Thursday, January 22, 2009

Lost

Spoiler alert! If you have not yet watched last night's season 5 premier, stop reading.

Has Lost jumped the shark? And if so "when"? With last night's premier and the continuing question of "when are we?" throughout the episode, I have to wonder.

The premier started in predicatable fashion, with a person readying for the day and playing a record (see Desmond in season 2 and Juliet in season 3) but hardly anything else was predictable (other than Anna Lucia being the cop that pulled Hurley over).

My current theory (and I haven't read Doc Jensen on EW yet) is that Faraday goes back in time to the discovery of the power source under the orchid and somehow blows a whole in the protective wall and realeses the energy, contrary to the warning in the opening scene by the Dharma video orientation guy. He does this to try and reverse history to save the life of his girlfriend, even though he steadfastly believes that you can't change history by going back in time (unless of course, it's Desmond, to whom the rules don't apply). The underlying relationship in seasons 2 through 4 was that of Desmond and Penelope. For seasons 5 and 6 it's going to be Faraday and Charlotte.

Anyway, from the previous paragraph you see why I ask about jumping the shark. I will continue to watch and enjoy Lost, but will probably stop trying to "figure it out." It's just become too complicated. That doesn't mean I don't want to hear your theories. If you have one, post a comment.

By the way, it has to be Claire's mom who is trying to get the blood test from Kate. The attorney said he had a court order, and she seems like the only one with standing to get a court order. But how would she know about Aaron? Presumably, she knew Claire was pregnant when she boarded Oceanic 815, but wouldn't she just assume that Claire died in the crash and never gave birth? Unless Jack fessed up to her after his Dad's funeral and they haven't shown us that yet. Boy, good luck dealing with Kate if that's the case. And speaking of Kate, are Sawyer and Juliet going to be an item this season?

2 comments:

Scutch said...

Wow. That is some keen analysis about Faraday and saving his girlfriend. I would not be surprised if you nailed that one.

I've always been convinced of one thing about timetravel. You cannot go backwards. My theory on this, is in my humble opinon, infallible. If you could go backwards, someone would have come back to now or a time before now, and we'd all know it. So, it can never happen because there is no current evidence that it ever, at some point in the future, will. I know that makes me sound like the senator in 1900 who said, "everything has already been invented", but when it comes to time travel, it has to be true. Lets say, at some point, backward time travel is invented. You are telling me that no one tries to get to 2009 or before, ever? Once time travel is invented, it would ultimaty be mass produced and made available to someone who wanted to see the birth of Christ, go to Woodstock, or see Julia Roberts nekkid. Someone would come back here. No one has. You cannot go back in time. End of story. (I digress)

Faraday's expoused theory of time travel turns this indellible truth on its ear by saying people can travel back, but they are wholly incapable of changing the future. In some ways, this makes even less sense than the Back to the Future 2notion of backwards time travel, where you can interact with both others, (and yourself) and impact the future. I dunno.

Anyway, I did kind of get a jump the shark vibe during last night's show. Lost has a lot of moving parts. I consider myself a person of at least average intelligence and without the internet I could not keep more than one aspect of the story straight. But, Lost was a lot closer to jumping the shark a couple of years ago (the Ana Lucia year) and made a resounding comeback. So, there is no way I can begin to write it off after one episode.

Dave Zahniser said...

Have you read "The Time Traveler's Wife"? It's a great read, and seems fairly consistent in how it treats time travel. It does not, however, address your point that if going back in time were possible why hasn't someone done it already.