617 – Ratings

617 – The End

13.50 million viewers

5.8/15 18-49 viewers

From TVbytheNumbers.

And here are some press releases from ABC bragging about Lost: here and here.

I was pretty close.  I thought it would be 14 million viewers with a 5.5/12 share.

Good vs Evil: Jacob & “Locke”

It’s been a while since I did a Good vs. Evil post, and I’ve put this one off for a long time.  I mostly want to write this now because it seems like everyone is grasping at straws trying to figure out if we’ve been misled, maybe Jacob isn’t as nice as we like to believe.  I think it’s possible that people have lost some perspective about the issues.

And one disclaimer before I continue.  I feel very strongly we can discuss whether someone is good or evil.  I know many people dislike it when I debate these things, they wants more vagueness, they don’t want their favorite characters pigeon-holed.  But I like drawing lines in the sand.  I want there to be barriers between good and evil actions.  In the end of this show there will be two side, and I don’t think they will both be good and both be evil.  I’m pretty sure there will be villains and there will be heroes.

And another thing, I have to write this post about Jacob and “Locke”/Smokey because they are undoubtedly on opposite sides, if I write about one of them then it affects the other one.

Post 602, 602 thoughts and theories

OK.  So I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ve gone back and forth with many of you in the comments all the while forming new theories.  So here goes nothing.

New Theory About Dying

I’d like to put forth this theory: once characters die in one of the timelines they become aware of the other timeline. This would explain Charlie thinking that he had to die and also Juliet knowing that “it worked”.  It doesn’t really explain what happened to Sayid.  I tend to think that possibly he died in the non-Island timelines, but that seems kinda crazy (maybe Arzt killed him in some sort of racially motivated rage, you saw that look he gave him).

Sub theory.  I know I already said that this would explain Charlie thinking he had to die, but I might change that.  In 2004 he isn’t dead.  So it’ll take a while before he dies and his consciouses merge.  The first person to die will be The Marshall, and then Boone soon after.  This could be fun if I’m right.  (I doubt the redshirts dying will make a difference to my theory.)

Who’s Alive and Where

This is just a list of the people off the Island who are likely dead or alive.  And just so you know, I’m staying spoiler free this year.  So I know there are a lot of rumours going around about who’s coming back and who isn’t but let’s not post those items here.

Season 6 Premiere Expectations

Let’s all get our hopes up. Let’s raise our expectations so high that the show will never be able to meet them. Yeah!

What Do You Want?

What do you want from the Season 6 premiere? Do you want a grand reunion episode? Do you want Jughead to reset the past? Or do you want it to simply cause a big explosion? Do you want the past to be ignored? Or do you want the story to pick up where it left off, with our 70s heroes standing around The Swan and our 07 heroes standing around the foot?

What I Want

Best Season 6 Poster

Best quality, that is.  This was posted in a few places: DarkUFO, BuddyTV, and Doc Arzt.

Here are the changes that I noticed:

• They demoted a few of the girls, Libby and Charlotte seem to have undergone the most shrinkage
• They got rid of the hieroglyphics
• They moved Frank over to the left between Charlotte and Shannon
• A lot of the characters got changed
• And they threw Vincent in at the end, how nice of them

You know who hasn’t been added?  Walt.  Apparently Vincent ranks higher than Walt.

– izi

Lost Comic-Con 2009 Analysis

First of all I should say SPOILER ALERT.  I personally don’t think that anything that happens at Comic-Con is a spoiler but some people do.  So you’ve been warned.

Secondly, you should probably check out these videos from Comic-Con:

The Panel

The Videos

Now on to the analysis:

Lost Comic-Con 2009 Videos

If one wants to remain completely untainted by spoilers of Season 6, official or otherwise, then don’t read ahead.

SPOILER ALERT

The Comic-Con 09 panel was posted on Saturday.  Here are the other official videos that were shown at Comic-Con.

V.S. – Locke Sees the Light

Episode:

104 – Walkabout

105 – White Rabbit

305 – The Cost of Living

Scene Synopsis

In Walkabout all we see is Locke looking up at something.  We don’t see what he is looking at.

In White Rabbit he vaguely mentions it:

LOCKE: I’ve looked into the eye of this island. And what I saw was beautiful.

In The Cost of Living Locke, presumably, talks about that same experience during this conversation with Eko:

LOCKE: So, what exactly did you see back there? I saw it once, you know.
EKO: And what did you see?
LOCKE: I saw a very bright light. It was beautiful.
EKO: That is not what I saw.

Analysis

The Walkabout scene is one of those completely mysterious scenes.  We all makes assumptions about it, but the amount of info we don’t know about far exceeds what we do know.  Even connecting these three scenes is presumptuous of me.  The first two scenes are most definitely related.  But I have no idea if the scene in Walkabout is the one that Locke is referring to in The Cost of Living.  Perhaps he was talking about the implosion of The Swan, or maybe the time that Desmond turned on the light in Season 1.

But let’s just be presumptuous.  For the sake of this post I’m going to assume these two scenes are connected.

The big question about this scene is, what did Locke see?  In the back of all of our minds we think that he saw Smokey.   Even if we don’t want to believe that we still have to consider it.  Maybe Locke did see Smokey, maybe he saw a different side of Smokey that we’ve never seen.  Perhaps when Smokey is in a docile mood he turns “bright” and “beautiful”.  I find that very hard to believe.  Locke doesn’t show any recognition of Smokey the next time he see him, in the finale.

I think that Locke stumbled upon something new in that scene, new, as in not Smokey.  Many people have stated that they believe that Esau and Smokey are the same being(?)… individual(?)… power(?)….. the same.. thing.  So, if that is true (I don’t really want to believe that) wouldn’t it logically follow that Jacob would have a similar non-corporeal form.  There are very obvious distinctions between the Jacob and Esau characters, most notably the contrast of black and white, with Esau dressed in black and shown as a brunette, and Jacob wearing white and having blond hair(interestingness: the etymology of blond/blonde).  Wouldn’t it make sense for their spirit forms to be similarly opposite?  Couldn’t we expect Jacob’s version of Smokey to be the opposite of Smokey?  Instead of Black oppressiveness he would be bright and shining.

– izi

413 – There’s No Place Like Home (part 2)

Review:

A recap of this episode would be insanely long, and if you read the last one then you’ll know that it won’t really make sense anyways.  The problem I have with analyzing this episode is that I already did that.. for a month.  I referred readers to my coverage last time and I’ll do it again.  Go here if you want to see all that I said about this episode back in June.  (Note:  I wrote all that jazz way back in June, so I may have changed my mind about a lot of those ideas.  Just don’t hold me to any of the crazy things I said back then.)

But let’s get on with it.

Technically the most important things to happen in this episode are:

-The Oceanic 6 get away

-Ben moves the island

-and Locke is the man in the coffin

All great things, they’ll have a huge bearing on the rest of the show, and especially season 5.  But, to be completely honest the reason why I’ll give this episode a 10.0/10.0 is because Desmond got back with Penny.  I know that it would be just as good without that scene, but that’s the most significant thing in my mind

10.0/10.0

Season 3 in Review

That went very quick.  Somehow season 3 seems so much shorter than the other seasons, perhaps it’s because I enjoyed it more.

In case you’re forgetful or nostalgic here are the links to my other season reviews:

Season 1 in Review

Season 2 in Review

Let’s get right down to it

Ratings

301 – A Tale of Two Cities – 6.0

302 – The Glass ballerina – 1.0

303 – Further Instructions – 8.0

304 – Every Man For Himself – 4.0

305 – The Cost of Living – 8.5

306 – I Do – 3.5

307 – Not in Portland – 10.0

308 – Flashes Before Your Eyes – 10.0

309 – Stranger in a Strange Land – 1.5

310 – Tricia Tanaka is Dead – 8.0

311 – Enter 77 – 7.5

312 – Par Avion – 7.0

313 – The Man From Talahasee – 10.0

314 – Expose – 9.0

315 – Left Behind – 8.0

316 – One of Us – 8.0

317 – Catch 22 – 8.0

318 – D.O.C. – 7.5

319 – The Brig – 9.5

320 – The Man Behind the Curtain – 10.0

321 – Greatest Hits – 8.0

322 – Through the Looking Glass – 9.5

So that makes an average of about 7.4.  The average for season 2 was 7.0 and for season 1 it was 6.5.  It doesn’t surprise me at all that the average is going up.

But I’d like to show you some fun we can have with the numbers.  I’m not alone in despising the first 6 episodes of season 3.  Let’s call them season 3 part 1.  That would mean that S3 part 1 got an average of 5.2.  S3 part 2 gets an average of 8.2.  I believe those episodes deserve there respective scores.  I, genuinely, enjoyed all of those later episodes, with the exception of Stranger in a Strange Land.

As for other episodes I hated, “The Glass Ballerina” comes to mind.  That episode bored me to death (not literally).  “Par Avion” was pretty weak but was saved by the fact that it was Claire’s last flashback (fingers crossed) and her big reveal was some moderate fun.  “I Do” and “Every Man for Himself “are bad in their own ways but it’s mostly just the pace.  Those first six episodes had a terrible pace.

As for episodes that stood out to me, there were many great episodes.  I loved all of the episodes I gave 10.0s to, obviously.  I recommend that you rewatch those episodes, they were awesome and a half. 

I feel that Lost really stepped up in this season compared the previous seasons.  It moved solidly away from Drama and into Sci-fi with episodes like “Flashes Before Your Eyes” and “The Man Behind the Curtain”.  The main difference between this season and the others was the addition of Brian K. Vaughn to the writing staff.  I believe he saved the show.  He’s a modern genius of storytelling and I’m sure we will hear a lot about him in the coming years.  (If you haven’t already I recommend that you check out his comic series Y: The Last Man.  It is a glorious story.  It’s currently being made into a movie, but I would love to see it made into a TV show…on cable.)

Arcs

The Others

In my opinion Season 3 is about The Others.  That’s not to say we completely understand the now, or have cleared up all (or any) of the mystery surrounding them.  But now we can at least put faces to the mysteries.  Season 3 started out in The Others camp, and ended with most of The Others retreating and many of them being killed by our survivors.  They had their day in the sun now it’s the survivors turn.

We also got a glimpse into their backgrounds.  We got to see a lot of Juliet’s past life and her recruitment process.  We even got to see what it was like to be an Other.  We saw Ben’s childhood and even the Purge.  And all through the season we met a large amount of Others: Patchy, Ms Klugh, Mr. Friendly, Pickett, Richard and many more.  It’s almost as if we know them now, almost.

Jack

If season 2 is about Locke’s journey, then season 3 is about Jack’s.  Jack desperately tries to get off the island, first by way of Ben and The Others, and eventually he formulates a plan around Naomi and The Freighter Folk. 

One would suspect that if this season is primarily about Jack, then he would get the most face-time.  Not completely true, he goes missing for quite a while during his time with The Others and his plans and intentions are kept hidden from the viewer until the season finale.  So while it seems as though he moves the story along, he still manages to stay out of the limelight (what a strange expression).

The Freighter Folk

This season also introduced one of the main themes of Season 4, the Freighter Folk.  Naomi landed on the island spinning a wonderful tale of rescue and hope, and then she was stabbed in the back.

Anywho, stay tuned for season 4 reviews.

 – izi