The long wait is now over! I'm LOST!

The wait is now over. New LOST episodes are here and not a moment too soon. As I sat with eager anticipation in a state of high alert scanning every frame for hidden treasures and clues, I found myself feeling a little sad; sad that the infinite world of LOST has become very finite. We know the show is ending in 2010 and while that seems like a LONG way away it still saddens me to know that it will be over soon and from what we’ve seen what happens to our beloved Losties the future does not look so bright. So away we go with some observations of Season 4, Episode 1, “The Beginning of the End”.

Poor Hurley, he’s had a tough life even before he won the lottery with the mystery numbers he heard in the looney bin. Life has not improved for Hugo even off the island where he is now plagued with “visions” of a dead Charlie telling him, “They need you”. He had 2 ½ minutes of freedom before the news of Charlie’s demise reached him. In those 2 ½ minutes he was free from the curse of the numbers, free from feeling like a nuisance since he ran over a few of the Others with the hippy van last season and soon to be free from the island. 2 ½ minutes that was full of fun and cannonballs in the warm, comforting ocean. Poor Hurley.

Moving on from my sympathy for Hurley let’s discuss now what Season 4 has revealed so far. Let’s start in the future, or possibly our present.

Revelation #1 – What’s with Hurley saying, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m one of the Oceanic 6!” We know now how many made it off the island. We also know who half of them are, Jack, Kate and Hurley. So this leads to Question #1 – Who are the other 3? It would be nice if it were one of the couples, but I doubt that Sun/Jin or Rose/Bernard made it together because the pregnant problem on the island and let’s face it the age of latter.

With the first revelation another question popped in my head, Question #2 – Hurley said they are Oceanic 6, but Michael and Walt left the island at the end of season 2, and they should have been “found” by now if they stayed away from the island. I still think it is Micheal who dies in the season 3 finale where Jack reads the obituary. Micheal in order to protect himself from the two murders he committed on the island, played it safe and changed his identity. (He also had to do this in order to not have to explain his 'survival' of flight 815 and what happened to the other passengers.

Moving on to Revelation #2 – Jack is not “troubled” by leaving the island now as he was at the end of last season, which took place more in the future of this Hurley flash-forward. Jack's referring to 'I am thinking of growing a beard' (as seen in the season 3 finale flash forward) helps this theory. So now moving on to Question #3 & 4 – What are they lying about? and What causes Jack to go crazy even further in the future when he seems fine with burying his guilt or whatever it is now? In a way these questions are related, what horrific thing transpired that causes our now found Losties to want to “go back” to the island? Another interesting twist is Hurley told Jack that they need to go back and Jack refuses. In the future (end of season 3) Jack tells Kate they need the go back and Kate refuses, so even further in the future will Kate go crazy and say they need to go back? (I suppose this is Question #5)

Since we are on the subject of what happened? More questions arise. Question #6 – Who is Matthew Abaddon? (which strangely and eerily means: Matthew, “gift of the Lord” and “Abaddon” being a Hebrew “place of destruction,” or hell, according to Wikipedia. In Revelations it is personified as Abaddon, “Angel of the Abyss” or the angel of death. Creepy). So, does he work for the Others? Does he work for Dharma? Also, what about his question, “Are they still alive?” Well, are they? Wait, who is they? The Others? The people on the Freighter? The other Losties? What does it all mean??? I'm LOST!!!!!!

Question #7 – Do Jack, Hurley, Kate and whoever made it home return to the island to right the evident wrong of leaving the island? and if so, when would that be? The last season? If so, once we know all of the future events would they go back to flashbacks or even future flash-forwards?

Question #8 – Is LOST done with flashbacks and only sticking with flash-forwards? You be the judge. If you are keeping track I have way more than 8 questions, but I can’t number all of them, this is LOST after all! Plus, some important questions are not mentioned here (i.e., Jacob's cabin - Was that Christian Shepherd? sure looked like him; Is Charlie alive, cause some other dude it the mental place saw him?; to name a few) but I'm sure these will be revisited in the weeks to come.

Next week more on the ongoing saga that is LOST!

Emptying the INBOX

Contrary to some beliefs, I do and will answer every email I receive. Some take longer than others, but this past week I was able to catch up and get ready for the start of the new season. Below are a few notible questions asked or topics that were posed to me via email. (For those who don't know, most blogger's email addresses are listed in their blogger profiles.)

Steve asks:
'Are you going to blog more about the TV show LOST?'
Yes, I plan on it, but with the long period between season 3 and season 4, it has been difficult to hypothesize which direction the show is going. With Season 4 starting soon, this topic should be brought up more.

Jenni asks:
'What did Elliott Sadler ever do to you to make you write those terrible things about him? If you are not one of his fans, why can't you just leave him alone?'
Elliott Sadler has never done anything to me personally, in fact I have only met face to face with him on a handful of occasions. I do separate his on track persona from his off track persona and I will post my observations of both. I still consider myself a fan of the on track Sadler, but once he steps out of the car, my opinion of him turns south.

RYR3888 asks:
'Whats the deal with the Yates cars and having no sponsors?'
I think it is a combination of a few things. 1) lack of recent on track success and 'sponsor friendly' driver bolting. 2) Transition to new leadership 3) Uncertainty of the Roush relationship 4) Current drivers are not that will known, fan wise. But more importantly, I don't think Yates Racing is in a huge 'panic mode' or feel like the clock is ticking just now. The plan (and budget) is to run two teams whether their is sponsorship or not. Just be in the top half of the field consistently in the first five races, and getting decals for the hood won't be a problem.

Mike asks:
'Why do you always take up for NA$CAR?'
I really don't 'always' take for for the governing body, even though it may appear that way. In many cases, the 'blame' for a particular issue doesn't lie in the hand of the governing body. Although the public perception is that they control 'everything'. I have not resorted to painting with such a broad brush just yet!

Amy asks"
'Did Spotterman really show up at your camper during a race weekend at 3 in the morning?'
Yes he did, but it was more like 1:45 in the morning.

Todd asks:
'What other blogs to you read?'
The ones that are on my 'LINKS' are the ones a frequent almost daily. While I am not active in most, I also frequent a couple of dozen message boards in the Nascar family as well.

Is it predicting if it has already happened?

Last weekend the 'Great Ice Storm' of 2007 was supposedly going to hit the DFW area and even though that never really developed, I did spend most of the weekend at home, 'waiting it out'.

Through the greatness of Tivo, I was able to re-watch a dozen or so 'key' episodes of LOST in search of any additional clues. While I didn't notice much new that I had not seen when I original saw any of these episodes it was a good way to refresh the brain and get it ready for the return of Season 3 LOST that is set for a couple of weeks.

I also hit a couple of selective LOST forums that will post some 'spoilers', but not ones that could give the future plot or story line away. From one such thread I read this:

"There will be a big reminder this season that on the island, it’s still November of 2004 and only three months have passed, which will help lead to “a major shakeup coming soon.”

We were reminded that the time period was indeed late 2004 when Desmond looked at the 'printouts' that Locke had found at the Pearl Station and brought back to the Swan Hatch. These printouts logged the pressing of the button in the Swan Hatch. In the Season 2 finale, Desmond saw the date of the 'system failure' on Sept 22nd, 2004 for not pressing the button causing Flight 815 to crash . We were reminded again, that it was still roughly that same time period when Ben speaks to Jack about various current events since the plane crash, such as the re-election of George W. Bush to the American presidency, the sudden death of Christopher Reeve and that the Boston Red Sox had won the 2004 World Series.

By the end of Season 3, episode 6 ('I Do') we know (for those who have been counting) that 73 days has passed since the plane crashed on Sept 22nd 2004, making the date and time at the end of episode 6 sometime in the afternoon on Nov 24th 2004. We also know that about 5 days before, the 'others' talk about something significant happening in 'two weeks' (roughly the first few days in Dec.). That event may or may not be related to the 'earth shaking' news though, but it does help us 'track time' on the show.

We know that at the end of Season one, 44 days had passed, at the end of season two 67 days and roughly 6 days have passed so far in Season 3. Who do not really know how many more days might be covered in the remaining episodes of Season 3, but lets just assume that each season will cover around 35 days on average and that Season 3 will end sometime around Jan 1st 2005.

Just what could be the 'real life' event that would remind us of the late 2004 time period?

My first 'knee-jerk' thought that came to mind was the well documented Tsunami that occurred on Dec 26th 2004. That would be most definitely be a 'major shake up'. But there is one huge flaw in that line of thinking. The Dec 26th Tsunami effect the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific Ocean where the survivors are located.

Here are a few other possibilities?

December 1st, 2004
An Indonesian MD-82 from the charter airline Lion Air crashes in Central Java, killing at least 31 people and injuring at least 62 people. (however, Central Java is not a location anywhere near we have been led to believe the plane crashed.)

December 15th, 2004
A US$85 million test of the U.S. National Missile Defense system by the Missile Defense Agency is aborted when an unknown anomaly is detected before the launch of an interceptor missile in the Marshall Islands, 16 minutes after the launch of the target from Kodiak Island, Alaska. It is the first test since a previous failed test in 2002. As in 2002, the Bush administration abandons plans to activate the system by the end of the year, and projects its activation in early 2005.

December 23th, 2004
An earthquake of moment magnitude 8.1 occurs at 14:59 UTC, 305 miles north of Macquarie Island.

I'm going with the 'aborted' missile theory. Wouldn't that be an interesting and unexpected twist?


Okay, enough of that distraction, racing is just a few weeks away!