The unsolved 'Lost' mysteries

As another tantalising season of Lost hurtles towards a thrilling climax, we wait in hope - rather than expectation – that some of the key questions surrounding the various mysteries will be answered when the finale is aired this Sunday on Sky One. So now’s the perfect time to rattle through a few of those lingering question marks that have been hovering over the island in recent times.

If you have already seen the special feature-length episode thanks to the wonders of the internet then still read on, as you can work out how many of the mysteries were solved or even addressed throughout the course of the finale. Judging by the ending of the last two seasons though - when the hatch was first discovered and Penelope Widmore received a call from her crew in the Antarctic – a fresh new tin of Dharma Initiative branded worms is set to be opened…

The finale is pretty certain to address the more recent developments that have taken place in the series. The identities of the occupants of the supposedly deserted underwater base that Charlie ventured to wouldn’t go amiss – perhaps they’re a militant wing of the Drive Shaft Fan Club who have ‘done a Widmore’ and tracked down their idol? Some clarification on the status of Locke would be sweet too, as the poor kidney-deprived man was last seen in a mass grave after being shot by Ben. Nice.

As for this ‘Jacob’ dude – the invisible leader of The Others - what in Jumping Jehosophat is that all about? All that build up and then there’s literally nothing to see, although we did hear a cryptic cry of “help me”. Also, we’ve just seen this Naomi chick parachute into the island claiming to be on the hunt for Desmond (like every discerning young lady ought to be) and revealing that Flight 815 has been found with no survivors. But if there’s one thing to be gleaned from watching Lost, it’s that everything is not as it seems and face value can often be a charade. So it would come as no surprise to find out that Naomi has a sinister ulterior motive, was not alone in surviving the helicopter crash, could perhaps be working for The Others, or even might be the reincarnation of Mr Eko. You just never know.

There are plenty of longer-term mysteries that have left hordes of viewers scratching their heads with such frustration that their bonces have begun to resemble that of Locke’s. Let’s hope the creative minds behind Lost can save our precious follicles by explaining issues such as the existence of the black smoke monster, the prevalence of Hurley’s special numbers (and remarkably pungent hairdo), and what has happened to Michael and Walt (if you can still remember them).

The island also has the long-standing issue about its ability to regenerate or degenerate life itself. We’ve seen Mikhail The Other come back from the apparent dead recently, Locke regain his ability to walk and Jin has had the seeds of his loin restored, yet pregnant women face a tragic end. Clearly the Suffragettes’ message didn’t spread to the island. Emily Pankhurst would’ve been better off hiding down the hatch rather than hurling herself in front of racehorses.

On the subject of sexuality, when is the whole Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle going to culminate in some kind of definitive relationship? There’s been plenty of to-ing and fro-ing from the disturbed temptress Kate, especially now that Juliet has arrived on the scene to absorb much of Jack’s energies. Sort it out Kate goddammit – either go for the Sawyer sausage or the Jack jalapeño – and stop trying to nibble away at both! Still, at least Claire isn’t after Jack as well. That would be fairly incestuous (and undeniably entertaining) given that they’re actually half brother and sister – but neither of them know it yet.

However, the most pertinent unsolved mystery on the island relates to the whereabouts of the polar bear. The poor beast has simply disappeared. Could he have stormed off the island after cruelly being denied the flashback treatment by the show’s producers?

Of course, we don’t want all the definitive answers handed to us on a plate. Ambiguity and the beauty of interpretation should not be cast aside just to feed our insatiable appetites for the truth. For if they give us too good a meal then our hunger for the show may dissipate. But a few scraps would be nice… for now at least.
www.digitalspy.co.uk

Tags: lost, sky one, abc lost, season finale, flight 815

Lost: Kate Turns To Jack

CHARLIE QUESTIONS WHETHER DESMOND HAS HAD ANOTHER "FLASH" FORESHADOWING HIS DEATH WHEN COAXED INTO JOINING A TREK ACROSS THE JUNGLE, AND JEALOUSY MOTIVATES KATE TO TURN TO AN UNSUSPECTING SAWYER, ON ABC'S "LOST"

"Catch-22" - Desmond coaxes Charlie, Hurley and Jin on a trek across the jungle after experiencing one of his future-prophesizing "flashes" -- but is he purposely placing Charlie's life in harm's way? Meanwhile, Kate turns to an unwitting Sawyer after seeing Jack alone with Juliet, on "Lost," WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network.

Tags: abc, abc lost, jack, kate, recap, desmond, charlie, hurley, tv, television, show

Lost Is Finding It's Way Again

'Lost' cause: Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) has bitten the dust.

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For much of this season, "Lost" has been just that - lost, stuck on the other island with too many of our favorite regulars marooned and too few questions answered.

Finally, however, "Lost" is back on its game.

In tonight's episode at 10 on ABC, Kate and Juliet have a rumble in the jungle, and sooner or later, we're going to get to watch Locke's confrontation with his mysteriously imported father figure, and learn whether Charlie will be able to defy death, rather than delay it.

Meanwhile, I'm still reeling from last week's show, which was clearly the best hour of "Lost" in years. The episode was like a "Sixth Sense" for TV: the sort of drama you wanted to see again - immediately.

The levels of enjoyment layered on one another were delicious. The episode focused on Nikki and Paulo (Kiele Sanchez, Rodrigo Santoro), peripheral characters introduced earlier this season as two other crash survivors on the island - not some of the Others. It began with Nikki running through the jungle, burying something, then running to the beach, where she surprised Hurley and Sawyer by collapsing, muttering something and dying.

Sawyer thought she said "plywood." Hurley initially suggested "power lines," then changed it to "Paulo lies."

Retracing her tracks led Hurley and the gang to Paulo, similarly stiff. They deduced the two died squabbling over some diamonds, and buried them with the bad-luck booty sprinkled over their graves.

Through Nikki's and Paulo's flashbacks, we learn the rest. How Nikki, an actress in a "Charlie's Angels"-like TV series, conspired with Paulo to poison the show's married, wealthy director and rob him of his stash of illicit diamonds. How the stash was lost in the crash, and found by Paulo. (Hey, they were the first to find the plane, and one of the hatches.) And how Nikki, after discovering Paulo's deception, used a Medusa spider's venomous bite to paralyze him for eight hours, before unexpectedly falling victim herself.

The word she said on the beach was "paralyzed" - but because no one understood her, she and Paulo were buried alive.

This twist was made even more classic by the way new footage of Paulo and Nikki was cleverly folded into some old "Lost" scenes.

The episode harkened back to the best of "Lost," when the show's layered, interesting storylines were the stuff of water-cooler chatter the day after.

For a while, the show wasn't up to those early high-water marks. Even the producers admitted as much in January when talking with television writers.

Along the way, fans revolted, posting messages online that they were fed up with episodes that weren't up to par with what "Lost" had once been. Ratings dipped.

If anything, last week's innovative episode, and the one before, proved this show still has life, more mysteries to explore, and the storylines, once again, are buzz-worthy.

Tags: lost, tv, results, lost recap, nikki, paulo, kate, juliet

Serial Watcher - Lost - Episode 3-12

After last week focused on just one storyline, this week Lost went back to following two. The first is life on the Lostaways' beach and the other is the quest to release Jack. Too bad that only one of them was worth watching.

We'll start with the more boring one. Mommy Claire thinks up a way to get help - attaching a note to one of the migrating birds that pass through the island. Charlie won't help and she thinks he's just being an a$$, until she finds out that Desmond had a vision of him dying trying to catch one of these birds and then she forgives him and everything's fine. And while this happens Desmond catches that bird and they manage to attach a note and let it fly.

Sounds like a pretty harmless side story, isn't it? But the problem here was that story on its own. It's that it gave us a Clair flashback, where we learn that not only did she go through a "dark" phase (black hair and everything) but she also had a father, despite her mom hiding the truth from her. And who's this father? None other that the lovely Dr. Christian Shephard, Jack's father. I wanna see a show of Hands - who was shocked by this? Now go sit in the corner and think about how gullible/naïve/infantile you are.

It's just another one of those stupid tricks by the writers to show us that everyone's connected off the island. Just like Hurly and Libby were in the same mental institute together. It's one thing to see them interacting at the airport before flight 815 took off, but to start playing a game of "Six Degrees" between the characters on those levels is just ridiculous. I realize there's now way to watch a show like Lost without a healthy dose of "suspension of disbelief" but this really takes things to another level. Please stop it. And to continue a recent trend, please stop the flashbacks also.

And then there's the other storyline, one that actually works - Kate, Sayid and Locke on their quest to free Jack. Sure, they have Danielle and Mikhail with them, but it's all about the original trio. Especially since Mikhail doesn't last long, as Locke sacrifices him to test The others' defense mechanism which they stumble into (A series of tall pillars that create a force field). Turns out this is a very powerful system, which causes a near instant and painful death. So bye-bye Mikhail, or Patchy. Seems like we hardly knew you.

But Mikhail didn't just die. He was on the verge of telling the trio about the list (Not the list from Heroes, but a completely different list). Why some people are on it and others aren't - the trio isn't on it because they are flawed, weak, angry and frightened. And what does the list mean. And he also said that he knew Locke from before, but we don't how. We also learn that the electro-magnetic pulse from the implosion of the hatch has caused damage to the "homing beacon" The Others have, so while they can still leave the island, they can't go back to it like they used to, at least for now. The other thing we learn from Mikhail is that Ben isn't the mastermind behind the whole operation. There's someone else who chooses the people who are approached to join the community and runs everything. That unknown person is a magnificent man. Unfortunately Mikhail is interrupted before he can get into details and then dies, so we have some new questions to deal with (And little old me thought that the one small answer we got last week might be the beginning of a trend).

But the biggest surprise came at the end of the episode. The trio (and Danielle) has managed to climb over the defense mechanism and make it to The Others' village. But before they make a move they see something truly surprising - Jack playing football and appearing to have a good time. Is he suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome"? Is he just pretending to fit in while he's planning an escape? Did he cut some sort of deal with The Others? Is there another option?

Like many other episodes, this episode ended in a mystery. However, the nature of this mystery pretty much guarantees that we'll get some sort of answer during the next episode that will deal with the quest to save Jack (But that's not necessarily the next episode of Lost). Therefore, it's a good kind of mystery. After the past couple of weeks it's clear that the best thing going right now is the quest to save Jack and the confrontation with The Others. I wanna see more of that and less of the everyday island life. And less flashbacks please.
www.primetimepulse.insidepulse.com

Tags: lost recap, tv, show, results episode 3-12

Lost to reveal truth about Desmond

Ever since the survivors ventured into the hatch there's been another mystery: Who is Desmond, the stranger who was living there? And why, lately, has he seemed to know what will happen a little in the future?

Tonight, Hurley and Charlie try to get to the truth and we start to learn about Desmond. Meanwhile, life on "Lost" is almost back to normal.

Kate and Sawyer fled the island where they were held captive with the help of the daughter of the Others leader. (They rescued her boyfriend and took him with them but she had to stay behind.) Jack remains on the island and is interested in Juliet — a brilliant fertility researcher who was tricked into coming to the island three years ago.

Tags: lost, tv, show, series, desmond, hurley, charlie

Lost Back In Full Stride

'Lost' Finds Its Way: Josh Holloway and Evangeline Lilly are featured in the return episode.

In one day, after a momentum-shattering 13-week hiatus, ABC's "Lost" will be found.

But will viewers still care, and tune in? And if they do, will they get swept back into the riptide of what was once TV's hottest water-cooler show?

They ought to.

The returning installment is exciting enough, serves up some valuable information, provides at least one surprise, and, before the hour is up, engineers an escape from the adjacent island.

But is all this arriving too late?

ABC certainly hopes not. The original plan was to show six episodes of "Lost" to launch the season, then hold the time slot with a run of the new series "Day Break," then return with "Lost": two popular serialized shows, passing off to one another like runners in a relay team.

The obvious flaw in ABC's plan, though, was that "Day Break" was a stupid idea for a TV series from the start. After a few weeks of increasingly dwindling audience levels that became obvious even to executives at ABC, "Day Break" was scrapped.

Filling an hour on Wednesday for a while was an even worse debacle, "Show Me the Money."

After those blunders, ABC has made one key course correction. Instead of returning "Lost" at 9, putting it opposite the "American Idol" black hole on Fox, ABC has shifted "Lost" to 10. It's preceding the return, this Wednesday at 9, with a one-hour synopsis special, which is not only smart, but necessary. Otherwise, after three months of inattention, who's supposed to remember that Ben is getting spinal surgery from Jack, who has hijacked the surgery to facilitate an escape by fellow captives Sawyer and Kate?

With most viewers watching "Idol," that summary will go unseen. That's one problem with this week's relaunch. Another is that, for the entire hour, the trio of captive islanders (Matthew Fox's Jack, Josh Holloway's Sawyer and Evangeline Lilly's Kate) are the only original crash survivors seen. Fans who have been waiting to see Locke, Hurley, Claire and the rest will have to wait a while longer.

But if you're enough of a fan to tune in, you won't be disappointed. The flashbacks this week feature Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) explaining how she got involved with the Others in the first place. New characters are introduced, loyalties shift and Sawyer gets to unfurl not only a makeshift sail, but a whole raft of new nicknames.

As for the stunner - well, it hints at both the reach and the power of those in charge of the island, and comes suddenly enough to make you lurch forward in your seat.

Tags: lost, tv, show, season premiere, josh, holloway, evangeline, lilly, series

'LOST,' which way will it go?

Now we know how the castaways feel.

After stranding viewers for three months, Lost returns Wednesday, looking to bring back its audience — and momentum — with 16 consecutive episodes in a new time slot (ABC, 10 p.m. ET/PT).

Producers promise some of the best episodes yet after a six-episode fall arc in which ratings slipped and grumbling was heard from some fans and TV critics who previously had offered little but praise.

Ironically, the unusual split season, created to eliminate reruns in response to fan complaints, probably led to new ones about the cramped fall schedule and an in-season hiatus so long that the show seemed more like "Dharma & Break."

Executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof say some individual episodes were top-shelf, but they agree that the split season created structural difficulties in telling the serialized story.

Now, however, they're looking at the bright side of the hiatus: a new episode every Wednesday through May, offering the chance to re-engage fans and make the fall episodes look better in retrospect. Lindelof offers a sports analogy: "I feel like we're a great football team that had a somewhat spotty preseason record, but now that we're playing for keeps, it's time to kick (butt) and take names."

The long hiatus has heightened anticipation about Lost's return. Viewers await the stories; ABC and producers await viewers' reaction. Some fans say Lost is at a crossroads, but Cuse and Lindelof don't believe the third-season drama is at any more of a pivotal point than it is each week.

"If we were to view it in those terms, it would be hard for us to do our jobs. I can't think of a single, mythologically based show that has been this successful for this long, so this is all gravy," Cuse says. "We're just trying to do what we've always done: tell stories that we think are cool and exciting."

Back at the beach

The fall arc created an unexpected clash of expectations with too little time to tell too many stories.

Cuse and Lindelof felt the need to pick up the story of Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), who were kidnapped by The Others in last May's cliffhanger. They also wanted to shine some light on The Others, whose shadowy presence has raised questions since Season 1.

That left little time for longtime favorites such as Hurley, Charlie, Claire and Sayid. Some fans say they were thrilled to learn about The Others, while others missed the original castaways.

"Seeing The Others was great, especially with the surprise beginning, that they have this cozy village, and the Lostaways have interrupted their seemingly idyllic life," says Matthew Hoskins, 32, of Orlando. "But keeping the first six episodes so Others-centric was a detriment to the character development of the Lostaways still on the beach."

In retrospect, the producers realized the fall arc was being viewed not as the first part of a whole season, but as a mini-season in itself.

"What I don't think we anticipated was the amount of focus there would be on the six episodes themselves," Cuse says. There was an expectation that "they had to be an encapsulation of everything people liked about the show."

After Wednesday's episode, which picks up the thread of the Nov. 8 cliffhanger involving Kate's and Sawyer's potential escape from The Others' neighboring island, the story will become "beach-centric" with familiar faces on Feb. 14, Lindelof says. For viewers who want to escape The Others' "Alcatraz" altogether, he promises the story will get off that island after Feb. 21.

Some fans question the continuous addition of characters (including last year's Tailies, nearly all of whom have met their demise). But Lost's actors say new characters invigorate the island community.

"We need fresh blood. We need new people just to shake us up," says Yunjin Kim, who plays Sun. "I think The Others have been a great addition, and the Tailies were great to have. The story opens up a lot more with new characters coming in vs. us."

Lost averaged 17.8 million viewers in the fall, down 19% from the comparable weeks in 2005, when the show hit a ratings peak (22 million) after winning an Emmy and revealing the inside of the mysterious hatch. CBS' Criminal Minds, which hadn't beaten Lost before, has topped it twice this season.

Nevertheless, Lost remains a hit for ABC and a potent draw for younger viewers. Through Sunday, it ranked eighth for the season in viewers and fifth in the 18-49 demographic coveted by advertisers.

Pent-up interest should mean a large audience Wednesday, says Laura Caraccioli of media buyer Starcom. Ratings for the second week "will be very telling."

And ABC has taken measures to prevent a repeat of last spring's ratings decline by eliminating reruns and moving Lost an hour later to get it away from American Idol.

Brad Adgate of Horizon Media says those moves should help but wonders if the long hiatus will hurt viewership. "Will they like the story line? Has it picked up a little bit? That's the ultimate test."

He says Lost also brings an affluent audience and prestige to the network, much like The West Wing's early years on NBC. "It's probably lost some of the luster of the first year, but it's still one of the shows that define ABC."

The committed stay loyal

The most devoted fans remain intensely faithful and say the ratings drop consists primarily of casual viewers who lack the commitment to keep up with the show's complexities. Some of those core fans, who congregate at websites such as thefuselage.com, enjoyed the fall episodes and say the show remains at the top of its game.

"It was great to see the perspective of The Others at the time of the crash. The impression we fans had of who and what The Others were has drastically changed," says Tom Ryan, 34, of Bloomfield, N.J.

But Amy Bauer, who moderates a peer-reviewed online journal, The Society for the Study of Lost (loststudies.com), feels the series has lost some sizzle and is at a creative crossroads, though it can still regain its bearings. "I will eagerly watch the 16-episode conclusion of Season 3, but the show as it stands does not inspire the fervent fan interest I felt in the first two seasons, much less the kind of Internet discussion and theorizing I saw in Seasons 1 and 2," she says.

With the island mystery on the sidelines, NBC's Heroes, another serialized drama, has been grabbing the spotlight. The long break also afforded Lost fans, perhaps TV's most devout, extra time to deconstruct episodes and expand complaints.

"The three months to chew it over has exacerbated a lot of these issues," Cuse says. He and Lindelof say that many complaints likely will be resolved if Lost runs all 22 episodes consecutively next season, like Fox's 24. ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson says there's a good chance that will happen, though that would mean an even longer break — as many as eight months — between seasons.

Tags: lost, tv, season premiere, show, castaways