TVSquad

Last week's riveting Lost premiere brought the Jack-Locke conflict to an entirely new level. This time, all of the survivors (including some of the Others) were forced to choose sides. It wasn't an easy decision, and there were some surprising choices. Each side has its benefits and its drawbacks. Let's take a closer look at these new teams!

Many Lost fans are familiar with the show's frequent use of philosophers' names. USA Today has a very helpful rundown of all the philosophers used so far, as well as a character-based analysis of each one. A lot of the information might be review for devoted fans, but the article includes an "expert comment" section with some unique interpretations of the characters.

John Locke: The fictional John Locke describes himself as a man of faith. The real Locke was more of a man of science. USA Today's expert mentions that Locke the philosopher believed that "action is based on experiences," and that the show's flashbacks demonstrate that view.

I'm not sure if you've been reading Doc Jensen's Lost theories over at Entertainment Weekly's web site. The guy is obsessed (in a good way), and has come up with some very intriguing and plausible ideas on what is really happening on the island and what all the clues (the numbers, the names, how people are connected, etc) might actually mean. Not sure if I follow his logic with his latest theory though.

He's been thinking about the names and what they could mean in the overall picture. The people behind the show have said that the character names have not been chosen randomly. Each name means something (though I wonder what "Hurley" could mean. Does he vomit a lot? Is he really a baseball player?), and the name that especially intrigues him is the new character, Jacob, who we saw in a quick scene on one of the monitors wearing an eyepatch (if that was him, that is!).

Just when Lost should be regularly beating the competition - we're heading towards the three month break cliffhanger - the show is actually losing viewers. The episode the other night, where Eko was killed off, lost 1 million viewers from the previous week, and was beaten by CBS' Criminal Minds. (Brett talked about this last month.)

Wow, so 17 million viewers actually watch Criminal Minds? I've seen the show twice and didn't really see anything special about it. Are people that frustrated by Lost?

One part of the article I don't really understand though. It seems to have the attitude that the "a character is going to die" episodes of Lost should pull in more viewers, but why? How would you know that a character is going to die unless you actually watch the episode? The hardcore fans of the show and web geeks, the only ones who would know ahead of time that a death might be coming via web spoilers, they're watching the show anyway, so why would that matter? Why would a death of a major character bring a ratings spike? (Or am I totally missing the point here?)

A Lost fan named Ryan who lives in Hawaii (and used to host The Transmission podcast) keeps hunting for good behind-the-scenes video with his camcorder. He has posted a few clips on YouTube, including the filming of a flashback scene where Boone appears to be pushing Locke in his wheelchair. He also shows a few filming locations and gives some pretty informative narration. No spoilers, though.

If I lived in Hawaii, I would probably be doing the same thing. Oh, it would start out innocent enough but then I'd go off the deep end. I'd probably end up losing my job and Josh Holloway would have to get a restraining order against me.

Video is after the jump.

This is really odd. It's a promo for Lost from Channel 4 in England. I'm not sure quite what to make of it other than it seems to me that it has to be a promo for season one. I say that because A) it prominently features Boone and B) bits and pieces of Flight 815 are still strewn all over the shore. I just don't get why they needed such a weird ad for the show? What's wrong with the ones that air here in the States?

It has it's moments though. I thought it was funny when Locke and Walt were "conducting" the dance and the crazy organ music (I think that's what it's supposed to be). Plus, it was very telling that Jack and Sawyer were fighting over Kate. If all this sounds confusing, you can watch the video after the jump. Any other interpretations? Am I right in thinking this is an old promo?

IGN has some pictures of the new Lost figurines that will be available in September. They're made by McFarlane and feature characters in scenes from the first season. For instance, Charlie's sitting on a log writing F-A-T-E on his fingers and Jack appears to be stumbling out of the jungle, still in his suit. There's also a larger one with the hatch, and 11-year old boys everywhere will be begging for a Shannon doll for Christmas.

The dolls look pretty awesome, with a few exceptions. While the details are pretty astounding, the faces of two of the characters seem a little bit off. Jack sort-of looks like Adam Sandler. Kate isn't quite right, either. Locke and Hurley look pretty rad, though.

Unfortunately, there isn't a Sawyer doll. So Kate and Sawyer are never going to hook up!

If you feel like wasting some time at work today, might want to check out this Lost link. It brings you to an image of the island, and with some careful studying, you can pull out some hidden images. Once you crack all eight, you get treated to a deleted scene from early in season two. I'm assuming this is part of that whole Lost Experience thing that's been going on.

Of course, if you're lazy, I've listed the eight passwords after the jump along with a description of the deleted scene.

[Thanks to James for sending this to us!]

The other day we told you that Variety had broken the news that Bad Twin, the Lost tie-in book, was written by acclaimed mystery writer Lawrence Shames. Shames doesn't confirm that he's the author of the book, but he does have a few things to say about it:

"It is interesting how closely his prose style resembles mine. He sets a lot of the story in places I've been." He also says that the book is "excellent" and "everyone should read [it]."

Ha!

[via TV Tattle]

Bad Twin, the novel "by" Gary Troupe (it's an anagram of "purgatory," but the Lost producers have already said that they're not in purgatory, damn it!), who was "on Oceanic Air Flight 815," is a hit. Lost fans are buying it in hopes of perhaps learning some more clues about what the hell is happening on the TV show. My guess is that it's just going to drive fans more crazy, though the family in the book is "Widmore."

Has anyone read it yet? Is it any good, as a novel, regardless of the Lost tie-in? There's a rumor going around that Stephen King actually wrote it, but publishers and Lost folks are keeping quiet.

I know, I know, you're saying to yourself, "jeez Bob, more Lost posts?" I hear ya. But it's a popular show, and the theories and articles just keep a-comin'.

This site gives a chart of how many of the show's characters are related. Now, I try to follow the show as closely as I can, but since I don't want to go batshit crazy and end up in the loony bin with Hurley and Libby, I don't follow every single piece of information or clues, so I don't know if all of this is correct or up to date.

The date says it was last updated on May 11, so I'm sure a post-season finale upgrade is coming soon.

Not the actors and actresses that will be playing these parts, but the characters themselves. If it's true that the outside world will now become a plot point in the show (and after seeing the two Arctic station guys and Penelope on the phone at the end of the season finale, it looks like it will be), new characters on Lost will include:

• Female, 30s, with leadership qualities
• Female, early 20s, very attractive
• Male, Latino, early 20s, handsome, mysterious quality

So who do you want to see in these roles?

ABC's Lost is such a hit (one of those shows that's both a mainstream hit and a cult fetish) that it's doing everything it can to make it even more popular. There's the show you can watch on TV, there are the eps you can watch via iTunes, there's the interactive online game and a tie-in book, and now comes the news we all knew was coming, a videogame. Ubisoft will make the game, and J.J. Abrams and other Lost people will help with the storyline.

Can I make a suggestion? Make the numbers a part of the game. Players have to punch in the numbers every 108 minutes - no matter what else is going on elsewhere in the game - or the game ends! Ha!

[via TV Tattle]

Usually I'd go ahead and use the comment section for our posts to mention something like this, but I really think I'm onto something here. After seeing last night's episode of Lost, I've got some thoughts on what's going on with that weird black mist, the island "security system," as Rousseau called it.

Recall in the episode titled 'The 23rd Psalm', where Eko confronted the black mist, face to ... mist. Looking closely at that scene, we could see flashing images within the mist, clearly images taken from Eko's memory. then, in last night's episode, we see many of the same images flashing in Eko's dream.

(S02E21) I've been waiting for this episode ever since I saw its most interesting title: a simple question mark. We all knew what it would refer to once we saw the mysterious map Locke caught a glimpse of, but it was knowing that this would be an Eko-centric episode that, to me, made it all the more interesting.

For those of you who like to over analyze the episodes on a microscopic level like we do, you may have noticed that little scene in Eko's dream where a bunch of images flashed by before he saw his brother, Yemi, sitting at the computer. Here's a list of what was shown: