Archives by Topic: Lost
The Dharma Initiative Wants You!
PHOTO: Trip by hawaii, on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND
Lost’s third alternative reality game debuts this weekend at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con and, as usual, DarkUFO and Lostpedia are the places to be for the latest information.
Here’s a snippet of the on-site report that Lostpedia has up as of this writing:
At the Octagon Global Recruiting booth, fans are given a waiver form and an appointment time by DHARMA staff (all with Australian accents). At their appropriate time, they can enter the booth, which has cameras on the ceiling (these appear to feed outside the booth so observers can see what is going on). With a set of headphones and television equipment, participants are shown images or given a series of questions, and have to say what first pops into their heads. Some of the images in particular are reportedly very bizarre. Questions are then asked such as “You just took away a child’s favorite toy. Why?”
This sounds very bizarre, indeed. I haven’t actively participated in either of Lost’s previous ARGs (Find 815 and The Lost Experience). They’ve always been just way too much for me to keep up with. Have you participated? Will you answer the call of Octagon Global Recruiting this summer? Let us know in the comments.
Lost News: More Christian and Widmore Next Season?
DarkUFO has the latest Lost scoopage from Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello, and it’s pretty darned cool news, if you ask me.
In the piece, Ausiello asks fellow Lost columnist Doc Jensen about what a certain bit of fine print in the contracts of John Terry (Christian) and Alan Dale (Widmore) might mean:
Well, here’s where it gets interesting: In the fine print of both their contracts, it states that Lost has the right to pick up series regular options on both actors for the show’s sixth and final season. For insight into what this could possibly portend for Lost’s endgame, please join me in welcoming the man, the myth the legend, guru of all things Lost, Mr. Doc Jensen! “The prospect of expansive roles for Jack’s maybe-dead dad and Penelope’s dastardly deep-pocketed pop suggests a theory about the Island’s true significance. Here is a seemingly-magical place where the lame can walk anew, the impotent can once more shoot bullets, and anyone can crank on ancient donkey wheels and leap through time. In other words, the Island provides the means for death-spooked mortals to cheat the grim reaper. I’m betting that’s why Old Man Widmore is so desperate to find it. As for Ghost Dad, the Island allows him to stick around in his inexplicable spectral state and might even be facilitating a full-blown bodily resurrection; either scenario represents a violation of the natural order of things. In the end, Jack will no doubt have to convince his father—and possibly his maybe-dead half-sister Claire, too—that they need to move on. Regardless, keeping Terry around portends an emotional climax to Jack’s father issue arc.” Really? You got all of that from my one little casting item? Cool.
I love that there are people out there in the mainstream media who are as nuts about this show as we all are. Stuff like this is what makes the wait from the end of May until the beginning of February much more bearable.
Octagon Global Recruiting
Have you signed up with Octagon Global Recruiting yet? They are operating “on behalf of the Dharma Initiative” and “currently seeking volunteers to contribute to an important new research project.”
The Dharma Initiative is a multidisciplinary research collective dedicated to improving the human condition through innovative scientific research.
Our directors are recognized leaders in their fields, with distinguished research histories in a wide range of social and scientific disciplines.
You can sign up to help them with their apparently not-so-silly experiments at OctagonGlobalRecruiting.com. They contacted me by e-mail today, and it sounds like they’re really interested.
Lost Spoilers We Haven’t Seen Yet
DarkUFO has an excellent piece on teases made by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse that haven’t yet paid off. For example, they’ve promised lots more information on the late, great love of Hurley’s life, Libby. They’ve sworn that we’ll find out what the deal is with the four-toed statue. And they’ve said repeatedly that the French woman, Rousseau, was going to get a flashback, which isn’t looking likely after the events of the fourth season.
Does this mean that the producers of Lost have no idea what they’re doing? No, I don’t think so. I think these items are simply an example of how a story evolves as you’re telling it. Even when you know the ending, you can never be exactly sure how you’re going to get there.
Last Week on Lost: There’s No Place Like Home, Part Three
As I type this, my family and I are stuck in a lovely patch of summer weekend traffic. We’re headed up to the White Mountains of New Hampshire to visit with my wife’s sister and her husband. While we’re there, we will probably end up rewatching at least two or three episodes of Lost in order to catch them up. Apparently, they haven’t seen an episode since the last time they were down at our house, and the episode that was on heavy rotation that weekend was “Something Nice Back Home.”
They have no idea how much awesomeness they’re in for, do they?
I’m always pretty good about not spoiling people while they’re watching an episode that I’ve already seen, but I’m dying to talk about my theories and whatnot with them. Until then, let’s you and I, dear reader, talk about the third part of Lost’s fourth season finale, “There’s No Place Like Home, Part Three.”
