Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Jughead: Post-Episode discussion

121 comments:

Mr. Bill said...

First!

Mr. Bill said...

I liked it but it was kind of lackluster.

This is the season of the island I guess and I think I'll like it.

DenAss said...

so Kim, was there just too much mythology for you to *really* enjoy the episode?

DenAss said...

Kablammo!

t-dot kim said...

No, I enjoyed the episode a lot, but I agree with Steph, that it wasn't so amazing.

I did like it, Dennis!!

Alirio said...

I must say, that having been so quickly proven right concerning my Jones = Widmore theory, I LOVED this episode...

Woot!

t-dot kim said...

Who else went "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww", when Desmond revealed his son's name was Charlie?

:)

andrew. said...

i liked it but also wasn't blown away. It didn't help that once again the Lost fans saw all of the big twists coming a mile away.

- Alirio gets the points for calling Charles Widmore. Tricksy Lost writers had him wearing that Jones guy's uniform!

- The young lady with the rifle is totally Daniel Faraday's mum who also happens to be Mrs. Hawking.

- So Penny & Desmond had a huge 2 year old boy. They named him Charlie, which is a nice tribute to the bloody rock god but kind of strange since they are living on the lamb from a man named Charles.

DenAss said...

gotta admit, that did get me a little bit.

p.s. Kablammo! again

DenAss said...

so who was the "poor girl" that Daniel Faraday abandoned?

PalmerEldritch said...

who else called it in the beginning, kim? but, yeah, "awwwwwwwwwww!"

Li'l Miss Highwaist with the Others in Bombsville... Mrs. Hawking! and/or Danny Boy's mum. but talking to Danny causes her to be interested in temporal physics.

the bomb was awesome. especially since it's buried under the Swan. fantastic!

liked the Latin. interesting!

and we had Ralph's Army men explanation!

all sorts of great stuff. not the best episode ever, but still fun and three quarters!

why doesn't Widdy Cent just mention to Des that Ben is out to kill Penny?

wait... 1954? how old is Widdy Cent? he was at least 16 years old 53 years before 2007. jeez. holding up well for a dude who's at least 69 years old.

loved that New Otherton started off as a Tent Town. :)

t-dot kim said...

Ahhhh that makes sense...when Daniel said 'you look a lot like someone I know"

I didn't think that chick was his mother. Do you think he knew it was his mother? I don't know if he knows yet...hummmmm

PalmerEldritch said...

damn you, andrew.! coming up with the same fantastic observation as me but posting it four minutes before i did! :D

argh!!! heheheheheh.

PalmerEldritch said...

i think a good hint was that she was already wearing Mom-Jeans despite her youth. ;)

andrew. said...

i time travelled that shit.
come with me if you want to survive

scrdmnkydst said...

Just watched the episode. I liked it. Like Kim said, it wasn't amazing, but it was better than the average episode.

The guy who was talking to Desmond in the Attic had a horrific accent. It was on par with Dick Van Dyke... It made me cringe.

Also, I liked the blatantly obvious Green Screen behind Desmond as he went to Faraday's girlfriend/experiment?

I'm liking that Cusellof are setting up mysteries and answering them in the next couple of episodes. This is standing us in great stead for the rest of this season.

t-dot kim said...

Mom Jeans!

DenAss said...

Hey, back in '54, Mom jeans were in. Jeez, do a little fashion research.

DenAss said...

btw, you know you're getting old if you think ANYONE looks hot in a pair of Mom jeans

scrdmnkydst said...

Palmer, i don't see any decent Jeans outlets on the Island, maybe that's all they had in stock?

Also, the bomb was buried under the Swan? I must have missed that... but surely, having an unstable atomic bomb and moving it halfway across the island couldn't have been very intelligent for who came up with that idea...

PalmerEldritch said...

so... is Desmond not alone as a consciousness jumping time traveler? is bed-ridden lady one too? and Daniel hadn't quite figured out that whole Constant thing?

very cool that Locke is the cause of Faraday's research. and the cause of Alpert interfering in his life.

so, is Chuckles Widmore embarking on part of "the process" to become the Others' leader? is that why he's such a petulant turd back in time? and why Ben stole "his Island?"

PalmerEldritch said...

"bury it in concrete. it's not going to explode but it's radioactive."

fast forward 50 years

"the last time i saw concrete like this was chernobyl"

PalmerEldritch said...

i like LOST.

andrew. said...

i don't think Damon & Carlton did a very swift job avoiding those time paradoxes.

PalmerEldritch said...

how much does Young Widdy look like Sinatra?

DenAss said...

I was just thinking the same thing Andrew.

Back in The Constant when they were toying with the "consciousness" traveling through time, but not necessarily the physical body, I thought they may have been on to something.

Curious to see where this goes...

scrdmnkydst said...

OH! i get it now... It's been along while since stuff from Season 2 has been referenced properly... I must be getting rusty at Lost...

Mr. Bill said...

Mom jeans!!! lol!!!

Was the girl with the gun on Fairday the same one Des found that Widmore was taking care of?

Maybe I missed something I'll have to rewatch.

PalmerEldritch said...

don't think so. she'd look pretty great for a 70 year old... other than the whole coma thing.

t-dot kim said...

Was it just me, or did Richard Alpert look AMAZING? :P

PalmerEldritch said...

you both looked dreamy, kim.

t-dot kim said...

I absolutely hate the enhanced episodes.

Also, where did Rose and Bernard go? I thought they were following Miles, Char, and Daniel.

PalmerEldritch said...

no paradoxes yet. i think we have paradox-free time travel.

not in the Bender's Big Score way. but in the "you'll only do stuff in the past that is already in the timeline." so, Locke can be the reason that Alpy is celebrating his 0th birthday with him. but Faraday doesnt have to worry about the bomb cuz the Island isn't an atomic wasteland.


now. as for the Atom bomb being under the Swan... that makes tons of sense to me cuz of the concrete. but... there's also that crazy magnet shit in there. so, maybe the atom bomb ISN'T in there? but it totally could be!!!!

an atom bomb, a magnetic disturbance that grabs planes out of the air, AND a ping pong table. the Swan Hatch rules. :p

t-dot kim said...

ABC just promoted that LOST had 20 million viewers last week...but didn't Aimee say there were only 11 million.

Ohhh ya... at the beginning of the episode, I thought Desmond was in Thailand, and we'd see the return of Bai Ling (but that was for a split second)

Alirio said...

Kim, please don't make me come over there and wash your mouth out with soap!

Let us never speak her name again!

t-dot kim said...

It was only for a split second!!!

Alirio said...

So I guess young Widmore grows up obsessed with a way to get back to the island, meets Faraday, recognizes him, and then pumps tonnes of money into the guy's research in hopes that it will get him back to the island?

t-dot kim said...

Sounds about right to me

PalmerEldritch said...

maybe. or maybe he helps Faraday out just cuz it's his friend's kid (Faraday's mum being an Other and all).

or maybe he funds him cuz he wants to know if that John Locke guy was really from the future or not.

or maybe he's funding his research into CONSCIOUSNESS time travel so he can try to manipulate* time (ala Daniel getting Desmond to find his mom).

* = sort of


now, why is Momma Faraday on Ben's side when Widdy Cent is clearly against Ben? intewesting.

maybe Ben just told Mrs. Hawking that her son was possibly trapped on the Island?

t-dot kim said...

She's totally Daniel's mother. LOST credits the older lady as Eloise Hawkings. Alpert called her "Ellie".

t-dot kim said...

"Her" being the younger version


/42 Kablamo

Mr. Bill said...

The original others

Don't worry no spoilers!

Kablamo!

Jordan said...

Wow, gotta give it up to Palmer and anybody else who made the Ellie/Mrs Hawking connection. Cuz I sure didn't. Before kim made the Ellie/Eloise connection, I was just about to ask Palmer why he was so certain. Good detective work gumshoes.

I got some more in depth comments regarding the show, mainly time travel. But seeing as how it's late, I won't attempt to explain what I want to. So I'll keep it to simple observations.

As for the ep. Pretty good. I liked it. Wasn't blown away or anything. Not sure where all the giant buzz was coming from or why. I think people have grown so accustomed to being frustrated with questions on Lost. That whenever certain ones are answered or new information is given, people automatically go, "GOOD LOST EP!" And seeing how we have the new formula of "Time travel = answers to all questions", I'm guessing that people are going to be pleased the rest of the way out.

LOL @ the two red shirts who were blowed up at the creek. I was just thinking to myself, "What are those two guys doing with this crew? Bet they get offed soon." And kablooey! I swear, anytime a log-carrying 815er is getting just a tad bit too much screen time, it's a safe bet he or she won't be with us for much longer.

And how many red shirts have they killed off since the series started anyhow? I'm not one for all the stats and #'s. But if you took the original amount of survivors and subtracted all the various red shirt deaths over the years, I'm willing to bet you might end up with a negative number.

First Aaron. Then Sun's baby. Now little Charlie. Anybody else getting a "Lost: The Next Generation" vibe?

Good call by Alirio on the young Widmore. And it's very much so looking like myself and others who made the Farday's mum/Mrs Hawking connection last week were right. Chris, you and your "Widmore is Australian & London is too far away from Oxford" rebuttals were 0 for 2! HA! :P

It was humorous. When Demond was invited into Faraday's old gf's place, after asking about Faraday, I for a moment thought his mother was going to be inside. Then I remembered that Mrs Hawking was in LA. And was a bit saddened. But when Widmore said, "She is in Los Angeles", I was all, "AH HA! Suck it Chris! Oxford, London. They might as well be next door to each other!" lol.

I'm calling shananigans on the Charlotte bloody nose passing out thing. Looks like somebody has been watching the last season of Prison Break. Not that I'm complaining about Charlotte biting it. Although I get a really annoying "Faraday is going to go to great lengths to save his true love and it's going to be so emotional" vibe. Ugh. Is there anybody out there who is buying this Daniel/Charlotte romance? Or who even cares? I'd be more invested in zombie Nikki and Paolo trying to rekindle their lost love.

Chris JC said...

Jordan: "Chris, you and your "Widmore is Australian & London is too far away from Oxford" rebuttals were 0 for 2! HA! :P"

Hey - no worries. If Widmore is an Other, and a from-birth Other (if there are such things) then I guess he isn't really British or Australian. I will say that the actor playing the young version made a fine choice of accent in order to play the same role.

As for Oxford/London - really my only point was that I heard some theorising on various blogs and podcasts that Desmond would go to Oxford and after some enquiries would sort of stumble upon Hawking, possibly even at her London ring shop. As I said at the time, I wasn't playing "laugh at the Americans", it's not really me (and I know that I would make some proper embarrassing faux pas if I were quizzed on US geography).

What I will say is that from London to Oxford, doing some unrefined undercover work, to wandering about to find this address then back to London again (or whatever order those two bits happen in) to go see the father-in-law and then have a nice evening stroll back down to the Thames - Desmond had a very full day. I hope he doesn't sail to L.A. - that'll take fucking ages!

Herlihy, I didn't see it as a green screen - although maybe the bit in the doorway. Prior to that, Desmond is very definitely on a British street, which I'm sure you'd have spotted as well. They have their own look which isn't really emulated by the Hawaii stand-ins.

So after that, it was a bit sad for the door to be answered by another cor-blimey-guvnor Mary Poppins ("Mister Widmore, gawd bless 'im") accent. I can only assume that this scene occurs after Des returns to London.

Not a game changer, but good times still to be had by all. Also - does the scene with Locke in the camp basically kickstart the entire series? Alpert learns of Locke's impending birth, the woman who might be Faraday's mother learns of bonkers temporal mechanics and Widmore sees that even by the odd standards of The Others and the island in general that there's some strange shit going down in the LOSTverse?

Woo, long post.

memphish said...

Somehow I missed this thread. I love the mom jeans.

But also apparently during the pop-ups it said that Farraday's mom's name is Eloise further cementing the Ellie = Faraday's mom theory.

I get that Desmond wanted to honor Charlie in his son's name, but it also honors Charles Widmore his grandfather. Setting up little Charlie to have a good and bad half I guess.

And I'm saying right now that if Ben so much as harms a hair on the head of Penny or Charlie Hume that man will be completely unredeemable.

Holli

memphish said...

I'm also interested to see if the Hume family finally boards a plane to get to LA. It's a long sail from the Thames to LA. There's a pesky continent in the way. Maybe your point should have been the distance from London to Oxnard Chris.

Holli

Derrick Bates said...

Any chance Ellie and Charles hooked up on the island? Any word on Daniel's dad? Sure explain why he'd invest in his son's efforts.

memphish said...

Well that theory is definitely making the rounds as is Mrs. Hawking being Penny's mom too.

Holli

Chris JC said...

"It's a long sail from the Thames to LA."

Not only that, but you've got to go the wrong way first to get out of the river and into the actual sea.

PalmerEldritch said...

a Widmore/Hawking/Faraday family would be a little too much. i would roll my eyes at that.

Faraday is the man. definitely liking Heroic Daniel Faraday. he almost makes me care that Charlotte is bleeding profusely from the face. almost.

Stephanie said...

1) No picture? What the heck?
2) Lost has went from the most cryptic and ambiguous show to the most obvious. I wonder if it wouldn't have seemed as clear to me if I hadn't heard Alirio's call. I'm not saying that Alirio spoiled it for me. But that we speculate so much that sometimes we get it right beforehand. Then when we do see it play out on the show, we don't get the full impact of the moment.
3)Farraday was crying at the beginning of season 4 because he got his girlfriend unstuck in time and couldn't get her restuck.
4)I'm not feeling the love between Farraday and Charlotte. I was expecting Farraday to explain to Charlotte that he was trying to mislead Alpert.
5)Alpert is the hottest guy on the island.
6)Widmore must of killed the American soldiers and donned their uniforms.

memphish said...

I'm predicting that Charlotte's parents are the Goodspeeds. Horace and Olivia.

Holli

memphish said...

I only watched the first 10 seconds or so of the preview, but damn Kate and Jack look hot.

Holli

PalmerEldritch said...

i dont remember the preview much at all. hmm...

memphish said...

If I could have watched episodes 1-3 back to back as many of the media and pseudo-media types did maybe I would have liked this episode more, but having a week in between for people like Alirio and so forth to figure out the whole Widmore thing really left me not loving this episode. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't LOVE it like so many seem to. Jeff Jensen put it in his top 10. I don't know if it will make my Top 10 for the season much less the series.

The reveal of little Hume's name was the only part that I really loved. The rest of it even if it wasn't predicted seemed very reasonable to me. And the whole Daniel's lab thing was so much like Fringe, right down to the screwed over female lab assistant, that it distracted me. The only big thing I'm left wondering about is how Widmore knows where Faraday's mom (who has to be Mrs. Hawking) is and whether or not he knows she's working with Ben and to what end. And there's no way I'm going to figure that out until they tell me more.

Holli

memphish said...

Boobs

Holli

andrew. said...

- if that was one whole photography, Jack would have been thinking "don't look at her boobs, don't look at her boobs..." and juliet would have been thinking "look at my boobs, look at my boobs..."

- i thought you might have been refering to the little moobs that Locke was smuggling last night. I give Terry mucho credit for being in really good shape, but i was hypnotically drawn to his teets all night.

Stephanie said...

7) I feel like Sawyer borrowed some of Desmond's fake stubble.

Stephanie said...

8) I've rewatched and have missed the reveal of the child's name. When did it happen?

memphish said...

It's about 10 minutes before the end when Desmond and Penny talk after he gets back from seeing Widmore.

Holli

memphish said...

I'm glad to see from the birth scene that Penny is not a scientologist.

Holli

PalmerEldritch said...

Others = Scientologists


;)

Jimmy said...

I'm still thinking that Ellie is Penny Mum. Ben needs to kill Penny by ceasing her to exist?

Those are my thoughts, as of today.

PalmerEldritch said...

Ellie is Faraday's mum, Mrs. Hawking.

Which makes Faraday the physicist the son of a woman with the last name Hawking. Blargh.

/andrew.'s theory
//sticking to it
//damn his time travel!!

Alirio said...

I'm starting to feel like I've ruined Lost with my awesome theorizing.

Sorry folks.

Alirio (Destroyer of Dreams)
/KIDDING!

Alirio said...

On a more serious note:

I think as lost begins to answer more questions and leave us with fewer things to wonder we risk being disappointed because the emotions at the end of am episode will b different than they used to be.

memphish said...

I figured out why I want Charlotte to die. She adds absolutely nothing to this story. Ana Lucia was annoying, but she contributed be it by getting the Tailies across the Island in time to save Sawyer, by training an army, by interrogating fake Henry Gale, by finding his balloon. Juliet has been untrustworthy, but she has lots of answers still to tell us. But bloody Charlotte is nothing but another set of ovaries walking around the Island. Faraday works on time, Miles talks to dead people and Charlotte does NOTHING. She doesn't even wear bikini/bra tops like Nikki or whine as well as Shannon. Time for her to die.

Holli

PalmerEldritch said...

what if they start mentioning the "born on the Island" thing again? and then she becomes the key to letting Others make babies without that whole horrible death thing?

then she'd be annoying AND useful for a storyline.

memphish said...

Then tell that story next week and lets move on.

Holli

mb said...

Holli - before this season I would have said "Get used to disappointment" in response to your last comment - but now they seem to be in the process of answering questions, so you may just get your wish sooner rather than later (THIS IS NOT BASED ON ANY SPOILERS - just speculation)

and re: what you said:
If I could have watched episodes 1-3 back to back as many of the media and pseudo-media types did maybe I would have liked this episode more, but having a week in between for people like Alirio and so forth to figure out the whole Widmore thing really left me not loving this episode.

I totally agree - I think if I had watched this episode (which I really liked) with the first 2 without the week in between with multiple press people saying "O my god it's so good" it would have had a much bigger impact. Still - damn good stuff in there.


I think as lost begins to answer more questions and leave us with fewer things to wonder we risk being disappointed because the emotions at the end of am episode will b different than they used to be.

I have been a little worried about this for a long time. It's always the big question with stories like this which raise the stakes so high. I do think that it will be a great story when finished, but its hard to know what our perception of it will be.


I figured out why I want Charlotte to die. She adds absolutely nothing to this story.

Yet.


Good stuff last night (despite all the buildup). I'm liking the idea that Widmore is sort of this fallen Other (I won't say angel) and it will be interesting to see how he ends up off island. I'm wondering if the Others don't kick his ass off and now he is motivated (at least partially) by revenge. I also love that it seems like he is the pre-Dharma/pre-Ben Linus version of Danny Pickett - hope he gets a good smackdown on him :)

mb said...

Part of my last comment sounded like I was saying I wish there hadn't been speculation - not true. So don't stop tha theorizin' Alirio - it's why get on the blogspot to talk about Lost (well...one of the reasons)

mb said...

that "Bionic/Sasquatch" clip was so horribly awesome :)

Thanks Mr. Bill

Thill

andrew. said...

- i hope Patchy shows up at some point during all of this time travel, maybe with both eyes.

- It's interesting that non-travelling people seem to notice the sky turning white too. If we were following the Losties as they first crashed on the island now, they'd be saying WTF! even more.

- I bet Rose & Bernard snuck off to do Dharma spy stuff.

- so what about Charles Widmore's past with the others made him such a pregnancy-test magnate?

PalmerEldritch said...

ah, yes. The Widmore 3000 Pregnancy Test with Patented Wizz-more Technology.

if the point of a Widmore pregnancy test was to show that Widmore's so powerful that his products are ubiquitous (found all over) then why haven't we seen any other Widmore products? Widmore Saltines or Widmore brand shoes?

mb said...

"Widdy-cent" and "Wizz-more technology"

Awesome. You're on fire today :D


Also - good call/idea on the bomb being next to the Swan station. I'm looking on the web to see if putting radioactive material next to a big magnetic force has some kind of benefit or renders it inert. I did find this article from Popular Mechanics about "Jughead"

trivia - there actually WAS a bomb called Jughead (see above article)

Jordan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jordan said...

Don't get me wrong. I still really like the show. But damn if this isn't something totally different that we are all watching now. It used to be a show called "Lost". Now it's pretty much a show called "Time Travel". I didn't want it to end up here. But it did, and I went along with it. But now it's as if EVERYTHING centers around time traveling. The reason this annoys me a bit is I can pretty much say with certain, this was NOT the plan when the show was created. I'm just about convinced that this is the after-affect of the writers getting themselves into so many corners regarding all their mysteries. As I've put it before, it's the ultimate out. Fans screamed for answers to their questions. Many of which I'm pretty sure, didn't have any answers when thought up by the writers. So how you going to explain a million unexplainable things? Time travel! I really wonder how obvious the change in direction would be to a first time viewer watching from season 1 up til now all in short order. I'm guessing it would be very obvious. All of us have sit between ep's and seasons and develop and re-hash theories, that it ends up seeming like a semi-logical development. But I think if one where to watch all in a row, it would be different.

So yeah, I don't like the time travel stuff too much. Mainly because the show was shrouded in mystery so well and kept "fairly" realistic and plausible during the first 2-3 seasons. To get to such an opposite extreme now feels just a bit odd. Had the show started out "donkey wheel level sci-fi" for the get go, it wouldn't annoy me as much. But oh well. I like the show, so I'm still game.

So I'm resigned to the show going donkey wheel on us, fine. But here's where the time travel stuff annoys me. I'm not quite sure what constitutes a time paradox or not. But I've always hate it when something in the past is predicated by the same person from the past going to the future and then going back to the past to change something. Something that will affect not only the future (I can accept this), but also the future self and maybe others going back in time and doing something to affect the original person who first went in time. Because without all this time travel stuff, how did the original person ever get to any of this in the first place? Doesn't there have to exist a past where time travel has never existed? And doesn't the original person (in this case Locke) have to live a life unaffected by his future time traveling self to make it to the point where he starts time traveling? His future can't affect his past if the future hasn't happened yet. Aaaaaaaah! See, this is why I don't like time travel. Look at the nonsense I'm spewing. Too much circular logic that doesn't make sense. I miss the days of, "What's that spooky noise in the jungle".

Jordan said...

I'm guessing the answer to my circular logic complaint would or could be "All time periods exist at the same time. It's just a matter of how you look at them." Cuz that's how Watchmen explained it. But I still don't like it. See, cuz I'm a simple minded human, and I view time as it is, not as a concept.

So I just listened to J&J's podcast. They seem to be fairly certain that Widmore is Faraday's dad. Was there something I missed that pointed to this? Or is this just assumed "everybody is related to everybody" logic? I swear this show is getting more and more like Heroes by the minute.

memphish said...

All times existing at once is part of Slaughterhouse Five too which was a strong influence on the episode The Constant.

I don't mind that 2005 Locke told Alpert to look him up in 1956 and we've already seen that Alpert did just that. I more mind that 2005 Daniel tells pre-815 crash Desmond something to do and Desmond has a memory of it in 2007/8. That really bugs me because I can't figure out why Daniel acts in his Jan. 2005 body but it takes 3 years to get to Desmond even though the conversation "occurred" 4 years earlier. Why doesn't Jan 2005 Desmond have that memory?

Holli

PalmerEldritch said...

jordan, this is the less confusing kind of time travel. crazy, huh?

Desmond is an outlier cuz he has magical mystery powers. he is "the exception" to the rules cuz his brain can jump through time. sort of.

PalmerEldritch said...

anyhow, all the time travel stuff so far works fine other than the Desmond stuff. it's all "there is ONE timeline which already has all the interference of our time traveling LOSTaways."

this is much less moronic than the Heroes "there are 5 to 6 timelines and you can change any and all of them and still exist in your own past after you've erased your own present."

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

Stephanie said...

Morgan just began a sentence by saying
"You know how ugly Charlotte is..."

PalmerEldritch said...

hehehehehehehehheheh.


yeesh!!! that's it. Charlotte gets a makeover is a necessary episode. or blowed up by a Smoke Munster.

memphish said...

It's really funny that people who saw Jughead weeks ago are gushing while most people who saw it when we little people did were not as pleased with it. I guess that means people who watch on DVD will LOVE it!

Holli

memphish said...

BTW has anyone seen any logical way that ABC could assert as it did just before the episode that 20 million people watched LOST last week?

Holli

mb said...

I don't have a quote ready from TPTB/Cuselof but I am actually quite certain that the big picture of this show being partially about time travel was the plan from day one. I don't see them introducing a concept this convoluted and huge just so they can respond to the fans. Maybe I'm full of shit - but I am assuming that they are not lying when they say that they knew the major plot points in the series from the beginning, and it seems like time travel is one of those huge central concepts - not an afterthought. I've actually been meaning to write the Official Lost podcast and ask which of those major plot points we have seen in Season 4 (and season 3 really).

Jordan said...

Holli, the only thing I can think of is they combined the 2 episodes from last week. I thought I heard somebody say that 11 million watched. 10 million or so per hour x 2 = "20 MILLION VIEWERS!!!!"

Jordan said...

Sorry, MB. I just don't buy it. I think they are full of shit when they say that. Most tv shows who they first hit the air aren't much more than concepts. To me they hit the air with "people crash on a mysterious island" and no much more. Than once they were a hit, they started coming up with new ideas how to extrapolate further. This is where we get all the stuff with the others and dharma and hatches. Then about midway through they got the idea about possibly turning it all into time travel. And last season was the beginning of all the set up for that. Call me cynical. But all their "It's all been planned out stuff" to me is nothing more than lip service to pancifying an extremely rabid fan base.

mb said...

Listening to Jay and Jack - Jay had a pretty good thought (though I'm not sure it necessarily debunks the idea of Jughead getting buried there). He doesn't think that Jughead is buried under the Swan station - instead that the reason for the concrete there is simply because the Dharma Initiative "dug too deep" and accidentally released some of the energy there, necessitating the concrete to contain the energy to the point where the Swan Station could release it in small amounts (like a dam) every 108 minutes.
This would make sense and would sort of be telegraphed by the almost-catastrophe we saw with the drilling at the Orchid and the Donkey-Wheel.

mb said...

Jordan - As much as I would like to give Damon and Carlton credit for being such saavy intelligent writers that they were able to come up with all this stuff on the fly - I just think all this crap is too f-in complex for them NOT to have a plan. I agree with Palmer - if Cuselof wasn't operating according to at least SOME outline, this show would look a lot more like Heroes, or even Alias. As much as I enjoyed that show, I feel like it totally got crushed under the weight of it's own ideas. I'm sure a big part of its demise was NOT having a pre-set end-date, but I think that is a good example of a show that had some awesome set-up and potential - but no real idea of how it was supposed to end. Lost has already moved WAY beyond Alias in how it has connected the dots.

"I view time as it is, not as a concept"

But I think one of the points of this show is to explore the idea of what time is and how it works - they are TRYING to challenge our conceptions.

With respect to their use of time travel and how it works - I agree with Palmer and Holli that there is a pretty sound logic to it - with the idea that all time periods exist simultaneously. It would seem that things can change along the timeline, but only to a degree - like Faraday's quote about 'the past', and being able to move up and down a street, but not being able to CREATE a new street.
I would even go farther and say that Desmond's storyline makes sense and the reason he is "special" has to do with him turning the key under the Swan Station. That's the main thing I can see that sets him apart from all the other characters. He was at the epicenter of that implosion which I think blew open his consciousness and changed the way he exists in the timeline. His consciousness got dislodged and can move around the timeline, and now b/c he also has a constant, it's not a danger to him.

PalmerEldritch said...

20 million people could include:

live tv watchers
dvr watchers
interweb watchers
watchers of the repeat(s)

where did the 11 million that aimee mentioned come from? usually, you get live ratings and then ratings with "time-shifted" viewers come out later. that's not a LOST joke. but it should be.

Anonymous said...

Man. . . time travel needs to stop. I am a fan, but Lost doesn't know how to avoid paradoxes.

It's been widely accepted that the chick is Faraday's mom, she is also the only person (other than Richard) that knows they are from the future. It makes sense that she would go on to be an expert about time and space since she just heard someone tell her they're from the future and then disappear before her eyes.

Now I know everyone else will think what the f happened to the people that were here, so it is possible that that girl was not Hawkins, but if she is, then Faraday being a insane physicist is a result of his own interaction with his mom in the past.

Ah. . . it mainly pisses me off because they keep saying that you can't change the future.

They have "changed the future" a million times. If we're to assume Desmond actually saw the future and not visions, then him saving Charlie each time supremely changed the future. For example, if Charlie got struck by lightning then there would've been no way he could step on the wire and find Naomi. That's a major one, but the smallest change as Abe Simpson tells Homer on his wedding day, "even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can't imagine."

I guess they [Faraday and Darlton] mean you can't change what the viewer has already seen on the show Lost.

Jordan said...

RE: Last night's ratings:
"The good news for LOST is that the people who watched the premiere stuck around. It averaged 11.067 million."

Which is true. Just looked it up over at tvbythenumbers.com. For the premiere it pulled about 11.34 million viewers. So yeah, not quite 20 million. I'm almost certain that # is ABC combining the two eps.

I'm just going to give up my nit-picking of Lost from now on. I should know better than to do so on a super fan blog. lol. I'll just leave it at, I love the show. It's awesome.

t-dot kim said...

whaddup blogspot?

Jordan said...

Ratings (in millions) for the 9pm time slot last night:

9:00 FOX Lie to Me 12.11
ABC LOST 11.07
CBS Criminal Minds (R) 10.63
NBC Law & Order: SVU (R) 6.44
UNI Fuego en la Sangre 5.18
CW 90210 (R) 0.98


At least Lost is able to barely hold off a re-run of Criminal Minds.

Anybody watch Lie to Me? Any good? Seems a bit forumlaic for my tastes.

Jordan said...

Formulaic! Get off my case Herlihy.

mb said...

"I'm just going to give up my nit-picking of Lost from now on. I should know better than to do so on a super fan blog. lol. I'll just leave it at, I love the show. It's awesome."

Dude - don't stop! This is how we have good discussions! I love debating this shit - and fully know that we may indeed reach the end of season 6 saying "Whaaaaa....? That's IT?!?!" It's all good.

And speaking of discussion -
RE:
"If we're to assume Desmond actually saw the future and not visions, then him saving Charlie each time supremely changed the future"

But it didn't change the future ultimately - he died. And according to Mrs Hawking he would have died one way or another eventually (just like the man in the red shoes in Desmond's vision in "Flashes Before Your Eyes" when he was talking to her). Remember Mrs. Hawking said that certain things are "fate" (like Charlie dying) and that the universe "course corrects" to make sure those things happen.

Jordan said...

You're right MB. Totally right. I just give myself headaches trying to explain my view on some of this stuff. Hurts the brain. I think I broke something trying to type earlier about the time travel stuff. lol.

Anonymous said...

Lol! I just saw your 20 million viewer promo.

"20 million viewers returned to the island." That's vague.

Maybe they mean 20 million people who can see returned to Hawaii.

Seriously though, as someone else mentioned it's not that had for 11 million to become 20 when you add those who time shift and itunes/abc.com.

I wonder if they count people who watch it live then watch it over and over again on dvr. I'm sure Lost is one of the main shows that gets repeat views.

I'm pretty sure THEY don't.

TLI girl said...

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-lost-initiative

elias said...

In a list of great American imports Lost has to be at number 2, just behind high fives.

memphish said...

Maybe they included the British numbers. I think those Lie to Me ratings are faked too. I hear they've been running American Idol into its hour.

Holli

scrdmnkydst said...

Holli, Lost in the UK only got less than a million viewers, or at least that's what i remember reading. The show doesn't get many viewers because it's on satelite and only 15% of the population has access to it.

BTW, just finished watching Kim and Aimee podcast live on Ustream. It was well fun. I'm going to try and tune in most of the time.

Mr. Bill said...

Big fun with Ustream.

PalmerEldritch said...

couldnt get the chat running. and took a while to figure out how to tune in to Kim's audio.

but Aimee was pretty hilarious all by her lonesome.

Anonymous said...

Dude. Look up the word paradox.

1) a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that may in fact be true.

2) a person or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities.

The past being motivated by the future is a paradox.

ex. You can't go back and kill Hitler because if you kill him then you would have no reason to kill him in the future. Therefore, you could not go back in time and kill Hitler.

I know what they are trying to do with continuous stream of time. Meaning there is no alternate time when the people didn't time travel, it always happened this way. But the past motivating the future just doesn't make sense. Like John Connor's mom sleeping with his dad as a result of his dad traveling back in time.

Anonymous said...

I'm still pretty sure Herlihy sent the dog letter.

andrew. said...

Palmer, i think you are being too strict with your definition of a time paradox. Anything you do in the past alters the direction of the future. ie. appear before your father stepping out of a Delorian in the 50s resulting in your dad becoming a well-paid sci-fi author and bumping your future family into a higher tax bracket, also sending your brother to a better school and better career path.

t-dot kim said...

Thanks to everyone who checked in on ustream. Aimee and I just finished recording the callers segment. Btw, it was super distracting trying to record and read your comments in the chat at the same time!! (We'll have to work out how to make the show run smoother)

Thanks again, peeps!

Anonymous said...

PalmerEldritch (henceforth PE)

I didn't read your post thoroughly when I replied originally and I don't know how to edit comments on this so I am posting again.

You going back and hooking up your parents IS a paradox. As is you killing your mom.

PE, for you to be able to go back and make your parents meet you have to exist in the future. If your parents don't meet you don't exist. Therefore you can't be the reason they meet. Because then it would mean were it not for PE your parents would not have PE. That is a paradox.

Basically, the cause can't be motived by the effect. The effect is a result of the cause. It is a straight arrow. When it becomes a loop, that's a type of paradox.

scrdmnkydst said...

What?! I didn't send that letter!

It was from a guy that Aimee knows from OKC who apologised to her via the medium of a letter to her dog.

It wasn't me. :/

Anonymous said...

Wow, I just read my post and I got a headache. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

Herlihy, it's ok bro. I won't say anything.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, 1 last thing. Has anyone typed LISTEN instead of trying to type the CODE WORDS on those type these words to confirm you're a real person things?

The people sound like freaks / is even worse than typing the words.

PalmerEldritch said...

hey. i did look up paradox. even threw up a link to the in-context definition up the thread a bit. :)

killing Hitler would indeed be a paradox. but going back in time and being the guy who convinced him to grow that funny mustache isn't one.

andrew., good point about adding general manipulation of the future to the paradox stuff.

i'll stand by everything besides the desmond stuff being "paradox free" so far. you can muddle in time paradox-free as long as whatever your muddling is has already been a part of the
timeline.

so, you can't kill hitler. you can't make yourself rich if you weren't before. but you could steal your own bike that went missing when you were six.

so, Locke can be the guy who sent Alpert to baby Locke without a paradox. but he couldn't kill little kid Ben Linus in his sleep.

PalmerEldritch said...

ok... i can understand your point, Tha Kid. you'd say that LOST is doing a shit ton of "Predestination paradoxes."

"A predestination paradox, also called either a causal loop, or a causality loop and (less frequently) either a closed loop or closed time loop, is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. It exists when a time traveller is caught in a loop of events that "predestines" or "predates" them to travel back in time. Because of the possibility of influencing the past while time traveling, one way of explaining why history does not change is by saying that whatever has happened was meant to happen. A time traveller attempting to alter the past in this model, intentionally or not, would only be fulfilling their role in creating history as we know it, not changing it. Or that the time-traveler's personal knowledge of history already includes their future travels to their own experience of the past. Effectively, it means this: the time traveller is in the past, which means they were in the past before. Therefore, their presence is vital to the future, and they do something that causes the future to occur the same way that their knowledge of the future has already happened. It is very closely related to the ontological paradox and usually occurs at the same time."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox

can't argue with you there. you'd be correct.

in fact, all of LOST now seems to be predicated on predestination paradoxes.

i can live with those though. they make sense to me. :p

Mr. Bill said...

Good job zeroing in on the time issues palmer!

That makes perfect sense.

With all the P's

Palmer's Predictions on Paradox Premise Precludes Penny's Predestined Parentage.
Perfect Palmer.

PalmerEldritch said...

tha kid is right, that's a paradox right there.

hrmm... i guess just not the paradox that Damon and Carlton were talking about cuz they obviously love 'em!

mb said...

Wibbly Wobbly
Timey Wimey

PalmerEldritch said...

new thread!

Anonymous said...

Couldn't they spend at least 2 episodes in the 50s?! That chick Ellie was hot.