Thursday, March 26, 2009

LOST He's Our You, first thoughts

A lot to get into after last night's episode.  I think that it is time we took a good long look at time travel and how it works.  Up until this point, I wasn't sure that such a discussion would really become necessary.  After all, Faraday told us in LaFleur, "It doesn't matter what we do.  Whatever happened, happened."

Faraday believes (and mostly works from this premise) that the Dharma age LOSTies are stuck in a cycle.  Whatever happened to them in the past, whatever events they precipitated are events that have already occurred.  They don't really have the ability to change them.  It is this fact that Faraday is struggling to accept at the beginning of LaFleur.  The female CS Lewis told him just before she died that she thinks he was a strange man who scared her when she was a child, telling her to leave the Island and never return.  Faraday swears to himself that he won't tell her that, he won't be that scary man to the child version of his love, but by the end of the episode when he sees Charlotte as a little girl, do any of us doubt that he will do what he has already done?  And the even more sad thing is that he will do it knowing that it is hopeless.  She won't listen, he knows this because she has already died in his arms.  Faraday believes that anything that they do is what they have already done.  They can't change anything.

This belief is given some credence somewhat by events in LaFleur (clarified in Namaste) when Juliet is able to save baby Ethan's life.  Sawyer tells Juliet, "You've got to help her, you're the only one who can."  If he is to be believed, would Ethan have survived his birth if Juliet hadn't been there?  If not, then Faraday was at least partially right when he said that "whatever happened, happened."

This time travel argument is a rare one in television and film, far more often you get the view that traveling to the past can somehow change your present (aka the future).  Two movies I can think of that take this same view are Timeline (based on the book by Michael Crichton which does an even better job of showing this point) and the first Terminator.  Since it is much more likely that more people have seen the first Terminator, we'll stick with that one.  In Terminator, John Connor sends his good friend Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother because SkyNet has sent a Terminator to kill her so that John Connor will never be born.  In the process, Kyle and Sarah have sex and John Connor is ultimately the product of that union.  If the Terminator had not been sent back to kill Sarah and John had not sent Kyle back to protect her, then John would never have been born in the first place.  Not only that, but the Terminator that is sent to kill Sarah Connor is found and the pieces of the futuristic technology are also what sets in motion the creating of SkyNet.  Since these events had happened in the past, SkyNet had no choice but to send a Terminator back, ultimately creating itself, and John had to send Kyle back knowing that Kyle was his father and therefore creating himself.

It is a big cycle that cannot be changed.  "Whatever happened, happened."

With the end of He's Our You, however, it appears that maybe that isn't the case here.  Sayid shot Young Ben.  Now there is the chance that Young Ben is somehow not killed by this wound (after all, I hear one of the workmen is actually a doctor) and maybe Sayid always had shot Young Ben, making it just another step in turning poor, tormented Young Ben into evil, manipulative Benry who wipes out all of Dharma.  If, however, Young Ben does die, then it turns out our LOSTies can in fact change things.  At least to a point (but we'll get there later).

So, working from the assumption that the LOSTies can change the future (and therefore their own past) we move away from Timeline and the first Terminator and into Back to the Future and the second Terminator.  Films that I figure most of you are familiar with.  In the Back to the Future trilogy, events changed by Doc Brown and Marty McFly change the way everything happens.  When Marty gets his parents together by having his father face up to Biff, his father is no longer the weak, uncertain person Marty remembers and is instead a successful author.  The entirety of the timeline that Marty knew has changed.

In Terminator 2, John and Sarah are once again hunted by a Terminator from the future, and this time John sends back a reprogrammed Terminator to aid them.  In the course of the film they recover the parts of the first Terminator and destroy the lab as well as the man who had helped create SkyNet, thereby making sure that Judgement Day never happened.  By their actions they believed that they forestalled the future that originally had taken place.

If this is true for LOST, the future of the Island will look vastly different with no Benry Gale.  For one thing, the purge will not occur, meaning that Dharma might still be on the Island and doing their thing when Flight 815 crashes.  Everything we've seen could change.

There is however a third possibility even if Sayid did somehow succeed in killing Young Ben.

Way back in season 3 when we saw the episode Flashes Before Your Eyes, LOST told us of another possibility of time travel.  Things could be changed somewhat, but the universe had a way of Course Correcting.  Ms. Hawking tells Desmond that the man with the red shoes is going to die.  When it happens Desmond asks why she didn't warn him.  She answers that if she had warned him he wouldn't have died in that way, but he would have still been killed because that is what was supposed to happen.

This idea is just as rare (if not more rare) in television and film then Faraday's theory.  In fact I can only think of one other film that has used it, and since we've already talked about the first two Terminator films, it is fitting that this idea comes from Terminator 3.  At the end of Terminator 2, John and Sarah believe that the future is safe, Judgement Day has been averted.  In T3 they discover that it hasn't been averted, just delayed.  They changed the how, but the event still happens.  The machines rise, SkyNet goes crazy with the killing, and John Connor is once again humanities only hope.  Only the how changed.  The universe course corrected.

So, Sayid kills Benry, it doesn't really matter, it doesn't really change anything.  Someone else will facilitate the Purge.  Someone else will take over leadership of the Others.  Someone else will make sure that the LOSTies will suffer.  Because that's the way it was supposed to happen.  The universe will course correct as it always does.

Of course, there is always the possibility that Benry was never supposed to do all that he did and that Charles was right.  It was his Island and Benry took it from him.  Maybe this is the Island's way of course correcting, putting the LOSTies in a position to change the future, make it where Benry Gale doesn't get to do all of the awful things that he has done.  Maybe the LOSTies are here to create the future in the way that it was actually supposed to happen.

Until Next Time, I guess we'll have to watch and find out.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Spoiler Free Post on Why I Loved BSG

And why you should too.

Television is so often spoon fed to the audience.  The characters are morally obvious.  you know who the good guys are, you know who the bad guys are, and you connect and root accordingly.  The plots are redundant and obvious, you know exactly what will happen and exactly who it will happen to.

And there is nothing wrong with this.

After all, television is supposed to be escapist fare.  It is supposed to make us forget about the everyday.  It is supposed to be brain candy.

For the most part anyway.

But too much candy isn't good for anyone.  Not even brain candy.

Sometimes we need to get something healthy, something substantial, and Battlestar Galactica was that.

Ultimately Battlestar Galactica took a good, long, hard look at what it means to be human.  What it means to experience life.  The show took real looks at what lengths humanity would go to to survive.  Sometimes painful looks, but in a way that wasn't one sided or judgmental, but revelatory.  The show studied the ideas of violence, love, sacrifice, freedom, loss, and even terrorism just to name a few.  Through the strength of its characters, characters that were never easily defined as good or evil, we came to know ourselves.

The show took a look at various events that could be related to things occurring in our world at this very time.  Politics were ably covered, including the ramifications of stealing a presidency because the person believed that they were destined in a very real fundamentalist religious sense to be president.  War was examined, a people (ostensibly our heroes) were living on a world occupied by the enemy.  Our heroes staged an insurgency and we rooted along with them for their freedom from the unlawful occupiers.  An interesting take on events occurring right now on our world.

The show had much to say on the idea of religion and theology.  The humans believed (or at least grew up in a society that recognized) a plurality of gods, sharing many characteristics of our Greek and Roman gods.  The Cylons (ostensibly the enemy), on the other hand, recognized only one true God.  As the series developed so did this idea and ultimately religion and what exactly God is played a huge role in everything.

Some people might be turned off by the idea that this television show was set in space aboard ships, by the fact that this was a Science Fiction show.  They shouldn't be turned off by that.

I understand that some people (for whatever reason) just don't like Sci-Fi as a genre and I can respect that (even if I feel that they are missing out on some great stuff).  But I don't really think that Battlestar Galactica is a regular type of Sci-Fi show.  Sure it takes place on a spaceship, but the stories very rarely require that that be the case.  Like I said earlier, the show is ultimately about what it means to be human.  Science Fiction is just an easier way to tell stories that otherwise might be considered far too controversial.  If the audience is already accepting a genre that is fantastic, then their brain is also more open to the ideas that they might otherwise be unwilling (or even unable) to accept.  Cultural, political, and socially unpopular ideas often find their arguments first made in pop culture through genre story telling which helps lead to more acceptance further down the line in the general population.

I truly believe that science fiction was the only way to get across a lot of the ideas that BSG propagates.  And like I said, the show doesn't feel fantastic, its genre but it is handled in such a way that it doesn't shove that genre in your face.  It's a story about survival and humanity that just happens to take place in space.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you are someone who just feels that you can't handle sci-fi, you should give this show a chance before writing it off because it takes place in space, I think that doing so would be well worth your time.

For everyone else who for whatever reason has avoided this television show, I hope that you give it a chance as well, because this series is ultimately the greatest show that television has ever given us and it would be a shame if you missed it.

Until Next Time, I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that this incredible and powerful television show has come to an end, but I take solace in the fact that there are so many people out there who can discover this show for the first time and come to love it and be challenged by it as I have.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Battlestar Galactica So Say We All

Baltar-
There's another force at work here.  There always has been.  It's undeniable, we've all experienced it.  Everyone in this room has witnessed events that they can't fathom, let alone explain away by rational means.  Puzzles deciphered in prophecy.  Dreams given to a chosen few.  Our loved ones dead.  Risen.  Whether we want to call that "God" or "gods" or some sublime inspiration or a divine force that we can't know or understand, it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter.  It's here.  It exists.  And our two destinies are intwined in its force.
Cavil-
If that were true, and that's a big if, how do I know this force has our best interests in mind?  How do you know that God is on your side, Doctor?
Baltar-
I don't.  God's not on any one side.  God's a force of nature beyond good and evil.  Good and evil, we created those.  And we'll break the cycle.  Break the cycle of birth, death, rebirth, destruction, escape, death.  Well, that's in our hands and our hands only.  Requires a leap of faith.  Requires that we live in hope... not fear.

I'm still processing the finale.  It was beyond all I could have hoped for.

I have no doubt that it was the greatest series finale of all time, but then, that is fitting since Battlestar Galactica was without doubt the greatest television series of all time.

I loved so many things about it, so many little moments made me smile or laugh.  So many others made me cry.

But I loved most of all that the show is true.  I believe it.  The ending didn't feel at all forced, but felt RIGHT.
Like Starbuck says right before she disappears, "I just know that I'm done here.  I've completed my journey, and it feels good."

So, has the cycle been broken?  Or are we once again doomed to repeat our past?  All I can do is hope that we continue to live in "hope... not fear."  And maybe this time, what happened before will not have to happen again.

Battlestar Galactica.  You will not be forgotten.

SO SAY WE ALL

Thursday, March 19, 2009

LOST Namaste, first thoughts

As always *SPOILERS* if you aren't caught up!!!!

I am getting the feeling that after this season of LOST, rewatching the previous seasons will be more rewarding then ever.  Now that Benry as a little boy has met Sayid the prisoner, don’t you think that will affect how you see the scenes where Sayid meets Benry the prisoner?  Not to mention that he has lived with Sawyer, Jin, and Juliet for a little while.  It definitely makes his later interest in Juliet even more interesting.  It now becomes possible that the “she” Juliet reminds Benry of, is in fact herself (from the episode The Other Woman).  I still think that the therapist was talking about Annie (the little girl from the episode The Man Behind the Curtain), but now that Benry knew Juliet when he was younger, it certainly bears thinking about.  Like I said, rewatching the new episodes after this season is going to be very, very rewarding.  I can’t wait to do it.  (Plus it will help make the months in between this season and the next more bearable.)

Speaking of past seasons, remember back in the beginning of Season 3 when Sawyer, Kate, and Dr. Jack were being held prisoner by the Others.  Dr. Jack was supposed to treat Benry Gale’s cancer, but in the mean time, Benry had Sawyer and Kate working on a runway.  A runway that would only have one plane land on it so far, and that plane would have as a passenger Benry Gale himself.  There is no way that that is a coincidence.  Somehow Benry knew that he would need that runway to save his life some 3 years after he had it built.  How much does this man know about what is going on?  Might I suggest everything?

I remind long time readers of my “Author of Their Own Situation Theory” which I will go over again since we have some new readers as well.  Last season LOST went out of it’s way to have us notice two books, VALIS by Phillip K Dick and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.  In each of those books, there is a character that represents the author (in VALIS it is Horselover Fat which with Latin loosely translates as Phillip Dick and in Slaughterhouse Five it is Kilgore Trout which is Vonnegut’s alternate reality version of himself who appears in many of his books).  LOST also claims to take as inspiration the fantastic series by Stephen King, The Dark Tower.  In The Dark Tower series, King is not only the author, but also an important character.  Interestingly enough, CS Lewis also was working on a book called The Dark Tower (although he never finished it) and in it he put himself as a character.  CS Lewis is, of course, an important author in the series as Charlotte Staples Lewis (may she rest in peace) is clearly named after author Clive Staples Lewis.  So, all of these instances of an author playing a critical role in the books and or series that they write makes me believe that a character (and possibly more then one, I’m looking at you Widmore) is the author of our LOSTies situation as well, primarily Benry Gale.  If he is the author of the situation it would help explain how he always seems to be right where he needs to be, or as it was said of him in the episode The Other Woman, he is always right where he wants to be.

So, Ethan Rom (one of the first LOST anagrams, Other Man) is the baby that Juliet delivered, who would one day grow up to be a doctor working on solving why babies can no longer be born on the Island.  I’m not sure if it is anything more then just interesting, but it certainly is that.

Dr. Jack has always resented being a leader, but every time that some one else has stepped up to take the role (primarily John Locke, but a couple of times prior to this one Sawyer as well) Dr. Jack has not handled it gracefully.  While he seems to be handing the leadership role to Sawyer right now with minimum fuss, my feeling is that despite his whole “I’m not a leader attitude, why do you want me to lead?” Dr. Jack will be mounting a power play to resume his old role from Sawyer.  I don’t think that Sawyer will be too willing to give it up though.

Speaking of Sawyer and Dr. Jack, what do you think about the newly woven relationship tangle?  We’ve always had the Sawyer-Kate-Dr. Jack triangle, although at times it has changed focus slightly to be a Kate-Dr. Jack-Ana Lucia triangle or most recently a Kate-Dr. Jack-Juliet triangle.  We almost had a Sawyer-Kate-Dr. Jack-Ana Lucia triangle (rectangle, ooh, how about Rhombus?) once, but Michael effectively stopped that before it happened.  So the four person relationship tangle is new (Sawyer-Kate-Dr. Jack-Juliet) and I’m okay with it as long as it doesn’t take away too much attention from the overall plot.  

We also found out that Faraday is gone from 1977.  Where did he go?  When did he leave the rest of them?  How did he leave?  And most importantly, why is he no longer with Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, and Miles?  (I couldn’t think of a what one or I would have added it to.)

Meanwhile in the “present”  Frank and Sun are told by Christian that their friends are in the past and that they have “quite a journey ahead” of them.  Does this mean that there is someway on Island for Sun and Frank to travel backwards to the seventies?  One would have thought the Orchid, but remember Benry blew that puppy up in last season’s season finale.  OOH!  What if Faraday found out how to travel on Island and is somehow back in the present!  (Not only is it an interesting idea, but it also gave me my “what” Faraday question, victory is mine.)

On a lighter note, I love that Sawyer made Dr. Jack a “Workman”, cracked me up.  I also wonder what Kate and Hurley’s jobs are.  Also, at the beginning when Sawyer hugged Kate, I am so glad that he didn’t call her Freckles, because if he had I seriously would have cried.  I was already tearing up.  And I want to save my big LOST cry for when Sun and Jin finally reunite.

Until Next Time, here’s another interesting thought/theory I came up with while watching this episode, what if the Whispers are echoes through time of themselves and those that they are close to?  What if the connections that the LOSTies have to each other is causing their voices to almost be audible to themselves and their friends 30 years after they spoke?  Something to think about anyway.

Friday, March 13, 2009

BSG Finale Watch begins

Tonight is part one of the two part finale of television's greatest show ever, Battlestar Galactica, and I have to admit, I am not ready for it to be over.

In fact, I'm in a bit of denial that there are only two hours left (less when you take out the commercials, damn you advertisers!) of the greatest show ever.

Thankfully, despite there only being two hours left, another two hours will be coming soon in the form of The Plan a direct to DVD movie that will fill in some of the pre-destruction activities of the Cylons on the Colonies.

But starting tonight, we begin to get answers.  Especially to three major questions, what exactly is the significance of Hera, what is up with the "Angels" (as Baltar started putting it in last weeks episode) that are in Baltar and Caprica's heads, and what is up with the death/resurrection of Starbuck?

Those are the three biggest questions that I have remaining, and those are the ones that the show itself has been building towards for the finale.

The only other thing I wonder is if the show will end setting up everything to happen again (because as we are all aware by now, "All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again") or if somehow through Hera they are able to break away from the circular time line they are in and start something completely new.
Also, I figure that the 7th Cylon will play some role in explaining both the "Angels" of Baltar and Caprica and Starbuck's rebirth.  Especially since two weeks ago when Starbuck saw an "Angel" in the form of her father.  I wonder if Starbuck's father was the 7th Cylon and if he is also Baltar's father, meaning that somehow Starbuck and Baltar are both (like Hera) half Cylon/half human.  (Although that would make a first season liaison between Starbuck and Baltar pretty frakking disturbing.)

While part of me desperately wants to know the answers to all of these questions, a larger part of me would be very content waiting another four or five seasons to see what occurs as long as I kept getting my 20+ episodes of BSG every season in the meantime.

Until Next Time, let's enjoy television's greatest show in the short time we have left with it... SO SAY WE ALL.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Who Watches the Watchmen

The graphic novel Watchmen that many have called unfilmable is in fact entirely filmable and although some might call it heresy, even better in some ways as a movie then the book on which it was based.  Sure, overall, the book is better, as it always is, but some things actually come across better on the big screen then they did on paper, and the big change of the movie from the book in my opinion works better.  I'm sure purists will object simply to object, but I think the way the movie handles it actually makes a lot more sense then the way the book did.  While the changed events worked within the graphic novel, I honestly don't think that they would have worked or fit within the film, whereas those events as they are handled in the film fit perfectly and make complete and total sense.

Overall, the movie is incredible, truly fantastic.  It was everything I could have hoped that it would be and more.

It captures the look and feel of the book perfectly, in many places as a literal translation from page to screen, and in every technical sense it is perfection.  Most of the performances are spot on, especially those of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II, and Matthew Goode as Ozymandias.  Most of the negative reviews I've read note the wooden performance of Malin Akerman as Silk Specter II, and while I'll agree that she wasn't as great as the others I've mentioned she wasn't terrible either and I was able to buy her in the role in an emotional sense (as her character certainly has the most emotional work in the film) and certainly on a physical level (as is the case with all of the fight scenes, frakking incredible stuff).
As for the theme and meaning of the book, I believe that they translated perfectly to the big screen version.  I got many of the same feelings from watching the movie as I got from reading the book that Time Magazine called one of the best of the 20th Century, saying,
"Watchmen is a graphic novel—a book-length comic book with ambitions above its station—starring a ragbag of bizarre, damaged, retired superheroes: the paunchy, melancholic Nite Owl; the raving doomsayer Rorschach; the blue, glowing, near-omnipotent, no-longer-human Doctor Manhattan. Though their heyday is past, these former crime-fighters are drawn back into action by the murder of a former teammate, The Comedian, which turns out to be the leading edge of a much wider, more disturbing conspiracy. Told with ruthless psychological realism, in fugal, overlapping plotlines and gorgeous, cinematic panels rich with repeating motifs, Watchmen is a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium."
Watchmen the film is a comic book movie, also with "ambitions above its station".  Like The Dark Knight before it, Watchmen is also much more then just a comic book movie.  In fact it is almost a statement on the whole idea of comic book movies.  It is a look at exactly what a world filled with vigilantes and "supermen" would be, what such a place would look like.  (Just like the graphic novel was a statement on comic books).
With a superhero that is nigh indestructible what effect would that have on anyone else who attempted to be a "superhero" when they are in fact not at all "Super"?

What does being a vigilante require?  What kind of tortured past must one endure and what kind of psyche would they have?  Does the dark overcome them completely where they become almost as bad as the evil that they are fighting (Rorschach and The Comedian)?  Or does their need to be something bigger then themselves and feel like they truly are important and making a difference in the world make them completely unable to be or do anything else (Nite Owl II and Silk Specter II)?

And how do these "heroes" from DC in an alternate reality compare to the DC heroes we are so familiar with (primarily Superman and Batman)?  A very interesting article could certainly be written on how Dr. Manhattan compares to and comments on Superman and how Nite Owl II and Rorschach combine to be very similar to Batman.

I also like how the film makes some statements on the time in which we live, 2009, (despite being set in an alternate 1986) much like the graphic novel made statements on the real 1986.  "Who would want a Cowboy to be in the White House?" indeed.

Yes, Watchmen certainly strives to be much more then just a comic book movie and like the graphic novel on which it is based it completely succeeds.

High, high marks.  Go see the film, I don't think you'll regret it.

Until Next Time, I enjoyed the visual nod to Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb) which made a great bit of sense in retrospect, and I enjoyed the small things that were hidden throughout the film such as the snippet of the classic Apple commercial "1984" (another nod that makes a lot of sense within the film).  And, of course, I loved, loved, loved the Star Trek preview, holy crap it was AMAZING!!!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

LOST LaFleur, first thoughts

As always *SPOILERS* if you aren't caught up!

Wow, I loved this episode!  I think in part because Sawyer is my favorite good guy character.  (Overall I think that Benry is probably my favorite character, but that guy is EVIL.  Like Evil League of Evil evil.  He makes Bad Horse look like a saint.)  (That's a Dr. Horrible reference people, keep up.)  I also love episodes that have emotional cores, and this one really did.  We open with the pain and anguish that Faraday feels for losing CS Lewis.  In the middle of the episode we get the sensational scene involving Juliet's return to her dream job, the one that the Island stole all her passion for.  Remember how excited Juliet was about delivering babies back in the episode Not In Portland?  And how happy she was to get to once more bring joy to someone when she told Sun that the baby was Jin's in the episode D.O.C?  But mostly for the last 6 years, Juliet has hated the idea of babies being born.  Apparently she believed that the inability of anyone to give birth on the Island was somehow her fault.  The scene in which she helps Michelle Dessler give birth and tells Sawyer and Jin that she's okay was Emmy worthy stuff.  (Speaking of Michelle Dessler, I wonder if Tony knows that somehow she's on the Island.  I say he leave Jack to saving the world and he comes and gets his wife back.)  (That was a 24 reference, seriously you guys, keep up.)  And finally the episode finishes with Sawyer's lies thrust back in his face as he sees Kate across the grass and knows that while he may in fact love Juliet, he is by no means over Kate.  All three of these emotional touchstones grabbed me.  Great stuff.

I also loved this episode because it really got my mind racing again in the theory department.  There was some good stuff in this episode for that.

Real quick, we'll start with the statue, since that is where the episode started.  It definitely had an Egyptian feel to me, perhaps an Egyptian god.  (Mainly cause of the ears.)  I wonder, however, if the Island might in fact be Atlantis?  (Not my cat, but what she was named after, the ancient LOST civilization.  (Do you see what I did there?)  Just a thought.

My real theorizing came about do to a couple of events in this episode.  One, dead bodies don't time shift, as evidenced by CS Lewis staying put while Faraday left (or vis versa if you go by how Faraday put it, and I think that was interesting), and two, the fence doesn't stop Alpert or those like him.  What does this add up to?  The Others are dead.

Just like Locke, just like Christian, just like Claire, Alpert and the Others are dead but are walking and talking and interacting like they aren't.

Oh, and by the way, I'm going to fit the Smoke Monster into this theory also.  So be ready for that shortly!
Dead bodies don't jump.  The Others don't jump.  I've really been wondering (since the time shifting began) why none of the Others jumped with Locke but Juliet jumped.  Alpert says his people weren't affected, why not?  When Juliet sided with the LOSTies did she give up her not affected by time shifts card?  And if Juliet wasn't immune to the time shifts like the Others because the Island knew she was no longer an Other, why didn't Locke get to be immune?  After all he had fully changed allegiance to the Others at that point.  Nope that theory just didn't hold water.  Juliet wasn't immune because she was different then the other Others.  At least those that Alpert had with him.  Perhaps they were all truly native to the Island, as in they had been born there.  I think that this is partly true.  And for a time I believed it fully.

Okay, Alpert only brought those that were native to the Island with him from the Temple to save Benry.  Therefore people like the stewardess (who was a survivor of 815) and anyone who has come to the Others but wasn't born on the Island are skipping through time like our LOSTies now.

The problem is, they were all at the Temple, and our time skipping took us to the Temple, and there was no one there except Smokey.  (Don't worry, I'll get to him).

So, none of those Others were time skipping even though we know that they weren't born on the Island.  And not only that, but both Miles and CS Lewis were born on the Island and they were skipping like children hopped up on too much sugar.

So, why is that?  Well, it is because dead bodies don't jump, and the Others (the real Others, a group into which Juliet had not yet been initiated) are dead.  I don't think that it's an honor you get automatically, because while being dead might not sound awesome on the cover of it, on the Island it has its privileges.  Even besides avoiding annoying time skips.  You can appear and disappear in random places throughout the Island (as evidenced by Harper showing up and disappearing a little too convincingly) which is cool, but more importantly, YOU DON'T AGE!  That's right, Alpert doesn't age because he doesn't live.  Aging is for living people.  He looks exactly the same in 1954 as he does in 2008 because he's dead.

Eko in the episode The 23rd Psalm).  I think that Smokey is also like a computer, it holds the essence of a person so that when they die the Island can reanimate them to "live forever" and to serve the Island's needs if they are worthy.  (Perhaps the lists that Jacob is so fond of making are people that the Island might find worthy of receiving this "gift".)  And while it can be done elsewhere if it is an emergency (read: Claire) I think that the place this happens is usually the Temple.

And, of course, being dead, there wouldn't be any need to fear some wacky Dharma sonic fence.
So, what do you think about my "The Others Are Dead" theory?  Work for you?  Why or why not?
Just to bring it up because if I don't someone will ask me about it, if the LOSTies are in 1974 as Lostpedia says they are, then how could that be little CS Lewis because Locke said she was born in 1979 after he had gotten all of the Boat Folk info from Benry (who got it from Michael)?  Well, it is probably a continuity error on the part of LOST, but after her mom lied about her time on the Island, why wouldn't she have lied about when she was born also?  It happens in Little League all the time.  In other words, I'm not that worried about it.

Until Next Time, I also loved this episode because not only was Locke cured of his paralysis by coming to the Island, apparently Herc was also!  (Dude, I really hope that he told Street about this magical Island where they could walk again!) (Friday Night Lights people.  You really need to start recognizing these references on your own.)

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Damn You, ABC, Damn You

Life On Mars was canceled.  They're allowing the show to have a finale, so the show will have an ending, but still, this was the best new show going so far.  It was way better then Fringe (which has been getting a lot better, but still has nothing on Life On Mars).

This is just the latest travesty committed by ABC this season.  Life On Mars ends its run way too soon just like Eli Stone and Pushing Daisies.

I really hate ABC right now.