LOST Talk

Hello all you fans of LOST! It’s been a while, and we’ve got less than two weeks to go before the premiere of Season 5. There are mild SPOILERS that follow for anyone who hasn't watched LOST and for some reason decided to wait until the entire series was completed and wanted to watch every episode in a continuous marathon that lasts (oh, I don't know) a week and a half.

You have been sarcastically warned.

One of the gifts I purchased with Christmas $$ was the Season 4 DVDs of LOST. I've been watching them here and there, especially at night to stave off that horrible desire to work in the evening hours once the children are nestled snug in their beds.

Last night I watched “Meet Kevin Johnson” (the return of Michael episode) on my Season 4 DVDs, it struck me anew how compressed the timeline on the show has been. I had lost track of it since the show itself is four years old but the time on the island is barely more (?) than four MONTHS old.

As best I can figure without actually taking the extra time to verify all of this on the Lostpedia or The Fuselage or over at Doc Artz or wherever LOST fans hang out these days. . . .

--Plane crashes on September 21, 2004. (or is it 22nd?)

--Michael is released by Ben (end of Season 2) which is roughly early to mid November, 2004. In “Meet Kevin Johnson” his mother says to the distraught Michael that “he had disappeared for two months.”

--Almost immediately, Michael informs Walt of his killing Ana Lucia and Libby to free Walt and escape. Horrified, Walt separates from him to live with his grandmother and Michael spirals into depression and attempted suicide. (This is still mid November, or at least immediately after Thanksgiving, 2004. When Michael is recovering from his failed car crash in the hospital, there is a Christmas tree in the background.)

--Michael fails to kill himself and Mr. Friendly appears in New York to recruit Michael to serve as Ben’s spy on Widmore’s Freighter.

--Michael joins the Freighter Folk, sails to the Island and begins sabotaging the radio/engines/etc. By now it is Christmas Week, but it is still 2004. (We know this because in Season 4 episode “The Constant” Desmond tells Penny he’ll call her—from the Freighter, aboard w/ Michael—on Christmas Eve, 2004.)

So, in the space of mere WEEKS, Michael escapes from the Island, despairs, is recruited by Ben and returns to the waters around the Island.

I never fully realized before how QUICKLY all of this has happened in the show’s time span. It’s gotten so hard to keep hold of elapsed time as we’ve mixed present Island Time w/ character flashbacks and flashforwards.

Anyway, that’s enough of that.

Because I don't have much else to add here tonight--gotta do some work and then watch LOST dontcha know, I'll give you links to some nice LOST stuff. Enjoy and then set your VCRs for the premiere!

Season 5 Promotional Postcards

LOST Connections video to remind you of who knows whom and what is what.

Exec. Producers Lindelof and Cuse's weekly podcast will be up and running soon with the start of a new season. Subscribe now (and listen to past episodes) to learn about the mysteries of Carlton's banjo playing.