I see your point, nate. But the show doesn't seem to give any implication that the time difference changes.

That is also an interesting theory oberon. It does seem a little bit far fetched, and I think that the audience would have a hard time understadning it, as it requires some existing knowledge of physics. It's obvious that the producers at least have some of this knowledge, as the phenominon they've described have been keeping with existing physical theories of  spacetime - the more in depth analysis that we've been discussing here; but they are able to present the idea which has enough basis in pop science-fiction to be recognizable to general audiences.

From the outside-the-box brainstorming that people have been able to come up with on here, and the general nature of the show it's  plausible that they could introduce more super-natural phenominon. I don't know how that would sit with audiences. Do you think that they would accept that? Or do you think the show has built istelf up that we are expceting it to be science-based and would be dissapointed if it was otherwise? admittedly, I would be a little bit. But depending on how far fetched it really seemed, or rather how contrived, I wouldn't be entirely let down with more paranormal events on the show.

I felt from the time they brought him to the island that Farraday's entire purpose is to explain all the tough-to-understand parts of the show to the other characters, and through them, to the audience. So I think they're going to be able to get away with more complexities simply because they have someone like Farraday to explain it without making them feel like idiots.

Anyway, I like the barrier theory - its an extension of the snowglobe theory, but it allows for other possibilities. Like, the island could be anywhere in the world, with its own little barrier around it, and there could be multiple barriers in random places around the world, bizarre little vortexes like the Burmuda triangle, that when you pass through it you're teleported near-ish to the island, but you'd still have to go through that second barrier in order to actually get on the island.

Did anyone listen to the new Podcast, from May 19:  It is the final one of Season 4, and they will be in radio silence until ComicCon… and it was pretty good.  Some highlights:

1. It is true that the reason Jack did not jump off of the bridge in the Season 3 finale is in fact that the universe (Island) would not let him, similar to how it doesn’t let Michael die.  He still has work to do.  Moreover, Ben and Widmore can not die, especially at each other’s hands, for the same reason.  The Island is not done with either of them, yet.  They (the producers/writers) are setting up for something larger. 

2. Preceding the 2 hour finale will be the re-airing of this last episode, so we can watch all 3 hours together as it was intended.  And, more excitingly, the Oceanic Press Conference will actually be an expanded version, with new questions…

3.  While the questions of “Who is bad / who is good?” are always up in the air, Keamey is bad.  And he knows that he is bad.  But he is a mercenary for hire. (However, the actor who plays Keamey has done stand-up comedy in Canada.  Which is kind of terrifying…)

4.  Considering that the video that started this thread, the Orchid Training Video was just a blooper reel, it would be safe to assume that we get to see the full training video in the finale.

5.  Here is what they said about Walt: “Yeah, we’ll probably be seeing Walt again.  Soon.  And he’s special.”

6. They made some very vague comments about “antipodes.”  A fan question pointed out that antipodes are basically any two opposite points on the Earth… if you draw a straight line through the Earth, or stick a needle in one point of the other and pull it through the center, where it pops out on the other side is the antipode…  He then pointed out that when you stick a needle in Tunisia it pops out in the South Pacific… he also had other questions/theories, also trying to explain the Nigerian drug smuggling plane… Carlton said “the antipode part of that theory is very intriguing however some of the conclusions derived using antipode theory may not be entirely correct.”

7. Damon’s actual character is actually Jack.  His approval rating may be down, but he is the leader, and he has all of their lives in his hand, and that shapes who and how he is.  (Carlton’s favorite character is Sawyer).

Tangential to the show, but still interesting, Lostpedia is not allowing anyone to do any editing between now and the finale, because folk are  throwing spoilers all over the place. 

Also, there should be a few more podcasts between Comic Con and the January premiere of Season 5.

Also, they are offering Lost to the Emmy’s for a “Best Drama” award this year… apparently it is a weird process, and the voting involves two panels of people, each only watching a single episode, and so the show has held back because it is hard to figure out which episodes are the most self-contained and the best candidates, but they got a team of folk together who have never watched the show and they made some decisions, so we may again see Lost at the Emmy’s this year…

Well it's hard because I'm always trying to reason what happens on the show with logical inference. And that is not neccesarily the case. As the show is a work fo fiction, they can really do whatever they want to, and they don't have to have it make sense.

We don't really know what the nature of the time difference is. I tend to clock the 3-day interval as the general rule of thumb anomaly, because it has been consistant with people traveling to and from the Island. You are correct that the rocket experiment offers a unique counter position to this idea.

My reasoning based on scientific principle, as Relativity theory, explains that objects travelling at different rates of speed experience time differently. the greater the speed, the more signifigant the time dillation. However the shows internal logic seems to assert that the time change occurs at a single point, along the time barrier, and instantanious. So no matter what the velocity of an object before or after encountering that point, it would seem to expereince the same time change, regardless.

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that the purpose of the rocket experiment  (as a plot device) was simply to confirm that a time change DOES in fact take place, and it isn't meant to demonstrate the specifics of the phenominon. That would be more reassuring to me, because otherwise it really doesn't make any sense at all.

In the experiment, the time that passed during the radio conversation was no more than 30 seconds, a seemingly impossible time for the rocket to travel from the freighter to the Island. Upon arrival the clock on the rocket was at 2:45 and Daniel’s clock read 3:16. He responded by saying “31 minutes. That’s not right.” which would seem to indicate that the time depicted hours, instead of minutes (or days). That time measurement is (once again) apparently inconsistent with the lapse suggested by the conversation.

It could also be that the farther away from the correct bearing you are, the greater the time differential... 

Has anyone read the lostfan108 spoilers for the finale? He's had a perfect track record so far For Greatest Hits, Season 3 finale and There's no Place Like Home. and by perfect i don't mean he got some things right, but he got everything right!

I'm thinking of starting a seperate thread to talk about them so this one will stay clean.

I very intentionally did not read them.... DarkUFO released Lostfan108's spoilers for last week's episode a few days prior, and id he hasnt leaked nect week's yet he says he will soon... And I am staying as far away as possible... 

Lostfan108 somehow gets leaked scripts, he has some inside source.. and, to be honest, I am surprised they have not figured out who yet... After the leak of Season 3's Finale, I would have thought they would take more security measures... such as have small but distinct differences in every version of the script, and therefore when looking at the script he posts they would be able to figure out whos eversion of the script he has...  I wonder how much $$$ goes into this... If I worked on Lost, even if I was just a grip or something, I could myself as being very protective of the content and cannot fathom I would ever give away a script.  I cant imagine it is any of the actors or writers leaking the stuff, so I have to wonder who and how... and I am betting there is a paycheck involved...

I don't understand how that works. the show doesn't air till next week, so how do these things leak out? the always tell the cast that they can't talk about the show, and I know that the prodcuers aren't going to say what happened. is it someone on the crew?

I can't imagine why anyone would want to read the spoilers. That's kind of like someone telling you how a movie or book ends. Why would anyone enjoy that? the only way I would want to know is if I was going to be dead next week.

On second thought, if I was going to be dead next week, i'd have a lot more important things to worry about then some Tv show!

I've thought of that, but I had forgotten it. I really like this simple explanation. That would work.

Dan said that people who were exposed to electro-magnatism experienced the TDF. It seems implausable that the many people effected from the freightor all were exposed to radiation. Also if only exposed people were subject, then there wouldn't be any need for the rest to follow the proper baring. Perhaps it just makes it much more likely.

Daniel followed the baring and presumably was not effected. Desmond was effected, but Frank and Sayid were not. That suggests to me that perhaps they weren't on the proper baring, but were only slightly off by a couple degrees so that it had no apparent effect on the others, but it wholly effected Desmond because of his exposure.

I think that is exactly what it is...

If you do not follow the bearing exactly:

1> You go through a temporal shift, and end up moving either forward or backward through time

2> If you have prior exposure to high levels of radiation of electromagnetism, it has potential to cause your brain to tear asunder.

Quite possibly, just as the displacemnt in time gets greater the farther away from the correct bearing you go, the tearing apart of the conscious may be more pronounced at different bearings of entry and exit as well.  We have no real points of comparison, as we only really saw Desmond going through it, and of course Minkowski in his end stage.

However, the frieghter did not get close enough to affect everyone, I dont think, the Kahana never actually passed through whatever border fence is set up.  Some folk went on a small boat, Minkowski being one of them, and shit went wrong.  But I dont think the whole boat actually went through.  And the "sickness" affecting folk on the boat does not seem to be the same as what happened to either Desmond or Minkowski.  Both of them had the mental consciousess ripped into two different times at once, causing Minkowski, who was unable to stablizie himself, to have a massive brain hemorrage and die.  But we know at least one other freightie shot himself in the face, and Regina jumped overboard with those chains... I think their "sickness" is different, I dont think it is dependent on their personal exposure to electromagnetism...  My guess is that the Island is kind of poisoning them, because they are in this dangerous middle ground... if you get closer, the Island's healing capacity compensates for whatever damage it causes.  If you get farther away you are not affected.  But by sitting right in the middle for so long something being given off by the Island is making them loopy... 

If Rousseau's team was stuck at sea for a while and already had their brains fried by the time they actually washed onto the Island, this would explain them all getting sick and her killing them/them dying.  However, they could have just had the same sickness as Desmond, we dont really know how their "sickness" was qualified...

it's mostly for the fun of wild conjecture.

It seems there is some controversy over the spoilers that have leaked and how legitimate they are. They didn't finish editing the finale till this past weekend so all of them could've been right at some point and now all wrong. It's been said that they did film several different endings and scenes throughout it. My personal favorite theory is that the producers have seen them leaked and are going to keep all the spoilers for the first half of the show and then change everything up for the second half. So that people watching it at first will think they've got it all figured out only to have the rug pulled out from under them.

One thing I did read while looking at these is that they're going to rereun last weeks show beforehand and it's going to be an expanded edition with more scenes in it. Specifically more at the press conference.

Question about your theory here: I'm sure the plane didn't crash land heading in on the exact bearing they needed to in order to not be displaced somehow, so how would this affect everyone on board that plane?

According to what we currently know, if you fly on the incorrect bearing but have NO prior exposure to high levels of radiation or electromagnetism than it shouldnt affect you.  Except you will most likely time-travel in the process of crossing the barrier.  If you think of the helicopter ride with Desmond and Sayid, when they missed the correct heading all of a sudden they were in the middle of a thunderstorm.  If I remember correctly they had thunder and lightning and storm like conditions during the original crash, which would imply that they were going through the barrier at the wrong bearing...

yeah, the time traveling is what i meant to get at in the question. based on the dates we know verses the days theyve been on the island, there doesn't appear to be any big time jump. wouldn't this be the case, though, if the plane came in on the wrong bearing? an example would be, when the guys get off the island and onto the frieghter, there is a calendar on a wall that seems to corrilate correctly with the day it should be on the island, or maybe it was a day one way or another, but theoretically island time and frieghter time shouldn't have matched up.

as far as we know now the time differential seems like it can be anywhere from -30 minutes to + about  aday... dont forget, we have seen the time travel work both ways... the rockets landed AFTER they were supposed  to, but Doc Ray's body washed up BEFORE it was supposed to.

So they could have lost a few hours of time only.  Right now we have no ways of distinguishing.  However, even if they lost a day I dont think it would be a big deal... The time of the island and the time on the Island are identical, in this theory... it is just when taveling inbetween the two zone, of on and off, that you disappear for a while.  You may leave the frieghter at 12pm and go for an hour and end up at the Island at 6pm (or even 11am) but either way it is either 6pm (or 11am) in both locations, freighter and Island, that doesnt change... just your relationship to existing during that time changes...

As I said before, it could be that the time difference was created as a result of the electromagnatism from the hatch explosion. so it's possible that there was no effect at the time of the plane crash/ previous expeditions to the island. 

However, that begs the question, how would Ben then know what the proper baring was?

whether the time travel phenomena has been a permanent ocurrence or not I imagine their has always been a bearing of some sort, as they have been using the sub for a while and from my memory of them talking about the sub rude it seemed like it wasnt simple or normal... though I think that may have been them talking to Juliette when they were drugging her so it could have all been hogwash

Oh, Lost. Wish you were here.

ha, I'm a dork.

ooooooo it's almost here! it feels like christmas eve!

Only a matter of a couple hours left.  I'm not sure if I want the spoilers to be true or not.

I havent read them, and I am SO proud of myself.  it has been tempting.  i will surely read through that whole thread as of 11 pm tonight.

Anyone else planning on watching all 3 hours, to see the extra footage from part one of the finale?  or to just watch the finale as it was "intended," all three hours at once?  I sure as hell am...

www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com

New viral marketing game/promo/arpg ???  It basically says they will be doing interviews or whatever at San Diego COmc Con, which is being held July 24-27.  (The commercial doesnt point out that it is at the Con, but that much is obvious).  And then you can enter your email addy for "updates."

SPOILERS, if you havent seen the finale:

what the shit. 

locke was the very last person i wanted in that coffin.  but i am betting that he is not dead.  it is a duplicate copy... if they are experimenting with space and time and richard alpert can be as seemingly immortal as he is, then locke is not dead...

That was awesome.  Fuck Keamy.  Whoever does their animation blows elephant dick.  The boat blowing up and the helicopter sinking were just about the fakest looking things I've ever seen.  Besides that, I was very happy.  The only part I didn't like was the unneccisary Kaite dream scene.  That was just stupid.

I didnt mind the dream scene.  And the explosion and the helicopter sinking were not that bad... not compared to some of the other blue screen... specifically anything that involved Jack's face against the helicopter hatch... which I suppose was the explosion... it was pretty damn poor.   but i bet it will look better on the DVD... they have been burning the midnight oil to get this final episode out on time, not surprise that some of the finishing effects are a little off...

the lost producers made a bunch of promises for this season and didnt follow through on all of them.

For a second I thought Charlotte might be Ben's long lost girlfriend.  Then I remembered that earlier in the season Ben tried to kill Charlotte.  Which blew that theory to pieces.  Who the hell is she, and how was she born on the the Island?  My guess is that she is related to Richard Alpert somehow...

they didnt really make that many specific promises for this season.  they said they would introduce the new, tall Walt with a logical explanation... which they dont really do, but they do kind of do... and they would tell Libby's backstory, which they do not do...

But other promises, about explaining Jacob and Smokey and the statue and the Temple and everything, well, they promised it would be done, but not that it would be done this season...

So when Ben turns the frozen donkey wheel the Island implodes and then  blossoms out again somewhere else.  Interesting.  He, in the  meantime is transported to Tunisia, 10 months or so in the future.  So  as the Island moves, definitely through space possibly through time as well, Ben moves through both time and space.  But he has been to Tunisia before... or where ever his hotel was, if not Tunisia,.  He was a VIP guest at the hotel.  So while he said that "whoever is responsible for moving the Island cannot ever come back," that could be a load of bullshit, unless there are other ways to get  from the Island to Tunisia... which I suppose, thinking about it, there must be, because a polar bear certainly did not  turn that wheel... though a polar bear would have dug the ice...

I wish Michael had a bigger role.  I dont know what, exactly.  But I am sad that he is dead.  I did like that Jacob's messenger, in the form of Christian, released him right before his death.

Ben told Locke that they ALL need to go back to the Island together, and that includes dead Mr. Locke.  Does that also include Desmond, or does he not count since he was not from 815?  Because there is no way they are going to get Desmond back to the Island, unless they kill him and bring his body with them too.

The guy stationed outside Santa Rosa, who Sayid killed... was he working for Locke or for Abbadon/Widmore?  Because, while Locke wanted all of the O6 to lie in order to protect those left on the Island, I dont think he would hav any interest in harming any of them and I do not know why he would have a guy sitting in a car outside of an insane asylum.

Why the hell is Sun working with Widmore?  Does she blame Ben or Locke as the "2nd person responsible for Jin's death" along with her father?  My guess is that she blames Ben and is willing to work with Widmore to get even with Ben, which will make it a hard sell for her to return to the Island.  Especially if she is supposed to return wtihout Ji Yeon.  Surely she must realize, or she will soon, that it was in fact Widmore who was behind the frighter and the explosion and Jin's death, not Ben... even though Ben did kill Keamey and cause the explosion, and he did so with no remorse for the lives lost... Which was rad... I thought he was goignt o kill him and then find out about the bomb, but he did it in full knowledge of the bomb, which was even cooler.  Bad.  Ass.

yeah, oddly enough I was also happy to see ben return to his status as a complete prick.

I hate to say it, but that was the worst season finale so far. it didn't up the ante, and for me at least it proves the fear I have been voicing all along: That they allready gave everything away from the get go.  We knew the 06 got off the island, soon enough we knew who they were, and we knew the story leading up to thier departure from the island and (as of last episode) we knew what happened after they got off the island. All it really did was cement in the few brief details, mostly dealing with all the non-core characters and the freightor, which we were able to speculate to a close enough degree of fact, so it didn't really give me any fullfillment seeing it come to fruitation.

Also the finale resolution of the entire flash-forward season was jack realizing that they had to go back. Hm. why does that sound familiar?

I think the whole moving the Island was so contrived and over the top. We always said that it had to be more complex than a Copperfield drop-the-curtain-Vanish!. That required  a huge leap of disbelief-suspension on my part. Pretty much all the sequences with Locke seemed forced and unnatural to me. And they really didn't reveal any further mythology.

It also really bummed me out that they didn't make promise on all the time-travel and interdimensional properties that they introduced. they seemed content to just drop that as nothing more then a plot-device  for particular episodes and has no further reaching implications about the nature of the island.

You know what my favorite part of the whole episode was? Another mysterious vanishing act- Sawyer's shirt! When he washed up on the beach barechested it brought a smile to my face. I swear that there's a clause in Josh's contract that requires him to be topless a minimum of 1/3 of the time.

I agree, it didnt really up the ante or "change things" in ways that prior seasons had done, and Ia gree I think a major reason for this is the logical conclusion of the flash-forward narrative device.  But it didnt bother me.  I wasnt expecting something as big as Season 3's ending was, and I think what they did give us was incredibly precise, detailed and interesting, and still opened up the field for a number of exciting types of thinking about what exactly is goign on.  It still offered us new challenges and a new way to perceive the Island and its inhabitants, but it was something we were workign towards much more gradually than in other seasons, and it had less of a bang. 

They did leave a LOT of the mythology open to be explored.  We still known nothing about Jacob, Smokey, Alpert, or what the Island's time/space/electromagnetic properties really are.  I imagine that we will be getting some of those answered via Locke-Richard exposition in Season 5, and others will stretch out and may not be explained even through the next Season.  So it really was just as open-ended as other seasons, it just doesnt really feel like it.

To be honest, I really enjoyed this season.  I enjoyed the story-telling, I think the FFs really allowed for interesting storytelling and tension development.  Almost every episode had me transfixed and excited, and it was only one or two episodes that really had me wanting more out of them.  Maybe overall more questions were asked than answered, and none were asked in such an egregious manner as to dominate the finale, but that's cool.  The finale was the logical end to the season, and I really enjoyed the season, and similarly really enjoyed the finale...

I really enjoyed this season finale, its right behind season 1's for me. i think in the next season off the island we're going to see the real time part of each episode will deal with jack trying to get everyone together and the flashforwards will be them back on the island, and on the island the real time episodes are going to be all the stuff that goes wrong, according to what ben tells jack, with the flashforwards being on the island as well. anyway, it makes for an interesting set up.

also, jack says at the end of the episode that sun blames him for jin's death, so he's the other person, not widmore, although i'm sure they're going to convince her that widmore and her father were responsible for his death, or at least about the cover up of the plane crash.

i'm glad for penny and desmond. i doubt that he's part of the group that needs to go back, but he'll still be important to the show - i don't think their happiness is going to last very long because widmore is going to find out about him sooner or later, and it sets up nicely for a ben/sayid vs. widmore/penny/desmond showdown.

i didn't think the dream sequence with kate was done very well; i think they could have gone about it some other way and still had the same effect. but it is what it is.

the most curious part of the episode to me was charlotte being born on the island, which had to be somewhere around 1975-1980, unless she's ageless like Richard Alpert.

i also liked that ben killed keamy without remorse, although i would have liked it more if locke tried to maybe take off the heart monitor and put it on himself or something; the desperation from him would have been nice, and it would set up well for next season when jin comes floating back to the island on a piece of debris - when the island disappeared, the small island went with it, so there's no reason to think that the remains of the frieghter as well as daniel and the redshirts in the boat weren't taken with it.

anyway, i enjoyed this episode a lot, i'm glad they revealed who was in the coffin even though i'm bummed it was locke, and i look forward to next season, which i hope is overall as great as this one was.

Did anyone catch the good morning america today where they showed the two alternate endings they filmed? It was the same exact scene but they showed Sawyer and Desmond as the one's being in the coffin.

I also liked the expanded interview scene where they mention Boone, Libby and Charlie as the other ones that survived the crash but later died.

I thought it was a great episode too. Heck both hours stood out as good episodes in themselves. cutting the seasons down to the 13-16 episodes from here on out is really going to help it i think.

I think the one thing I didn't like about it though is nothing was really answered. Aside from Locke in the coffin, the only ting they told us was the [i]how[/i] they got off the island. Which 1) we already knew they did and 2) was really only a question that was brought up in this season (last scene of season3). Nothing from any of the previous seasons was really even addressed. This bothers and kind of scares me because now the show is well over half-way through and there's still like 90% of it unanswered. with 32 episodes left, even if they specifically answer something in every single episode from now on, it seems like there more than 32 questions left to be answered.

What I do like is that now all bets are off on how they can tell the story, even moreso than introducing flashforwards last year. They could show real time on the island and flashbacks as usual or flashforwards as to how Locke left the island. They could show real time off the island with flashbacks to what happens after they left or flash forwards to what happens after they get back. The problem i see with that is they'll just be redoing what they gave us this year with letting you know what's going to happen and then just filling in the blanks as to the [i]how[/i] they got back. The main thing is there's any number of ways to tell the story now.

some other thoughts:

Seeing the penny desmond reunion was probably the biggest shock for me. It just seems to really deflate the significance that relationship seemed to be. I'm sure they're still going to figure predominantly into everything but it definitely takes them off the "can't die" list I had them on.

The way that Ben killed Keamy bothers me. It was in that blind rage almost like a child lashing out. They've shown him show that aspect before with Juliet but I dunno. The whole thing seems so out of place with his character. It's more that I just don't want to see his character that way but i'm sure the more they show him act that way and it seems more natural for his character I'll get to accept it.

If when the island blipped out and it took the freighter wreckage and daniel on the boat why wouldn't it have also taken the chopper? the frieghter would have been the farthest out, then the chopper and then daniel's boat. I don't understand why something in the air wouldn't have been taken as well.

Something else that bothers me is [i]why[/i] would the island need that wheel to move itself at all? I mean, up until about 30-40 years ago there's nothing to have threatened it to be found. Not until all the GPS and technological stuff we have now came along, and that wheel certainly looked to pre-date any of that. It could explain how the Black Rock got there if it blipped out before and came back in the middle of the ocean and the black rock happened to be right in the middle of it. But what could have possibly threatened it in the first place for them to need to blip it out back then? Unless the whole thing is going to turn out to be a spaceship, which i'm going to need them to do a helluva lot more convincing for me to buy that.

When Ben says whoever turns the wheel can't come back, I don't think that means the island won't ever let him come back. it seemed more to mean once you've left that way that it's hard as hell just to find your way back, just as it is for anyone really.

As for Sun, did anyone else think Kate should be the one that she holds the grudge against for Jin dying? She was the one that forced her on the chopper, not Jack. I mean yeah, jack's the one that yelled about not going back because of the fuel but that was to save everyone on there, Kate was the one that specifically took action to prevent her from getting to Jin. As for Sun working with Widmore, I don't know how far into the future that scene is supposed to occur but i'd love it if it turned out she had already decided to work with Ben to get back to the island and is going to use Widmore to do that. That they use his knowledge of where it could be and sort of run a coup as to using that knowledge against him.

Did Charlotte specifically say she was "born" on the island? I might have missed that. I got the impression that she might have lived and worked there before as part of Dharma but she is sort of too young to have been in on that.

Micheal dying was sort of pointless. Most of the ones they have die on this show seems pointless. They serve a purpose, yeah, but don't really carry the impact that they couild have. It just felt to me the only reason the guy agreed to come back as Michael was if they promised to kill him off. And it certainly didn't feel like he did anything or enough to redeem himself for killing two people. Yeah he helped them out but in a very broad sense.

And I hope this show, if it does nothing else, will cause enough of an outrage that they stop doing the stupid dream sequence crap. They've already well established that people (both alive and dead) can show up as visions in real life. The dreams just seem they want to do one of those "vision" scenes but don't know how to end them so they just say "poof!" it was a dream sequence! It's just lazy writing.

All in all, it was a great finale and a great season. But a very self-contained season. It really makes you excited for the next year to begin but we're really at the same point we were at the end of season 3.

The one thing that bothers me is how could they see the smoke from the exploded boat and not see the helicopter. Wasn't there some time shift thing going on or did that all disappear? I don't think it ever showed the boat wreckage being engulped in the island disappearing act or what happened to Daniel's raft.

Ok, another thing why didn't locke try to swap the detonator off his arm?

edit:

She says "Would it make any sense if i told you I was still looking for where I was born."

That seems more like something on the island will help her found out where she was born rather than her saying she was born on the island.

Charlotte's new relationship to the Island is just another question as of yet unanswered.  As is just what is Mile's gift/ability?  We have already ascertained he can talk to dead people.  Is he psychic as well?  How did he know that Charlotte has been looking for the Island?

My guess is that the freighter did NOT go with the Island.  To some extent it maintains the snowglobe/sphere theory.  The chopper and the freighter were out of range, but the raft and the smaller Island are not.  Also, it would be possible to see the smoke from the explosion and not the chopper.  Think of how faintly she saw the smoke.... I dont know if you have seen a large fire in person, but a large fire with that much smoke can be seen for miles and miles, especially over a flat ocean.  They couldnt see the freighter when it was offshore, but the smoke caused by the fire.  And with that great distance in mind, think of how small the helicopter is, and when put against a blue backdrop and miles away, it is no surprise that the helicopter wasnt sighted.  They ARE a little ambiguous as to the shorelines... where, in proximity to the beach-camp, was Daniel casting off from?  Where was Juliet sitting and Sawyer washed up?  That is just somewhat of a lopphole necessitated by the plot.  But I dont think it implausible that Juliet could not see the helicopter.  When it was en route to the freighter, when Sawyer jumped off, it was coming from deeper within the jungle so it did not fly over the beach and they were all distracted anyway, getting people ready for the raft.  When it was returning from the freighter it was too far away at the time of the freighter explosion to be seen by th naked eye from the coastline.

I kept expecting Locke to try and switch the heart rate monitor onto his arm, too.  But look at how quickly it triggered after Keamy's death, it was instant... it had begin a trigger sequences when it noticed a change in his heart rate.  The amount of time necessary to get it not only off of Keamey but actually registering a heartbeat on Locke, even if it was just 2 seconds, would be too much.  If Ben had more control over his emotions then maybe with Keamey unconscious and them in less of an emergency situation they could have figured it out... as it was, Locke's first priority was to try to keep Keamey alive. 

I agree that "Once you turn the wheel you cant come back" is much more of a pragmatic statement than a decree from the Island... who knows where the Island will pop up, and who knows where you will pop up.  However, obviously Locke got off the Island.  The question is, how?  Did he have to turn the wheel as well?  Or, more likely, being the new leader of the Others, he was able to come and go from the Island by some other means that we are as of yet not aware of.  Without the submarine it is unclear just how Ben and Richard get to and from the Island.  Granted the sub belonged to the Dharma Initiative, and Richard was obviously able to travel off of the Island before the Dharma initiative officially started its Island Project, as evidenced when he visited infant Locke.  But we do not know how such things may occur.  And there has to be an alternate way, thinking about it.  Because when did Mr. Friendly visit Michael?  I think it was after the submarine had been destroyed, though I am not sure.  Point being, if we assume that Locke did not have to move the Island again it means that he had a way to and from the Island.  Which means that any of the folk who wanted to return should have been able to do so with his help.  And it also means Widmore would most likely not kill him, because he would be the one to lead Widmore back to the Island.  They say that he "committed suicide" which I doubt many of us believe.  But why would Widmore, or anyone else looking for the Island, kill the one person who has the ability to go back to the Island as he wants to?

It was  self contained, answer free season. Sure they gave us little answers, but each answer just raised more questions. 

--So Christian Shepard is most likely dead and the apparition of him we have been seing since season 1 is in the employ of jacob.  Well, that's just great, but what the hell does that mean.  As a result of the few answers we have been given concerning Jacob, all sorts of new questions arise... and old questions continue... Just what si the relationship between Jacob and Smokey?  How the hell did Jacob's cabin move?  The new spot it was located at is where it was originally blueprinted to be built.  which means the former location of the cabin, where Ben brought Locke, and where the circle of ash was surrounding the cabin, was not the original site but a new site.  Was the circle of ash/sand trapping the cabhin to thios new site?  If Christian Shepard is dead and merely an apparaition working for Jacob, what the hell has happened to Claire?  Why would she give up Aaron just like that, just because her dead father popped up, someone who she had met once?

--So there is some sort of temporal shift that happens when traveling to or from the Island.  we still do not know why, the Orchid video spoke about negatively charged exotic particles or something like that, some sort of unclassified force.  So we know the Island contains physiological anomalies that messes with the dimensions of both space and time.  The Dharma folkd had figured this out and were doing experiments, but we still have yet to see the entire Orchid video, it just stops 3 minutes in or whatever and rewinds itself.  So they are conducting exciting experiments about future bunnies but how, and what have their results been?  Why the freakout from the Prchid bloopers?  

--So we know who organized the original lie.  It was Jack, working with Penny Widmore, under the advice of Locke before Jack left the Orchid.  Why would Locke return to the states to remind everyone to lie?  They were all lying already.  They had decided to lie from the moment their raft spotted the Searcher, and fortunately the crew of the Searcher was able to help facilitate their lie.  They knew, as they were leaving the Searcher, that the lives of everyone who remained hung in the balance and as such lies were a necessity.  Why the hell would Locke go visit all of them?  And where did he get that alias?  Is it something he introduced himself by when he came to visit them, or is there some other significance to it?  And why the hell do they all think they need to go back except Kate is getting visions of Claire telling her not to go back?  Usually the visions are faciulitated by the Island.  Why is the Island giving mixed signals? 

--When do we get to see the statue again?  We never saw the Temple, did we?  What is the relationship, if there is one, between the Temple and the Statue? 

--Why does Hurley no longer want to get back to the Island, as evidence when he left with Sayid and he was very clear, "We're not going back, are we?" and Sayid said no, but that he was taking him somewhere safe... of course, Sayid is a torturer and an assassin, so who knows...  But when jack visited Hurley earlier, it was Hurley who said that they had to go back, and now he doesnt seem like he wants to... Surely he was happier on the Island than being locked in a mental institutte talking to dead people?

--And, of course, what the hell is the Island?  How can the whole thing mov?  Is the entire Island man-made?  How deep is the Orchid station, and how much deeper did Ben go?  Where did the tundra come from, and how come, whereever Ben was, it seemed as if there was open sky above him?  If the Island is man-made, where did the weird crazy foreign particles come from that are the cause of all of the anomalies?  If the Island is not manmade and is just some sort of freak of nature, how was a giant wheel embedded deep into its core that soemhow serves as a reset switch?  What does the wheel do?

What I think is most exciting is the way their storytelling and narrative structure has exploded.  As you said, Nate, there are so many different directions they can go in for Season 5.  My guess (and maybe even hope) is that Season 5 will be all over the place, not giving us a definite "present," but intertwining flashforwards and flashbacks in such a way so as it not create a clear picture of where we are.  Are we back on the Island, immediately after it reset?  Or are we three years in the future when Locke is "dead" and a bunch of the O6 want to get back?  Since there is no longer any crossover, which is to say the O6 are all off the Island, how do the two stroylines get tied together in the narrative, as FFs and FBs wil not longer suffice to tie the Island to the future... unless more people get off the Island...  In any case, I hope Season 5, all the way through, totally plays with this new capacity for displacing our concepts of time.  Hopefully the Season 5 finale will establish an actual "present" and that is where season 6 will take place in its entirety.  However it plays out, though, I am betting it will be interesting and exciting.  They have opened this door wide open for themsleves, they would be foolish not to walk through it.

9 months without Lost will be an incredibly long time.  Thankfully they will be doing something at the San Diego ComicCon at the very end of July, so we get two months with nothing, and then a little sneak, a tease, maybe (more likely than not) an ARPG, and then 7 months left to wait with, again, most likely one or two podcasts thrown in the middle of that whole mess just to tease us along.  Just bait to ensnare us deeper...

another thing, with the freighter and mercenaries all dead who is left for them to fight on the island for everything "to go all to hell?" Unless Richard all of a sudden decides to make a play for the leadership role or something. I don't see how they can have a division to start fighting? Maybe the Losties at the beach all flip out and start killing Others at will?

I'm still kind of hoping the freighter DID blip with the island and daniel's boat, although I don't see how it could have. But if it did then they could have daniel pick up Jin out of the water. If just daniel's boat went then Jin's stuck out there in the middle of nowhere bobbing around in the sea.

as for Locke's alias, they tipped there hand a little on mentioning it so soon. Jeremy Bentham is another philosopher name. I don't know why he'd need to use one when he leaves the island though. It's not like widmore or anyone knows who he is yet and would be looking for his name to pop up somewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham

I love the concept of the wheel, it's just so bizarre. On one side there's ice, on the other flames, it looks like. That suggests to me that the island will be sent to its polar opposite. Just the first thing that came to my head. Also, what by shifting the island's location, that causes the sickness that danielle's crew experienced? maybe that's what happens on the island that ben warns jack about, all the survivors on the island start experiencing this sickness and begin killing each other off. that'd be worth watching, i think, although the obvious hole in that theory is when did the island last shift? was it after danielle's crew arrived, and how come the dharma people weren't affected, or the hostiles?

also, i strongly doubt jin died from the explosion, which means he's either floating around the ocean on a piece of debris or he was sucked into the snowglobe and transported wherever. the problem with the first theory is that what immediately comes to mind is who saves him, which would probably be someone like widmore who has an interest in keeping an eye on the freighter, so when its no longer there, he flies out to see why not, and he finds jin floating in the ocean, which is all fine and good, but what does he do with him? keep him hostage until the day sun tries to fuck him over and he shows her that her husband is still alive? i like this idea for a couple reasons because it shows widmore to be a very patient man, and it also proves to him that there are other survivors out there. the problem with the second theory that the freighter was within range of the snowglobe effect was alreaady pointed out, that the freighter, the raft, jin, and the helicopter would have all be sucked into the whole with the islands. the helicopter was flying toward the island, which means it would be closer than either jin or the freighter debris. anyway, my imagination is just going off on its own this morning, so who knows whats going to happen, but i think they're going to keep jin around, whether he's one of the lone survivors left on the island or he becomes a pawn for widmore. both are good ideas to me.

Unless the helicopter was too high?  Maybe the reach of the snowglob encapsulated the freighter but the helicopter was above its perimeter?  We only have estimates and guesses as to the altitude of the helicopter, and while it seemed pretty close to the coeran this could be a very easy answer, should it turn out there is some sort of bubble that travels with the Island and the frieghter and Daniel's raft were both in that bubble but the helicopter was not...

great questions guys. one thing that I always like to do at the end of the season is come up with a list of questions that haven't been answered and then keep those things in mind for when the new season starts.

one last criticism. it seemed like the coffin reveal becamse the 'big mystery' and it was more important as a means to keep us guessing then it really was toward the story. after it became obvious in the last few scenes, when they finally showed it, I just didn't care. it was like more like oh, ok. so now we know.

I also find myself caring more about what happened to the freighties on the island (other than maybe jin and sawyer, locke how many original survivors are left there?) than about the 06. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

I had an idea about Ben. When he was talking about why he killed keamy he said that he lost control, but at that instant, just a few moments later, he seemed perfectly in control and it seemed like almost a dark humor in his description. maybe he killed keamy that way, not just to satify his revenge, but because he knew that it would blow up the freightor and one final cheap parting shot against Locke before relinquishing hsi leader status.

Also along the same line of thinking, I find it very odd that Ben, who self-proclaims that he can't go back, is telling Jack that they have to go back. What would change for Ben to make him think that, since he obviously didn't think that they had to stay on the island when he told them to go.

THE OPENING ACT
FROM THE ORIGINAL,
UNUSED TELEPLAY
OF LOST'S PILOT
EPISODE.

BY ANDREW BRIDGMAN

- - - -

JACK: OK, everyone, gather round. I'm Jack. We crashed on this island. I'm kind of an alcoholic, and I had a really complicated relationship with my father, Christian, who was also an alcoholic.

CLAIRE: Christian Shepherd? That's my dad, too!

JACK: No way!

SAWYER: Oh, yeah, I know that guy, too. I met him at a bar. He's proud of you.

JACK: You met my dad?

SAWYER: Yeah, I met him right before I killed this guy I thought had ruined my life as a child. He was a con man who went by "Sawyer" and had an affair with my mother and then my dad found out and killed her and himself. It was ugly.

LOCKE: No way! That sounds just like my dad! He stole my kidney and then paralyzed me.

KATE: Paralyzed people can't walk.

LOCKE: Don't tell me what I can't do! I can walk now, obviously. I think this island is magic or something crazy like that.

KATE: Know what else is crazy? I killed my stepdad, who was actually my dad, by blowing up the house he was in. Then I went on the run for a long time. That marshall guy that's dying there was taking me to the U.S. to put me in jail.

(The "monster noise" is heard in the jungle.)

CHARLIE: What was that, mates?

HURLEY: I think it was a monster made of smoke that's floating around for some reason.

CHARLIE: That's bloody weird. Almost as bloody weird as me being a heroin addict due to my rock band, DriveShaft, and my brother, Liam.

HURLEY: Oh, yeah, you guys were popular right around the time I won the lottery thanks to some cursed, mysterious, omnipresent numbers. You guys suck.

SUN: Ha! They totally do.

SHANNON: You speak English?

SUN: Yeah, I do. Hey, Jin.

JIN: (Something in Korean.)

SUN: I speak English. I also had an affair with a bald guy, who taught it to me, then he killed himself, or maybe I killed him. But you can't blame me, right? You used to be a really nice guy before we got married and I paid off a blackmail debt to your prostitute mother by taking a loan from my father, which led him to make you his guy who beat the shit out of people, which destroyed your soul. I hope we reconcile and you gradually learn English. Wanna go in that tent and see if we can get me knocked up?

JIN: ... Boat?

(JIN and SUN go into their tent.)

SAYID: While they're doing that, we should try to figure out how to get off this island. I need to get back to Nadia, this chick I used to like and who I sorta tortured once. I'm from Iraq. Did I mention that?

MICHAEL: No. Hey, where'd Walt go?

SAYID: Oh, some grungy-lookin' pirates took him.

MICHAEL: WAAAAAAALT! WAAAAAAALT! I wanted to be there for him, but his mom was a bitch and took him away from me. I'm trying to get to know him now. Sucks that he got kidnapped.

LOCKE: Hey, while you guys were talking, I found some door in the jungle.

JACK: Did you open it?

LOCKE: Yeah, there was a Scottish guy in there, and I made him stop pressing some button. It just exploded and released a bunch of electromagnetic energy, so the island is visible to the outside world again.

DESMOND: Hi, bruthas. I'm Desmond. I can kinda see the future. Charlie, you're gonna die.

CHARLIE: OK, I'll go swim to an underwater station so we can all get rescued.

DESMOND: Sounds good. Then I can reunite with this chick I liked but got separated from due to her father's meddling. It was kinda like The Notebook.

ROUSSEAU: I found this guy in the jungle.

BEN: My name is Henry Gale!

SAYID: Really?

BEN: No, it's Benjamin Linus. I'm an Other, which means I'm part of this group of people who were on the island before you guys. I was initially part of the DHARMA Initiative, but it was purged by me and other people who have been on the island a long time and may or may not be immortal. It's complicated.

ROUSSEAU: They whisper.

BEN: Right. I'm really manipulative. If you help me escape, Michael, I'll give you back Walt. He makes birds run into doors. I don't like that and neither does Jacob, the cabin-ghost guy who runs this island.

MICHAEL: OK. (Shoots off into the distance.) I just killed Libby and Ana Lucia. Trust me, they're on the other side of the island. Tail section.

BEN: OK, here's Walt back. Get on this boat and then go sneak onto the freighter that's coming to kill us.

MICHAEL: OK.

(MICHAEL and WALT get on the boat and sail off.)

ALEX: Hey, Dad, what're you doing here?

BEN: Hi, Alex, this is your mother.

ROUSSEAU: Hey, I've been looking for you for 16 years.

ALEX: Weirdo.

JACK: Hey, Kate.

KATE: Yeah?

JACK: Pick me or Sawyer.

KATE: Who's Sawyer?

SAWYER: Me.

KATE: Oh, OK. I dunno. Sawyer, I guess.

SAWYER: Thanks, Freckles.

BOONE: I'm gonna go die now.

LOCKE: Yeah, the island's been saying it demands a sacrifice. Go for it, kid.

(First commercial break.)

That would be "Lost" at "Battlestar Galactica" speed...

Popular Mechanics has a whol series of articles on the Lost Finale... Here is one explaining why Einstein would approve of the "moving" of the Island:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4266329.html?series=6

At the bottom of that page are links to the other articles, including one by Adam Savage of Mythbuster fame about why the bomb and explosions were a little off the mark but he loves Lost anyway... There are like 5 or 6 articles in total, all pretty short, and a fun read

here's one I found very interesting. To me, the whole thing with Harold Perrineau seemed like he only wanted to come back as long as they finished off his characters story and he could move on. But apparently not and he's a little pissed that they did kill Michael off...

http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2008/05/harold-perrineau-dishes-on-his-lost....

that pop-sci article made my head hurt. I didn't like that he talked about a modified Thorne time machine, because it really doesn't have anything to do with Lost. It's only neccesary to explain that to give people some kind of clue as to what this guy is talking about, because it's otherwise incomprehensible to anyone that hasn't read an entire book on theoretical physics.

It's interesting that he would think of wormholes, because I talked about that too as a means of space travel on Lost. however, I don't know about you, but I didn't get the implication on the show that wormhole phenominon was repsonible for the time travel effects. They could both be present, but be two totally different and seperate phenominon.

What this guy is attempting to do is to combine both of them into a single explanation for both phenominons. That makes it very complicated because it takes a lot of specific theoritical conditions to unify the two. (see what I said about Thrones time machine). a "typical" wormhole phenominon doesn't effect time change by it's very nature. A person, or say an Island travelling through under normal circumsatnces just experiences space travel. There are special quantum circumstances in regaurds to vacuums and radiation that come into play, and that is what this guy brought up, but they are were introduced by steven Hawking for the express purpose of demonstrating how wormhole travel is OPPOSED to time travel.  So it requires a leap, that is obviously imaginable, but I think that it goes over nearly everyone's heads, including the writers of the show.

jin - dead

claire - dead

great show

best part?: checkmate, mr. echo - that freaked me OUT

my head hurts, i canNOT wait 9 months - what else can we watch? maybe i'll rent the prisoner

go watch The Wire, every season is amazing, and the series finale was great.  Or wacth Battlestar Galatcica.  Also awesome.

Incidentally, Lost is currently the #1 most pirated/bittorrented TV show.  Battlestar Galactica is #2.

I'll believe Claire and Jin are dead when I see their bodies wash up on shore, but until then I doubt it--the island isn't through with them, I would think. Michael, he's dead as shit, though.