Welcome back to Overthinking Lost, fifth season edition.
"Oh, hey, Destiny! How's it going? Exactly how you expected? Oh. That's... that's cool."
Last week, we had an excellent conversation in the comments section about the never-ending battle between science and faith in Lost. While we didn’t come to any consensus about whether Jack was truly a man of science, a man of faith, or a mix of the two, last week’s conversation proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the words “faith” and “science” are far more semantically complex than we once thought. Cool, guys. Keep up the good work.
This week, I want to tackle two more complex—or shall we say vague?—concepts: the concepts of fate and free will. Weeks and weeks and weeks ago, back when I was still watching season two, I made the possibly erroneous claim that “fate” and “destiny” are, by definition, religious terms. In the fifth season of Lost, however, “fate” has taken on numerous definitions, both religious and [psuedo?] scientific. I mentioned in last week’s post that the first half of season five disappointed me, and I think that’s in part because of the vague nature of these terms. What is fate, Lost? What is free will? And can a television show whose characters lack free will be entertaining?
The answers to these questions and more after the jump.
We made it, guys! Season five! We’re here! I finally finished watching all of Lost. I am officially caught up.
Hot.
Does that mean this is my last Overthinking Lost post? Hardly! This is only the beginning. There is so much packed into these last seventeen episodes that it doesn’t seem fair to write just one post about it. So, starting this week, I’ll try to tackle some of the show’s main themes: faith versus science, fate versus free will, and so forth. Along the way I’ll try to make some predictions, too, about what may be to come.
This week’s topic: faith versus science! Which side is winning? Which side will win? But first, my recaps for season five.
What, does no one smile in season four? Cheer up, guys!
Hey, folks! I’m back and ready to Lost-ify. Special thanks to Ryan Sheely for holding the fort until I returned. I haven’t read his article yet—he warned me it was not only primarily spoilers, but in fact only spoilers—but my mother ensures me that it is an enchanting piece of work. If you haven’t read it yet, please do so—but only if you’ve seen all of Lost season five.
I, however, am way back in the land of the fourth season, and I’d like to talk about time. Time is… confusing. To say the least. (I know this because I saw The Time Traveler’s Wife last night. My one-word review of the film: Mehhhhhh.)
We humans tend to think of time as a straight line pointing forward—but is it, really? Lost’s writers certainly don’t think so. That would be too simple, and, as we well know, Lost doesn’t like simple.
Plot-wise, Lost’s fourth season was exciting and somewhat overwhelming. A staggering number of important events occurred over the course of just twelve episodes. Because there was so much plot, it was hard for me to tell if there was an overarching theme tying everything together. But if I had to pinpoint one main theme of this season, it would definitely have something to do with the nature of time. Over the years, science-fiction writers have used time travel and paradoxes to explore many different themes: the inability of humans to escape the deterministic nature of the universe, the joint themes of regret and revenge, love’s ability to transcend time and space. So this week, I’ll try to answer this question: when Lost starts talking about time machines and psychic flashes and trick flashforwards, what is it really talking about? What is time a metaphor for? At heart, what is season four of Lost about?
But first, let’s recap the episodes I watched over the past two weeks:
Originally, the OTI editorial staff was going to make this a break week for the Overthinking Lost series, as Mlawski is on vacation. However, rather than finding out what happens when we let the clock reach zero, I decided to race to my computer and punch in the numbers.
In addition, it has been a while since I have Overthought anything, so I saw this as the perfect opportunity for me to go back to the island.
Now might be a pretty good time (or in fact a bit too late for some readers) to mention that I’m going to depart from Mlawski’s cardinal rule—there will be substantial Lost spoilers in this post, so only read on if you’ve watched through the end of season 5 or don’t mind learning things that will substantially bias your viewing experience of the whole series thus far. There will also be major spoilers for The Wire.
Why would I gleefully break protocol after you’ve all been so careful not to reveal any of Lost’s big mysteries in the comments for the past few months?
Because I’m special—the rules don’t apply to me.
[Ed. Note: Seriously. There are substantial Lost spoilers after the jump, up to and including everything that has aired. And pretty substantial spoilers for The Wire as well, covering the whole series. Don't read on if you're not prepared.]
[This weekend's second guest article comes from Chris Richards. How could we resist—he takes up one of our favorite topics for overtinking: time travel. Let us know what you think in the comments!]
Earlier this month, JJ Abrams rebooted one of the most successful Sci-fi series of all time with his whiz-bang extravaganza. But, unlike the Nolan-style reboot of Batman, Abrams didn’t ignore the fact that other movies came before. Of course, unlike the Batman franchise, there were a lot of people who didn’t WANT to forget the other movies. This, in and of itself, creates a problem: how can anyone reconcile the two? Abrams decided to use one of Star Trek’s most-controversial plot devices, and creates a predictably paradoxical result.
Before going on, yes, there are major spoilers ahead for the new movie, past movies, and at least one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. You’ve been warned.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the first action movie stars of the 80s. Perhaps he was one of the first action movie stars, period. His predecessors to that title – Steve McQueen? Clint Eastwood? – had dramatic credits to their name as well as escapist fare (Papillon, Play Misty For Me, etc). But Arnold Schwarzenegger will never direct Million Dollar Baby. Explosive action movies sit at both the beginning and end of his range.
Consequently, not many critics take Schwarzenegger seriously as an actor. He’s a muscle-bound lunk, they claim. He’s nothing but a stony face and some catchphrases. He always plays the same role.
But what if that’s deliberate?
(Belated)
Well, I just couldn’t help myself. After my Über-GedankenTM experimental ramblings last week on some scientific caveats to time travel, I got to thinking–er–OverThinkingTM how the scientific process itself would play out after such a monumental discovery. After all, while most people–even scientists themselves–see science as the abstract pursuit of truth, the elucidation of the workings of the universe, in reality it’s also a business.
Some thoughts and an original webcomic, after the jump…
Matthew Wrather hosts a panel with Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Jordan Stokes, and David Shechner to wrap up Back To The Future week on OverthinkingIt.com with the science of time travel, suspension of disbelief, and what a Jigga-Watt is anyway.
As always, call 20-EAT-LOG-01 (that’s (203) 285-6401) to leave a voicemail. (As of this post, email is still down.)
Download Episode 29 (MP3)
There come times, in the course of human events, whereby an official-unofficial OTI Staff Scientist such as myself feels compelled to write about pop-cultural issues which he or she (statistically: he) finds irksome on a professional level. Back to The Future is a nearly endless font of these issues for me—from the obligatory complications surrounding causality in time-travel paradoxes to hoverboards which don’t work above water to the continued reminder of the sheer mathematical improbability of Huey Lewis and the News. But as my esteemed colleagues have already touched on these with great aplomb, I’ve got some another problem to Overthink™ today.
And oh yes, there will be math involved.
[Because what Overthinking It really needs is more Matts, we present this BTTF guest post from Matthew Silver. —Ed.]
Arguably, no movie involving time travel can ever actually make sense in the realm of continuity. I have to give tremendous credit to the Back To The Future writers for taking it on in the first place. This series has it all: paradox, parallel timelines, and altering history both past and future.
As an audience, we all cope with the discrepancies in different ways. Some of us rationalize the impossible because it’s the only way we can enjoy the reality presented to us. (Have you seen Heroes this season?) Some of us believe wholeheartedly in “suspension of disbelief” and are all too understanding of the limitations of Hollywood (Ross, Joey, and Chandler love the Die Hard films, yet they don’t hesitate to accept Bruce Willis when he shows up on Friends as a guest character). And then there are those of us who just unconditionally believe everything we see and hear. [Not on this site. —Ed.]
For those of us who will never be satisfied without a little digging, I present the following theories.