According to Wikipedia, which knows a lot more than I do:

In the fictional universe of Star Wars, Hoth is the sixth planet of a remote system of the same name. It is a world covered in snow and ice, with numerous moons, and pelted by meteorites from a nearby asteroid belt. Native creatures include the wampa and the tauntaun.

Is the reference to “Hoth” in the episode title actually a Star Wars reference, or could it be something else? The first Star Wars movie opened in May, 1977, and the last time we saw the Dharma Initiative Losties, they were living in 1977. But apparently “Hoth” was not mentioned in a Star Wars movie until the Empire Strikes Back which came out in 1980.

In LaFleur, the storyline of the Dharma Losties was moving forward and back in 3-year leaps. Will we see a leap forward in this episode to 1980?

Or will Hoth turn out to be something else entirely — a name of a character or perhaps even a mispronunciation of something else?

On the 4/9 Official Audio Podcast, Darlton say that they are particularly proud of this episode. The show needed a bit of fun, they say. After the seriousness of Ben almost being strangled by his dead daughter, and before we start heading into the intensity of the lead-up to the finale, they thought we could use a breather.

Schedule — April 15, 2009

9:00 pm - 10:02 pm — New episode “Some Like it Hoth”

(an hour earlier Central Time)

Note: On April 22, there won’t be a new episode. Instead, there will be a clip show. After that, though, it should be smooth sailing all the way to the finale.

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.

9:04 Alpert, with a fresh application of mascara, mentions Jacob. But where IS Jacob? Everyone always talks about him, but no one ever actually sees him…. um, just like Elijah?

The Island saved Little Ben, which explains how he survived a gunshot wound to the chest. It’s a miracle … like the parting of the Red Sea!

Charles is back!

Ben explains why he killed John. He says he came back to be judged by the “Monster.”

9:17 Ben, with teenage Ethan, grabs Danielle’s baby. Wow. There’s one long-standing question answered — how Alex ended up with Ben. But it still leaves the question of why.

Ben, to Locke: “Well I just didn’t have time to talk you back into hanging yourself.”
Locke: “I was just hoping for an apology.”

Ben shoots Cesar! Wow, that is COLD. Ben, to Locke: “There’s your apology.”

Ben is evil … like the Pharoah!

9:27 Flashback. Ben with Alex. Now we know why he took Alex. The answers are coming fast tonight. I count, ahem, Four Questions that have been answered so far in this episode.

Neither Charles nor Ben will kill baby Alex, so there are limits to their evil. Ben, with the baby, is actually quite the softie. So sweet …. like charoses!

Back to the present. Someone is in Alex’s room! Horror-film music. It’s Sun!

Um, there was a lot of sun in the desert that the Israelites wandered through for 40 years.

Undead John waves sweetly. More charoses!

9:38 Ben goes down secret passageway, sticks hand in yucky dirty water. You better, uh, wash your hands, Ben!

Flashback. Charles banished from the Island. Ben says, accusingly, that Charles had a daughter with an outsider. Penny!

Ben: “Dead is dead.” He’s tells Sun that John being undead scares him. Is he telling the truth?

John says he knows where Smokie is.

He will lead Ben to Smokie … like Moses led his people out of bondage!

9:49 Ben on the pier. So it WAS Penny he wanted to kill! That’s another question answered. That makes — uh oh — five questions.

In the present: Locke: “I just know.” Ben: “How does that work, exactly?” Hah.

They see the Temple wall. Uh, next year in Jerusalem!

Back at the pier. Ben is as bitter as a bitter herb. He shot Desmond!!! There’s Penny! Oh, Ben has a soft spot for children, which makes him (ahem) pass over Penny. Yay, Desmond’s not dead! That explains how Ben got beat up. Question number 6 now answered. Ewwww — blood in the water.

10:02 Ilana: “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” She knocks Lapidus down. This is seriously weird.

Ben and Locke wander through a structure underneath the temple. Ben falls through the floor. There’s an altar with Egyptian hieroglyphics. (Egypt! Hello, Passover tie-ins!) There’s a picture of a snake-like creature (Smokie?) facing what I think may be the animal-like head of the Statue.

And theeeeeere’s Smokie! Full of faces from the past, as it had been with Eko. Oh! Alex!! Undead!! Hah — she’s still mad at him. So much for Ben’s getting forgiveness for his sins. But that would be the wrong holiday, anyway.
———-

There was a lot of information in this episode, many questions answered. But I found it a bit inert. I didn’t find it really exciting until the scene on the pier, which was an adrenalin pumper. And I was intrigued by the bizarre scene with Ilana and Lapidus. And I loved the scene after that, where Ben and Locke were wandering around in the strange underground temple, a scene which felt like something straight out of a dream.

Photo of (ahem) Big Ben is by David Iliff, GNU FDL, via Wikipedia

Of course we know that on LOST dead isn’t always dead. Dead is sometimes undead. Dead is also sometimes a few days in a coffin before rising again, good as new, albeit too formally dressed for a tropical island. If you’re an actor on LOST, then dead means never having to say that your contract is over, because you can always come back in a flashback.

This will be a Ben-centric episode. In honor of that, here’s a video of Michael Emerson answering viewer questions, in “Ask Lost,” which I think is the start of a new internet-extra series from ABC.

Schedule for April 7, 2009

9:00 pm to 10:02 pm — New episode, Dead is Dead

(An hour earlier in Central Time)

Next week there will be another new episode, but on April 22 there will be a clip show, called Lost: The Story of the Oceanic 6, instead of a new episode.

There’s some wonderful dialogue here, as Hurley and Miles act out the thoughts of every LOST fan who has ever passionately defended a favorite theory about the show — or who has ever gotten a headache from trying to figure it all out and running into too many paradoxes:

Jorge Garcia and Ken Leung are such talented comic actors. We’re lucky to have them on the show!

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.

9:05 Jin’s ok. Little Ben is alive. I figured he would be (for the sake of not entangling the show in time-travel paradoxes), but how does someone survive being shot in the chest?

Flashback. Cassidy: “What are you doing here?” Kate: “Sawyer sent me.”

9:17 Cassidy, about Sawyer: “What a coward.”

Hurley checks to see if he’s disappearing! Which he would be if the show had become entangled in a time-travel paradox. I love this. Miles says, no. He’s a believer in the Faraday line of thinking that you can’t change the future.

And then, in the middle of the time-travel discussion, Hurley, standing in for us, the viewers, as he so often does, says “This is really confusing!” Ha ha ha!

Jack refuses to help Ben. Kate says Ben will die. Jacks says, “Then he dies.”

9:29 Jack is tired of being the guy who always fixes things. “Maybe the Island just wants to fix things itself.”

Kate: “I don’t like the new you. I liked the old you.”

Jack: “You didn’t like the old me, Kate.”

Interesting.

Roger is remorseful. Who would’ve thunk it?

Hurley and Miles continue their discussion of time travel. This is cracking me up. They’re pursuing threads that are becoming more and more convoluted and incomprehensible, just like two LOST fans arguing about their favorite theories.

Hurley, again standing in for us: “Say that again?”

Juliet says they have to go to the Others for Ben. I don’t really understand this. Do the others have more advanced medical skills than the Dharma folk?

9:37 Flashback to scene on pier. Kate loses Aaron in supermarket. Finds him with a woman who looks like Claire, from the back, but it isn’t Claire.

Meeting of Kate and Sawyer (and the cute blue VW vans) in the meadow.

9:49 Kate and Cassidy have become friends. Kate: “Aaron needed me.” Cassidy to Kate: “You needed Aaron.”

Sawyer: “I’m dong it for Juliet.”

Juliet to Jack (echoing Cassidy to Kate): “You came back here for you.”

New Jack (channeling Locke): “I came back because I was supposed to.”

Kate and Sawyer have The Talk, then are interrupted by armed Others.

10:02 Kate, confirming Cassidy’s point, tells Claire’s mother that she lied because she needed Aaron.

Back on the Island, Kate and Sawyer give Little Ben to Alpert, who says “If I take him, he’ll never be the same again.”

Hey, maybe Alpert really IS a vampire! Hah.

Alpert carries Little Ben through the jungle, towards a cabin. It’s Jacob’s cabin, I think. Is Christian Shephard inside? I bet that’s it. How many other surgeons are there hanging out in the jungle?

Big Ben wakes up and sees Locke. Big Ben looks shocked, and I don’t think he’s faking. Locke just smiles and says, “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

I’d say this was a good, though not a great episode. What kept it from being great, for me, was that Kate didn’t really engage me emotionally. When she was crying about giving Aaron up, I wasn’t feeling it. Same thing when she reunited with Sawyer. I’m not sure if it’s the character or the actress, but Kate usually seems remote to me.

On the plus side, we got answers to several questions: what Sawyer had whispered to Kate in the helicopter, what happened to Aaron, and how Ben ended up with the Others. The dialogue between New Jack and Kate was interesting. And I loved the scenes with Hurley and Miles, acting as stand-ins for all of us theory-spouting LOST fans.

Evangeline Lilly promo photo (c) ABC

I almost had a heart attack.

And then I realized (and I’m sure Dear Reader, that you came to this realization long before I did) that it must be an April Fool’s joke.

Whew.

The story, which I was able to read once I calmed down, is actually pretty funny. It claims that Lindelof went into a rage after the Conficker worm infected his laptop. The story quotes a “non-union seamstress” on the set, who said, “At first, I thought it was Carlton and Damon arguing about another continuity error, but then I realized there was none of Carlton’s usual high-pitched crying.”

And this:

Lindelof made a brief statement … “I just don’t need that kind of stress in my life. And, to be honest, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. I mean, Charlotte’s on the island five years before she is born. The runway was built for the plane to land on, but they didn’t know to build it until someone from the plane went back in time and told them. It’s all chicken and egg. We were just making it up as we went along, and I have no clue how we were going to reach a logical, rational ending next year. I think this whole Conficker thing just helped me realize I don’t need all this. Someone else can figure it out. I really just need to simplify my life right now.” When asked if he would be returning to LOST, Lindelof replied, “Never. Never, never, never. I left the island, and I’m never going back!”

Funny stuff!

Damon Lindelof, still with us

(Photo via Lostpedia)

The new episode is called Whatever Happened, Happened. According to Darlton on the March 26 official audio podcast, this will be a Kate-centric episode, complete with flashbacks! I know that some of you are cheering now at the thought of a Kate-centric episode, while others (you know who you are!) are groaning, throwing things, and tearing out your hair.

The episode title appears to refer to the question of time travel paradoxes. Was Faraday correct when he said that what happened in the past couldn’t alter the future — or was Sayid successful in his attempt to change the future by killing little Ben?

At first glance, the title — whatever happened, happened — seems to suggest that Faraday was correct. But perhaps the title was meant to be ironic! So I guess we’ll just have to watch to find out.

Schedule April 1, 2009

9:00 new episode Whatever Happened, Happened

(an hour earlier in Central time)

At the time I wrote this, last week’s episode, He’s Our You, was available on abc.com, but just in the regular version, not the pop-up hint enhanced one. Maybe they’ll post that one later??