LOST Fan

J.J. Abrams, the creative force behind LOST, is the director of a new Star Trek movie scheduled to be released next month. After a couple of recent pre-release screenings, the reviews are starting to come in, and they are overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

Producer/writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse made another short video for the Dharma Special Access site. They take us behind the scenes to the writers’ offices.

There’s a wall where the writers have taped up photographs of the characters so they can keep them all straight. There are sections for the characters who are still living and for those who are dead – and a section for the characters who are “undead”!

The password to enter the Special Access site this week is holma. Whoever makes up the passwords likes to play games with them. They are changed weekly and often spell out something meaningful when read backwards. But this time, when I ran the backwards password – “amloh” — through Google, I didn’t see anything interesting.

I then tried “holma” — the password itself — and found that according to Wikipedia, “Holma (also known as Da Holmaci, Bali Holma) is an extinct Afro-Asiatic language formerly spoken in Nigeria in Adamawa State.”

Hmmm … that might fit. Mr Eko was from Nigeria. I wonder if this is a hint that his story line might be picked up again? Although the actor who played Mr. Eko presumably would not want to come back (having quit the show in the first place), Carlton mentions in passing on the “Writers’ Room” video that Eko’s brother is on the “Undead” wall. So the storyline of Mr. Eko’s family (if not of Mr. Eko himself) conceivably could be revived.

There are things to like about Fringe. I like the interactions among the main characters. I like the mysteries that carry over from one episode to the next. I like the way the bad guy got old, all it once, reminding me of the end of the classic movie Lost (no pun intended) Horizon.

But the torture, the serial killing, the heavy-handed attempts to gross out the viewers — those are things I can live without.

It’s a strange show, with a little bit of this, a little bit of that, X-Files meets 24 meets Catskills shtick. There are slowly unfolding mysteries for LOST fans and others who like their suspense drawn out. There are also stories that neatly resolve at the 55-minute mark for the more impatient.

None of it is particularly believable. It’s not just the fringe science that strains my ability to suspend disbelief — it’s also the cow walking down a Harvard classroom hall, it’s the woman who has no qualms about her date (trick?) taking her to a deserted warehouse, it’s the banter between Peter and his mad scientist dad, which is charming but over the top.

I do want to know what’s up with Peter’s “medical history,” and what Olivia’s boyfriend meant, in the Pilot, in his dying comment that Olivia should find out why Broyles hired her (is Olivia some kind of test-tube clone herself?), and what Broyles and Sharp are really up to, and whether Peter and Olivia will ever get together in condom-protected bliss. In only two episodes, the show has generated a decent amount of suspense. And I do love suspense. Maybe they’ll veer away from the gross-out fest, and I’ll be able to watch the show long enough to find out the answers.

Both episodes are available online.

Last night, I watched the premiere of J.J. Abrams’ new show, Fringe. I was surprised and delighted to see Lance Reddick appear. He started on LOST last season as the deliciously creepy Matthew Abaddon — though I still think of him as Lt. Daniels from The Wire.

My initial delight gave way to a twinge of anxiety. If Reddick is appearing in what looks like a fairly major role in Fringe, will he be able to return to LOST? Can someone be in two shows at once? I loved the Abaddon character last season, even if his appearance was little more than a cameo, and I was hoping the character would be developed more — a lot more.

Here he is with Hurley, in a great scene from the first show of last season:

Well, I looked around, and I found an interview that Reddick gave last month, where he says that he will be returning to LOST. Whew!

Q: Do you think it’s going to be a challenge arranging your schedule so that you can make it back to Hawaii ? When can fans expect you to return to LOST?

A: As with all things on LOST, I don’t know. I only know that I am going back. But I don’t know when or for how many episodes.

On The Wire, Reddick showed he was a subtle actor with a lot of depth. I hope he is on LOST enough, this upcoming season, to do his character justice.