LOST Fan

A couple of things in here made me laugh out loud — the elephant in the room, and the smoke monster coughing.

And there was one thing that was pointed out that I had missed — that the “Beachies” (good name), Ilana and company, had some of kind of mysterious crate and we still don’t know what’s in it.

I have to apologize for saying (or at least thinking) that “Lost Untangled” wasn’t particularly helpful in untangling anything. This week’s edition caught some things that I had missed — and they could be significant.

One is a line said by one of the Others: “What if Charles finds out?” Mr. Anonymous Narrator helpfully adds, “You mean THIS Charles?” while a photo of Charles Widmore appears on the screen. The line went by so fast when I was watching the show, that I hadn’t even thought of Widmore.

Mr. Lost-Untangled Narrator also mentions that the place Alpert was bringing Ben was the smoke monster’s lair (not, as I had thought while watching the show, Jacob’s cabin!) — though I had actually just found that out, a few minutes earlier, from reading Val’s blog.

This edition of “Lost Untangled” also introduces a new kind of animation for some of its characters, with what appear to be real mouths moving in cardboard cutouts. It’s kind of cool and sort of disgusting and disturbing at the same time.

ABC got the new “Lost Untangled” up quickly this week! And they even mentioned it on TV, at the end of the broadcast.

Here you go …

“Jack … he’s got nothing.”

Aw, poor Jack. I feel sorry for him.

No, not really.

I’m actually still miffed that he was voted the sexiest TV doctor, beating out (gasp!) George Clooney. Oh, the sacrilege! Oh, the horror! Ha.

Back to the video …

“Oh, no. Little Ben’s dead? What about the space-time continuum? Whoa! Cliffhanger!”

My reaction exactly.

Once again, we have an episode of “Lost Untangled,” the weekly recap video produced by the mysterious “ABC Fred Lab,” narrated by a mysterious narrator, and featuring comic-book style graphics, shaking action figures, and cardboard cutouts.

This week’s edition is a surprisingly straightforward retelling of the episode. The miniature VW bus that rolls through a miniature Dharmaville is adorable. Action-figure Sawyer gets a little snider with his nicknames than his on-the-air equivalent, calling Hurley “Double Chunk” and “King Kong,” and calling Jack “Bed Pan.”

Mostly, though, what we’ve got here is a plot summary:

I’m curious about what people think of these “Lost Untangled” videos. I can see from my stats that these videos are more eagerly searched for than almost anything else. Are you a fan who looks forward to watching them every week? Or do you think they are stupid? Or something in-between?

What do you think of the “Lost Untangled’ videos?” (Pick one or more)
( Online surveys)

If you’re looking for the latest “Lost Untangled” video, ABC hasn’t posted it yet. Last week, they didn’t post it until the day after the show, around late afternoon/early evening East Coast time. So if they follow the same pattern, it should be available later today — and I’ll post a copy here when it is.

They didn’t cancel the “Lost Untangled” series after all! They just posted it a day late.

Here it is:

I thought this one was ok, not great, not terrible.

I did like the part with the cute toy VW bus.

Usually ABC puts these up right away, but not tonight.

If they do put one up later, I’ll post it.

So no new episode next week. No instant recap with action figures this week. Maybe the whole LOST family is taking a mid-season break and have gone off to enjoy the Hawaii beaches?

Seriously, I wonder if they decided to discontinue the “Lost Untangled” series. They started it out of the blue, so I guess it would be fitting if they ended it the same way, without any explanation at all.

I tried again to find out who made the series. I thought I had found a clue when I saw that according to Lostpedia, they were made by a company called ABC Fred Lab.

But when I tried Googling “ABC Fred Lab,” the only thing that came up was the Lostpedia page itself!

I liked this episode of Lost Untangled a lot better than the ones from the last couple of weeks. The part where Locke kept on croaking “Let’s … go … back … to … the … island” made me laugh out loud:

The Fine Brothers, who were making popular LOST parodies using shaking action figures long before ABC started its “Lost Untangled” series, have released a new video in honor of last night’s Academy Awards. Here’s a clip:

You can see the full video at just for laughs, and read up on the controversy at the Fine Bros. blog.

Speaking of the Academy Awards — and this has nothing to do with LOST, I’m just going off on a tangent — I thought they did a great job last night of revitalizing the show. I loved Hugh Jackson, and I loved the musical numbers:

Here’s the latest installment of the official ABC episode recap with cut outs and action figures.

I did laugh at the part where the plane was going down and the action figures started shaking. Other than that — eh.

I think this “Untangled” series still has its fans, though, so your mileage may vary. (Not to be confused with your airline mileage, which you would have a lot of, if you were one of the Oceanic 6.)

ABC made another episode of Lost Untangled:

I think this episode has a few funny moments, but I don’t find it nearly as funny as I did last week’s.

It starts off in exactly the same way, which seems too repetitive for a series that is only on its second episode. Plus the novelty of the concept itself may already be starting to wear thin. And ABC’s not giving a credit to the Fine Brothers, the original creators of action-figure videos spoofing LOST, also took off some of the luster.

What do you think? Funny or not?

Screenshot of action-figure Sun pointing a gun in the general direction of Ben is from Lost Untangled 5×05 This Place is Death (c) ABC

I received an email from the Fine Brothers, Benny & Rafi, the makers of the original Lost action-figure videos that I wrote about below.

They were not involved in any way in ABC’s version.

It looks to me like ABC cavalierly ripped off their idea.

I suspect this isn’t the last we’re going to hear about this. Now, the show that has spawned so many fictional mysteries has created some real-life ones. Why would ABC not invite the Fine brothers to contribute to their feature, or at the very least give them credit? Why is it so hard to find any information about who made the feature? Was airing it a last-minute decision — it just popped up suddenly after the season was already underway,with a sudden burst of publicity — why?

The Fine brothers have written a blog post about their reaction to what ABC did, which they see as a big stab in the back to all who do creative work on the web. Take a look.

I still haven’t been able to find out anything about the mysterious creator of the ABC Lost Untangled video, but I did find some videos, made by a duo called The Fine Brothers, that look strikingly similar. Did ABC just rip off the idea?

Here’s the first one:

You can see more of the videos here: The Fine Bros Comedy

The Little Prince will be rerun at 8:00 on Wednesday on ABC, right before the new episode which starts at 9:00. The new episode has the ominous title This Place is Death.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

8:00 The Little Prince (Episode 5×04)
9:00 This Place is Death (Episode 5×05 — new).

Everything runs an hour earlier in Central Time. Episodes are also available to watch for free on ABC.com.

I expect this week we’ll also get a new Lost Untangled — the short episode recap video from ABC featuring intentionally goofy action figures and cut outs. I haven’t found any information yet about who made it and what their plans are, but it does look like it’s the start of a regular feature.

Picture of Kate, Sun, and Aaron sharing an unusually peaceful moment, from The Little Prince (c) ABC

Locke and Sawyer action figures

This is the video they were advertising on the bottom of the screen during The Little Prince.

“This isn’t rocket science. Or maybe it is.”

Funny!

Video and screenshot (c) ABC