctor descibes time as a (paraphrasing) "big ball of timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly stuff". Sometimes, I feel that's the only way to describe it.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Dennis Wilkinson said:


> I've heard the producers say that the overall arc was worked out at the beginning, but that they they've come up with specifics over time (and they never introduce something without knowing how it will finally play out.)


That's what they WANT you to think


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Well my question has been growing over the years. Who is Richard Alpert? We see him in various positions thru the last couple years. Leader, follower, support team and refugee waiting for the next leader.

Well, I only have one more question to ask about this...has anyone counted his toes?

Everyone on the island...take your shoes off and let's start counting toes. This little piggy went to the Orchid, this little piggy went to the Swan...


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## chronatog7 (Aug 26, 2004)

Quick question:
what happen to Rose and her husband?


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## jradford (Dec 28, 2004)

jamesbobo said:


> So Widmore is an other and is now off the island and can't get back.
> My guess, he was told to turn the wheel.


I like this.


tivoboyjr said:


> I actually knew that about babies being conceived vs. born on the island; I just didn't express myself very well in asking the question.


My theory: Babies conceived on the island can't be born because the island's time line does not match up with the time "stream." That's confusing to try to explain, but basically, my thought is that a baby conceived and BORN on the island would be altering the time stream by adding new life. Or something like that...



tivoboyjr said:


> To me, Desmond is the true central character of the show. All of the Desmond/Penny stuff carries a lot more weight with me than the Jack/Kate stuff, which generally has a lot less substance to it.


I'm with you. My "theory," without any backup, is that the Adam and Eve skeletons are Desmond and Penny.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Eptiger said:


> Am I the only person who thinks it's strange that they use the term "Other" to describe themselves? Or is this just when talking to the Oceanic flight survivors? Because they're not really "others", they're island natives. In actually, the crash survivors are others.


I think that's just Juliet using the crash survivors' lingo when talking. They don't officially call themselves Others.



tewcewl said:


> Somehow, I don't know if Girl With a Gun is Daniel's mom. We would have seen him much more surprised if that were the case (presupposing that his mom had no hand in setting up Daniel with Widmore).


Given that Daniel asked Desmond to go find his mother, I think he was already aware that she had some connection to the island.



TAsunder said:


> Could be a time brain thing too, though. I would much rather it be that than some stupid parapsychology BS which doesn't even remotely resemble anything realistic. At least with the time travel thing we can suspend disbelief. I am having a hard time suspending disbelief with this guy or understanding why his character even exists.


If we could time travel, then things like knowing the future, which we would today attribute to "stupid parapsychology BS" like precognition, would not seem so farfetched. I don't see Miles' abilities as any less realistic than other things on the show like being able to swap minds with one's past self, living an extremely long time, having dead people appear as messengers from some unknown force, or having an island warp space and time around it without having any effects other than requiring one to travel on a specific heading to get in and out.



sushikitten said:


> And why would Widmore give up the mama Farraday info so easily? What's in it for him? (I might just be clueless, as it's late and I can't think straight.) Widmore could easily have had Desmond thrown out.


What's in it for him is that the sooner Desmond delivers the message and goes back into hiding, the sooner Penny will no longer be in danger. If he didn't give Desmond the information, then Desmond might have stuck around to find it elsewhere. Although, it is certainly possible that Widmore has ulterior motives as well.

It's unclear whether Widmore talked to Sun before or after talking to Desmond, but maybe he wants the Oceanic 6 to get back to the island because he has a plan to get there through them, perhaps with Sun's help.


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## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

smickola said:


> I think this will wind up being unintentionally meaningful - Widmore asked Desmond if Penny was OK, and said that he hadn't heard from his daughter in three years. He obviously has no idea that he has a grandson - when he finds out that he has one named Charles, maybe he believes it's a tribute to HIM and this will make him finally accept Desmond.


Maybe it will be intentionally meaningful, maybe the Desmond family goes to L.A. to find the doctors mother and end up going back to the island with the O6 and Ben, maybe baby Charlie gets lost in one of the time skips and maybe someone picks him up moves him off the island and he grows up to be Charlie something in some rock band named drive shaft..........or maybe like a twist of "Roswell That Ends Well" (Futurama) he gets lost further back in time and grows up to be Charles Widmore...HA


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

BitbyBlit said:


> If we could time travel, then things like knowing the future, which we would today attribute to "stupid parapsychology BS" like precognition, would not seem so farfetched. I don't see Miles' abilities as any less realistic than other things on the show like being able to swap minds with one's past self, living an extremely long time, having dead people appear as messengers from some unknown force, or having an island warp space and time around it without having any effects other than requiring one to travel on a specific heading to get in and out.


Dead people may not really be appearing, just as miles may not really be using psychic powers. But they will need to explain it at some point. That was my point. I guess you misinterpreted it. I am saying that they need to explain the source of his "powers" as something relating to time travel or some island smoke monster stuff instead of relating to magic dead people powers.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> Dead people may not really be appearing, just as miles may not really be using psychic powers. But they will need to explain it at some point. That was my point. I guess you misinterpreted it. I am saying that they need to explain the source of his "powers" as something relating to time travel or some island smoke monster stuff instead of relating to magic dead people powers.


But we've seen him using his "magic dead people powers" before he ever went to the Island or even heard of it. There's no reason for us to think or believe that his abilities have anything to do with the Island.


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## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

DevdogAZ said:


> But we've seen him using his "magic dead people powers" before he ever went to the Island or even heard of it. There's no reason for us to think or believe that his abilities have anything to do with the Island.


Yea but we don't know anything about him from BEFORE the time we met him do we? Did he have a flashback episode? I might have forgotten...anyway I read some posts here that say he might be the son of the orientation film guy, so if that is true we know he was on the island earlier.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> But we've seen him using his "magic dead people powers" before he ever went to the Island or even heard of it. There's no reason for us to think or believe that his abilities have anything to do with the Island.


Lots of people had "island moments" before they knew about the island. In any case, it doesn't matter what the explanation is as long as it isn't "oooooo! I'm a ghost and I can talk to miles! <shakes chains>"


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> Could be a time brain thing too, though. I would much rather it be that than some stupid parapsychology BS which doesn't even remotely resemble anything realistic. At least with the time travel thing we can suspend disbelief. I am having a hard time suspending disbelief with this guy or understanding why his character even exists.


Yep, Miles really bugs me too. Everything else can usually be explained in sci-fi/fantasy terms which works within the framework of this story as told from the beginning (not realistic, but plausible within the show).

But Miles' ability to speak with the dead came out of nowhere and makes no sense in relation to anything else, IMO. Plus the character seems, as pointed out, completely superfluous. I have no idea what he's supposed to contribute.


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## bruinfan (Jan 17, 2006)

Test said:


> Yea but we don't know anything about him from BEFORE the time we met him do we? Did he have a flashback episode? I might have forgotten...anyway I read some posts here that say he might be the son of the orientation film guy, so if that is true we know he was on the island earlier.





MickeS said:


> But Miles' ability to speak with the dead came out of nowhere and makes no sense in relation to anything else, IMO. Plus the character seems, as pointed out, completely superfluous. I have no idea what he's supposed to contribute.


i thought miles had a flashback episode, from when they were all being recruited by naomi...

he went to that grandmother's house and "read" the grandson's room. he knew where to find his cash stash and then ran out of the house saying he couldn't help her.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

MickeS said:


> But Miles' ability to speak with the dead came out of nowhere and makes no sense in relation to anything else, IMO. Plus the character seems, as pointed out, completely superfluous. I have no idea what he's supposed to contribute.


That's why we have 30+ episodes left. Plenty of time to show us that <xxx> is really <yyy's> <mother/brother/son/daughter> and that they knew each other back in <Roman/Atlantis/WWII> days.

Or whatever.

Gawd I love this show! :up:


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## jeff125va (Mar 15, 2001)

I wonder why Desmond could not remember what year he had met Faraday at Oxford. During that episode, he definitely knew that it was 1996, right? Then again, it was never really clear exactly how he would remember that whole experience. I.e., would he remember it happening as we (and Sayid) saw it? Or would it all just be ordered sequentially in his mind, and he'd remember the events as having happened eight years apart? Not sure either one really explains why he couldn't remember. I was thinking for a moment that he just didn't want to answer because it really couldn't have happened in 1996, but I can't think of any reason the woman at the desk would have doubted him.


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## 3D (Oct 9, 2001)

uncdrew said:


> I didn't get why Widmore didn't have a PI follow Desmond home so he could find Penny and his grandson.





Rob Helmerichs said:


> At this point, I don't think Widmore wants to know. Ben has sworn to kill Penny; Widmore probably just wants her completely out of the picture so he won't accidentally lead Ben or Ben's minions to her.





flyers088 said:


> Which is exactly what he did.





sushikitten said:


> And why would Widmore give up the mama Farraday info so easily? What's in it for him? (I might just be clueless, as it's late and I can't think straight.) Widmore could easily have had Desmond thrown out.


My initial thoughts, as often seems to be the case, mirror Rob's, and figured that his posting had saved me the trouble. But Flyers and sushikitten bring up interesting points. Why would Widmor give up the location of Daniel's mother so easily? Chances are, she's Mrs. Hawking and alligned with Ben. Surely, Widmore is keeping tabs on the Oceanic 6 and has some idea of what Ben is up to. Why would he send Penny to a place where he knows Ben is? Maybe he doesn't know, but is perfectly happy to use his daughter as bait for Ben? Either way, I've changed my original course of thinking and doubt very highly that Widmore simply wants Penny to disappear as soon as possible.


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## tewcewl (Dec 18, 2004)

Do we know anything about MRS. Widmore, AKA Penny's mom?


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> Dead people may not really be appearing, just as miles may not really be using psychic powers. But they will need to explain it at some point. That was my point. I guess you misinterpreted it. I am saying that they need to explain the source of his "powers" as something relating to time travel or some island smoke monster stuff instead of relating to magic dead people powers.


My point was than any explanation, as long as it is consistent within the universe of the show, is no more magical than anything else. The existence of spirit-like beings who may or may not be the dead people they are representing is no more magical than a smoke monster. If Miles has psychic powers, then those types of abilities are allowed by the nature of the Lost universe, just as the island and all of its weirdness is allowed by the universe.

I do agree, however, that if they don't offer any explanation, and we are just supposed to accept that Miles has these powers for no reason, then that would break the continuity of the show. But so far Miles has not contributed anything significant to the plot, so I'm assuming there will eventually be a point to introducing him with the powers in the first place.

I do think Miles' ability is tied somehow to the island. We know that other characters have seen their dead friends and relatives, so Miles' ability simply extends that to dead people he doesn't know. Whether these are actually the dead spirits of the people or the island (or whatever controls it, if anything) projecting these visions, we don't know. But either way, I think Miles' visions come from the same place as the other ones we've seen.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

BitbyBlit said:


> But so far Miles has not contributed anything significant to the plot, so I'm assuming there will eventually be a point to introducing him with the powers in the first place.


One subtle but important contribution he makes from time to time is to confirm stuff for other characters that they would not otherwise know.

I agree, however, that there is almost certainly more of a purpose to him than we have so far seen (or understood).


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## Cindy1230 (Oct 31, 2003)

tewcewl said:


> Do we know anything about MRS. Widmore, AKA Penny's mom?


:up: Excellent question to add to the mix. I don't think she has ever been mentioned, at least Lospedia doesn't say anything.

I agree that there is a possibility that Widmore could be Daniel's father as well, 
so Penny and Daniel could be half-siblings,...I doubt that Hawking would be Penny's mom. Since it seems like Daniel grew up in the US and Penny in the UK, it's likely that Widmore had Daniel illegitimately, or before he met Penny's mom, and Daniel stayed in the states/or was sent there, or something. Oh the possibilities are endless...

But thanks for bringing up that question.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

I still love the show, but it bothers me a little bit that a show that started out being about the victims of the crash seems to have its entire central plot revolving around peripheral late-introduced characters like Faraday, Mrs. Hawking, Penny, Richard Alpert, Charles Widmore, Christian Shepard etc. (even to a lesser extent Desmond and Ben). 

We haven't had enough time to care about these people (other than Desmond and probably Ben) who are central to the story. The people we all invested time caring about have either died or been shunted to the periphery. Even Locke's story seems right now to be less about his greatness and more about a circular self-referential suicide mission. 

Hopefully the end game will make those people more important to the overall story than they seem right now.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Well, it seems to me that what we're in the middle of now is the newer characters dealing with the consequences of the older characters' actions. But I think they (the older characters) still have the central storyline (getting back to the island and setting things right); they're just not as much center stage at this exact moment.

Personally, I like it...I like the newer characters, and I like the notion of going light on the old regulars for a while so that when they return to the forefront, it will feel fresh.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Well, it seems to me that what we're in the middle of now is the newer characters dealing with the consequences of the older characters' actions. But I think they (the older characters) still have the central storyline (getting back to the island and setting things right); they're just not as much center stage at this exact moment.
> 
> Personally, I like it...I like the newer characters, and I like the notion of going light on the old regulars for a while so that when they return to the forefront, it will feel fresh.


I like all of the newer characters. I even like Miles when they don't casually write a talking to the dead scene. Maybe that's part of the problem... other mysterious started off mysteriously. The treatment of Miles seems very matter-of-fact. It doesn't feel like they consider his powers a mystery thus far.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Well, it seems to me that what we're in the middle of now is the newer characters dealing with the consequences of the older characters' actions.


I'm not seeing that. What I'm seeing is the newer characters dealing with a central island mythology and history that has nothing to do with the older characters, and everything to do with the Others circa 1954.



Rob Helmerichs said:


> But I think they (the older characters) still have the central storyline (getting back to the island and setting things right); they're just not as much center stage at this exact moment.


How are they setting things right? What went wrong and what did they have to do with it? All we know now is, they "have to go back." But why? All the answers seem to lie, again, in the history and power of the island.



Rob Helmerichs said:


> Personally, I like it...I like the newer characters, and I like the notion of going light on the old regulars for a while so that when they return to the forefront, it will feel fresh.


I don't dislike the characters, but I just feel like a lot of the time spent in earlier seasons seems wasted.


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## BrandonRe (Jul 15, 2006)

aindik said:


> How are they setting things right? What went wrong and what did they have to do with it? All we know now is, they "have to go back." But why? All the answers seem to lie, again, in the history and power of the island.


Or in the upcoming episodes...


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## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

TAsunder said:


> I like all of the newer characters. I even like Miles when they don't casually write a talking to the dead scene. Maybe that's part of the problem... other mysterious started off mysteriously. The treatment of Miles seems very matter-of-fact. It doesn't feel like they consider his powers a mystery thus far.


Why does it need explaining? He talks to dead people. The End.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

aindik said:


> I'm not seeing that. What I'm seeing is the newer characters dealing with a central island mythology and history that has nothing to do with the older characters, and everything to do with the Others circa 1954.


That's was the central focus of this episode, but there was plenty about the "older" characters in the previous two episodes, and I suspect there will be plenty about them in upcoming episodes. Just because this particular segment needed to focus on other things in order to properly unravel the mystery doesn't mean that there won't be plenty of time for more of the Jack and Kate soap opera.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

hapdrastic said:


> Why does it need explaining? He talks to dead people. The End.


I assume you don't apply this same, uh, "reasoning" to other aspects of Lost, or you would have stopped watching after the first few episodes.

I wish they'd explain the hatch.

Why does it need explaining? It's a hatch in the ground. The End.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

hapdrastic said:


> Why does it need explaining? He talks to dead people. The End.


I think it's important to know whether Miles' ability is somehow tied to the island or people in the Lost world naturally evolved into having psychic abilities independent of the island's existence. If some have, then most don't know about it. And given that we had a fake psychic who was surprised to get a real vision, I'm thinking this is indeed tied to the island. So far the island is our only confirmed source of dead people visions, or any visions for that matter.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

I'm not talking about the soap opera love quadrangle between Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Juliet (speaking of, anyone take a look at Elizabeth Mitchell in the latest LOST video podcast? Wow.).

I'm talking about their importance to the overall storyline. It seems very minimized right now, like the entire world revolves around Charles Widmore, Mrs. Hawking, their children, Desmond, Richard Alpert, and Ben Linus. Not just this episode, but the whole central mythology. 

The stuff they're having the six do seems like a waste of time to keep them on the show.


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## bruinfan (Jan 17, 2006)

BitbyBlit said:


> I think it's important to know whether Miles' ability is somehow tied to the island or people in the Lost world naturally evolved into having psychic abilities independent of the island's existence. If some have, then most don't know about it. And given that we had a fake psychic who was surprised to get a real vision, I'm thinking this is indeed tied to the island. So far the island is our only confirmed source of dead people visions, or any visions for that matter.


before he went to the island, he talked to the grandma's dead grandson. he's shown this ability before the island

how come no one hears me?


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## Fleegle (Jan 15, 2002)

bruinfan said:


> before he went to the island, he talked to the grandma's dead grandson. he's shown this ability before the island
> 
> how come no one hears me?


Did someone say something?


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## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

The picture Desmond saw of Daniel with a woman--was that supposed to be his Mom? It did look like gun girl, but she looked about the same age as Daniel to me. Maybe they attempted to youthen Daniel in the picture and I just didn't get it. Or maybe Mom spent most of her life up to that point on the island, but why does she look so old now? Or maybe Daniel is really Olllld too. Or am I wrong and that wasn't his mother at all? 



DevdogAZ said:


> Daniel had to know that both his and his mom's research was being funded by Widmore, so it was probably no surprise when he realized that Gun Girl was his mom and that the other guy was Widmore. He has way too much knowledge about the Island for it to have simply come from research. I'm sure he knew (or at least had strong suspicions) that his mom had intimate knowledge of the Island.


First, do we know that Widmore funded his mom's research? Cause she's working for Ben now. Wonder how that happened? If her loyalty is to Ben, why did Daniel work for Widmore--unless he didn't find his Mom until recently.

Also, he seemed to know that they had a hydrogen bomb before he saw it. I wondered if the troops coming there with the bomb convinced Richard (or Jacob) to "hide" the island so this kind of thing wouldn't happen again.

If Locke finds out how to leave the island, when is he going to do it? He doesn't want to leave in the 50's, or any time but the present, does he? First he has to figure out how to get back there.

Also, Ben seemed to know what would happen if he turned the wheel, so probably there was a story about someone doing it before--Widmore, maybe?

So Richard was going through his long hair phase when Ben was a boy?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

stellie93 said:


> The picture Desmond saw of Daniel with a woman--was that supposed to be his Mom? It did look like gun girl, but she looked about the same age as Daniel to me. Maybe they attempted to youthen Daniel in the picture and I just didn't get it. Or maybe Mom spent most of her life up to that point on the island, but why does she look so old now? Or maybe Daniel is really Olllld too. Or am I wrong and that wasn't his mother at all?


That's his comatose lab assistant.

Mom is Crazy Old Scientist in LA/Woman With Gun.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Am I the only one who thought that Richard's shirt looked a little modern to be '50s? I could be mistaken but it looked like it had thse clips instead of buttons, and I thought that was common in the '70s.


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## aindik (Jan 23, 2002)

Did they have eyeliner in the 50s? Is that included in the Dharma supply drops?


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## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

TAsunder said:


> I assume you don't apply this same, uh, "reasoning" to other aspects of Lost, or you would have stopped watching after the first few episodes.
> 
> I wish they'd explain the hatch.
> 
> Why does it need explaining? It's a hatch in the ground. The End.


I guess what I'm trying to say is that someone seeing/talking to ghosts isn't "unusual" in the way that something like the hatch is. We've seen people have Miles-like powers on other shows, it's an established concept, it doesn't really need explaining. The hatch, on the other hand, is weird in that it's a hatch in the middle of this seemingly (at the time) uninhabited island.

Also, they did explain the hatch, it was built by Dharma, I don't see that we're going to get all that much more explanation (or that we need it).


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

hapdrastic said:


> I guess what I'm trying to say is that someone seeing/talking to ghosts isn't "unusual" in the way that something like the hatch is. We've seen people have Miles-like powers on other shows, it's an established concept, it doesn't really need explaining. The hatch, on the other hand, is weird in that it's a hatch in the middle of this seemingly (at the time) uninhabited island.
> 
> Also, they did explain the hatch, it was built by Dharma, I don't see that we're going to get all that much more explanation (or that we need it).


I know they explained the hatch (to a degree). That was my point.

I don't care what other shows do. Ghosts and parapsychology are horse crap pseudoscience and I expect more from Lost than to insert that into the show. I'm both assuming and hoping that they actually explain it so that the quality of the show does not end up suffering for a worthless character who did not fit in with the show as it probably will with certain spider-bitten characters.

If it turns out all the "dead" people really are "ghosts" and that miles "talks to ghosts" then this show will end up a laughing stock.


----------



## Jericho Dog (Feb 10, 2006)

aindik said:


> I still love the show, but it bothers me a little bit that a show that started out being about the victims of the crash seems to have its entire central plot revolving around peripheral late-introduced characters like Faraday, Mrs. Hawking, Penny, Richard Alpert, Charles Widmore, Christian Shepard etc. (even to a lesser extent Desmond and Ben).
> 
> We haven't had enough time to care about these people (other than Desmond and probably Ben) who are central to the story. The people we all invested time caring about have either died or been shunted to the periphery. Even Locke's story seems right now to be less about his greatness and more about a circular self-referential suicide mission.
> 
> Hopefully the end game will make those people more important to the overall story than they seem right now.


Maybe it's just your perspective.
Most books I've read involve a main character who's "normal", who gets caught up in something that's already going on that's way bigger than them, involving other characters.

Since the show's on so long(not just a 2-hour movie), there's plenty of time to flesh out the whole 'thing' that the main character has stumbled upon.

That's the way I look at it, they'll get back to them eventually.


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## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

TAsunder said:


> I know they explained the hatch (to a degree). That was my point.
> 
> I don't care what other shows do. Ghosts and parapsychology are horse crap pseudoscience and I expect more from Lost than to insert that into the show. I'm both assuming and hoping that they actually explain it so that the quality of the show does not end up suffering for a worthless character who did not fit in with the show as it probably will with certain spider-bitten characters.
> 
> If it turns out all the "dead" people really are "ghosts" and that miles "talks to ghosts" then this show will end up a laughing stock.


I guess I just don't see that it needs to be "explained".... I don't expect a scientific explanation for all the "magic" stuff that has happened on this show. What I do expect is for it to be used in an (internally) logical and consistent way.

I'm interested in the overall mythology of the show, if not everything is tied up with a neat little bow at the end I'll be just as happy as if it is - as long as they don't leave something *major* hanging. Happier, even, than if they wrap it all up but do it poorly (I'm looking at you, here, BSG).

All that said, if Miles does turn out to be connected to the island somehow and his "ghosts" are really echoes from the past or some other time-travel related device I think that would be far more interesting than otherwise, but it isn't necessary. YMMV.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

People have been seeing dead people on this show as long as there have been dead people on this show.

Miles is just more consistent. And I'm sure we'll get some sense of why eventually.


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## balboa dave (Jan 19, 2004)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> People have been seeing dead people on this show as long as there have been dead people on this show.
> 
> Miles is just more consistent. And I'm sure we'll get some sense of why eventually.


Dead is just a _relative_ term. I'm guessing that most of the "dead" people we've seen are incidents of time traveling, with the probable exception of Hurley's visions. We're watching people move through time into the past, so that's possible, so why not have not-so-random people visit the future at not-so-random times, even beyond the time when they've died? It's been consistently shown that the main characters are far more inter-related than what appeared in the beginning, so I wouldn't be surprised if we find out, for example, Jack's father has been to the island, maybe as a consultant like Juliet. The misery he showed before he died in his drinking binge is consistent with the sadness the characters experience after they leave the island.


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## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> That's his comatose lab assistant.
> 
> Mom is Crazy Old Scientist in LA/Woman With Gun.


Thanks--that makes more sense. When I rewatched, I thought the picture looked more like girl with gun. I guess I'm blind.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

balboa dave said:


> Dead is just a _relative_ term. I'm guessing that most of the "dead" people we've seen are incidents of time traveling, with the probable exception of Hurley's visions.


They're not "dead", they're "living impaired"
(someone had to say it!)
Diane


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Oh man..

Ok so remember that young Ben in school was told about there being a volcano on the island? And now there's an H bomb?

I wonder how many body thetans Locke has?

Al var han so
L Ron Hub bard

Ja cob
Xe nu


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## Squeak (May 12, 2000)

aindik said:


> Did they have eyeliner in the 50s? Is that included in the Dharma supply drops?




My wife said the same thing!


----------



## Dennis Wilkinson (Sep 24, 2001)

aindik said:


> Did they have eyeliner in the 50s? Is that included in the Dharma supply drops?


Maybe it's kohl. It'd hardly be the first Egyptian thing we'd seen on the show.


----------



## shaunrose (Sep 13, 2001)

aindik said:


> Did they have eyeliner in the 50s? Is that included in the Dharma supply drops?





Squeak said:


> My wife said the same thing!


I read something by the producers that Richard does not wear eyeliner and that the actor's eyes just look that way on camera and it is all natural.


----------



## bryce1012 (Jan 12, 2005)

balboa dave said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if we find out, for example, Jack's father has been to the island, maybe as a consultant like Juliet. *The misery he showed before he died in his drinking binge is consistent with the sadness the characters experience after they leave the island.*


Dude... you just blew my freaking mind.


----------



## brermike (Jun 1, 2006)

shaunrose said:


> I read something by the producers that Richard does not wear eyeliner and that the actor's eyes just look that way on camera and it is all natural.


It's true, he does not wear eyeliner. His eyes look the same in all the other shows and movies the actor has been in (e.g. Suddenly Susan, Cane, The Dark Knight).


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

brermike said:


> It's true, he does not wear eyeliner. His eyes look the same in all the other shows and movies the actor has been in (e.g. Suddenly Susan, Cane, The Dark Knight).


That's why he wore a mask in The Tick!


----------



## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

aindik said:


> ......(speaking of, anyone take a look at Elizabeth Mitchell in the latest LOST video podcast? Wow.).......


TPIUWP!


----------



## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

jlb said:


> TPIUWP!


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

hefe said:


>


How you doin'?

I won't comment on everything that's gone on the past two days that I haven't been able to post in the thread, but I do have something to say.

There was an interview with Lindelof & Cuse I was reading the other day where they wentinto a little more detail as to why having a finite amount of time left has freed them up. They were able to be more open about it now that a few episodes have aired.

What they said is they got to a point in S3 where things just weren't working and if something didn't change, they'd end up leaving the show, and right now we'd be watching a show with different producers. So they had their meeting and negotiated the end.

They also said that the direction the plot is going now was always planned, but they couldn't go down the path we're now on if it weren't for knowing when it would end. That everything we're seeing now is setting up what happens in the final season. They keep referring to this season as the "penultimate season of Lost".

Most importantly, they said their "business model" as it were is now the same as cable, where they have less episodes to write, which doesn't allow them exraneous stuff that was in the first 4 seasons. All the episodes now have to do with the whole arc of the show, with no standalones.

AHA, I found the interview:

http://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2009/01/damon-and-carlton-interview.html

Unlike when I read or hear Ronald D. Moore's interviews, or podcasts, when I read things like this, it enforces what I've always said (and what someone here posted a few posts ago): this show has been planned from the beginning in the same way Babylon 5 was.

Greg


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Ok, enough Babylon 5 references were made that it triggered my knee-jerk default response:

The emperor has no clothes. Babylon 5 was bad.

I enjoyed it during seasons 2 and 3, it was going really well, but despite whose fault it was (writing, selling of the arc idea, extra seasons added, etc), the big payoff I was promised never happened. The pitch was "the first lines spoken in the pilot and the last lines spoken in the finale were planned from the beginning" (or some similar statement) were thrown at me by countless fans during season 4 or 5, so I went back and watched the entire series. It didn't lead anywhere (the whole rangers thing? eh.. ugh.. I barely even remember, to be honest.. but the last season was boring and dull).

Lost is like 5000 times better than Babylon 5 was. If it ends in a satisfying way like we all hope (very much unlike Babylon 5 or Alias), it'll probably climb to something like 20,000. I admire the guy for trying to have a planned out story arc in B5, and thank him in that it laid the groundwork for them to try with Lost, but the execution of that failed.

LOST!!!


----------



## Rosincrans (May 4, 2006)

Jeeters said:


> Yes, he using the girl's ignorance of what to her was a new and unknown technology. He convinced her into thinking that if she shot the gun, she'd maybe set off the leaking H2; e.g. Hindenberg.


I'm not so sure it was all bluff. If I remember correctly, weren't H-bombs detonated by an outer shell of TNT ? If so, I wouldn't think it would be a good idea to be shooting near it. They've already shown on the show that TNT can be detonated by a gunshot.


----------



## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Rosincrans said:


> I'm not so sure it was all bluff. If I remember correctly, weren't H-bombs detonated by an outer shell of TNT ? If so, I wouldn't think it would be a good idea to be shooting near it. They've already shown on the show that TNT can be detonated by a gunshot.


It's A-bombs. H-bombs are detonated by a smaller nuclear explosion.


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> The emperor has no clothes. Babylon 5 was bad.
> 
> I enjoyed it during seasons 2 and 3, it was going really well, but despite whose fault it was (writing, selling of the arc idea, extra seasons added, etc), the big payoff I was promised never happened. The pitch was "the first lines spoken in the pilot and the last lines spoken in the finale were planned from the beginning" (or some similar statement) were thrown at me by countless fans during season 4 or 5, so I went back and watched the entire series. It didn't lead anywhere (the whole rangers thing? eh.. ugh.. I barely even remember, to be honest.. but the last season was boring and dull).
> 
> ...


You sad, pathetic little man. 

You obviously haven't been joining in the fun of rewatching the series with us. But that's ok. BTW, I haven't forgotten to post Wednesday's & Friday's threads, I've just been extremely busy.



aindik said:


> Did they have eyeliner in the 50s? Is that included in the Dharma supply drops?





Squeak said:


> My wife said the same thing!





shaunrose said:


> I read something by the producers that Richard does not wear eyeliner and that the actor's eyes just look that way on camera and it is all natural.


I just had to throw this out there... an interview with Nestor Carbonnell was on Sci-Fi Wire.



> *SFW*: At the TV Critics Association press tour, some reporters asked if you wore eyeliner, which Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse denied. What do you think of this?
> 
> *Carbonell*: My brother sent me this link about the TCA, where you guys were at. Someone had asked about whether I was wearing eyeliner. I think Carlton came to my defense, and he said, "He's 100 percent sans makeup" or something like that. I could see why some people would think I have eyeliner on because [my eyelashes] are dark. Especially the bottom row, they're pretty dark. I've been dealing with it since I was a little kid, and so to me it's very funny when it comes up, especially at TCA. My brother told me to look online and sort of Google something about that, and my name came up as a couple things. One of them was Maybelline Man. I've been dubbed by some people as Guyliner. It's very amusing.


So there you have it. Batmanuel just has dark eyelashes.

Greg


----------



## Regina (Mar 30, 2003)

jlb said:


> [gaffigan] Lost Pocket [/gaffigan]


LOL! 

Gaffigan ROOLZ!


----------



## Regina (Mar 30, 2003)

tewcewl said:


> Do we know anything about MRS. Widmore, AKA Penny's mom?


Ok..so I am the only one who thinks girl with gun is Penny's Mom?  She and Widmore seemed like they were flirting IMHO


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Regina said:


> Ok..so I am the only one who thinks girl with gun is Penny's Mom?  She and Widmore seemed like they were flirting IMHO


...which would make Penny and Daniel siblings...


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

DUDE_NJX said:


> It's A-bombs. H-bombs are detonated by a smaller nuclear explosion.


Yeah, but how do you detonate the smaller nuclear explosion? TNT purhaps?


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> ...which would make Penny and Daniel siblings...


Oh come on - siblings, that didn't even know they were siblings? Craziness! Completely unprecidented, original craziness!


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

jkeegan said:


> Oh come on - siblings, that didn't even know they were siblings? Craziness! Completely unprecidented, original craziness!


Darth Widmore?


----------



## Delta13 (Jan 25, 2003)

DUDE_NJX said:


> It's A-bombs. H-bombs are detonated by a smaller nuclear explosion.





vertigo235 said:


> Yeah, but how do you detonate the smaller nuclear explosion? TNT purhaps?


I was going to say that an A-bomb IS a small nuclear explosion, but Vertigo said it better. Not to be geeky, but an H-bomb uses an A-bomb to ignite a fusion reaction. And it has explosives in it. During the 1952 test, they sent all the guards away that were posted near the Mike bomb. They didn't want anyone shooting near the weapon and possibly setting off the deuterium.

I liked the episode, though I suspect my head hurts in ways similar to other folks. But this H-bomb ... well, it bothers me right now. It cannot be what was under the Swan station. You cannot get energy from a nuclear weapon. Well, okay *once* you can.  But after 50 years buried in the ground it wouldn't be a functional weapon any more.

The 1954 test shot weighed 23,000 pounds and was 15 feet long. The picture of the Mark-17 someone posted earlier in the thread weighed 41,000 pounds. Jughead was hung from a rope on a wooden platform. And they aren't lined with lead. Makes you wonder how a hole got in it, too. I'm a little spoiled and geeky right now, since I'm just finishing Richard Rhodes' book _Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb_. I can accept artistic license though, but I hope the gadget has some important role to play.

On a complete different note, I noticed something else unique about Desmond. No one else but the time travelers seem to be able to see the white flashing when they change time periods. But when Faraday was talking to Desmond at the hatch and it started to flash, Desmond noticed it.


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

TAsunder said:


> Ghosts and parapsychology are horse crap pseudoscience and I expect more from Lost than to insert that into the show.


Sounds like your own prejudice rather than any broken contract with the audience. From an interview with Cuse and Lindelof last year:



> http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4260687.html?series=6
> "The science needs to be right enough that we create a sense of believability to the storytelling," Cuse says. "But we're always trying to skirt that line between the two possible explanationsthe scientific one or a mythical and magical oneand we are purposefully ambiguous about which one might be correct."
> 
> "Hopefully it won't feel like it's a copout when the show does answer that question," Lindelof adds, "because we never promised a show that was based entirely and grounded in science."


Although, I admit I disliked seeing Miles talking to ghosts off the island as a gut reaction.


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

From that same mag, blogs on the first three episodes.:

Lost Season Five Premiere: 2 Hours of Time Travel, Wormholes and Exotic Matter

Lost's Nuclear Bomb Tech Decoded: Season 5, "Jughead"


----------



## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

vertigo235 said:


> Yeah, but how do you detonate the smaller nuclear explosion? TNT purhaps?


Yeah, and they might skip to a time when Artz is still around blowing things up with TNT. LOL!


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

DUDE_NJX said:


> Seriously now: I don't see how shooting the rifle near the bomb is such a bad idea. Hydrogen bombs are not detonated by impact. Unless he was counting on the girl's lack of knowledge to gain advantage.


I think it's that last part.



latrobe7 said:


> Where did the compass come from? If Richard gave it to Locke in the future, and Locke gave it to Richard in the past; where did it originally come from?


There was an object like that in the movie _Somewhere in Time_ and the idea fascinated me so much I built a roleplaying game around it. There's an object that's caught in a time loop like that and has no origin, and because of that, it has powers that no created object could have (since it would be limited by its creation).



smickola said:


> He obviously has no idea that he has a grandson - when he finds out that he has one named Charles, maybe he believes it's a tribute to HIM and this will make him finally accept Desmond.


\My first thought at the name Charlie was Charles Widmore which seemed very wrong, and when I thought of the other Charlie I thought... okay, yes, that's definitely right, but it's a shame the name's tainted by Widmore, too. Even on this show, though, I think it's a bit much to make it more than a coincidence: Charles is a very common first name, after all. But something like _this_ I could certainly accept.



stellie93 said:


> Also, he seemed to know that they had a hydrogen bomb before he saw it.


That was explained, he pulled a House in diagnosing the radiation burns and other clues.



dianebrat said:


> Pretty much with this episode we should be putting that one to rest, Miles does certainly seem to be the 'real deal" as far as walking over those fresh graves and knowing about the soldiers under them.


Faraday was really glib about how specific Miles was about the graves. Which was actually kind of nice; another "how could you possibly know that?" scene would have been tiresome.



aindik said:


> Ellie seemed to think Miles was Chinese. Doesn't mean he was, though. She was from the 50s.


You'd think she'd've thought Japanese, then.



jkeegan said:


> Lost is like 5000 times better than Babylon 5 was.


I'm not going to take your bait beyond this: It's unfair to compare a show made 15 years earlier at a time that no one did planned-from-the-start arc shows at all, that ran on second-string networks with almost no budget and no promise of coming back one year to the next, and still managed to play out a coherent planned-from-the-start story, with a show made 15 years later with a huge budget on a primetime major network in a TV environment that allows arc shows _because_ the earlier show blazed the trail that made it possible again.


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

umm.. did we lose some posts or something? I could have sworn I saw posts after that


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

never mind, my bad, someone had posted in last week's thread.

Can't wait for Wednesday.


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Fool Me Twice said:


> Sounds like your own prejudice rather than any broken contract with the audience.


That depends on what the rest of the audience thinks I guess. I would hope a lot of people would be put off if there is no explanation other than paranormal stupidity. If not I'll gladly be the only one who thinks this element of the show was poorly written and impossible to enjoy.


----------



## GaryGnu (Jan 22, 2003)

9 pages and unless I missed it, no one has mentioned the best line of the episode when Sawyer called Charlotte "Ginger". That's about the funniest thing he's ever said.


----------



## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

GaryGnu said:


> 9 pages and unless I missed it, no one has mentioned the best line of the episode when Sawyer called Charlotte "Ginger". That's about the funniest thing he's ever said.


meh...he's always made references to TV characters when talking to Lostees...this one was no funnier to me than others he's made (granted it referenced a TV character stranded on an island)...actually, they're getting kinda old...


----------



## rondotcom (Feb 13, 2005)

Bierboy said:


> meh...he's always made references to TV characters when talking to Lostees...this one was no funnier to me than others he's made (granted it referenced a TV character stranded on an island)...actually, they're getting kinda old...


Ginger is also slang for redhead. I'm just sayin'


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> Ghosts and parapsychology are horse crap pseudoscience and I expect more from Lost than to insert that into the show.


Most of the "science" in sci-fi shows is pseudoscience. Given what we know about space, time, matter, and energy, I would say we are more likely to find a ghost than an island like the one on Lost. Having scientists in the show say that there are physical explanations for various occurrences doesn't make those occurrences any more realistic.


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Hunter Green said:


> I'm not going to take your bait beyond this: It's unfair to compare a show made 15 years earlier at a time that no one did planned-from-the-start arc shows at all, that ran on second-string networks with almost no budget and no promise of coming back one year to the next, and still managed to play out a coherent planned-from-the-start story, with a show made 15 years later with a huge budget on a primetime major network in a TV environment that allows arc shows _because_ the earlier show blazed the trail that made it possible again.


Even with all that, I still think B5 has the best overall arc. Lost certainly has better acting and production values. But in my opinion, the scope of Lost's story pales in comparison to B5.


----------



## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

BitbyBlit said:


> Even with all that, I still think B5 has the best overall arc. Lost certainly has better acting and production values. But in my opinion, the scope of Lost's story pales in comparison to B5.


Well, Lost's story doesn't span 1,000,000 years, either. That we know of so far, anyway.

Greg


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

BitbyBlit said:


> Most of the "science" in sci-fi shows is pseudoscience. Given what we know about space, time, matter, and energy, I would say we are more likely to find a ghost than an island like the one on Lost. Having scientists in the show say that there are physical explanations for various occurrences doesn't make those occurrences any more realistic.


Many of the things in Lost have at least some resemblance to science. See the articles posted from pop mechanics, for example. You won't find a lot of theoretical physicists contemplating the nature of ghosts.


----------



## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

TAsunder said:


> Many of the things in Lost have at least some resemblance to science. See the articles posted from pop mechanics, for example. You won't find a lot of theoretical physicists contemplating the nature of ghosts.


I get that you don't like ghosts, but what is your opinion on, say, telekinesis and other such para-psychological powers?


----------



## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

TAsunder said:


> Many of the things in Lost have at least some resemblance to science. See the articles posted from pop mechanics, for example. You won't find a lot of theoretical physicists contemplating the nature of ghosts.


What will be the scientific explanation of paralyzed Locke gaining the ability to to walk?

And in the 3rd episode of the series, when we found this out, do you think the audience's reaction was, hmmm, I can't wait until they give me the scientific explanation grounded in reality of this circumstance, or was it more like, Holy frak, that's some freaky bazoo magical island. AWESOME!

-smak-


----------



## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

smak said:


> What will be the scientific explanation of paralyzed Locke gaining the ability to to walk?
> 
> And in the 3rd episode of the series, when we found this out, do you think the audience's reaction was, hmmm, I can't wait until they give me the scientific explanation grounded in reality of this circumstance, or was it more like, Holy frak, that's some freaky bazoo magical island. AWESOME!
> 
> -smak-


As an aside, they actually did lay the groundwork for a scientific explanation for his walking. When he was on the phone with phone-sex-Helen, he was hooked up to an electrolosis machine for his legs. I think Carlton and Damon talked about it in a season I DVD commentary track.


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

gchance said:


> Well, Lost's story doesn't span 1,000,000 years, either. That we know of so far, anyway.


I wouldn't count on that! Maybe Adam and Eve are actually Adam and Eve... nothing would surprise me anymore.


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> Many of the things in Lost have at least some resemblance to science. See the articles posted from pop mechanics, for example. You won't find a lot of theoretical physicists contemplating the nature of ghosts.


I guess that depends on whether you see science as a set of facts or a methodology of exploration. To me, a show set within a universe completely alien to our own, but following a well-defined set of rules such that the characters within the show can use formulas to describe it is more scientific than a show that might have more facts like our own, but use them in an ad hoc manner.

Shouting random words in English is not speaking a language, but speaking fluent Latin is, even if an English-speaking person might comprehend the English words better than the Latin. An English-speaking person might be able to go into better detail about the random English words spoken than any of the Latin, but that doesn't make the English words more meaningful.

In the case of _Lost_, we're talking about random words in English versus random words in Latin, which is why I don't see a substantive difference whether there is a supernatural or natural explanation in the Lost universe. Either way, that explanation has no meaning in our own.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Hunter Green said:


> I wouldn't count on that! Maybe Adam and Eve are actually Adam and Eve... nothing would surprise me anymore.


But if they're really Adam & Eve, then the story only spans about 6000 years...


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

BitbyBlit said:


> I guess that depends on whether you see science as a set of facts or a methodology of exploration. To me, a show set within a universe completely alien to our own, but following a well-defined set of rules such that the characters within the show can use formulas to describe it is more scientific than a show that might have more facts like our own, but use them in an ad hoc manner.
> 
> Shouting random words in English is not speaking a language, but speaking fluent Latin is, even if an English-speaking person might comprehend the English words better than the Latin. An English-speaking person might be able to go into better detail about the random English words spoken than any of the Latin, but that doesn't make the English words more meaningful.
> 
> In the case of _Lost_, we're talking about random words in English versus random words in Latin, which is why I don't see a substantive difference whether there is a supernatural or natural explanation in the Lost universe. Either way, that explanation has no meaning in our own.


So according to you, the genre of "hard" science fiction is less scientific than one where they make up random gibberish formulas? Chalk it up to yet another fundamental disagreement between you and I on what constitutes good writing. I'm not sure you will have much support with this interpretation. My guess is that you think 2001 is less scientific than Hackers based on this.

As to your analogy, we are talking about random words in English (loose quantum physics) vs complete gibberish that doesn't resemble any language (paranormal BS).


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> So according to you, the genre of "hard" science fiction is less scientific than one where they make up random gibberish formulas?


No, just the opposite. Shows like Lost are the ones making up random gibberish formulas. That was precisely my point. Random gibberish is random gibberish no matter how real it might sound. Just because Lost loosely uses some of the same facts that we know about in our universe, that doesn't make it scientific.


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

BitbyBlit said:


> No, just the opposite. Shows like Lost are the ones making up random gibberish formulas. That was precisely my point. Random gibberish is random gibberish no matter how real it might sound. Just because Lost loosely uses some of the same facts that we know about in our universe, that doesn't make it scientific.


2001 was random gibberish too. Do you think obelisks really existed? Maybe a better analogy for you is that 2001 is no more scientific than the Sixth Sense. Your point makes no sense to me or anyone who understands the nature of Science Fiction. Rarely in history has a Science Fiction book or film been based entirely on fact. The science is a jumping point from which a story is written that explores characters and events that occur because of this theoretical science.

That is a far cry from a ghost story which has no basis in science and does not explore anything scientific.


----------



## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

TAsunder said:


> That is a far cry from a ghost story which has no basis in science and does not explore anything scientific.


That's why I was asking your opinion on telekinesis, telepathy, etc. I would say those "fit" a lot better into a scientific framework than ghosts, but I'm wondering where you draw the line.

(Note, I'm not trying to provoke an argument, but I think it's interesting that all the time travel, etc isn't provoking this reaction, just the ghost thing).


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

hapdrastic said:


> That's why I was asking your opinion on telekinesis, telepathy, etc. I would say those "fit" a lot better into a scientific framework than ghosts, but I'm wondering where you draw the line.
> 
> (Note, I'm not trying to provoke an argument, but I think it's interesting that all the time travel, etc isn't provoking this reaction, just the ghost thing).


If you were to replace ghost whisperer with telekenetic or telepath in the same character in Lost, it would be equally off-putting to me. A large part of the issue is that they seem to have arbitrarily introduced a new character of minimal relevance who demonstrates a power which doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the show and which requites a much greater suspension of disbelief, all without really portraying it as something that requires an explanation.

That said, like others I'm assuming that they will in fact explain this in the context of the island in some manner. At the moment my money is on the idea that he's Candle's son and went through some Faraday-ian loopy time voodoo, although that may be impossible given some other things I've totally forgotten. This entire side track conversation was based on a list of things they haven't explained yet that they have plenty of time to do over dozens of episodes.


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

Parapsychology has been part of the show since the beginning, like it or not. It was one of the core fields of study for DHARMA, as per the Swan orientation film. 

Ghost stories don't strike me as out of line with the rest of the show.


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> Parapsychology has been part of the show since the beginning, like it or not. It was one of the core fields of study for DHARMA, as per the Swan orientation film.
> 
> Ghost stories don't strike me as out of line with the rest of the show.


Maybe, maybe not. But they sure are stupid and make enjoying the show hard when Miles in on screen at the moment.


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> Maybe, maybe not. But they sure are stupid and make enjoying the show hard when Miles in on screen at the moment.


No maybe about it. Everything in my post is a definite.

I am having no problems enjoying Miles' role or the show in general.


----------



## barbeedoll (Sep 26, 2005)

jkeegan said:


> As an aside, they actually did lay the groundwork for a scientific explanation for his walking. When he was on the phone with phone-sex-Helen, he was hooked up to an electrolosis machine for his legs. I think Carlton and Damon talked about it in a season I DVD commentary track.


You mean he was having the hair from his legs permanently removed?

"Get information on the history of electrolysis, a process for permanent hair removal. Learn about the training of electrologists and the equipment ...
www.medicinenet.com/electrolysis/article.htm"

Just teasing you. I do know the chemistry definition of separating chemically bonded compounds by passing an electric current through them.

Barbeedoll


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> No maybe about it. Everything in my post is a definite.
> 
> I am having no problems enjoying Miles' role or the show in general.


The line "Ghosts don't strike me as out of line" is a subjective statement I disagreed with. It is not a fact.

A) We don't know that Dharma actually was studying Parapsychology. The orientation films have been shown to be unreliable, as at least one directly contradicts another.

B) Even if they were studying it, that does not meant that we are supposed to blindly assume every "fringe" science is valid in the show.

So far anything that resembles parapsychology has been presented as mysterious and we have not yet been conclusively shown an explanation.

The closest to ghost stories are the "dead people" that characters see. These fall into the same category and require explanation. We know objectively that people are seeing weird things. It would not be unreasonable for Dharma to study these. Initially they would seem like Parapsychology. They would certainly seek an explanation.

If that explanation is, "Surprise!! Ghosts are real and dead people persist in a vaporous state" then it would seem to violate the statement posted above wherein the creators indicate that things are based on a foundation of science. There is no science behind vaporous after-life ghosts.


----------



## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> The line "Ghosts don't strike me as out of line" is a subjective statement I disagreed with. It is not a fact.


Actually, yes it is. I genuinely and certainly feel that way. Whether you agree or not is immaterial. There is no "maybe/maybe not".



> A) We don't know that Dharma actually was studying Parapsychology. The orientation films have been shown to be unreliable, as at least one directly contradicts another.


If you say so - but it was definitely mentioned in the film and therefore has been part of the show for a while.



> B) Even if they were studying it, that does not meant that we are supposed to blindly assume every "fringe" science is valid in the show.


 I don't think we're supposed to take anything as inherently "valid"; the conflict and intersection of science and faith are central to the show, one has not been shown to be more "valid" than the other - IMO.



> So far anything that resembles parapsychology has been presented as mysterious and we have not yet been conclusively shown an explanation.


 As has nearly everything else in the show; even in regard to what you would consider "valid" scientific study.



> The closest to ghost stories are the "dead people" that characters see.


 Yes, that is what a "ghost" is commonly defined as.



> These fall into the same category and require explanation. We know objectively that people are seeing weird things. It would not be unreasonable for Dharma to study these. Initially they would seem like Parapsychology. They would certainly seek an explanation.


 We don't know what inspired DHARMA to study parapsychology, but from the info we've seen they seemed to be interested in ESP.



> If that explanation is, "Surprise!! Ghosts are real and dead people persist in a vaporous state" then it would seem to violate the statement posted above wherein the creators indicate that things are based on a foundation of science. There is no science behind vaporous after-life ghosts.


I don't interpret what the producers have said about the story being grounded in science in the same way you do. And if you're holding out for an explanation that holds any more scientific water than a flux capacitor traveling at 88mph; you really should hit "eject" now, because there won't be one.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> Actually, yes it is. I genuinely and certainly feel that way. Whether you agree or not is immaterial. There is no "maybe/maybe not".


Maybe/maybe not was not me stating what you stated you believe is not actually what you believe. It was me stating that "maybe" its out of line, maybe not. Sort of like you saying, "BlitByBlit strikes me as a guy whose first name begins with a B" and then me saying, "Maybe, maybe not." Give this one up, as it makes no sense.



> If you say so - but it was definitely mentioned in the film and therefore has been part of the show for a while.


A one line statement is a lot different than a central character.



> As has nearly everything else in the show; even in regard to what you would consider "valid" scientific study.


Yes. Your point being what? Here's my point: I want an explanation for it, and I won't like it if the explanation is paranormal in nature. So far there is still a possibility it isn't. We have not yet been shown conclusively.



> Yes, that is what a "ghost" is commonly defined as.


Oh really? So if I took some drugs and saw Abraham Lincoln, an objective third party would claim that I saw the ghost of Abraham Lincoln? Really?



> I don't interpret what the producers have said about the story being grounded in science in the same way you do. And if you're holding out for an explanation that holds any more scientific water than a flux capacitor traveling at 88mph; you really should hit "eject" now, because there won't be one.


How do you interpret it? Do you interpret it to mean that they would use random pseudo-science as the basis for the show, then?


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> Maybe/maybe not was not me stating what you stated you believe is not actually what you believe. It was me stating that "maybe" its out of line, maybe not. Sort of like you saying, "BlitByBlit strikes me as a guy whose first name begins with a B" and then me saying, "Maybe, maybe not." Give this one up, as it makes no sense.


There were three true/false statements in my post. There was nothing in there to which a valid response would be: "Maybe/maybe not", without further clarification, which you just gave.


> A one line statement is a lot different than a central character.


I never said it was a central character, I said it's been "part of the show". The first time anyone could say that they "saw a ghost", was "White Rabbit", which was what, the third episode of the series?



> Yes. Your point being what?


That it doesn't make sense to be bothered by a lack of explanation for this one aspect of the story, when almost nothing in the show has been fully explained.



> Here's my point: I want an explanation for it, and I won't like it if the explanation is paranormal in nature. So far there is still a possibility it isn't. We have not yet been shown conclusively.


I agree that nothing has been shown conclusively and the explanation could go either way. However, I don't have a preference as to which way it goes as long as the story is good.



> Oh really? So if I took some drugs and saw Abraham Lincoln, an objective third party would claim that I saw the ghost of Abraham Lincoln? Really?


They could. Do you deny that seeing an apparition of a dead person would most commonly be called "Seeing a ghost"?



> How do you interpret it? Do you interpret it to mean that they would use random pseudo-science as the basis for the show, then?


Yes, that's pretty much it. The producers, particularly Damon Lindelof, have said that they are big fans of "comic-book" science, which to me means just about anything goes (like radioactive spiders or heat-ray vision). There will be some type of explanation, but it doesn't need to be realistic.

I think you will get an explanation for Miles' abilities, but you may not like it; though I don't understand why you would be bothered by this more than anything else in the show. Time travel doesn't have any more of a base in reality than ghosts do.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> That it doesn't make sense to be bothered by a lack of explanation for this one aspect of the story, when almost nothing in the show has been fully explained.


Right. If nothing else in the show ever got explained I would be equally bothered. I want an explanation for it (most important point) and will be disappointed if it's nothing beyond ghosts (less important). I am worried that they won't offer one, but not seriously worried.



> They could. Do you deny that seeing an apparition of a dead person would most commonly be called "Seeing a ghost"?


No, I disagree that it would be *accurately* called "Seeing a ghost" and believe there would be a rational explanation for it.



> I think you will get an explanation for Miles' abilities, but you may not like it; though I don't understand why you would be bothered by this more than anything else in the show. Time travel doesn't have any more of a base in reality than ghosts do.


It does have more of a basis in that legitimate theoretical physicists have contemplated it seriously as something possible if not probable, whereas few if any legitimate scientists have contemplated ghosts as something possible.


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> No, I disagree that it would be *accurately* called "Seeing a ghost" and believe there would be a rational explanation for it.


Whether or not it they believe it to be of supernatural origin; most people would describe that as "seeing a ghost".



> It does have more of a basis in that legitimate theoretical physicists have contemplated it seriously as something possible if not probable, whereas few if any legitimate scientists have contemplated ghosts as something possible.


Who is saying that time-travel is _probable_?

Theoretically, an elephant can hang on to the edge of a cliff by grasping a daisy with it's trunk; doesn't mean it could really happen.

I can find you many reasonable and articulate people who will say that they have seen a ghost. How many time travelers can you find?


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> Whether or not it they believe it to be of supernatural origin; most people would describe that as "seeing a ghost".


I don't care what most people would do. Most people are idiots.



> Who is saying that time-travel is _probable_?


Irrelevant. It is at least possible, unlike ghosts.



> Theoretically, an elephant can hang on to the edge of a cliff by grasping a daisy with it's trunk; doesn't mean it could really happen.


How would it work theoretically exactly?



> I can find you many reasonable and articulate people who will say that they have seen a ghost. How many time travelers can you find?


I can find you many reasonable an articulate people who will say that Christopher Columbus set out to prove that the world was round, when all of his peers believed it to be flat. How many Big Bangs can you find?


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> I don't care what most people would do. Most people are idiots.


Says you. I am sure the show is not written to please you specifically.



> Irrelevant. It is at least possible, unlike ghosts.


You're the one who mentioned "probable". Once again, if you say so.



> How would it work theoretically exactly?


Very delicately.



> I can find you many reasonable an articulate people who will say that Christopher Columbus set out to prove that the world was round, when all of his peers believed it to be flat. How many Big Bangs can you find?


Er... OK.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

latrobe7 said:


> Says you. I am sure the show is not written to please you specifically.


No, but it's doing a good job lately, with the exception of the Miles character! They have set up the potential for incredibly cheap time travel writing but thus far haven't used it.



> You're the one who mentioned "probable". Once again, if you say so.


I think you may have interpreted my use of "if not" in a way that was not intended. It was meant as "though not" and not "maybe even." i.e. time travel is possible though not probable.

Possible but improbable is still something easier to accept than totally impossible.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

If you want to talk about Miles, how about we all remember that those damned picture frames changed on the wall? What's up with that? While he was upstairs! It's undeniable!

I want to see that addressed.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

Geez, TAsunder, it must be really difficult for you to enjoy fiction.

Greg


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

jkeegan said:


> If you want to talk about Miles, how about we all remember that those damned picture frames changed on the wall? What's up with that? While he was upstairs! It's undeniable!
> 
> I want to see that addressed.


What explanation do you need? The pictures changed spontaneously. It's no more implausible than quantum physics.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

gchance said:


> Geez, TAsunder, it must be really difficult for you to enjoy fiction.


True - or more accurately it's difficult for me to enjoy fiction as much as I enjoy Lost. Even with the serious missteps in pacing in the past and major complaints I had/have, it is still one of my favorite all-time shows at the moment. But it wouldn't take much for it to go off that list. In fact, for a while there it was probably off it.

I also like Fringe but not at the same level as Lost, because it is all pretty hokey and not very engaging. I'd say that none of my favorites are ones that requires immense suspension of disbelief, but there are probably exceptions I'm forgetting.


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## latrobe7 (May 1, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> Possible but improbable is still something easier to accept than totally impossible.


I guess I just don't think that ghosts are any less possible than anything else on the show.


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## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

TAsunder said:


> Possible but improbable is still something easier to accept than totally impossible.


What would make ghosts impossible?

You don't like ghosts. That's not really anyone's problem but yours. There was no bait and switch here. No promise broken. If you can't stomach it, then give up. It sure seems like you're looking down your nose at those who are comfortable with the supernatural--at least in fiction.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

> You don't like ghosts. That's not really anyone's problem but yours. There was no bait and switch here. No promise broken. If you can't stomach it, then give up. It sure seems like you're looking down your nose at those who are comfortable with the supernatural--at least in fiction.


I'm looking down at writers who unnecessarily rely on the supernatural for major characters and events when the story is just fine without them, sure. It's not anyone's problem but my own, agreed. I do consider it a bait and switch just as I would if in the middle of 2001 a wizard in a pointy hat showed up and turned Dave into a duck-billed platypus.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

Remember the episode where Sayid fixes a radio and he and Hurley get it working? I think it was sometime in season 2 and it was the radio that Bernard talked to Boone with.

Anyway, when they finally get it working, they hear music. Hurley is convinced that it must be close. But Sayid said radio waves bounce and it could be coming from anywhere. and Hurley says "Or any time".

Very interesting when you think about it in relation to events this season


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

betts4 said:


> Remember the episode where Sayid fixes a radio and he and Hurley get it working? I think it was sometime in season 2 and it was the radio that Bernard talked to Boone with.
> 
> Anyway, when they finally get it working, they hear music. Hurley is convinced that it must be close. But Sayid said radio waves bounce and it could be coming from anywhere. and Hurley says "Or any time".
> 
> Very interesting when you think about it in relation to events this season


I'm sure everyone was suspecting it back then, which is probably why they threw that scene in there, then had Hurley go, "Just kidding, dude."

They were laughing at us basically. 

Greg


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## Delta13 (Jan 25, 2003)

The real irony is that Sayid and Hurley are NOT among the ones currently bouncing through time. (Which is too bad really, we miss out on Sayid explaining to people in 1954 he was with the feared Iraqi Republican Guard. "What? Ike has an Iraqi guard detail?")


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## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

TAsunder said:


> I do consider it a bait and switch just as I would if in the middle of 2001 a wizard in a pointy hat showed up and turned Dave into a duck-billed platypus.


 I believe that actually was the ending of 2001. Mysticism for supernaturally impaired?

But seriously. I remember watching the pilot episode, not knowing what this show was about. I had no clue. No one did, really. It wasn't advertised as science-fiction, or fantasy, or action-drama, or anything. And I remember the discussion about the "monster". Some people said "I hope it's not a monster, but something man-made, because otherwise it'll ruin the show". Five years later, all those people have long since abandoned the show. All but you. Whatever you lack in Faith, brotha, you make up for in Hope!


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Hey 

Maybe Miles has yet another (indirect) way of affecting time travel *change* (like Desmond's visions that he changed)..

Maybe when Miles talks to a dead person, he's talking to the dead person at the moment they died.

The dead kid he talked to upstairs had been somehow manifesting himself in the room enough that his mother noticed, was upset, and called a ghost buster guy (Miles). Maybe once Miles talked to the ghost, it changed some of the things it was going to do (one less knock on the wall at night), and that caused the woman to redecorate or something.

Eh, that's pretty weak, but at least I'm thinking about the pictures on the wall.

Maybe the mother had such faith that Miles would succeed that she rearranged the photos on the wall while he was upstairs, making the kid's frame more cheerful and changing the rest of the photos.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

jkeegan said:


> Eh, that's pretty weak, but at least I'm thinking about the pictures on the wall.
> 
> Maybe the mother had such faith that Miles would succeed that she rearranged the photos on the wall while he was upstairs, making the kid's frame more cheerful and changing the rest of the photos.


From what I've heard, the timing matches for the changes on the wall to coincide with the blowing of the Hatch...


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## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But if they're really Adam & Eve, then the story only spans about 6000 years...


Well played, sir, well played.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> Your point makes no sense to me or anyone who understands the nature of Science Fiction. Rarely in history has a Science Fiction book or film been based entirely on fact.


Again, I don't see science as a set of facts, but rather a methodology of exploration. Simply having things work similar to our universe doesn't make something scientific. Otherwise, any show that showed cars driving around or objects affected by gravity would be considered science fiction.

I would consider a story set in an alternate universe that worked differently than our own, but where there could be well-defined formulas describing it to be more scientific than a show set in a universe more similar to ours, but that operated in an arbitrary manner.

Now, I recognize that the popular definition of "science fiction" includes shows that don't have any real science behind them, but are simply using "advanced technology" in a pseudo-scientific way. And I'm not trying to be snobbish by attempting to define what "true" science fiction is. What I am saying, however, is that unless there is real science behind the show, there's no reason to put it on a pedestal above shows involving other fictional phenomena.



TAsunder said:


> That is a far cry from a ghost story which has no basis in science and does not explore anything scientific.


The Lost island doesn't work like anything we know exists. In that respect, it is no more real than a ghost. And an island operating as explained by the characters on the show is even less likely than a ghost because we know how those physical properties work, and to the best of our knowledge they wouldn't work that way.

As the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote goes, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Most often this quote is looked at from the perspective of the technology. That is, real phenomena that seems like magic is created using sufficiently advanced technology. But I submit that the reverse is just as true. Fake phenomena that seems like sufficiently advanced technology is created using magic.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Nonsense. Time Travel is hypothesized by numerous distinguished scientists. Time travel to the future, in fact, is something that is fairly easy to describe and accept since it is based on general relativity principles. Time travel to the past is less plausible, but many "real" scientists have described how it might work, and it does not directly contradict general relativity. Check into exotic matter.

Time travel is much less a violation of known science than freaking ghosts. They contradict many fields of science in numerous ways. The reason you think ghosts are more likely than what's happening on the island is because you have no idea how it would work? Really? Well, that's because ghosts have absolutely ZERO basis in reality and defy basic science on numerous levels.

Furthermore, something that is loosely based on science is not equivalent to something completely made up. This again shows your bizarre attitude about what constitutes good writing, wherein anything is acceptable once a certain threshold is crossed, and it doesn't matter if one story is significantly more absurd than another.


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## Magister (Oct 17, 2004)

TAsunder said:


> Nonsense. Time Travel is hypothesized by numerous distinguished scientists. Time travel to the future, in fact, is something that is fairly easy to describe and accept since it is based on general relativity principles. Time travel to the past is less plausible, but many "real" scientists have described how it might work, and it does not directly contradict general relativity. Check into exotic matter.
> 
> Time travel is much less a violation of known science than freaking ghosts. They contradict many fields of science in numerous ways. The reason you think ghosts are more likely than what's happening on the island is because you have no idea how it would work? Really? Well, that's because ghosts have absolutely ZERO basis in reality and defy basic science on numerous levels.
> 
> Furthermore, something that is loosely based on science is not equivalent to something completely made up. This again shows your bizarre attitude about what constitutes good writing, wherein anything is acceptable once a certain threshold is crossed, and it doesn't matter if one story is significantly more absurd than another.


One of the best rants I have seen. Well written, now I want to save it for other arguements. The Flying Spagetti Monster is watching you!!


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

Dare i say.......looking forward to tonight!


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## philw1776 (Jan 19, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> Nonsense. Time Travel is hypothesized by numerous distinguished scientists. Time travel to the future, in fact, is something that is fairly easy to describe and accept since it is based on general relativity principles. Time travel to the past is less plausible, but many "real" scientists have described how it might work, and it does not directly contradict general relativity. Check into exotic matter.
> 
> Time travel is much less a violation of known science than freaking ghosts. They contradict many fields of science in numerous ways. The reason you think ghosts are more likely than what's happening on the island is because you have no idea how it would work? Really? Well, that's because ghosts have absolutely ZERO basis in reality and defy basic science on numerous levels.
> 
> Furthermore, something that is loosely based on science is not equivalent to something completely made up. This again shows your bizarre attitude about what constitutes good writing, wherein anything is acceptable once a certain threshold is crossed, and it doesn't matter if one story is significantly more absurd than another.


Some few folks like "hard SF" where there is at least some wild ass fringe scientific theory or hypothethis that gives the phenomenon plausibility.
Others don't care. It's a matter of personal taste that can't be resolved.

As a hard SF fan, I love the way LOST has been written so far. I enjoy the twist on time travel. It's just a TV show so I'm ignoring the aspects (e.g. Miles' talent) that seemingly don't make SF sense to me at the moment.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

philw1776 said:


> As a hard SF fan, I love the way LOST has been written so far. I enjoy the twist on time travel. It's just a TV show so I'm ignoring the aspects (e.g. Miles' talent) that seemingly don't make SF sense to me at the moment.


But I bet you'd prefer that it did make SF sense so you didn't have to ignore it. Welcome to the club. Prepare to defend yourself against ghost lovers.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

philw1776 said:


> Some few folks like "hard SF" where there is at least some wild ass fringe scientific theory or hypothethis that gives the phenomenon plausibility.
> Others don't care. It's a matter of personal taste that can't be resolved.
> 
> As a hard SF fan, I love the way LOST has been written so far. I enjoy the twist on time travel. It's just a TV show so I'm ignoring the aspects (e.g. Miles' talent) that seemingly don't make SF sense to me at the moment.





TAsunder said:


> But I bet you'd prefer that it did make SF sense so you didn't have to ignore it. Welcome to the club. Prepare to defend yourself against ghost lovers.


Well hang on a minute. He just said, he's ignoring aspects. That's it. He's not going on and on and on.

And on.

Greg


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> From what I've heard, the timing matches for the changes on the wall to coincide with the blowing of the Hatch...


Yeah that's what we all discussed back in the thread about that episode, what with the purple light over his head, the timing seeming to be right, etc. And that was Desmond related, and Desmond does seem to be able to affect change (at least of visions).

I'm just trying to re-examine it now that we have all of this new focus on previously-existing time travel (from way back in the 50s!  ). That and distract from the "Miles shouldn't be able to talk to ghosts" story. 

..and since I mentioned that, here's my five cents on it: I too felt an uneasy feeling in my stomach as soon as they showed Miles actually seeming to have abilities (we could still attribute the sound of something dropping in the kids bedroom to coincidence or deliberate shenanigans on someone's part, but as soon as Miles walked over Danielle's body and knew it, my heart sank a bit). I'm hoping for good - that we'll see there's some interesting explanation that's tied into the time travel stuff, or Hurley's "dead-talking". That having been said, since he's a (IMHO) likable character, I've been able to put aside my dislike for the whole ghost thing, and even if it persists to the end, I'm kinda of at the stage where the writers can do no wrong, because of past performance. Hurley does do practically the same thing (if his isn't different, all in his head like Dave), and people do see dead people, so it's not totally out there. The idea of us seeing anyone that's dead, at all, is way out there, and I've already suspended that disbelief, but I'm personally hoping they add some support under the suspended disbelief so I don't have to hold it up much..

..but a backstory episode where they show Miles having flashbacks to the first time he was able to do this would go worlds of distance to making things better.

Let's just see how it turns out. It won't be enough to make me dislike the end if the show never addresses it, but it could be one of my least favorite things on the show.

Bottom line, I don't think anyone here is "loving" the idea of ghosts.. I think people are gravitating towards a "I don't want to complain about part of this just yet/ever" position, because they're incredibly positive towards the show (I know I am).

Can't wait for tonight!!! Just a few more hours.


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## jradford (Dec 28, 2004)

jkeegan said:


> Yeah that's what we all discussed back in the thread about that episode, what with the purple light over his head, the timing seeming to be right, etc. And that was Desmond related, and Desmond does seem to be able to affect change (at least of visions).
> 
> I'm just trying to re-examine it now that we have all of this new focus on previously-existing time travel (from way back in the 50s!  ). That and distract from the "Miles shouldn't be able to talk to ghosts" story.
> 
> ...


Thank you! That summarizes my feelings on Miles perfectly.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

jradford said:


> Thank you! That summarizes my feelings on Miles perfectly.


Awesome. Great minds think alike! 

Less than 3 hours!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

jkeegan said:


> Awesome. Great minds think alike!
> 
> Less than 3 hours!


And to be blunt, all hand-waving aside, there is almost exactly as much scientific basis for time travel as there is for ghosts. Sure, scientists who love sci-fi have come up with explanations, but there's no evidence that any of these explanations have any basis in actual fact. It's just that the gibberish they've come up with sounds scientific, and the gibberish the new-age people come up with for ghosts is new-agey. But FTL, time travel, etc., remain pure fantasy at our current level of scientific knowledge.

Just like ghosts, only respectable.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

That's all true.

I think the difference is that although both are fiction in our world, one is presented in the narrative as a thing which exists in the natural world and has a rational explanation within the rules of that world. Whereas the other, even within the fiction that is created, can only be described as "magic." 

I'd find it more satisfying if the supernatural, paranormal stuff wound up having an explanation that was grounded in the physical realities of the Lost world. But even if it doesn't, I'm enjoying the ride.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> And to be blunt, all hand-waving aside, there is almost exactly as much scientific basis for time travel as there is for ghosts.


How so? Time travel to the "future" is pretty obviously possible. The past is much more debatable. Even so, wormholes and "exotic matter" do not directly contradict known physics or biology. Ghosts do. Therein lies the difference.

If you can come up with a way that Ghosts can exist without defying basic principles of physics and biology, then please do. I would be very curious to see what sort of explanation does not immediately fail due to conservation of matter/energy. Maybe you can hypothesize that the energy trapped in the human body on death somehow powers this vaporous apparition. Then you have several more physical laws to get past and still have to explain how it works biologically given what we know about the brain.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

You vastly overestimate the "evidence" for time travel. Every method I've seen is based on conditionals stacked upon conditionals, not actual knowledge of the universe as we know it. Wormholes and exotic matter are entirely theoretical constructs; we have no idea if they can actually exist.

Just because you cannot imagine how a ghost can exist does not mean that they do not exist. Personally, I believe that they cannot exist, because there's no evidence for them. I also believe that time travel cannot exist, because there's no evidence for it. But they're pretty much on the same level, unless new knowledge comes along that makes one or the other possible.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

btw, I don't think they've said he "sees" anything. Sounds more like he talks to them, except even that's not exactly right because he knew the boar had died 3 hours ago.

Let's not forget he also seems to know stuff about the living.. He knew Michael was lying about something, and Charlotte too.


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

I think Miles doesn't know jack. He's got a business back home called Psych, and he's just really good at observation.

Greg


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> Time travel to the past is less plausible, but many "real" scientists have described how it might work, and it does not directly contradict general relativity. Check into exotic matter.


And the way they think it might work is very different than what is occurring on the Lost island. There is no science behind how the Lost island works. The writers throwing in a few science keywords does not make it magically somehow more scientific. It's not just about throwing in some facts and terms. It's about using them in more than simply an ad hoc manner.



TAsunder said:


> Time travel is much less a violation of known science than freaking ghosts. They contradict many fields of science in numerous ways. The reason you think ghosts are more likely than what's happening on the island is because you have no idea how it would work? Really? Well, that's because ghosts have absolutely ZERO basis in reality and defy basic science on numerous levels.


If I am in a dark room and you ask me if it will be sunny tomorrow, I will just have to guess. To me, there is a 50/50 chance that I will be right. On the other hand, if I have data that indicates that it is more likely to rain, then that information actually decreases the probability in my mind that it will be sunny.

Probability is dependent on knowledge, and sometimes increased knowledge results in decreased probabilities. We know nothing about any potential alternate realities that might intersect with our own. Certainly there is no evidence supporting it, but there isn't anything against it either. On the other hand, we do know enough about space and time to know that an island like Lost would not work as explained by the scientists in the show. Now, an island like Lost existing in the same strange reality as ghosts is certainly equally probable. But we were comparing a naturally existing island to a supernaturally existing ghost.



TAsunder said:


> Furthermore, something that is loosely based on science is not equivalent to something completely made up. This again shows your bizarre attitude about what constitutes good writing, wherein anything is acceptable once a certain threshold is crossed, and it doesn't matter if one story is significantly more absurd than another.


Again, what makes a show based in science is not the facts it uses, but how it uses them. The question is, if we were to somehow be able to travel to the world in the show, would we be able to study it using science? Or would it function in such an ad hoc manner that we would conclude that there was a divine presence?

The way the island works is just as arbitrary as any magic spell created by a writer of fantasy. It functions as is needed by the story, and is not bound by any physical constraints. The scientific principles themselves might not be made up, but the way they apply to this island certainly is.


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## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

gchance said:


> I think Miles doesn't know jack. He's got a business back home called Psych, and he's just really good at observation.
> 
> Greg


He's met Jack hasn't he?


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## gchance (Dec 6, 2002)

betts4 said:


> He's met Jack hasn't he?


It'll be funny when he finally meets WAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!

Greg


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## Delta13 (Jan 25, 2003)

The way I see it, Miles' ability is little different than hearing the whispers, except that he's the only person that can hear these particular ones. We have no explanation as to what it is or how it works - despite our resident Anti-Ghostbuster's opinion  - so I have suspended reality. And judgment. 

I would include the ability to see people, like grownup Walt by Locke, or Christian by Michael, but we have not observed Miles actually "see" anything yet. Even so, various people have seen apparitions (for lack of a better word) off-island, Walt had some impact on some birds back home too, so Miles being able to do something special off-island would not be unique.

He's just hearing "whispers" others can't pick up, and maybe he can understand backwards sentences.


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## jkeegan (Oct 16, 2000)

Sorry to anyone who read that post by mistake. Posted into the wrong thread.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> You vastly overestimate the "evidence" for time travel. Every method I've seen is based on conditionals stacked upon conditionals, not actual knowledge of the universe as we know it. Wormholes and exotic matter are entirely theoretical constructs; we have no idea if they can actually exist.
> 
> Just because you cannot imagine how a ghost can exist does not mean that they do not exist. Personally, I believe that they cannot exist, because there's no evidence for them. I also believe that time travel cannot exist, because there's no evidence for it. But they're pretty much on the same level, unless new knowledge comes along that makes one or the other possible.


So in other words, in your seemingly paltry understanding of scientific principles, hypothesizing that something exists which fits directly in with the principles of general relativity has no more merit than hypothesizing something which does not fit in with basic physics and biology? Yeah, ok. 

Just because you cannot imagine how basic science works does not mean that it doesn't work.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

BitbyBlit said:


> The question is, if we were to somehow be able to travel to the world in the show, would we be able to study it using science? Or would it function in such an ad hoc manner that we would conclude that there was a divine presence?


We would be able to study it using science.


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## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

jkeegan said:


> Awesome. Great minds think alike!


I'm with you too, exactly.

I hope it turns out the whole "I talk to ghosts" thing is just the way future Miles sneaks information to past Miles without violating the Faraday Continuity Postulate, for instance.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> So in other words, in your seemingly paltry understanding of scientific principles, hypothesizing that something exists which fits directly in with the principles of general relativity has no more merit than hypothesizing something which does not fit in with basic physics and biology?


Time travel fits within the principles of general relativity. The island, not so much.

There are two different ways to write science fiction. One is to start with a set of scientific principles, and write a story that is driven by and confined to those principles. The other is to write the story, and then attach the closest matching scientific principles that seemingly explain how the events are scientifically possible.

The former method is a more rigorous approach than typical fiction, but the latter is no different than any fantasy story. Suppose I write a story about an orb that contains magic pixie dust that allows me to time travel. If I then go through the story and replace "magic pixie dust" with "exotic matter", is my story all of the suddenly more scientific, and at a whole new level of realism? No, not unless my story exists within a well-defined framework from which a scientist could develop theories that could explain how my universe worked. Unless the exotic matter in my story works in a well-defined manner, it is no less magical than the pixie dust.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

This suggests to me that you have intimate knowledge of the writing process behind Lost. Care to share your source?


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## hapdrastic (Mar 31, 2006)

Perhaps "ghosts" are really a form of mind uploading. The island snags their neural impulses just before they die and stores them in a matrix (we know it has strange electro-magnetic properties already). Miles is then able to talk to them through that matrix.

There, all scientifical.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

hapdrastic said:


> Perhaps "ghosts" are really a form of mind uploading. The island snags their neural impulses just before they die and stores them in a matrix (we know it has strange electro-magnetic properties already). Miles is then able to talk to them through that matrix.
> 
> There, all scientifical.


Yeah but then they aren't actually ghosts; they only appear to be ghosts.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> This suggests to me that you have intimate knowledge of the writing process behind Lost. Care to share your source?


According to the quote that Fool Me Twice posted:



> http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4260687.html?series=6
> "The science needs to be right enough that we create a sense of believability to the storytelling," Cuse says. "But we're always trying to skirt that line between the two possible explanationsthe scientific one or a mythical and magical oneand we are purposefully ambiguous about which one might be correct."


There are two ways to keep things ambiguous. One is to come up with a scientific framework so advanced that nobody else can understand it. The other is to give lip service to scientific terms and principles, but use them in an unrealistic manner.

Now, I suppose they could have contacted a team of super genius scientists to come up with a framework in which the Lost island makes sense. But I think it is more likely they are simply using exotic matter as an excuse to allow the island to manipulate space and time in whatever arbitrary manner the writers decide on.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Where do you come up with this nonsense? There are a lot more than two ways the show could be written. It seems like you pulled this out of thin air to support your relatively weak hypothesis that Lost slops some mumbo jumbo together and calls it science. I can't wait to see your opinion of the Dune novels.


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