LOST Fan

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)

Josh Holloway (wearing a shirt, but with the top buttons undone) is the featured actor in this week’s official video podcast. He talks about the evolution of his character, Sawyer.

The podcast also has clips of some of the best moments of LaFleur, including the instant-classic scene of Sawyer and Juliet kissing in the Dharma kitchen.

Holloway said all of that domestic bliss was a shock. Sawyer had always been a “fun weekend,” not a relationship kind of guy.

Not to mention that he and Juliet didn’t get the best of starts. In fact, the first time the two of them met, she shot him with a taser. (I had forgotten about that!)

“Does a tiger change his stripes?” Holloway asks. “I hope not totally. I hope they bring his edge, keep it sharp.”

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.

This one is 1.01 minutes long, features Miles, Daniel, Sawyer, and Juliet, and again is slightly spoiler-ish. It has one great line — “Thanks anyway, Plato!” — but is otherwise rather disturbing.

The clip is 1:09 minutes long, very slightly spoiler-ish, and features Faraday:

In this week’s official ABC video podcast, Matthew Fox talks about how his character Jack has changed.

He says that Jack has always struggled to try to make things go the way he wanted them to go, that he always had a strong need to control his reality, rather than letting his life unfold.

Matthew Fox says he’s enjoying this season, because after four years of intense struggle to control his destiny, Jack has finally given up, and that creates a lot of freedom and a sense of anticipation about seeing what his reason is to be on the Island. It’s an interesting thing to play, Fox says. He’s having a good time.

Because the podcast explicitly addresses Locke and Jack’s ongoing argument about whether they are on the Island “for a reason” — including clips of a key scene from the Season 4 finale — I’ve discussed that aspect of the podcast on my For a Reason blog.

Picture of Jack looking worried is from “316″ (c) ABC

I had posted these two brief interviews with Lance Reddick earlier, but I was unable to incorporate them into the “Abaddon/Lance Reddick” category index. So I’m reposting them here for the sake of completeness for anyone who is reading through that category.

Both interviews were released before “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” aired.

The relevant segment on the first interview starts at 1:03:

The second video has been removed from YouTube, but you can see it at this link. It’s worth watching — it’s only about a minute long, but quite revealing.

As for the character of Abaddon — after all this time that I was so eagerly awaiting his return, I’m disappointed that he got killed off so quickly. I know this show has a habit of abruptly killing off some of its best characters — but they didn’t give this one much air time.

I wonder if Reddick was too busy with Fringe to do more than the one episode of LOST this year, and if that was why the producers got rid of the character. The second interview above seems to suggest that might be the case.

Or perhaps Abaddon might still come back as one of the un-dead, or as one of the pre-dead in a flashback or time jump. With LOST, you never know.

After the last episode, The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham, which was centered around the character of John Locke, I thought it would be fun to look at some clips of the actor in real life and in other roles.

Here is he accepting the Emmy in 2007 (he was up against Michael Emerson — and they both deserved to win!). I like his acceptance speech, which was both funny and sincere:

Here he is in an obscure 1988 horror movie called Pin: A Plastic Nightmare, where he plays a doctor who talks to his anatomy dummy:

Here he is, in a less ridiculous role, as a guest star on Law & Order:Criminal Intent in 2004:

And here he is, singing! He may not be as good as singer as Jorge Garcia, but he’s not bad! This was filmed in 1989:

It’s funny that he’s singing about being a homicidal “bad daddy” — little did he know that 20 years later, he would be starring in a show that had bad daddies as one of its major themes!

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:

Damon and Carlton give five little hints about tonight’s episode in this video from EW.

Technically, I guess these teasers are spoilers (that’s what it says in the video’s title!), but I think they are too vague to give anything important away.

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:

This is so spoiler-ish, I’m not even going to say who it is. I’m not even going to slot this post into the character’s category until after the next episode airs. Watch the video (starting at 1:03), if you want to know. (I’ll just say I’m very excited about this!):

Here’s a bit more, on the same subject, in another video which was made earlier. I’m not embedding the video, because the title gives it away — you can watch it through this link.

On this video podcast from TV Guide, Michael Emerson said Ben has not forgotten what Widmore did to him. He said Ben was going to try (and he seemed to emphasize the word “try”) to take care of that at the same time that he took care of his “larger mission.”

This video was made before “316″ aired, and I wonder if that makes a difference. If (knock on wood) Ben did kill, or try to kill Penny, before he got on Flight 316, could that be the revenge Emerson was referring to? Or is Ben’s planned revenge still off in the future?

Also on this video, the ubiquitous “Darlton” appear to tell us that this season has something for everyone.

And then — this is exciting! — next up is Harold Perrineau, who plays Michael. Remember Michael? It’s been a while since we’ve seen him. The interviewer asked him if Michael was dead or alive and … well, I’ll let you watch it yourself.

I enjoyed the video, which packed a lot of good stuff into a mere 3:14 minutes:

On this official LOST video podcast, ABC does some cross-promotion for another one of its shows, Dancing With the Stars. Steve Wozniak, the most famous celebrity contestant on DWtS this season, appears on the video in a shiny pink dancing shirt, plugs the show, and also raves a bit about LOST to keep it on topic.

The second segment of the podcast starts at 2:26 (in case you want to skip the Woz and go straight to that). Here, the interviewer talks to LOST Propmaster Rob Kyker, who shows us the bows and arrows used by the Others.

Then he shows us not just one, but two detached French-guy’s arms. The first is the fresh one, used right after the smoke monster tore it off, and the other is the partly rotting one that Jin saw after the flash.

I bet the Propmaster is in great demand on Halloween.

There’s nothing on this podcast about upcoming shows, and there are no hints about the themes or the lingering questions. Unlike last week’s fascinating podcast about Daniel Faraday and time travel, this one is just okay. It is fun, though, to see what the prop room looks like.

Official podcast, and screenshot of Steve Wozniak and his dancing partner (c) ABC

This podcast focuses on Jeremy Davies and his character Daniel Faraday, with a few additional comments from Jorge Garcia (Hurley) and Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet). They all talk about time travel, and the podcast also shows short clips from earlier in this season, and from last season’s The Constant, that give a quick review of what’s been said in the show about time travel so far.

These official podcasts are essentially promos for the upcoming episodes, so “316,” the next episode, will almost certainly be about time travel. Maybe the episode will even give us some hints as to how time travel works. They can’t tell us everything though. It’s too early for that — there’s still more than a season and a half left to go, and I’m sure they want to keep us mystified for as long as possible.

On the podcast, Davies talks about “rogue physicists” who go beyond Newtonian physics. He says,

You get into areas that demand a language that is closer to the territories of emotion and spirituality and God.

Clear as mud?

As fuzzy as that statement may be, I still have a feeling that it’s pointing to something that is central to what the show is about. After all, one of the show’s major themes is the conflict between faith and science (usually personified by Locke and Jack, respectively). Will the show’s overall resolution hinge on resolving that conflict by bringing faith and science together?

If you want to see any of the previous podcasts, go to the archive on ABC.com, which has video podcasts (and also audio podcasts, which have different material) going back to February 2008.

Screenshot, from the podcast, of Faraday in the past with long hair (but still wearing a tie!), is from The Constant, Episode 4×05 (c) ABC

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

That’s what Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) said in an interview with the AP.

I thought the actors didn’t know what was going to happen?

But apparently he does, this time, and he says (here comes the slight spolier) that the monster is as old as the Island.

In another interview, this one on video from EW.com, he talks about how it feels to know that Jin is alive (”given this economy” he says, “it feels really good”) and what he thinks about all the time travel in the show this season:

In an interview published today in The Daily Beast, Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) said that it would be “wonderful … the creepiest, but the best thing” if her character ended up with Ben.

She may have been joking (or maybe not), but what she said reminded me of something from Season Four. Do you remember the creepy scene where Ben takes Juliet to see Goodwin’s body?

Michael Emerson is so good here. I think it’s one of his best performances on the show, and that’s saying a lot. The pause before his last line, and then the way he says it — just amazing.

I wouldn’t want to see Ben pair off with anyone on the show. To me, he’s like a creature from another planet, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to mate with the Earthlings. Better that he remain asexual.

As for Juliet, I like the rapport that’s developing between her and Sawyer. Yes, I know, Sawyer and Kate have a chemistry that burns with the intensity of a thousand suns. But Kate can be annoying. And Juliet and Sawyer are so cute when they are sarcastic together.

Who would you like to see pair off? Cast your vote(s) below.

Who would you like to see be together as a couple by the end of the show?
( polls)

Screenshot and video from Lost 4×06 The Other Woman (c) ABC

My favorite part of this video interview is when Evangeline Lilly tells those of us who love the character stories that we just have to be patient. She promises that the show will get there. They have to do a lot of set-up during the first half of Season 5, she says, but then they’ll get back into the stories of the people.

And for those of you who do love the time travel element, Matthew Fox is on your side, and he hastens to assure you that the science-fiction aspects will continue to be a very necessary part of the whole world that is LOST.

I like trying to figure out the puzzles that the show presents, and I like the time-travel stuff, but only up to a point. Most of the season so far, except for the wonderfully Hurley-centric episode The Lie, has been too much, for my taste, about the vertigo-inducing time jumps, and not enough about the characters, and their connections, interactions, and struggles to redeem themselves from whatever haunts them from the past.

I had been worried that the show might be permanently spinning off in a direction that was less interesting to me than what they had done in previous seasons. So I was relieved to hear Lilly say that the stuff I like the most will be coming back!

What’s your favorite part of the show? The character development? The science-fiction aspects? Or do you like them both equally?

Screenshot and video (c) Entertainment Weekly