Lost TV Series News and Theories

Our apologies for being away so long, but now that Lost-related news is heating back up in preparation for Comic Con, you will be seeing more frequent updates. Most of you that signed up to the Octagon Global Recruiting website after the finale of Season 4 probably have already received, or will receive this email sometime this morning:

Octagon Global Recruiting, on behalf of the Dharma Initiative, is pleased to announce that Dharma’s Head of Recruiting, Mr. Hans Van Eeghen, has confirmed his availability for the launch of our latest recruiting drive at Comic-Con 2008.

“My colleagues at Octagon Global Recruiting assure me that Comic-con hosts some of the brightest minds in the country,” said Mr. Van Eeghen. “As Head of Recruiting it is my intention to personally assess the very best of this talent in the hope that they may join us.”

The Dharma Initiative will be conducting eligibility assessments at Booth 3529 at Comic-Con, San Diego between July 24th - 27th.

If you are attending Comic-Con and would like to submit your name for a randomly selected drawing to secure one of ten (10) pre-release appointments with one of our recruiting officers, please click here.

The volunteer eligibility assessment will be available online from July 28th for a limited time at www.dharmawantsyou.com

The Dharma Initiative hopes you will spread the word. Invite your friends to join the team at www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com

Looks like things will be pretty interesting at Comic Con - a description of the Lost-related panels are below:

Friday, July 25th: 1:45-2:45 Entertainment Weekly’s The Visionaries: Showrunners— Carlton Cuse (Lost), Damon Lindelof (Lost), Josh Schwartz (Chuck, Gossip Girl), Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies), and Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) are the television producers who are changing the face of television with deeply immersive entertainments marked by distinctive, cutting edge storytelling. They have also been at the forefront of bringing “genre programming” or “cult TV” to the mainstream. Prepare for a candid conversation about creative integrity in a commercial medium and the future of broadcast TV in an increasingly digital world. Spoiler Alert! Upcoming plot developments may be teased. Moderated by Entertainment Weekly senior writer Jeff Jensen.

Saturday, July 26th: 12:00-1:00 Lost— If the most recent season finale was any indication of things to come, you will not want to miss this panel. Co-creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse will discuss season 4 of Lost, leading up to the season finale. They will answer your questions and maybe even offer up some surprises of their own.

There has also been a little news that is a derivative of the recent ABC press tour, which included Cuse and Lindelof - most notably the following excerpt, taken from The Star - Ledger:

In terms of actual “Lost” news, the session was pretty light, though Carlton did say Daniel Dae Kim would appear on the show in the future “in some form” — which prompted Damon to add, “In human form!” And when someone asked Carlton how they planned to use next season to set up the final year, he called it “a tricky year for us; like ‘Two Towers.’ It’s the year that links us from the past to the final season… We’ve known a lot of what we wanted to do there for a long time. The challenge we have now is how to make this season exciting and engaging.”

So, let the Jin speculation continue!

Readers of The Lost Blog and DarkUFO have been invited to play in the DarkUFO Lost Fantasy League for Season 5. If any of you are familiar with fantasy sports leagues, the premise, rules and scoring will be easy to understand - if you are not, read them anyway because this could be fun:

Here’s how it works:
1) Please complete the submission form using the link below.
2) Please only submit entry 1 per person.
3) We have a new field to enter this year which allows you to select the site that you would like your results to appear in. EG If you are a Lost Blog reader and want to keep track of your place with other Lost Blog readers make sure you select Lostpedia from the Select Site option. NOTE: Everyone is still included in the full table but this allows other sites to easily track their own tables etc. Owners of these sites should be providing details of the league in the appropriate forums/blogs/sites.
4) You must use a valid email address.
5) This email address will NOT be displayed or sold to any third party marketing companies and will ONLY be used to contact you if you are a prize winner and to send you a confirmation of your picks.
6) Only fill out the Celebrity Code field if you have already been contacted by DarkUFO.
7) Make sure you enter your team Name so that it is unique to you. The team name is the name you will use to find your team in the full table- eg Don’t call your team LOST or Sawyer or Jack etc Make it unique like Andy’s Greatest Fantasy Team :) (but please, nothing obscene or tasteless)
8) After you have submitted your team you should receive an email confirming your picks. Please check your Spam/Junk Folder if you don’t receive one within an hour.
9) If you are a member of one of the sites listed, make sure that other site members know about the Fantasy League so that you can compete against your friends.

Make sure to denote you are a reader from The Lost Blog so that we can keep track of our subset!.

Read more about the league and scoring here - http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2008/06/announcing-season-5-darkufo-lost.html

Sign-up here - http://jotform.com/form/81620010342

Once you create a team - feel free to post who you chose and why in the comments section. You have until August (approximately) to register your team.

Okay, now that we’ve had a couple weeks to digest and decompress from the quite fantastic season 4 finale - it is time to get back to the work of deciphering just what exactly is going on. In that vein, we have received two very cool pieces from our contributors that I thought I would reference in this post.

In an update to the Fallon Theory, which we posted last year, reader Aonghus Fallon sent us the following diagram (he’s also updated the comment thread, which I would recommend reading):

Also, a pretty cool timeline sketch from reader “Rick” - which depicts three known timeline changes in the Lost world.

What do you think?

Enjoy!

At least D&C make some effort to keep the spoilerites honest!

Just prior to the big reveal last night, a commercial aired for Octagon Global Recruiting - http://www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com (you can view the commercial and register via email). The dates for this DHARMA job fair align with that of Comic Con in San Diego this year - perhaps where they will announce the new ARG leading into Season 5.

Last year it was aptly called the “rattlesnake in the mailbox” (i.e. the moment you realized Jack’s flash was forward, not back, and that yes, they really did get off the Island) and this year it is being called “the frozen donkey wheel” – what exactly “it” is I am not sure, but we will find out tonight and it will undoubtedly be jaw-dropping. Season 4 ends tonight, with what should be two hours of “darkness, violence, and casualties” according to Michael Emerson. Savor the moment, because it’s off to hiatus-ville from here. They are re-airing Part 1 prior to the finale tonight, and it should contain some additional footage we did not see when it originally aired two weeks ago.

Spoiler Warning

ABC’s Official Show Description

“The face-off between the survivors and the freighter people continues, and the Oceanic Six find themselves closer to rescue, on the two-hour Season Finale!”

Questions that “should” be answered tonight:

• Who is in the coffin?
• What is the frozen donkey wheel?
• How do the Oceanic 6 ultimately escape and why just them?
• Is Locke really able to “move” the Island?
• Death toll – How many and who?

Episode Preview

Finale Sneak Peeks: Sneak Peek 1 | Sneak Peek 2 | Sneak Peek 3 | Sneak Peek 4

I will do my best today (and tomorrow in the pre-EP post) to avoid the elephant in the room (i.e. the ridiculous number of significant plot spoilers already leaked for tomorrow’s finale) and stick to what I consider to be interesting analysis and rumor heading into tomorrow’s finale:

Doc Jensen’s “Who Is in the Coffin?” Odds-On Favorite is… Ben!

Ben
Jack said he was neither ”friend nor family” to the deceased: Lost’s biggest baddie fits. While it’s unlikely Ben’s passing would inspire Jack’s suicidal thoughts, the über-Other does represent McBeardy’s best shot at his dream of getting back to the Island. Sayid — Ben’s hitman for hire — would stay away lest the funeral might be a trap designed to kill him, too. 4 coffins

The big question that has been on everyone’s mind for an entire year - though Ben and Michael are probably the most plausible, I would probably lean towards Michael at this point - would definitely like to get your thoughts!

Death & Destruction - There is speculation that at least 1 and possibly 3 original characters will reach their demise tomorrow night - that is a relatively high body count even by Lost Season Finale standards - aside from Jin and the casket cadaver I am not really sure who these could be, nor do I care to speculate further. The real question is - if it were up to you, what 3 characters would you get rid of tomorrow night? Dark humor is appreciated!

Spectacular Smooches

Soooooooooo, if nothing else, tomorrow night you will see not only one, but two spectacular kisses during the finale! Who cares about smoke monsters, moving Islands and time travel anyway!

Lost’s two part, three hour season finale begins tonight, and if last week was any indication, then the final 3 hours of Lost this season are going to be incredible. We get one hour tonight, followed by a two week break, then we get the remaining two hours of the finale. It is still difficult, at this point, to determine why only the six get off the Island – and further, why just those six. We will definitely start to get a clearer picture of that tonight.

Spoiler Warning

The showdown between the survivors and the freighter people begins.

A relatively vague (imagine that!) show description, but based on what I know the general flow of tonight’s episode and the finale will be about how the Oceanic Six get off the Island, along with flash forwards detailing their homecoming of sorts.

Episode Previews

Sneak Peeks: Sneak Peek 1 | Sneak Peek 2 | Sneak Peek 3 | Sneak Peek 4

Spoiler Warning

Locke, Hurley and Ben continue their quest for Jacob’s cabin tonight – and we will be introduced to a new character as they draw closer. Also, we’ll see what Michael has been up to since Sayid handed him over to the psychotic Freighter people.

ABC’s Official Show Description

“Locke is enlightened as to the whereabouts of Jacob’s cabin, and life aboard the freighter becomes perilous.”

Tonight’s episode is a Locke-centric flashback, and I have to think this will be one of the better episodes of the season. On the surface it definitely seems to be the most intriguing – we’ve been waiting forever for someone to go back to Jacob’s cabin and for some reason Hurley seems to be the key to that at this point – perhaps he is the most “in sync” with the Island now? Further, based on the show description it does not look like the situation on the freighter is getting any better.

Episode Preview

As always, a few early peeks: Sneak Peek 1 | Sneak Peek 2 | Sneak Peek 3 | Sneak Peek 4

Sent in by the always insightful poster Hammer, he explains his theory on the whispers and we posted his unedited thoughts below. Thanks, Hammer.

As most of you are already aware there are whispers that are often heard when apparitions appear, when manifestations of Smokey appear, when Smokey as the black cloud appears and as RGS recently pointed out here sometimes when Others appear. These whispers seem to be from characters that have died on the island (and maybe some that have died off the island). I theorize that when characters die, some or maybe even all of them become Whisperers. Many of the interpretations (done by folks with the needed equipment and accuracy has not been verified) seem to be comments that would or could be made by characters that have died.

For example Boone could have been in the following exchange Sayid and Shannon were in the jungle in “The Other 48 Days”:

**”Shannon”
“She likes the guy, she likes the guy”
“Shannon”
“Your life and time is up”
“Help me”
“Shannon, meet me on the other side”
“Her song” (’Ana-Lucia’ when reversed)
(Gun shot)

This second example seems to show that the Whisperers are part of the security system because of the “intruder” statement and alarms going off. Also one of the Whisperers may by Yemi speaking from experience of a plane crash:

**”There may be something, but it may be slack”
“Let’s go”
“Has he seen us?”
(Alarms go off)
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry”
“Intruder, Intruder”
“Hide against the bushes”
“Open the door”
“I know what it’s like for a plane to crash”
“Complain, complain, complain”
“I know what you said, but…”

There are many more examples.

Because jaime recently pointed out here that the hieroglyphics may be a hint that Ben summoned Smokey and the fact that the whispers and Smokey often appear separately, I now believe that the Whisperers and Smokey are related in that they are both part of the island’s security system but are separate entities.

Danielle Rousseau at one time referred to the “Monster” as the security system. I feel that Ben sort of proved it by inviting Smokey into camp to stop the attack from the freight folks.

Admittedly, the validity of this theory relies heavily on the accuracy of the interpretations of both the whispers the hieroglyphics transcripts.

Please help improve or debunk.

**Quote taken from lostpedia.com.