Jensen's Gems

EW's Incredible Doc Jensen's Jughead Review:

Many thanks to my colleague Adam B. Vary for taking on the Lost recap this week while I tend to other matters pertaining to our mutual obsession that will soon come to your attention. Adam mentioned I might have more to say about "Jughead" next week, but my utter enthusiasm for last night's episode prevents me from waiting that long. So some quick observations/theories.

"Jughead" rocked. Let me be clear and plain about this before cluttering your mind with my usual nonsense: I loved the episode. The pleasure it gave was visceral; it was a fun episode to feel your way through, from Desmond and his son beholding the London skyline at night to the in-passing revelation that Des and Pen had named their boy after the man who sacrificed his life so their relationship may live, Charlie. Killed me. The storytelling was strong and assured, and the story itself flowed in a surprising, unforced way. And has there been a funnier episode of Lost in recent memory? Not in a jokey way, but in an organic, character-derived sense—the kind of chuckles you get from clearly drawn characters and knowing them well. Faraday asking Miles if by chance the dead guys mentioned what year it was. Locke’s reaction to the Widmore reveal. Juliet and Alpert’s droll line readings. (Must be an Other thing, like Latin.) Sawyer to Faraday: “You told her?!” If you put a gun to my head and made me give you right here, right now, my top 10 list of all time fave Lost eps, I’m sure “Jughead” would be on it. Take the gun away, and I think it would still be there.

My “Arrow” Theory. Adam mentioned this in his recap. Have you noticed the recurring arrow symbolism this season? Episode 1: Pierre Chang produces the orientation film for a Dharma station called “The Arrow.” Episode 2: The Left Behinders are attacked by flaming arrows. And now, Episode 3: Arrows everywhere, in the text (see: the Others’ archery brigade) and the subtext. A leaking or missing hydrogen bomb is known as a “Broken Arrow” event in military parlance. In physics, the “Arrow of Time” is the name of a body of theories pertaining to the nature of time; the term “broken arrow” is used to characterize an idea like time loops. Google “broken arrow” and you’ll get any number of movies, TV shows and songs about Native Americans… and wouldn’t you know, “Jughead” was a peek into the past of the Island’s indigenous peeps, the Others. But the coolest arrow connection comes via the Other cutie with the shot gun, British accent, and terse line readings: Ellie. Short for Eleanor, which is French for “the Other.” (Or so wikipedia tells me; I don’t speak it. Me stupid American.) On a whim, I combined “Ellie” and “Eleanor” and “Arrow,” and came back with an awesome connection: Ellie Arroway, the heroine of Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, which was adapted into the Jodie Foster film of the same name. I’m going to leave it to you to explore the significance, but Sagan’s story certainly resonates with Lost themes, and perhaps functions as a clue to wormhole theory.

The Others Don’t Like Geeks. So the Island’s “natives” tangled with military scientists testing hydrogen bombs during the 1950s. Then, 20 years later, they warred with the scientific enclave known as The Dharma Initiative. No theory here. Just an observation.

Is He A Lover Or A Liar? Daniel Faraday told Charlotte that he [hearts] her last night. But we also learned that Danny-boy gave an old girlfriend the time travel STD and left her to waste away while he skipped off to America. Faraday probably carries about 9 tons of guilt in that backpack of his, so it made me wonder: when he told Charlotte that he dug her red headed, nose-bleeding cheese, was he genuinely serious—or was he just trying to save from the time travel sickness by playing the part of her constant? If I’m correct that Doc Faraday doesn’t really love Charlotte, but he’s just trying to save her, then he reminds me of another romantically-challenged, messiah-complex MD prone to becoming emotionally enmeshed with his patients. All to say...

Daniel Faraday = Jack Shepherd. Both doctors. Both called upon to be castaway leaders/heroes. Both wear backpacks and grow bad beards. I wonder how much we should make of that? I really liked Adam’s theory that Daniel is a new variable in the Island's past, effectively altering the destinies of the people that will live there or be born there. If the Island was always destined to go skipping through time, but the Oceanic 6 were never supposed to leave, then I wonder: was Jack originally supposed to be doing all the things that Faraday is currently doing on Lost? That could be the reason why the Island brought Faraday here: to serve as Jack’s understudy in the grand drama of its history. But now that Jack has pulled a Jeremy Piven-in-Speed The Plow and flaked out on the production, the role has fallen permanently to Faraday—and he’s playing the part differently enough to render significant consequences.

“Jughead” = U2’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. My soundtrack choice for the episode. “Vertigo” = Charlotte. “City of Blinding Lights” = Desmond and Charlie beholding London. (Yes, yes, the song’s about NYC, but go with me.) “All Because of You” and “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own”: all about “constant” thematics. “Miracle Drug”: the greatest Lost theme, the reconciliation of science and faith, head and heart.

More next week. Namaste!

Lindelof and Cuse: TV Guide Interview

This is from TV Guide you can watch the video here.

Feel like you're sufficiently getting Lost? Here to help you each week is TVGuide.com's new "Getting Lost" video series. This latest installment finds executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof addressing three hot topics coming out of the Jan. 28 "Jughead" episode (spoiler-ish alert):

• In light of the shocking "introduction" made at the end of "Jughead," might the time-tripping castaways run into other (albeit younger) familiar faces?
• Exactly who is gun-toting tough-gal Ellie? Going against the popular consensus (which I find just a bit too pat/obvious), I run my own theory by Team Darlton.
• And speaking of mystery women, who is this comatose Theresa? And how big a role will she play in future episodes?

Also, be sure to read Mickey O'Connor's Lost recaps every Thursday morning. And if you crave scoop on Lost or any other TV show, email senior editors Mickey, Tim Molloy and I at mega_scoop@tvguide.com.

The Official Lost Podcast

Crazy Theory of the Week

This weeks Crazy Theory also involves Daniel Farraday. My theory is that he not only knew Richard before their meeting at the Others Tent City. I'm going all the way on the limb to say that he may be ageless like Richard and he may have four toes. The logic behind this theory is:

1. Eloise Hawking is his mother(so I believe) and she obviously has a deep connection to the Island.
2. The Other woman in the jungle told Daniel, "You just couldn't stay away could you?"
3. The exchange Richard and Daniel have where they ask each other "What's your name?" seemed a little deeper than a man asking a prisoner his name.

Barry says:
and don't you think 'ellie' is probably eloise? seems pretty obvious, especially with ellie's tight-lipped style of speaking...just like eloise in her old age...and she knows daniel at her young age...yada yada...

Response to Barry:
I love that! So do you think when he said you look just like her, that he was referring to his mom and not the woman he experimented on?

Barry says:
i'm not sure on that 'you look just like her' business. i mean, it was definitely presented in context to seem that daniel was referring to teresa...and it would seem kinda strange for him to say his mother looked like herself. if he were thinking about his mother, wouldn't he have said something more like, 'wow, you look just like yourself when you are young'? lol...

Responce to Barry:
He may not have known that 'Ellie' is his mother and even though the context was presented as if he were talking about Teresa that may not be the case. Throughout the journey that is Lost, many time I've believed one thing because of context only to find out that I was mistaken. Still even if he was referring to Teresa, he obviously didn't know 'Ellie' was Elouis because why would he tell his mom how much she looks like his girlfriend.
On a similar note have you heard the theory that Widmore is his father? It's being thrown around, but I don't like it yet. He did fund his research and Ellie and Charles were on the Island at the same time, but still the connection is not there for me. What do you think?

What You May Have Missed

Off The Island:

1. When Desmond was running around looking for a doctor, a sign saying "Mahubay" let us know he was on a province in the Philippines.
2. The room at the Physics Department at Oxford Desmond visited had the Numbers 42 and 8 on it.
3. Jughead" may have referred to the H-bomb, but in Archie comics, Jughead's real name was Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, and "Jones" was also the name on the uniform of Charles Widmore.
4. Desmond named his son Charlie, after the man who gave his life to get a message from Penny.

On The Island:

1. John Locke was very interested in the 30 Caliber M1 Garand Rifle they were attacked with. That's probably because it was standard military issue for the U.S. During the 1930s, '40s and '50s, thus letting him know before the rest of us when they were.

Lost: What You Need To Know

Here is the newest episode of Lost: What You Need To Know

Spoilers for The Little Prince

This came from Lost Spoilers:

One of my production sources has allowed me to reveal the following

1) 2 New People will accompany the O6 back to the Island
2) We will see another crash
3) We will see Ms. Hawking inside the Lamppost Station
4) Sawyers has to to lie. The lie hinges on everyone's safety, especially his own
5) Someone we've seen will be shown to be Ethan's Mother.

Source: ParadoxMan@DarkUFO

The Little Prince Promo

My Jughead Review

Jughead started with Desmond becoming a father, he named his son Charlie. Desmond's on a mission to find Daniels Mother I think it's this Lady. Desmond goes to Oxford, then goes to meet Teressa. Appartently Daniel did some experiments on her and now she's not doing well. But we find out Daniels reseach has been funded for ten years by Charles Widmore. Desmond confronts Charles who tells him to go back where he was hiding and keep Penny safe. Speaking of Charles widmore, He was on the Island in the 50s. We find out that in Others 101, you learn Latin. Charles escapes the capture of John Locke, but Locke follows him back to Otherville. Juilet says Richard is old Like we didn't know. Meanwhile Daniel, miles and a sick Charlote get taken prisoner. This Other acts like she's know Daniel at first.Then Daniel and Richard have an interesting exchange that makes it seem like they know each other. Daniel goes off to try to deactivate the JugHead. Things get sticky and he tells the other that they are from the future. John meets Charles Widmore, by the way did I mention he was on the island. Then John and Richard have an interesting conversation in which we find out why Richard visited a young John Locke so many times. Like always when John is about to get his answer the Island does the time warp again and Charlote gets worse.

Watch with Kristen

This is from Watch With Kristen a tv blog on E!Online.
Most of this is the usual from Lindelof and Cuse but this stuck out:
Mrs. Hawking is related to someone we already know. D.L.: Hell no, we won't tell you! C.C.: True. D.L.: Carlton!
One more thing to add to my crazy theory of the week.

Lost returns tonight, and to get you ready, we've brought spoilers straight from the source!

Yes, Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse kindly agreed to a round of False; True; Hell No, We Won't Tell You, and they addressed all your burning Q's about season five, including, of course, what's in store for Sawyer.

(Sawyer, in case you've never heard of him, is gratuitously pictured shirtless in the image on the left. We take advantage where we can.)

With whom will James Ford be experiencing some "romantic tension"? And what about that secret Sawyer whispered in Kate's ear in last year's finale?

We know the truth, and we're spilling...

If you've never played this game with us before, the rules are these: We suggest a potential spoiler, and the show runners answer "False," "True" or "Hell no, we won't tell you."

We'll find out what Sawyer told Kate in the first half of the season.
Carlton Cuse: True.

There's some kind of romantic tension between Sawyer and Juliet.
Damon Lindelof: True.

Mrs. Hawking is related to someone we already know.
D.L.: Hell no, we won't tell you!
C.C.: True.
D.L.: Carlton!

Christian took Claire into the cabin to protect her from the impact of the time-jumping Island.
C.C.: Wow. I think that's a hell no.
D.L.: That's a hell no.

OK. Ben really cannot go back to Island.
D.L.: Um, false.

Someone in the Oceanic Six will die.
D.L.: Hell no, we cannot tell.

OK, Locke can escape death somehow.
D.L.: He looks pretty dead to me.

This is from Watch With Kristen, a television blog on E!Online.

Lost returns tonight, and to get you ready, we've brought spoilers straight from the source!

Yes, Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse kindly agreed to a round of False; True; Hell No, We Won't Tell You, and they addressed all your burning Q's about season five, including, of course, what's in store for Sawyer.

(Sawyer, in case you've never heard of him, is gratuitously pictured shirtless in the image on the left. We take advantage where we can.)

With whom will James Ford be experiencing some "romantic tension"? And what about that secret Sawyer whispered in Kate's ear in last year's finale?

We know the truth, and we're spilling...

If you've never played this game with us before, the rules are these: We suggest a potential spoiler, and the show runners answer "False," "True" or "Hell no, we won't tell you."

We'll find out what Sawyer told Kate in the first half of the season.
Carlton Cuse: True.

There's some kind of romantic tension between Sawyer and Juliet.
Damon Lindelof: True.

Mrs. Hawking is related to someone we already know.
D.L.: Hell no, we won't tell you!
C.C.: True.
D.L.: Carlton!

Christian took Claire into the cabin to protect her from the impact of the time-jumping Island.
C.C.: Wow. I think that's a hell no.
D.L.: That's a hell no.

OK. Ben really cannot go back to Island.
D.L.: Um, false.

Someone in the Oceanic Six will die.
D.L.: Hell no, we cannot tell.

OK, Locke can escape death somehow.
D.L.: He looks pretty dead to me.

Troughtwig's Thoughts

This is a Lost segment from The Monitor. Al has some good theories, especially the one about Marvin Candle is Mile's father. I like that theory, I'm not sure I buy into it just yet, but I like it. Anyway check it out here. And thanks to Hank for the heads up.

Totally Lost

The Great Doc Jensen released the season premiere of Totally Lost. Check it out here. I hope you enjoy, I know I did.

Lost In Kansas City

This is an article from TV Barn Blog out of Kansas City:

How "Lost" creators cured their writers' block

You can learn things about a TV show just by watching it with other people. At the television critics' winter get-together earlier this month, 200 of us watched the third episode of the new season of "Lost" -- the one airing tonight on ABC -- on the biggest high-definition screen west of Kauffman Stadium (or so it seemed). At regular intervals the whole room would erupt in laughter -- it was the sound of 200 "Lost" fans being served up another unexpected, what-in-the-hell twist ... and loving it.

Whatever mojo television's most ingenious thriller may have lost in its third and fourth seasons, it's come back with compound interest in season five. Last week's two-hour season opener easily eclipsed the fourth judge on "Idol" as the most anticipated non-political TV event of the new year. ABC has been eagerly serving up sneak peeks to critics for not just the usual reasons -- to gain a return on what is easily the riskiest investment in the entire network lineup -- but for a less obvious one. The show is brilliant again, and word needs to get out.

After the screening, out came the two men at the eye of "Lost's" creative hurricane, executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. After swearing the room to secrecy, they spoke with considerable candor about the storylines in store this season and next. They seemed delighted to be answering fansite-worthy questions about characters and storylines, so much so that you might never suspect that they've served themselves pink slips already. These are the final two seasons of "Lost," and paradoxically, it's this knowledge -- that the best job they've ever had is coming to a halt in 2010 -- that has made the producers so happy.

Negotiating the end date to the show "completely liberated us," Lindelof said. "We didn't know whether the mythology we had had to last two seasons or nine seasons, and that was utterly paralyzing."

Cuse agreed.

"Now that we know exactly how many episodes we have left has really allowed us to plan and to do this stuff with the confidence that we know exactly how much of a journey is left, and that's been enormously liberating and really the key to the whole show for us as storytellers," he said.

It's also allowed Cuse and Lindelof to slim down the sprawling cast of guest characters, jettisoning them in various creatively violent ways, while returning focus to the core people who arrested viewers' attention in the show's first season.

That's going to be a huge boon for fans of Sawyer (Josh Holloway), the one regular who did not make it off Lost Island in season four, and who therefore saw his role diminished as the action shifted to the outside world and the struggles of the Oceanic 6 to return to normal lives in civilization.

"This year, we've tried to sort of make up for lost time, as it were," Lindelof said. "And Josh has just been doing amazing work."

But the really big shift from previous seasons is the new emphasis on time travel.

"As season five unfolds, you will realize that time travel has been in the DNA of the show for quite some time, but we think the audience is now kind of prepared to go on that journey with us," Lindelof said.

We may be, but Sawyer sure isn't. If you thought he was unhappy to be caught in an endless rewind/fast-forward loop in last week's episodes, wait until you see him this week. (By the way, last week's second hour will re-air at 7 p.m. Wednesday, leading into "Lost's" regular timeslot of 8 p.m. CT on KMBC-9.) Also watch for Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), probably the best addition to the show since Ben (Michael Emerson), to pop in and out of the castaways' lives like an ageless sphinx, an H.G. Wells character with perpetual jet-black hair and goth eyelines.

The funniest moment of our Q-and-A came when someone asked about Carbonell's eye makeup, and Lindelof responded, "When we first saw dailies of Nestor, we were like, 'Someone's gotta talk to him about the eyeliner situation,' (but) he does not wear any mascara, no eyeliner, nothing. He is completely 100 percent sans eye makeup. God's honest truth."

The second funniest moment came when someone asked the creators if they didn't think they were risking the show all over again with a whole new batch of storylines, including some that were "fraught with peril."

"You say 'fraught with peril' like it's a bad thing," Lindelof replied. "We sit around and go, 'Is it fraught with peril?' 'Yes.' 'Let's do it!'"

'Lost'

A repeat of last week's second hour of "Lost" will air at 7 p.m., followed by a new episode at 8 on KMBC-9. The G4 cable channel is reairing the entire series at 10 a.m. and midnight daily.

What's In A Name?

This will be a reoccurring post on Wednesday's to give some definition to the title of each weeks episode. So we start with Jughead:

• Jughead Jones was a cartoon character in Archy Comics
• In Canada they refer to the Kool-Aid Man as Jug Head
• JUGHEAD is an acronym for Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation and Display. Which is a search engine program
• Jughead is a band that was a progressive pop side project of Ty Tabor
• Jughead was a 19th century slang term for a mule
• Jughead was a song on Prince's album, Diamonds and Pearls, and is widely considered Prince's worst song.
• Jughead is also the nickname of a Mark 17 Nuclear Bomb

So which definition do you think most accurately describes tonight's episode?

Really!?!

This article is from MSNBC
It doesn't really have anything to do with Lost, but I found it interesting.

‘Lost’ star resents his sex symbol status

Playing the part of habitually shirtless Sawyer on “Lost” made Josh Holloway a sex symbol, but the actor and former model finds that hot-bod status more of a burden than a boon.

In an interview with Company magazine, Holloway revealed the downside of looking too good for his own good.

“The whole sex-symbol thing is really strange,” he explained. “I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I appreciate the opportunity to work, the cash it gives you, and other things it provides are wonderful. But the celebrity thing... I don't like attention. Like anybody, it's impossible not to feel self-conscious if someone's looking at you all the time, everywhere you go.”

The problem goes beyond Holloway’s personal discomfort with the trappings of fame, as the star admits unwanted attention from well-meaning fans even affects his marriage.

"If someone approaches me and asked for a picture and I say no, then I'll feel like an ass,” he said. “But if I say OK, I'll often end up doing another picture and another. Then my wife gets upset and we have a fight and that's not good either."

I have this to say to Mr. Holloway:
Really!?! Really!?! I'm sure there are a lot of people in the unemployment lines that would LOVE to have your job. It must be real terrible to be on a hit TV show and to have a job. Remind me again, what were you in before Lost? Oh that's right an Aerosmith video and a JCPenny's catalog.
Sawyer may be one of my favorite Lost characters, but come on Josh, it can't be that bad.

Response to comment:
Ok so I may have been a bit harsh on Sawyer and the JCPenny's comment was below the belt. My point was simply that fame is a part of his job. We all have parts of our job we don't like, but when thousands of people are losing there jobs daily it's a little insensitive to complain about any part of your job. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have jobs should simply be glad we aren't dealing with the hardship of unemployment. So while I was a bit rude about it, I just wanted to make the point that he should be thankful and grateful instead of complaining to a national news source about his fans.

Bernard Chats With iF Magazine

This is an article and interview with Bernard from iFmagazine. Not alot of Lost stuff here, but hey how often do we see an interview with Bernard.

Fans of LOST may be familiar with Sam Anderson as one-half of the island’s true love story between – Bernard Nadler and Rose Henderson (L. Scott Caldwell).

While Rose is sick and given only a short time to live – the island has allowed the couple (who were separated by the plane splitting into on different sides of the island) to finally get back together and SURPRISE – to discover – she is disease-free when on the island.

While this is one of LOST’s happier stories, Anderson gets a chance to go to the dark side with “The Snow Job,” this week’s episode of TNT’s new hit series LEVERAGE airing tonight at 10:00 p.m.

In the episode, Anderson plays a ruthless owner of a construction company who is unlawfully foreclosing on innocent families. Playing the baddie isn’t anything new to Anderson, who, coincidentally enough once worked with LEVERAGE’s co-star Christian Kane on Joss Whedon’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER spin-off ANGEL. Anderson was his boss Holland Manners at the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart – now the table’s are turned on LEVERAGE and the Anderson gives iF the exclusive scoop on his latest role.

iF MAGAZINE: Can you talk a little bit about your character on LEVERAGE?

SAM ANDERSON: I play a ruthless contractor and with my two sons, we go into disaster areas and offer to fix people’s homes, rebuild them, don’t do the work and when the people don’t pay us, we put a lean on their houses and take them. So the Leverage team is contacted by a young family that has just been through this with us and decide that they are going to jump in full force, because we’ve got over 400 homes we’ve managed to take from people. They decide it’s going to be on such a big scale they’re going to try to get all of the houses back. They play a great game of divide and conquer, with me and my two sons. Of course, we’re going to get what’s coming to us.

iF: In many ways, the show is almost wish fulfillment for all the Americans wronged by big and small corporate thieves everywhere.

ANDERSON: In this particular climate, which I hope changed as of last Tuesday, we read all the time of how much corruption there is everywhere. Pick a business. Talk health. Talk real estate. Talk investments. It’s a good thing for LEVERAGE, because they have a million things to draw on and it’s a bad thing for us because we all have to live with this.

iF: Did you have any nods to ANGEL since you were working with Chris Kane again?

ANDERSON: Chris suggested in one scene he was just going to look at me and wink and the ANGEL fans would laugh their heads off, because he was my protégé on that show.

iF: Did you do the wink?

ANDERSON: Yes. I’ve seen the cut, but I can’t remember if they kept it in. I’m not sure it is. I think we did a little trimming at the end, when I’m getting my comeuppance, but Chris and I know it’s there.

iF: LEVERAGE seems to teeter on the line of comedy and drama – how over-the-top were you allowed to play your role?

ANDERSON: I think the boys and I walk the line in terms of that humor. They’re kind of broad characters, but they’re really broad people and we still try to ground it in reality. I’ve certainly met people who are similar, and I certainly didn’t want to spend a lot of time with them. It’s very fun, but at the same time, it’s about what’s going on with the issue. So you love to see these people fall. You want them to fall and I have a great joy in watching how they do it. In a different way, it’s a similar way to how I felt about watching MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – the original series. Are they going to see through the disguise? It’s great.

iF: Bernard and Rose hadn’t been around on LOST awhile, until last week’s episode – did the producers ever give you a reason for their long absence?

ANDERSON: Last season they went in a different direction, so Rose and I weren’t there for a lot. We were in both parts of the premiere last week. I know the show really responds to the fans. When we’re not there, they seem to miss us, which is great.

iF: Are you always worried you’re going to pick up a script and it says, “Bernard dies.”

ANDERSON: You always read a script just peaking at each page, but no, there’s no flaming arrow in my back, though I haven’t been back [to shoot something] since last week’s episode

iF: Do you get recognized by LOST fans?

ANDERSON: It’s been phenomenal. The response to [L. Scott and I] has been phenomenal. When people come up and want to talk, which is a lot, it’s pretty genuine and very emotional. For an actor, that’s very heartening. You can tell they’re responding to the work in an emotional way and not just “guess who I saw.”

iF: Where would you like to see Bernard and Rose end up by the series conclusion?

ANDERSON: It’s hard knowing where the island is going to end up and knowing it would be hard for them to leave. When Rose is there, she’s cancer free. When she’s back in the rest of the world, she’s probably not. I see them on the island in the middle of a little grass shack, watching the sunset, perfectly content.

iF: Holland Manners on ANGEL was such a delicious role to play – did you ever think the show would have gone on to have such a devoted and rapid following?

ANDERSON: I didn’t think it at the time, I don’t think anyone was thinking about that. We were just doing the best work you could do. The writing was so spectacular. When I first got the role, here's a guy who runs a major corporation and lines up his employees on a carpet, has two shaved head psychics to show him who in the group might be lying or cheating or doing something against the company and he calmly has a guard shoot them in the head. And he is sort of upset, but he’s upset there’s a stain on his carpet. You gotta love playing that. When I came home from work, I used to say to my wife, “how fun is this, where else do you hear an A.D. say ‘flaming vampires to the stage.’” It was just a hoot.

iF: Who is more ruthless – Holland or your character on LEVERAGE?

ANDERSON: I would say, they both may be ruthless. Holland is incredibly smart and always a step ahead of everyone and easy in his manipulation -- until he died. My character in “The Snow Job” is much more of a big, old good guy who has lot of energy. He loves deals and loves listening to money stories. He might not be the sharpest tack in the shed, but he’s shrewd. He’s certainly not honest, but much less lethal.

iF: Since ANGEL was one of Chris Kane’s first big gigs, did he ask you for advice when you were on that show together?

ANDERSON: He asked me something one day, I mostly said, “the thing about actors, we always sometimes get way too focused on ourselves and there’s a whole big world out there you can draw on, and you never know you.” I always wish I listened more in my science classes in school, because I’ve played so many doctors and I’ve had to bone up. For ER, I feel like I practically went to medical school.

iF: You do a lot of series television, how did working on LEVERAGE compare to other shows?

ANDERSON: The thing I love about that place, you go into work and a lot of shows it can be very stressful, but you walk on to the LEVERAGE set and everyone is saying “hi, how are you doing?” They want to talk to you and are happy you’re a part of it. As a result, it’s one of the happier work places I’ve seen. It makes you relax enough to give your best. I admire that work ethic a lot -- it’s genuine and not put on.

IGN Review of Jughead

Lost is a show about time travel and I couldn't be more pleased. I've always been a bit of a geek when it comes to time travel. Doctor Who has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid and recent shows like Journeyman have only heightened my excitement for this often used but rarely mastered sci-fi mechanic. Recently we've seen Heroes completely fail when it comes to using time travel so I was happy to see the writers of Lost use Faraday to establish very specific rules in "Because You Left" – Irish lasses will sleep soundly tonight. Now that it appears our time-hopping island dwellers will be thrown about in the fourth dimension for the next few weeks, it's going to be interesting to see if the writers of Lost can properly infuse this new development into the series.

If you thought that after the first couple of episodes the constant barrage of major developments was going to slow down – you would be wrong. We learn quite a bit both off the island and on the island this week about Charles Widmore, Daniel Faraday and Desmond Hume. The veil is lifted on what could be the motivation for both Faraday and Widmore while we also learn why Desmond might want to take a step back and not pursue Faraday's request for help.

Almost every scene in this episode contained some sort of surprise, development or unexpected twist that had my mouth gaping. If you loved "Before You Left" but found yourself slightly disappointed by "The Lie," this episode will renew your excitement. It still amazes me that this show can throw so much "shock-value" at its audience and still keep much of its core mystery intact week after week. I'd be astonished if the rest of the fifth season can maintain this pace but I suspect that it just might.

Along with all the hair-raising twists, "Jughead" does reveal one frightening new bombshell that could spell doom for the survivors who have been left behind. Obviously I'm not going to reveal what it is, but it's another layer of danger that the survivors will have to contend with.

One thing that surprised me is that only two of the characters who appear in this episode were actually in the show's first season. This alone is a testament to the wonderful array of new characters that have been introduced to the show. Jeremy Davies as Faraday continues to amaze me with his performance. His offbeat, nuanced style is wonderfully entertaining to watch. Also, for those who love Desmond and Penny, there are a few moments here that will leave you very pleased.

Time travel opens up a plethora of opportunities that weren't previously available. While "Before You Left" cemented the rules and the nature of time travel in the Lost universe, "Jughead" is the first to capitalize on the concept and have a little fun. There is one encounter that completely caught me by surprise and it wouldn't have been possible without time travel. So, how long until the island sends its inhabitants back to the Jurassic Period? Sawyer riding a dinosaur would be the greatest moment in television history. For some reason, I suspect we'll learn that traveling that far back isn't possible.

IGN

Whaaaa?

This is from Lost Spoilers:

Episode 5.9 - Namaste - Filming Details Thanks to one of my others sources on the set, Peytoncrimsucks, who has allowed me to reveal the following details. I'll be posting these set spoilers behind Are You Sure buttons as they are pretty spoilerly. I have a whole heap of spoilers coming in from a variety of sources both on set, post production and others that hopefully they will allow me to share with you over the upcoming days/weeks. We're in for a wild ride people!

Under the Are You Sure:

Jin & Sawyer see the first half of the Oceanic 6
The reaction is emotional to the return
Jack talks to Marvin Candel
Juliet and Sawyer are living together

If this is true it means:

1. That it'll take roughly nine episodes for the Oceanic 6 to reunite with the survivors who like Kirk Cameran were Left Behind.
2. Jin is still alive! (I know a lot of people who'll be happy about this, including myself)
3. The Sawyer, Kate, Jack love triangle becomes a Love Square with Juliet.
4. And I'm not real sure what to make of Jack talking to Marvin Candel, but you know it'll be good.
   

Evangeline Lilly on GMA

Promotional Photos From This Place Is Death

Jughead Sneak Peak

Here are a couple of sneak peaks for Wednesday's night episode: Jughead

Episode 12: Dead Is Dead

The 12th episode this season will be called "Dead is Dead". Is this a reference to John Locke being dead and not coming back to life once he returns to the Island? I guess we'll find out on April 8th when the episode is scheduled to air.

This Place is Death Press Release

This is the Press Release from ABC on the upcoming episode This Place is Death. Forget the violent shifts through time and Ben's roadblocks, what I really want to point out are that Christian Shephard is in the episode and they list Ms. Hawking as Eloise Hawking. Eloise is the name of Daniel's mouse in The Constant. This adds to my crazy theory of the week.


LOCKE TAKES IT UPON HIMSELF TO PUT AN END TO THE ISLAND'S VIOLENT SHIFTS THROUGH TIME, ON ABC'S "LOST"

"This Place is Death" - Locke takes on the burden to stop the island's increasingly violent shifts through time. Meanwhile, Ben hits a roadblock in his attempt to reunite the Oceanic 6 and bring them back to the island, on "Lost," WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 (9:00-10:02 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

Note: This episode will repeat Feb. 18 from 8:00-9:00 p.m., ET.

"Lost" stars Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Michael Emerson as Ben, Matthew Fox as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Ken Leung as Miles, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet and Terry O'Quinn as Locke.

Guest starring are Rebecca Mader as Charlotte Lewis, John Terry as Christian Shephard, Fionnula Flanagan as Eloise Hawking, William Blanchett as Aaron, June Kyoko Lu as Mrs. Paik, Melissa Farman as young Frenchwoman, Guillaume Dabinpons as Frenchman #1, Marc Menard as Frenchman #2, Bruno Bruni as Frenchman #3 and Jaymie Kim as Ji Yeon.

"This Place is Death" was written by Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz and directed by Paul Edwards.

Lindelof & Cuse with Don Jensen

The famous Lost Blogger Doc Jensen sits down with Lindelof & Cuse the morning after the Lost Premiere to talk about Non-paradoxical Time Travel, shirtless Sawyer, and more...
To watch click here.

Brad William Henke Gets Lost

Brad William Henke (seen above) will be joining the cast of Lost for a four episode arc this season. You may remember Brad from such shows as: Dexter, October Road, or Law & Order. You can check out his imdb here.

Lost: What You Need To Know

Lost: What You Need To Know

Crazy Theory of the Week

My theory this week is that Mr. Faraday's mother is actually Ms. Hawkings. Other sites are also sharing this theory. Here are the reason's this is becoming a popular belief:

1. She's British, like Daniel.
2. Daniel is going to tell Desmond her name. Which indicates it's not the same as his.
3. Both women are going to be a big part of this season, so why not make them the same woman.
4. She's obviously got a connection to the island and experience in time travel, so she could help get the Island to stop traveling through time.
   
5. Actually she's already trying to get the Island to stop moving through time by helping Ben take the Oceanic 6 back.

Update:
6. The This Place Is Death press release by ABC reads: "Fionnula Flanagan as Eloise Hawking". Eloise was the name of the mouse Daniel experimented with in last years episode The Constant.

This newest evidence all but wraps up this theory as fact, but you can never tell with Lost.

Update Two:
7. In a recent interview with the blog Watch with Kristen, Lindelof and Cuse said this:
Mrs. Hawking is related to someone we already know.
D.L.: Hell no, we won't tell you!
C.C.: True.
D.L.: Carlton!

Jughead Trailer

When Are They Now

Remember last season's game what kind of flash will this be, this season we have a new game:
When are they now:
In the first jump, we saw Yemi's plane crash, which happened in the late 1990s, so the first jump was about five to eight years in the past.
The second jump was relatively easy to pinpoint. The Hatch was exploded, so it was after the season 2 finale. But when Locke went into the plane, he saw Yemi's burned corpse. When Mr. Eko visited the plane in season 3, episode 5, the body was gone. Therefore, the time of this jump when Locke met Alpert must've been sometime between November 27, 2004 and December 2, the same time when Kate, Sawyer and Jack were first taken by the Others.
For the third time jump of this episode, the Hatch was entirely covered, putting it sometime before Locke and Boone discovered it on Day 17 after the crash. However, Desmond asks if Faraday is his replacement, suggesting that Kelvin Joe Inman, his partner in the Swan Station, is no longer around. Since he died the same day Oceanic 815 crashed, this jump most likely takes place within the first two and a half weeks of the crash.
The last jump is a little more tricky, but from the uniforms on the Others that capture Juliet and Sawyer we can assume it was a long time ago. Anywhere from the 30s to the 50s is a good guess. But obviously the Others are at war during this time.

The Little Things you May Have Missed Off The Island

As expected, Kate's house included a photo of Aaron, because while they aren't on good terms now, there was a brief period where Jack was frequently at Kate's place.
When Sun was in the airport, the loudspeaker announced that Flight 23 to Paris was boarding at Gate 15. Obviously the numbers are everywhere.
Ana Lucia visited Hurley, personally I believe when Hurley sees dead people it's actually Jacob sending messages to Hurley, but some believe that he's crazy and the people he sees are all like Dave, figments of his imagination.
After making a sandwich, David Reyes sat down to watch one of his and his son's favorite shows, Expose. Which is a reference to the worst lost character ever: Nikki.
While reviving Sayid, one of the valves Jack used contained the Numbers 4, 8 and 15.
When Ben visits his friend Jill the Butcher, he draws a number, and even though it's 342, a well-placed thumb offers up another one of the Numbers.

The Little Things You May Have Missed On The Island

When Because You Left starts the time Dr. Marvin Candle set his alarm for was 8:15am, the same number of the Oceanic flight that crashed on the Island. They really slap you in the face with this one.
You may have missed that Candle's record skipped, mirroring the metaphor Faraday later used to describe the time jumps they were experiencing on the Island. Other than possibly foreshadowing the barrage of flaming arrows, the Arrow orientation video helped explain what the station is. It's designed to research defensive strategies against the Hostiles. This is interesting because Horace Goodspeed, who built Jacob's cabin, had an Arrow logo on his DHARMA uniform, and the Arrow was where Mr. Eko found the Bible that contained half of the Swan orientation video.
When Alpert met Locke, he handed him a compass which Locke was supposed to give him the next time they meet. The compass was also one of the objects during the Dalai Lama test, when Alpert asked Locke which item belonged to him. It seems obvious now that the compass was that item.
Faraday was worried about Charlotte's nosebleeds, possibly because he knows what they foreshadow. We also saw many people on the freighter, including Desmond, get nosebleeds when they became disoriented in time. The only way to stop it was for Desmond to contact Penny, his Constant.

Because you Left and The Lie Review

Because you left started in the 70s with Dr Marvin Candel visiting the Orcaid Station and running into Daniel Farraday. Why's Daniel in the 70s? Well apparently when the Island dissappeared it moved through time or maybe just some of the people are moving through time.
Ok so we're not real sure on this, but we do know in one of the skips Farraday approaches Desmond in the Hatch and tells him the rules don;t apply to him. Desmond then woke up in present time with Penny and remembered the conversation. Back on the Island John finds eko's brother's plane, gets shot by Ethan, then Alpert finds John and tells him he has to save the Island. Back on the beach in yet another time period, Neil goes down in a Blaze of Frogert. Now the survivors are on the run again. Juliet and Sawyer get captured by other's from the past. But Locke saves the day. Three Years Later... Ben and Jack are on a mission to get the Oceanic six plus Locke or Jeremy Bentham back to the Island. But you can call hurley, sayid, and kate mint jelly cause they're on the lamb. Hurley and sayid had a run in with some unfriendly fellows and hurley gets caught with a gun in his hand looking at a dead body, while Kate is running from people who want to run dna tests on her and arrons blood. Hurley gets a visit from ana lucia then takes sayid to his parents house. Hugo's dad takes Sayid to Jack and ben visits Hugo. Beware the flying hot pocket. Hurley takes sayids advice to do the oppisote of what ben linus says and turns himself into the cops. As for sun she's on her own mission. To kill Ben Linus. Ben took Locke to jill the butcher, then visits Ms Hawking and she tells him he only has 70 hours to get back to the Island. Oh and what's in your box Ben?

It's Time to Get Lost

It's finally here, the Lost season 5 premiere is hours away. Don't forget it's a three hour event starting at 8pm with a recap show followed by two hours of new Lost. Because You Left starts at 9pm and The Lie at 10pm. (these are eastern times)

Hugo in TV Guide

Here is another interview featuring Jorge Garcia that doesn't give us any new info. He seems to be the person to interview this year, yet no one has been able to "Scoobie-do" him out of any answers.

When ABC's Lost kicks off its much-anticipated fifth season this Wednesday at 9 pm/ET (with a two-hour premiere), a body count almost immediately adds up. Who's leaving the trail of goons in their wake? Oh, it's just bad-ass Sayid and his new sidekick ... Hurley?! Jorge Garcia gave us a typically cryptic look at the new adventures of the Oceanic 6. Plus: Who from the island does the big guy miss most?

TVGuide.com: As an actor, how has the Season 5 storyline been different for you?
Jorge Garcia: The story has been different and a little weird, and I'm just "following along in my book," so to say. But there is a confidence having done Hurley for now five seasons. There's a lot more instinct in the sense that I kind of know how Hurley goes now, how he would react to new situations.

TVGuide.com: Are you finding him to be a more active character this season?
Garcia: There's definitely some stuff that picks up. And there are certain things Hurley does this season where I'm still trying to figure out how he gets to this point. That's what I'm most curious about. They like to skip around in the storytelling, you know.

TVGuide.com: So even though we've arrived at this certain point in the future, it's not necessarily continuous storytelling.
Garcia: Right. They're not afraid to skip ahead even more if they want to, and then fill in that blank at a later date.

TVGuide.com: Hurley and Sayid have kind of a "buddy act" going on at the start of the season, don't they?
Garcia: Yeah, that's how it starts. The season picks up right where the last one ended, when Sayid springs him from [the] Santa Rosa [mental hospital]. Then they go off together.

TVGuide.com: Are you having fun doing these different types of scenes with Naveen [Andrews]?
Garcia: It's cool, because we hadn't worked too much together or in such a large chunk like we did this time.

TVGuide.com: Does Hurley do anything for the first time this season?
Garcia: Hmmmm... . There are some first on the wardrobe front. [Laughs]

TVGuide.com: Are you in a James Bond-like suit or something?
Garcia: Um, I can't say exactly what the outfit choices are. But in the first two or three episodes, it felt like a parade of costumes — which is obviously not something I'm used to. And I wasn't happy with all of the outfits, I have to say. [Laughs] You'll see why.

TVGuide.com: Do you think Hurley misses Sawyer?
Garcia: Totally. Especially when the team kind of split up and a group of us set up camp in the Others' village, there was a lot of bonding between Hurley and Sawyer. And I think Hurley was definitely moved when Sawyer jumped out of the helicopter.

TVGuide.com: All eyes were kind of on Hurley...
Garcia: Yeah. [Sawyer's sacrifice] had an effect on him.

TVGuide.com: How quickly does the Oceanic 6 make it back to the island?
Garcia: That's a big focus of this season, the struggle to get back. How quick it happens depends on how they tell the story.

TVGuide.com: It's obviously not a matter of them simply reuniting and flying somewhere.
Garcia: It's a bit more complicated, yeah. There's talk of us all getting there at the same time, and then there's talk of us getting there incrementally. Some of us go on this route, some go another route...

TVGuide.com: Ben says you all have to go back, and we always imagined at the same time. But that's easier said than done, you're saying.
Garcia: There is stuff to figure out because things start getting more complicated off-island. At the moment when they're trying to gather people to go back, as you'd expect, "complications ensue."

TVGuide.com: Is the plan still to run all 17 episodes straight through, with no big breaks?
Garcia: Yeah. Last season, they might have skipped a week before the finale and had a clip show day, so they might do that. But for the most part, it should run straight through.

Interview with Stephen Williams

This article is from Lost Spoilers:

New rules. New twists. New time shifts. Stephen Williams, the Canadian producer-director of "Lost," says the new paradigm for this season is time travel.

Williams, who directed Wednesday's season premiere, says that first episode sets up the concept. "We also connect the dots from where we left off in season four and set up the context for what will happen next."

Last year, season four saw the rescue of the "Oceanic Six" and followed them into their lives after leaving the island. But life isn't peaceful for them -- especially for Jack Shepherd (Matthew Fox), who descended into a world of drug abuse and suicidal thoughts.

Discovering an obituary in the paper for a "Jeremy Bentham," Jack was distraught and visited the funeral home where his body is located. Standing at Bentham's casket, the camera revealed that Bentham is actually John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who is now appears to be dead. Then Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson) shows up, and tells Jack he must return to the island.

Season five begins with Jack and Ben preparing for their journey, while the castaways back on the island try to understand why the sky continues to pulse with purple light. According to one of the freighter crew, the island is skipping through time.

In an interview with CTV.ca, Williams talks about shooting the season premiere, how and why he first joined the crew of "Lost," and which character he identifies with most on the show.

You've directed several episodes of "Lost," but this is your first season premiere. In that regard, was there anything different that you had to accomplish in shooting this episode?
Not really. I've been on the show from the beginning, and to be honest, this episode didn't feel particularly different from any other episode. You just want to make sure you're being as clear and compelling as possible so that the audience feels like they are in good hands, and feels a certain comfort level so that they'll want to stay with the rest of the episodes. From a production point of view though, it wasn't that different.

Most of the time you and Jack Bender alternate directing duties on the series. Do you see much of a difference between your episodes?
We try to be as seamless as possible. However, each episode of our show has its own aesthetic. You try to be true to those elements in each episode, but beyond that we endeavor to maintain a consistency of tone throughout the whole season.

You built a working relationship with creator Damon Lindelof on "Crossing Jordan." Could you tell me a little about how you first became involved with "Lost"?
It was really kind of odd. After working on "Crossing Jordan," Damon and I went our separate ways. I was with New Line pictures, working on a remake of the Jamaican film, "The Harder They Come." I was deep in prep, casting that movie when Damon sent me the pilot for "Lost." I was so busy with the movie that I didn't watch it for ages! Finally my agent called and said, "You should really look at this thing -- at least respond to these people." I watched the pilot twice in one sitting, because I was so captivated. At the end of that I decided I would go to Hawaii for at least one episode, while I was trying to cast the movie, and five years have elapsed since then!

Would you come back to work in Canada once your finished with Lost?
The truth is, I'll go where the work is, so if it's in Canada or L.A., it depends. I'm interested in captivating material with strong characters and cool stories. So wherever the venue is on that enterprise, it doesn't matter to me. Although I did do a film about the David Milgaard story in Canada, and that was a great experience for me and I would love to do more Canadian stories like that. Should those opportunities present themselves, I would be totally thrilled to do that.

For my last question, I'm curious if there's a character you identify the most with, and why?
There are pieces of me in everybody, but if I had to pick one, it would be Jack Shepherd. His character is kind of a relentless seeker of truth in a way, and even though he comes into the series as a repository of science and reason, he's susceptible to the entreaties of faith and belief and increasingly so as the series goes on. The journey of his character is to find a place for both those sides of the temperamental coin, if you will. That journey just makes intrinsic sense for myself.

Jughead

Well episode three is available to critics and the reviews are in. Critics on Lost Spoilers and the Tail Section loved it, as did I. The Third episode is really where the ride really starts to pick up. If we look at each season as a roller coaster, the first two episodes are the climb up the first big drop. We get an idea of what the season or coaster is going to be like, it builds the tension but we were just happy to be out of the long line we waited in since May. The third episode, Jughead, is the big drop, the payoff if you will. You get huge answers(which, sure, leads to more questions, but that's what the show is about) and information about two very important people to the show that I didn't expect to come so soon. Which leads me to believe now that they've gotten the ride started they aren't going to stop. (which is what the producers said, but they say a lot of things) If they are giving us this type of information now, I'm foaming at the mouth to see what's next. And to top it all off you don't even see the Oceanic 6 or Ben Linus in Jughead at all! It all starts tomorrow, get ready cause it's gonna be one hell of a ride!

Lost in Cleveland?

This article is from cleveland.com showing off their Lost connection.

'Lost' writer Brian K. Vaughan is a Cleveland native

by Mark Dawidziak/Plain Dealer Television Critic

"Lost" has found the Cleveland connection. The vital creative link between the ABC drama's mystical South Pacific island and Northeast Ohio is Brian K. Vaughan.

The Cleveland native has just finished co-writing his third episode for the supernatural suspense show's fifth season, which begins at 9 p.m. Wednesday on WEWS Channel 5. The first of Vaughan's season-five episodes, "The Little Prince," is slated to air Wednesday, Feb. 4.

There's no easy route to that mysterious island at the heart of the series' many plot puzzles. All of the show's characters have intriguing back stories, and Vaughan is no exception.

A St. Ignatius High School graduate, class of '94, Vaughan headed for New York University to study film.

"It was a very unlikely journey to 'Lost,' even though I started out as a film school nerd, thinking I would one day be doing film and television," said Vaughan, who grew up in Rocky River and Westlake. "I did end up in television, but not before first going in a totally different direction."

The detour was comic books. While an undergraduate at NYU, Vaughan signed up for Marvel Comics' Stan-hattan Project. Named for Marvel master Stan Lee, it was a class for aspiring comic book writers.

Notching his first comic book credit in 1997, Vaughan soon became one of the busiest writers in the business. He wrote scripts for some of the highest-profile characters at Marvel (X-Men, Spider-Man, Captain America), DC (Batman, Green Lantern) and Dark Horse (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

But Vaughan gained even greater satisfaction from the comic book series he created, including "Y: The Last Man" and "Ex Machina."

Damon Lindelof, the co-creator and executive producer of "Lost," was a major fan of "Y: The Last Man," a 60-issue series about a young escape artist who is the only man to survive a plague that wiped out every male mammal on Earth.

"I followed every issue of 'Y: The Last Man,' " Lindelof said. "I've been a huge Brian K. Vaughan fan for the better part of seven years now."

Lindelof showed "Y: The Last Man" to the other "Lost" show runner, executive producer Carlton Cuse.

"I basically introduced comic books to Carlton via Brian K. Vaughan," Lindelof said. "And I told him, 'We need a guy like this on the show, but I don't think he'd ever do it. I don't think he even works in L.A.' And the next thing we knew, he was on the show."

Much to his surprise, Lindelof learned that Vaughan was not only in Los Angeles but also a major "Lost" fan.

"I hadn't even written so much as a spec script at that point, and 'Lost' is one of the best shows on the air," said Vaughan, whose parents, Geoffrey and Catherine Vaughan, still live in Westlake. "So I figured my odds of getting hired were about one in a million. And they made the bizarre decision to bring me on board. In retrospect, I can see that I was jumping from one serialized medium to another. And the jump was made easier by being put in a room of veteran writers."

Co-written with Jeff Pinkner, his first "Lost" episode aired April 18, 2007. It was the 17th episode of the show's third season. It was followed by three more episodes in fourth season, two written with Drew Goddard and one with Elizabeth Sarnoff. "The Little Prince" was written with Melinda Hsu Taylor.

"The show is good in spite of me, not because of me," said Vaughan, who has a co-producer credit on "Lost." "I feel like I'm just starting to get good at writing TV scripts. I feel like I'm just learning how to do this."

Lindelof has a slightly different take on what Vaughan brings to the series.

"What hasn't he brought to the show?" Lindelof said. "He's just one the most creative minds working in the business, in any medium, and we are enormously grateful and lucky that we got him."

In addition to comic books and TV scripts, Vaughan has written plays, short stories and movie scripts.

"I tend to think that a good writer is a good writer, no matter what the form," Vaughan said. "When I was at St. Ignatius, I knew I wanted to be a writer and I wanted to write everything. But I think I'll always be first and foremost a comic book writer. It's the form that brought me to the dance."

Whatever Happened, Happened

Episode 11 of Season 5 is entitled Whatever Happened, Happened. (I'm sure it did) This episode is slated to air on April Fool's Day.(04/01/09) The other dates and titles are here and here.

Dharma Special Access Week 8

Dharma Special Access: Familiar Faces

A tour of building 23:

Well this could and should be the last week for the Dharma Special Access. The eighth and current password is bharosa.

Bharosa means trust in Hindi and is also an anagram of Basorah, another spelling of Basra. The "Basra Incident" was mentioned to Sayid by Juliet during a scene in the episode "One of Us".
JULIET: ... I'm curious, Sayid, how long was it before you told everyone on that beach exactly how many people you've tortured in your life. Do they know about Basra?

Basra is a city in Iraq, so viewers are aware that while Sayid was still in the country it is likely he visited there. Considering the extensive things we've seen and heard of concerning Sayid's past in the Republican Guard thus far, the Basra Incident must be something that surpasses anything presented to us as of yet - if it doesn't, Juliet would not have mentioned it specifically as the reason Sayid was not fit to be a 'moral center' of the Losties' camp.

The Basra Incident may also be a secret operation. Juliet reveals to Sawyer in the same scene that she knows he killed Frank Duckett in Australia before coming to the island - something not known even to Australian officials at the time.

Richard and The Fraighties

Here is a promotional shot from Jughead ( episode 3, season5) and it appears that Richard and his "at the time others" (I say at the time others, because we have no idea when this takes place) confronting the fraighter folks. And by confronting I mean it looks like they've taken them as prisoners. Very Interesting.

Lost with Locke

Dark UFO, the Lost Spoilers Blog, has this audio interview with Terry O'Quinn from Deminski & Doyle Morning Show on 94.7 WCSX in Detroit. It provides for some interesting listening. Check it out on here.

Lindelof & Cuse USA Today Interview

When USA Today interviewed Lindelof & Cuse, they asked serious and silly questions. See more here.

What's Your Lost IQ?

USA Today wants to know what's your Lost IQ. I answered all 15 questions correctly, can you? Find out by clicking here!

Lindelof & Cuse's Must See Episodes

The Top 10 Essential Episodes:
Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carolton Cuse exclusively reveal the Top 10 episodes Lost fans might want to review before Season 5's January 21 premiere.

Season One:
1.0 Walkabout
Episode Clue: Locke was in a wheelchair before his arrival on the Island
Season 5 Preview: Jack and Ben try to bring to bring Locke's corpse back to the Island. Can he be resurrected?

2.0 White Rabbit
Episode Clue: Jack's dead father Christian appears very much alive on the island
Season 5 Preview: Christian returns and the mystery of his white tennis shoes will be answered.

3.0 Deus Ex Machina
Episode Clue: Locke pleads to the island "I've done everything you wanted me to do," and a light comes on in the Swan hatch.
Season 5 Preview: "We will learn the whole nature of why the Swan hatch exists." Lindelof

Season Two:
4.0 The 23rd Psalm
Episode Clue: When Mr Eko stared at the smoke monster you "learned the monster was able to pull memories from a character's life," reminds Cuse.
Season 5 Preview: A greater understanding of the monster will come this season.

5.0 Live Together, Die Alone
Episode Clue: Sayid, Sun and Jin pass the ruins of a giant four-toed statue.
Season 5 Preview: The statue will reappear.

Season Three:
6.0 Flashes Before Your Eyes
Episode Clue: Desmond meets Fionnula Flanagan who could presumably foresee the future.
Season 5 Preview: We will see the mysterious woman again.

7.0 The Man Behind the Curtain
Episode Clue: Ben's back story was begun.
Season 5 Preview: A "nice juicy chunk" of Ben's back story will be revealed confirms Cuse.

Season Four:
8.0 The Constant
Episode Clue: Desmond is shown time-jumping between 1996 and 2004.
Season 5 Preview: The consequences of incorrectly entering/exiting the island will play a crucial role as the Oceanic 6 attempt their return.

9.0 The Shape of Things to Come
Episode Clue: Ben tells Charles Whidmore he will kill his daughter Penny. Ben responds "We both know I can't kill you."
Season 5 Preview: The power struggle between these men deepens and will be explored further this year.

10.0 There's No Place Like Home
Episode Clue: Ben addresses Jacob before he turns the stone wheel and moves the island. Everything in this episode is relevant.
Season 5 Preview: We'll see Locke's death midway through the Season as his faith in the island will continue to be tested.

Tv Guide Spoilers

Tv Guide went to Hawaii and sat down with the cast of Lost to get some Spoilers. Here's what they found out:

Yunjin Kim (Sun): "We don't all succeed in getting back to the island"

Michael Emerson (Ben): On Season 5, "We've crested the hump and are rolling...towards some sort of ending" On the time travel "you could let it make you go crazy"

Josh Holloway (Sawyer): "I have no idea where I'm at or what I'm doing"

Executive producer Carlton Cuse: "Some characters change something in the past, which is a huge turn in the story line.....there is interconnectedness - some of it by blood."

Spoilers;
- By February one character (besides Locke) will be dead
- Sawyer may have a new love interest with one of the island's earlier residents
- The future-seeing old lady encountered by Desmond is 'more important than you ever dreamed' (Cuse)

Evangeline Lilly: The former flight attendant with 'startling intelligence' (The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow), talks to TV Guide Magazine's Shawna Malcom.
On her attitude to fame: "I deny that I am Evangeline Lilly...it's terrible to admit but I don't care....I wasn't ready for any of this."
On herself: "I'm goofy and weird and a bit loud."
On the tabloids: "To this day I'm engaged every summer....you can't give an inch because they'll take a mile. I don't have any investment in needing to be the next megastar."
On doing her own hair and makeup: "I decided I'm just gonna be me and if people don't like that, OK."
On when Kate first sees Sawyer: "There's almost a feeling of seeing a ghost. I really believe she thought he was dead."


In the Spoilers, my theories are that Charlotte will be dead be February, Juliette will be who Sawyer falls in love with, come on everyone thought the future seeing old lady was going to be important.

The Lie Sneak Peek

Here are two sneak peeks at The Lie, season 5's second episode, which will air in 6 days. The first scene is the Oceanic Six discussing "The Lie":


The second video is of Sayid and Hurley. The video quality isn't great, but it's still a new scene from Lost so, Enjoy:

Getting Lost with Lindelof and Cuse

This is an interview from the Chicago Tribune (they still have newspapers?) with Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Enjoy!

Is it hard to write for both the hardcore fans of mythology, of the Dharma Initiative and all that stuff, and to also write for the people who tune in maybe a half dozen times a season? I can’t get enough of the ’70s Dharma stuff, and so of course I want to know, will we be getting more of that in Season 5?

Cuse: It’s always a case of, “The porridge is either too hot or too cold” [for various fan groups]. We have learned over time that it is impossible to strike the perfect balance between satisfying the mythology fans and satisfying the character fans. So our solution in the season premiere is to provide heavy doses of both.

For the mythology fans, they will hopefully engaged by the fact that we are overtly discussing the time thing. And for the character fans, Sawyer’s got his shirt off for the whole first hour.

And God bless you for that.

Lindelof: You know, when I was a latchkey kid and had to fix my own dinner, I would eat these [Hungry Man dinners]. I would buy a baked fish dinner because it had a cherry pie. I never ate the fish, I would just eat the cherry pie.

The point being, as long as there is cherry pie in an episode of “Lost,” for everyone who watches it, they will sit through the entire dinner. They may not touch their entree, but if there’s a little bit of Marvin Candle, they’ll sit through anything. For some people, their cherry pie is the mythology, and for some people, their cherry pie is the romance story, for some people their cherry pie is Hurley. You just make sure that there is always something for everyone.

That speaks to the alchemy of the [writers] room, a few of the writers are really interested in the mythology of the island, and all they want to talk about is when the monster is going to show up again. Some of the writers don’t give a [darn] why Marvin Candle has five different names, all they want to know is, “Is Kate going to choose Sawyer or Jack?” So we have a small polling ground for the audience at large.

Obviously the big Season 5 question is, why do they have to go back to the island? Why is it so important that they go and why do they all have to go? In some ways, is that the story of this season?

Lindelof: The why of it all is always the hardest mystery to deal with on the show. If you were to say, “Locke tells them, ‘Hey, this is all happening for a reason,’" and then you’d say, "Well, what is that reason? Why were all those people on that plane?" Obviously that stuff is coming downstream. Probably much of it will be hinted at in Season 5, but why these people, why this time, why this place, why that plane? It’s Season 6 territory.

In terms of the very specific rules of -- in order to get back to the island, why do they need to bring back as many people who left the island as possible? There will be some further explanation of that stuff sooner rather than later from a source outside our characters speculating.


We’re told that bad things happen once the Oceanic 6 left the island. When will you get into that? Is that also Season 6 territory?

Cuse: Part of it unfolds this season, part of it unfolds next season. But obviously the fact that the island was moved by Ben sets in motion a chain of events, and that chain of events has very dramatic consequences. That’s really a very important question for the people who were left behind on the island -- what the hell is going on here and what are the consequences of the island being moved. What does it mean for us?

We were talking before about keeping the show on a character level, that’s really what it comes down to. Yeah, [a particular thing is happening this season; see note below], but what are the consequences of that for them in terms of their survival, in terms of their relationships, in terms of whatever their ultimate destiny with the island is? Those are the pertinent questions.

[Note: Part of this paragraph has been taken out; it referred to a plot point in the season premiere. The entire text of the paragraph will be posted after the Season 5 premiere airs.]

Ben says something in the Season 4 finale about not being able to return to the island once he’s moved it. Is there also a catch for the Oceanic 6, in that they won’t be able to go back to the regular world if they go to the island? They’ll have to stay there?

Lindelof: That’s certainly a question that we should be asking. When Ben says that whoever turns the wheel is never allowed to return to the island, is that a rule or is it a law? Those are two entirely different things. One would basically say, it would be impossible for him to get back to the island, no matter how hard he tried. The other would say that he could get back to the island, but if he did, he would be punished for it. So that’s going to unfold over the course of the season, based on whether or not Ben is successful in getting back himself.

The season seems to be structured around the Oceanic 6 getting back to the island. Is that something that doesn’t happen until the end of the season? Or is it mid-way? When do the Oceanic 6 and the island people meet up again?

Cuse: We wouldn’t want to say exactly, but we will say that we feel it would be very frustrating for the audience to have to wait until the end of the season for that to happen. The audience will be, I think, somewhat surprised at the speed of our narrative storytelling. We’re not taking our foot off the pedal this year.

Would it be accurate to say, at this point, that there’s a struggle between a Ben Linus faction and a Charles Widmore faction for control of the island? Or is that too simplistic?

Lindelof: Based on everything you’ve seen up to this point, we know that Ben and Widmore don’t get along with each other and that Widmore wants to control the island and believes that Ben has taken the island away from him. You don’t understand the context of that. You don’t know what their past is or their relationship. So if you’re going to look at it as, there’s a Ben side and Widmore side, I’d say, “Well, then what side are the Oceanic 6 on? Our castaways -- are they on their own side?”

Basically, the only two sides that matter in any grand, epic storytelling are good and evil. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? And for so long, Ben Linus has been identifying himself as a good guy, but we’ve been seeing him engage in behaviors that would lead us to believe that that is not entirely the truth. The only question that matters is, what is ultimately a force of good and what is ultimately a force of evil, and what side of it are our characters going to end up on? Will some go one way and some go the other?

The people who Locke is now leading, the Others, they are kind of the wild card in this mix. Are we going to get more into him, into the Others this season? I’m intrigued by the whole Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) thing, I was glad to read that Carbonell is going to be in nine episodes this season.

Cuse: Yeah, he’s on the show a lot. We have all these characters that are in play -- Alpert, Widmore, Ben, Locke. What you don’t really understand is, what is their inter-relationship to each other? You’ll learn a lot more about that stuff this year.

I just wanted to ask you a lightning round of quick questions, if I could, about various characters this season. Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle -- is he around this season?

Lindelof: All we’re willing to say is that [he does appear this season; see note below].

[Note: Part of this paragraph has been taken out; the full text of this answer will be posted after the season premiere airs.]

Charles Widmore -- Is he more of a force this year?

Cuse: Widmore is very much a part of the show this year. Obviously there was a very intriguing scene in last year’s finale, with him and Sun, and what that means, and what their relationships is, and how Widmore figures is something that we’re exploring. I think the audience isn’t fully invested in exactly who Charles Widmore is, but as they are, I think they will find him increasingly intriguing. He is very important to this season.

Jin? I’ve read that Daniel Dae-Kim will be back this year, but is he an ongoing presence on the island, or will he just be back here and there?

Lindelof: All we can say is, Daniel is still a series regular on the show, but Jin is not on the Season 5 poster. Sort of extrapolate what you will from that. Whether or not Jin is alive or dead does not preclude him from being on the show.

Faraday Can you talk at all about new characters coming on the show, when we might meet them -- if they’re major presences or just coming in for a few episodes here and there? And by the way, I think the casting of the people we met last season -- Faraday, Miles, Charlotte, Lapidus -- I thought they were great additions to the show.

Cuse: We don’t really want to say anything about who’s coming on the show, but we will say that we never really got our chance to finish the freighter storytelling last year. There’s a lot more to be learned about those guys.

And I think that right up front, you’re going to really have a good dose of [information about] the science team that was on the freighter. Particularly Faraday is someone who really steps to the front of the show, he’s really intriguing and we learn a lot more about him. That was the one thing that, based on the strike, we really didn’t get a chance to do. We’ve made up for that this year.

Lindelof: One of the byproducts of moving toward an end point is that we do not need to constantly introduce new characters into the mix of the show to keep it fresh and entertaining. Especially when there are so many questions about Alpert or about Miles or about Charlotte or Faraday or Lapidus. There’s still so much storytelling to do with those guys.

And what happened to Desmond and Penny over the course of the three years between the Oceanic 6’s rescue and where we are now? We’ve got our hands full without needing to go shopping for new toys.


One of my favorite questions I ever heard at Comic-Con was something a fan asked you guys there two years ago, so I’m going to steal it. What question haven’t I asked you that I should have asked you?

Cuse: The question is probably, “Are you going to end the show where [fans will then go have to watch a theatrical movie to see the ending”]? The answer is no. We’re not ending it by going to black or saying it was in a snow globe. We’re ending it in a way we feel is definitive.

Speaking of that, how much of Season 6 is mapped out? I’m assuming it’s not set in stone, but are all the pieces laid out?

Lindelof: I think we have all these puzzle pieces for Season 5 and Season 6, and they’re two separate puzzles because they’re two different seasons. But all the pieces were mixed together. It’s sometimes time-consuming to take a piece and say, “Which season does this fit in better?” And some stuff is definitely in Season 6 because it’s end-of-show stuff.

We have to walk that line between giving the audience enough information so that they don’t get confused, and put off, and giving them too much information, so they’re not like, “Well, you gave me everything I care about in Season 5. So why watch Season 6?”

One thing we all decided was, the biggest mistake we could make in Season 5 would be to hold back or slow down or go back to a stalling modality. We’ve basically been feeding the audience crystal meth for a year, to cut them off cold turkey and give them a pack of chewing gum and say, “We’ll give you more crystal meth in Season 6,” would have been a disaster. When you piss off a junkie, they will do almost anything to get their drug.