Not much to say about this week’s episode, which was decent but a bit filler-y for my tastes.  My favorite Sawyer episodes are the ones that con the audience (i.e., me), so I was a wee bit disappointed that Recon was so straightforward.  On the other hand — Miles and James are cops now!  Charlotte and James totally bone in the alter-verse!  I really dug Evangeline Lilly’s acting for once!  Un-Locke may or may not have a crazy mommy!  And Widmore’s doing… well, actually, I have no idea what he’s doing.  But, still: Widmore!  In other words, in a not-totally-spectacular episode, a lot of fun moments shone through.

Now onto the questions!

Question 1: Like the B-story in last week’s episode, Recon’s alt-plot seemed like a pilot to a spin-off series.  Which of the following Lost spin-offs would you most like to watch on a regular basis?  Hangin’ With Dr. Linus?  Straume & Twang (my name for USA’s new quirky cop show, starring Miles Straume & James Ford)?  The Good Shephard (a new Everwood-type show about a big-city doctor with daddy issues who learns about faith and family after moving to Provo, Utah)?  [Insert your own punny Kate- or Locke-based show here]?

Question 2: So, are we going to talk Un-Locke’s word for it on his mommy issues or what?  Is he talking about real-Locke’s crazy mom, or is he talking about someone else?  Tawaret, mayhaps?

Speaking of crazy mommies…

Question 3: What are we thinking about Claire now?  Is she crazy-evil or just crazy-crazy?  Did the “infection” make her go nutso, or did the supposed Aaron-napping do it?  And can she ever turn back to the light side?

Question 4: Who’s Sawyer?

See you next week.

Can we talk about irony for a second?

Yeah, I know: this is an Overthinking Lost post.  We should be talking about Egyptian mythology, or Jungian psychology, or, I dunno… Jesus?  But today I’d like to take off my former-English-major hat, if only for a moment, and replace it with my writer hat.  Because, damn, people.  That was a well-written episode.*

My oh my, it’s been a while.  But here I am with another installment, which will be spread across two days, because I couldn’t get the whole thing polished in time and these posts tend to be way too long anyway.  For the record, if you’ve been following this series of posts from the beginning, you’ve read just over sixteen thousand words of my natterings about a decade-old TV series, which works out to well over fifty typewritten pages.  Almost a hundred pages, if you use Courier New with wide margins and jigger the kerning.

Before getting to the episodes on Disc 4, let’s take a quick look back over the series so far, which is just, just over halfway done.  (I’m cutting this off after Jupiter Jazz, the literal halfway point.)

Note that when I say focus character, I mean more than just who gets the most screen time.  I say that the episode is focused on a character if we derive significant insights into their motivations or backstory, or if it plays an important part in their character arc.  So while Spike doesn’t do a whole lot more in Waltz for Venus than he does in Gateway Shuffle, his stepping in as a mentor for the hapless Rocco is a really important moment for his character development.

The balance of “light” and “dark” episodes is pretty interesting.  But more significant I think is the way that we get exactly one episode dedicated to each of the main characters other than Spike.  The series thus far is tidy.  It’s not mechanistic or anything, but you could definitely imagine the writing team sitting down to work out this general structure ahead of time (even if, as some of our more anime-savvy commenters have pointed out, that almost certainly didn’t happen).  You could also make a much, much more complicated version of this chart that also includes thematic links between the episodes, like the music boxes that show up in 1, 5, 8, and 12/13, or the big food sequences in 1, 4, and 11, and so on.  But I’m not totally sure that there would be anything to gain from this other than the “Okay, it’s all a dense tapestry” factor.

Anyway, the second half of the series is, for want of a better word, a lot sloppier.  I’m still not quite sure what to make of that.  The individual episodes are still fun, but the stakes just aren’t as high, and the connections between them are a little harder to figure out.  If one were feeling uncharitable, one could suggest that the show had jumped the shark. That the writers had run out of good ideas, and were simply spinning their wheels.  One could also blame pressure from the network censors:  Cowboy Bebop was very nearly cancelled after thirteen episodes because of concerns over adult themes and situations.  And The second half of the series is a lot more, uh, laid back.  Most of the time.  But plausible as they seem, I think that both of these explanations are mistaken — that there’s more to these later episodes than meets the eye.

One thing to note:  in the first half of the series, Jet, Faye, and Ed each got exactly one episode dedicated to their antics.  In the second half – well, I haven’t actually finished it yet.  But on this disc alone, Jet and Ed get an episode each, and Faye gets two.  And I guess Spike just takes a cigarette break, or practices Jeet Kune Do, or something.

Ah, that’s more like it!  This episode made my day–and I’ll explain more about why on Monday.  For now, let’s mull over these questions, shall we?

Let’s call this season “Greatest Hits.”  So far, we’ve been to the hatch (although it was a little, erm, exploded), the Barracks, the caves, and, this episode, the beach camp, the Dharma sub, and the Black Rock.  Plus, Smokey went and told us that we’d be hanging out with him and his buddies at the Hydra Station soon.

Question 1: What classic Lost location would you like to return to before the season is out?  I’m quite positive we’ll be seeing the frozen donkey wheel again, but the place I’d really love to see, if only for a second, is the “pile of notebook-filled canisters where the pneumatic tubes end.”

Question 2: So, whose lips wobbled when Ben said, “Because he’s the only one who will have me”?  Come on.  Raise your hands.  Don’t be ashamed.  (For the record, my notes read: “Ben!  WAAAHH!”  Not that I could see what I was writing.  I had, um, something…sniff…in my eye.)  And for those of you who aren’t buying Linus’s transformation into epic woobie, why aren’t you buying it?

Question 3: So Miles FINALLY got something meaningful to do in this episode.  Welp, I guess he’s a goner now.  So, is Miles going to receive a karmic death for stealing Nikki and Paulo’s diamonds or what?

Question 4: Widmore!  Okay, that’s not really a question, but… Widmore!  He’s here!  He’s made his way to the Island!  What do you think’s going to happen?  Will he join up with Crazy Jack and His Island Boppers?  Why did Jacob want him to come to the Island, anyway?  And where are Penny and Desmond?!  For GOD’S SAKE — WHERE ARE PENNY AND DESMOND?!

Question 5: I can’t come up with a good question about Richard. Can YOU?

See you on Monday.

I’m not quite sure why I didn’t love this episode.  All the dramatic pieces were there, but for whatever reason they didn’t click together for me.  Anyway, due to that, and due to the fact that I didn’t see anything new, theme-wise, in this episode, this is probably going to be my only Lost-related post this week.

But look!  Questions!

Question 1: So, what’s the deal with Sayid’s accent?  Is he slipping into his Brit-tongue accidentally, or is there some story-related reason for it?  Or is he just angry about what the show is doing with his character?

Question 2: When Un-Locke asked Sayid, “What if I told you you could have anything you wanted?” was he talking about the Island, as in, “This Island is a mystery box that can give you whatever you want” –OR!!– was he referring to the alternate timeline, which he made or WILL MAKE later in the season?  After all, Sayid said he wanted Nadia, and in the alt-world, he got Nadia…

My favorite part of the episode was easily when Ben slooooowly backed away from Evil!Sayid.  Back away, Ben.  Back away.

Question 3: What do you think Ben’s role is going to be in all of this?  I’m personally still holding out for a redemptive death, but hopefully it won’t happen next week.  I need Ben with us until the very. last. episode.  For reals.

Question 4: Do you have any Lost-type questions you’d like me to overthink?  I’m stumped, people.

Last week’s episode of Lost was a Jack episode, so you know what that means: it’s Daddy issues time!  I don’t know about you, but I thought Lost had dropped this thread, never to pick it up again, sometime around when Locke and Sawyer strangled Locke’s dad with some rusty chains in the Black Rock.

“Lighthouse,” however, got me thinking that not only are the Daddy issues back at center stage now in season six, but that maybe they’ve been the main theme of the show all along.  The way I see it, Jack’s quest to resolve his relationship with his possibly-evil ghost dad—whether by reconciling with him or destroying him—will resolve his faith vs. science issues, his fate vs. free will issues, and his relationship with Jacob and the Man in Black.

[By popular demand, we're bringing you a Lost-oriented Open Thread this week.  And if it goes well, we'll bring you another one next Wednesday, too!  But don't worry—this isn't this week's only Lost post.  I'll still be subjecting "Lighthouse" to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve.  Come back Monday to see the full piece!]

So, here we are, four (or five, depending on who’s counting) episodes into Lost’s sixth season, and I’ve gotta tell you, I am loving it.  Although I disliked the flash sideways-es at the beginning, I think that had less to do with the narrative structure and more to do with the fact that Kate is just an uninteresting character. The events that occurred on the Island and in the flash Universe worked together to remind me of why I was so interested in the character of Jack back in seasons 1 and 2, before he started pining too much after Kate, before he got a tattoo in Thailand, before he stopped asking the important questions.  I’ll talk more about his flashsideways in my full post on Monday, but I was glad to see him get a full episode of character development before the season was up.

Question 1: The flash sideways-es: Awesome, or a waste of time?  Would you prefer a faster, more epic pace, or are you as cool as I am with these super-slow-burning character episodes?

"So, you and me are just gonna talk this whole episode? Uh, that's cool. I guess."

Speaking of Jack, it seems the the Daddy issues we thought the show forgot about are back and raring to go.

Question 2: Does this mean that Sayid, the only main living character who doesn’t have Daddy issues of his own, is doomed to die before the show’s climax?

And, speaking of Daddy issues, the unseen Christian Shephard haunted this episode.  (My bet is that we’re not going to see him again until the climax of the show — maybe the third-t0-last episode.)

Question 3: Takin’ all bets!  Christian Shephard: good or evil?  On the good side: Jack reminded us this week that he helped the Lostie’s out in the first season by leading them to the caves!  (Also his name is “Christian Shephard.”)  On the evil side: Back in the day, we saw him hanging out in the creepy cabin (which was probably being used by evil Smokey) with Infected/Evil Claire.

Speaking of Claire…

Question 4: Claire: What’s the deal?

The Othahs ate ha baybee!

And, finally, the big question:

Question 5: Now that the answers of Lost are coming out all fast and furious, do you WANT all the questions to be answered?  While I certainly want the big questions answered, I don’t want the show to lose its sense of mystery, either.  It’s like, if I were in a room with a poet, would I have him or her gloss every single word?  Then the poem would lose its spark.  Of course, I can easily understand the other point of view: “I invested so many hours in this thing.  I need to know that it all makes sense, that it holds together!”  (Also: is this debate just a meta-level recapitulation of the old “faith vs. science” debate we keep seeing in the show?  Am I like poor, deluded Locke, saying, “I looked into the eye of this network television series, and what I saw was beautiful”?  And if you, the rationalist answer-lovers, don’t get the answers you desire, will you take a telescope, Jack-style, and start smashing all the mirrors in Darlton’s houses?)

See you on Monday.

[Disclaimer: As you can see, I’ve titled this piece “Season 6 Episode 3” even though everyone else in the world is calling this “Episode 604.”  The reason for this is that I erroneously interpreted the season premiere as one episode when, apparently, it counts as two.  I hope you can enjoy this piece, regardless.]

Lost has always been a show about dichotomies, but maybe never more so than in this week’s episode, “The Substitute.”  In this episode alone we saw dramatized all of our favorite dualisms.  To wit:

• Light vs. dark: Symbolized by the rocks on the scales
• Things you can do vs. things you cannot: Embodied by Alterna-Locke and Un-Locke
• Being trapped vs. being free: Un-Locke again
• Acceptance vs. denial: Alterna-Locke and Alterna-Rose
• Realism (or nihilism, if you want to be dark) vs. faith in miracles

And, beyond that, of course, we have the whole “two timelines” thing going on, allowing us to see two versions of every character operate side-by-side.  So we see Evil Island-Ben looking into the grave of one of the many men he killed and Not-Evil-Evil-But-Still-Kind-of-a-Prick-European-History-Teacher Ben who wants to grab a cup of tea with Locke, his new buddy.  The Bad Luck Hurley of 2007 is now being contrasted with Good Luck Hurley, the easy-going multi-millionaire from 2004, and Rose, who once was the big lover of faith and hope, is now a grim realist.  In fact, we now have two versions of every character, except for Locke, who, being special, gets his very own trinity of selves: Dead Locke (who I like to think of as The Father), Alterna-Locke (who I like to think of as Dead Locke’s spiritual “son”), and Un-Locke (the Unholy Spirit).

Anyway, except in the case of the three Lockes, we’ve seen a lot dichotomies in the last few seasons of Lost, and now it’s coming out big time.

The main question that arises when we think about these dichotomies, of course, is, “Which side is going to win?”  Are the writers ultimately going to side with science or faith?  Fate or free will?  Jacob or the Man in Black?  The 2007 Universe or the 2004 Universe?  And so on.  These are all forms of the same kind of question.

But is that the right kind of question?  My theory for a while has been this: Lost’s writers have been tricking us all along.  They have been manipulating us–nearly forcing us–to look at the world they’ve created as a Manichean Universe, a big ol’ backgammon board with two sets of pieces and a decidedly “black and white” world view.  But this is all a ruse.  In the end, my bet is that Lost’s world isn’t Manichean at all.  It’s a gray, gray, gray, gray world.

“Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessaries of life, to every individual of human society. They enter into economical arrangement and daily concerns of every family. They are necessary to every occupation of human industry, to the distribution and security of every species of property, to every transaction of trade in commerce, to the labors of the husbandman, to the ingenuity of the artificer, to the studies of the philosopher, to the reaches of the antiquarian, to the navigation of the mariner and the marches of the soldier; to all the exchanges of peace and all the operations of war.”

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, 1821

A note on sources:

For the factual background of this article, I relied heavily on an article by Hector Vera at the New School for Social Research. It’s short, interesting, available here and well worth a read.

For pop culture uses of the English System of Measurement, I tried a crowdsourcing experiment, calling on friends and family to help me list instances of popular culture featuring units of measurement. Dozens of them responded to a query on Facebook or the hijacking of otherwise pleasant conversation. I am in their debt.

Since its introduction during the era of rationalism that followed the French revolution, the decimal metric system has spread to the vast majority of the world. Universally standardized weights and measures, easily converted even by those who can only multiply and divide by 10 provide obvious advantages to international science and trade. By the mid 20th century, the world was basically divided with the UK, its Commonwealth and the USA using the English standard system and everyone else on metric. Today, only three countries continue to reject the metric system: Burma/Myanmar, Liberia and the United States of America.

A quick look at those three countries:

Obviously, the US is a bit of an exception here, if for no other reason than that we finished our civil war a long time ago.

A couple weeks ago, I discussed the twisted subtext of Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars. But there’s another, even darker aspect of the series: the way George Lucas is pushing it at the expense of the original Star Wars movies. Like all Sith plots, this one is hard to see, even as it unfolds in plain sight.

Last summer, my son informed me that he wanted to have a Star Wars: A New Hope party for his fourth birthday. This was among the proudest moments of my life. Definitely prouder than the day he was born. (Think about it: everyone gets born. Not everyone appreciates Star Wars before he turns four.)

Nope.

So it was with great relish that I went online to buy a full spectrum of party stuff from a galaxy far, far away. I wanted plates that looked like Death Stars, cups that each showed a different member of Red Squardron (I was gonna keep Wedge for myself), and a tablecloth that reproduced that original poster where Luke’s shirt is open.

What I found was page after page of Clone Wars stuff. Nothing that showed Luke, Han, or Leia. There was a lot of Vader, but I’m sure it was because he was in Episode III. Yoda was only depicted holding a lightsaber—his Clone Wars incarnation. There are 42 items listed in EZ Party Zone’s Clone Wars category. In the “Star Wars” category, there are only four items, all of which are Vader-related. I scoured the internet, and I couldn’t find a single kids’ birthday party item that was definitively original trilogy. This was a problem for me, because I am carefully shielding my child from all knowledge of the prequel trilogy for as long as I can. If he finds out Santa isn’t real, that’s alright. The day he hears about Jar-Jar, I’m going to cry.