"It's Destiny."

Hello my dear friends -

I told you I had an extra-special post coming!

But to be honest, even I had no idea when I last wrote that it would be THIS extra-special.

So without further ado, here's a picture that's worth at least TEN thousand words (especially considering the average length of my episode write-ups...):


Now please pause and observe a moment of silence out of respect for the enormity of the moment captured above.

(Pause.)

I must admit that I seriously considered just posting this picture and then nothing else -- ever again -- on this site. I mean, how can I possibly top meeting my main man?

I can't.

But don't worry... though I did come close to hyperventilating and then dying of Extreme Elation after the fact sank in that I was hugged by my favorite actor -- the Emmy Award winner who breathes life into the character after which this site that I've toiled over for years is named -- I love Lost enough and am in way too deep to stop with my obsessive analysis of the show now. If anything, my passion for the series has been reignited after spending a day on the beautiful island of Oahu (where it's filmed).

Oh, and did I mention that I exchanged greetings with the one and only Michael Emerson (an Emmy Award winner himself) -- aka "Ben" -- too?!? Yep, October 29, 2008 was quite a day.

So... I bet you're wondering how I actually got to see Michael and meet Terry, right? The beauty of it all is that it only happened because a series of decisions and events led to me being in exactly the right place at the right time. Mr. Eko once told Locke to not mistake coincidence for fate, but I'd say that you can't mistake fate for coincidence, either!

I think it's only appropriate to tell the story Lost flashback style...


MID-APRIL 2008

Because of our drama-filled journey to Antarctica last fall and several shorter trips my husband and I had planned for 2008, a vacation to Hawaii was not even remotely on our radar earlier this year.

But then, a relative decided that he didn't want to take his annual pilgrimage to the Aloha State and emailed out an offer to use his timeshare on Maui during the last week of October. It was an offer that big travelers like us simply couldn't refuse.

Within seconds of receiving word that a week in Hawaii could be ours for a low, low price, we decided we had to go, so we emailed back and secured our spot.


TEN MINUTES LATER

It hit me that filming for Season Five of Lost might be taking place on Oahu at the same time we'd be close by in Maui.

But then I immediately pushed the thought out of my mind... Season Four still wasn't over at that point, Season Five wasn't going to be back on the air until early 2009, and so I figured that October 2008 would be way too early for new episodes to be in production.


JUNE 6 - 7, 2008

After the Season Four finale aired and I had posted my recap of "There's No Place Like Home, Parts Two & Three" on both this site and DarkUFO, I wrote the following to Andy Page, the man behind the curtain, if you will, at DarkUFO: "I'm going to Maui in October, but I don't think I'll be able to make it over to Oahu to check out any Lost filming locations (do you think they'd be filming in late October anyway? I think it's still too early)."

Andy responded that he did indeed think that Lost filming would be underway at that time, and offered to put me in touch with one of his contacts on Oahu, should I change my mind about island-hopping.

The (frozen donkey) wheels in my head started turning...


SEPTEMBER 3, 2008

Fellow blogger JOpinionated posted that some of her friends had randomly run into Terry O'Quinn while vacationing in Oahu. !?!?!?!?!? Talk about a kick in the pants! I started researching the best way to travel between islands...


SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

I had dinner with a good friend and reader of this blog (shout-out to MG!) and told her of my dilemma. My flight to Maui was almost exactly a month away, and I knew I had to decide sooner rather than later whether or not I would also take a side trip to Oahu. MG brought up a point that I hadn't even considered: "What if you run into Terry O'Quinn and the experience doesn't live up to your expectations?"

Her take was that when it came to meeting one of your heroes, maybe it was better to "keep the dream alive" than deal with the disappointment that might result from actually talking to that person.

While I had read way too much about Mr. O'Quinn to believe that he could be anything other than the nicest man alive, my friend's words weighed on my mind. I put off the decision once more...


SEPTEMBER 29 - OCTOBER 2, 2008

... But not for long. I emailed Andy at DarkUFO again and told him that I needed to get my act together and at least try to see if there was any way I could improve my odds of running into Lost filming or cast members, should I choose to fly over to Oahu. He immediately responded with the email address of Ryan Ozawa, who runs The Transmission podcast from Oahu. In addition, he suggested that I check out Kos Hummer Tours, as he had heard good things about them from other Lost fans who had trekked to "the Island."

Next, I emailed Ryan, who also highly recommended Kos Tours, as they have access to the private ranch on which many Lost scenes are shot. In fact, he mentioned that there had been activity at the ranch within the past few weeks. However, he also tried to set my expectations about being able to interact with any cast members. In his experience, direct contact with anyone on the show is extremely rare, even if you happen to run across a set. No one is allowed near the actors during a live shoot, which is of course understandable. He said to let him know if I ended up visiting Oahu.


OCTOBER 9, 2008

My trip to Maui was now only 17 days away. In my head I was wrestling with the knowledge that I would always wonder "What if?" if I didn't go over to Oahu... but I still wasn't sure if that scenario would be worse than making the trip to "the Island" and inevitably being disappointed if I didn't run into any filming. However, when I went on my nerdy Lord of the Rings tours in New Zealand, I had an absolute blast seeing the spots where key scenes in the trilogy were filmed years earlier, so I knew that I would enjoy visiting past locations used in Lost as well, even if nothing else happened while I was on Oahu.

Those of you who read my other site, According to e, understsand that I absolutely HATE wondering "what if?" To avoid wondering "what if?" when I'm eighty years old is actually why I left Corporate America to try my hand at freelance writing. So I guess I should've known all along that I would end up finding my way to Oahu -- my final decision was based on the fact that I knew I would drive myself (and my husband) nuts wondering "what if I had gone to Oahu and ended up meeting someone in the Lost cast?" for the rest of my life. The show's only on for two more years and I am certainly not going to get back to Hawaii before the credits roll on the series' final episode, so I HAD to go! It was now or never!

Finally, I shifted into high gear and put in a call to Ed Kos at Kos Tours. I had a long talk with him and was pleased to find that he and his staff were also huge Lost fans. After much deliberation about the different tours Kos offered (and a panicked call to my brother for advice), I decided to go all-out and spend mucho dinero to not only fly my husband and I over to Oahu for a day (Wednesday, October 29 -- a decision that turned out to be critical (I had also considered the 28th)), but also to buy out all of the seats in one of Ed's Hummers so that we could have a private, customized TEN-HOUR tour. I was finally getting even with my husband for his purchase of crazy-expensive backstage passes to the Van Halen concert almost exactly a year ago (as a side note: if you never read that post, I highly encourage you to... it's one of my favorites).

Ed, like Ryan from The Transmission, tried to keep my expectations in check about actually coming across a set or meeting any cast members. He said that it was hard to know in advance when or where anything for the show would be filmed because they shoot scenes across the entire island in addition to filming in their studio -- which is closed to the public. But just as I was writing off the idea of being able to catch any live action, he mentioned that a writer from About.com, who took the five-hour Kos tour earlier this year, saw Josh Holloway (Sawyer) and Terry O'Quinn in between takes. AAHHHHHH!!!!!!


THE BIG DAY
OCTOBER 29, 2008

3:30 AM

It was Go Time! The airport was an hour away from where we were staying and our flight to Oahu was at 6 AM, so we had to wake up ridiculously early. Amazingly, I had slept well and felt refreshed when the alarm went off.

I had worn my "Team Locke" shirt to bed for good luck, but otherwise kept telling myself that I needed to just relax and enjoy the day and not have any expectations about running into live filming. It was hard to do that, though, because while no Lost activity had been seen in public areas on Oahu in the weeks leading up to my trip, on both October 27 and 28, the production crew was spotted in various locations around the island. In fact, Long Live Locke reader LF from Australia was on the Kos Tour two days before me, and she had narrowly missed seeing a few actors (their trailers were still up!). My hopes were inching higher...

6:50 AM

We landed in Oahu on time and waited outside to be picked up by Jeff, our driver from Kos Tours. A few moments passed and then we saw a yellow Hummer pass by us about six lanes from where we were standing and then exit to return to the highway. Normally, the tour does not pick up from the airport because of the intense traffic surrounding the area, but since my husband and I booked a private tour, they made an exception.

I called Ed and he explained that Jeff had made a wrong turn and was now circling back to the airport, but was caught in the standstill traffic on the expressway. We weren't in any hurry, so we stayed put and waited it out.

7:20 AM

Jeff successfully battled his way back to the airport and apologized profusely for being a half-hour late. We climbed in the Hummer and were on our way. Soon, we saw exactly what several of our friends meant when they forewarned us about the horrific gridlock in Honolulu.

But just as Jeff passed the main exit that led into the heart of the city (we had no plans to check out old filming locations downtown because of the time it would eat up), my husband's Blackberry started buzzing...

7:32 AM

Ryan from The Transmission, who I had informed of my plans to be in Oahu on the 29th, had emailed us with a tip that Lost scenes were going to be filmed at an intersection downtown and that there should be several opportunities to watch the production. I immediately wrote him back and asked when he thought the action would begin, and he responded, "Within the hour."

I know you're not surprised to hear that my heart started pounding so furiously that I feared I might spontaneously combust. I told Jeff what we had just learned, but he worried that it was bogus information and that we would waste at least an hour getting into and then out of the city again if the tip didn't pan out. I assured him that I wouldn't be mad if that ended up being the case, and that I absolutely could not pass up the opportunity to possibly see some filming. I mean, that's why I shelled out the big bucks to go on a private tour -- so that we could change the itinerary on a dime!

Jeff obliged with our request and started circling back toward downtown Honolulu.


8:00 AM

We eventually made it to the intersection that Ryan had mentioned in his email. And lo and behold, what did I spy, but this:


Before I go any further with this post, let me assure you that I am not going to mention or show pictures of anything that would spoil the Season Five scenes that I saw being filmed -- you all know how vehemently anti-spoiler I am. I will probably post a few of my pictures after those scenes air (right now I obviously have no idea what episode they'll be in), but the good news is that I couldn't figure out the significance of what I watched anyway. The Season Five promo is much more telling than anything I came across on the 29th, that's for sure!

Anyway, you might be thinking that once I saw Terry's chair, I leapt out of the moving Hummer and tried to hunt down Mr. O'Quinn. But believe it or not, I honestly didn't think that the presence of his chair meant anything. I figured that they probably carried around the chairs for ALL cast members wherever filming is set up. Plus, I thought that if a scene was being filmed downtown, the least likely person to be in it would be John Locke. Yes, my head just really wasn't on straight that day. More evidence of that comes shortly.

After we confirmed that Lost was obviously going to be filming in the area, Jeff drove us several blocks away and parked the Hummer. He said that since he was wearing a not-so-inconspicuous "Got Lost?" shirt, it was probably best if my husband and I headed back to the Intersection Of The Hour by foot on our own, and we agreed.

8:20 AM

We arrived back at the shoot and found a few other Lost fans standing on a corner taking pictures of some filming that was going on across the street. They worked downtown and had seen production before, so they actually left shortly after we arrived. I searched the area, but couldn't recognize any of the people who were in the scene. And then my eyes refocused and I saw Ben (Mr. Michael Emerson). I'm sure I didn't breathe for like twenty seconds as I realized that this was really happening! I was watching Lost in the making!

It was a completely surreal experience to observe a scene being filmed -- that's the only way I can describe it. Surreal, but thrilling at the same time. I was so caught up in the exhilaration of it all that before I could even fully mentally process what was happening, Mr. Emerson started walking directly toward me.


He crossed the intersection and was literally two feet away. He was passing right in front of me when I made eye contact with him.

"Hi..." I said nervously.

"Hi!" my husband shouted.

"HI!!!" Michael shot back loudly and confidently, and then flashed us a huge grin. I'm sure he got a kick out of whatever look I must have had on my face!

Time seemed to stand still as I watched him walk down the block and out of view. Finally, my husband broke the silence: "WHY DIDN'T YOU ASK HIM FOR A PICTURE?!?!!?"

I had been so shocked by the whole thing that I had just frozen in place. Maybe I was subconsciously worried that he would whip out his black ASP baton and whack me? I don't know what I was thinking. Later, my husband admitted that he, too, assumed that filming was still in process when "Ben" passed us. Of course I deeply regret not being able to think clearly enough to get a snapshot with the Best Villain of All Time, but I will always have the memory our quick exchange, right? Plus, I think my disappointment over missing the chance to get a picture with Mr. Emerson served to prepare me for what was about to happen...


8:45 AM

Before she headed back to work, a local Lost fan who had been standing near us learned that Terry O'Quinn was in fact going to be filming a scene in the area at some point (Terry and Michael were not in any scenes together that day, though, so don't get any ideas).

It seemed too good to be true. But I knew that filming was supposedly going to continue for three more hours, and grew nervous that the majority of the day would be eaten up before anything else happened downtown.

OF COURSE I was going to wait it out, though!

I had one false alarm when I spotted a bald-headed man under the "sound tent" and thought it was Terry. Thankfully, I realized it wasn't him before I made a fool of myself. I tried to calm down and just take it all in... I loved the fact that a lot of the security guards, craft tents and random carts wheeled around the street bore the Dharma logo. And it was so cool to see how the production team could transform a city street in downtown Honolulu into... well, whatever they wanted it to be.

About ten more minutes passed. I went up to one of the security guards (not the one pictured above) and told him that I was only on Oahu for the day and was already supposed to be heading out of Honolulu, but that I was a huge fan of Terry O'Quinn's, heard he was going to be shooting a scene soon, and didn't know what to do. The guard wouldn't look directly at me, but he smiled and responded, "Ma'am, I'm not allowed to tell you any details about the production... but if I were you, I'd stick around."

That was all I needed to hear! The guard was right, too. I didn't wait much longer...

8:55 AM

I was scanning the nearby blocks when all of a sudden, I SAW HIM. Terry O'Quinn was across the street and down the block from where I stood. He was completely alone and biting into what looked like an apple.

My dear friends, I would pay good money to see what I must have looked like when I realized that yes, it was ACTUALLY HIM. But I kept my emotions under control and silently caught my husband's attention (he was about fifteen feet away from me) and he followed my gaze. His eyes lit up when he caught on, and we hurried across the intersection as nonchalantly as we could (I wasn't sure if the guards were instructed to keep people away from the cast... that's why we were trying to be discreet). We still had a half-block to go when Terry crossed the street and disappeared from view.

My heart sank; I thought for sure that he had gone into his trailer or was going to be otherwise unapproachable. According to my husband, I stopped dead in my tracks at this point and looked totally defeated (I honestly don't even remember a lot of what happened during these few minutes -- it's all a blur). One thing I've learned from this whole experience is that I could absolutely never make it as a paparazzo. But anyway, my husband still had his wits about him and sped up, crossed the street and found Terry standing under the archway of a corner pub, still by himself.

"My wife is a huge fan, do you mind if she gets a picture with you?" my husband supposedly asked (I seriously don't remember this part). The next thing I knew, I was shaking Terry O'Quinn's hand and posing for this picture:


Finally I came to my senses and hopefully appeared to be semi-normal as I stood face-to-face with Terry and had a quick chat with him. I did get to mention that I ran Long Live Locke and that I wasn't going to change the site's name no matter what happened on the show. He laughed and replied, "That's good!" Since he is originally from Michigan and so am I, we talked a little bit about that, and I mentioned that I had a cousin at his alma mater, Central Michigan University (shout-out to EJ!). I then said that I felt like I needed to get a picture of us doing "something funny," which probably scared him (my plan was to get a shot of me bowing down before him), but before I could mention any of my ideas, he said "Well, how about this?" and gave me a big hug.


Yes, I look like I'm about to implode. No, my smile couldn't have stretched any wider. And yes, meeting Terry O'Quinn was absolutely everything I could've hoped it would be. Believe the hype, my dear friends, he's the real deal! And lest you think I'm (obviously) biased, my husband was also pleasantly surprised at how gracious, personable and truly nice this beloved actor was. And let's face it, my husband has good reason to be really jealous of this man! But Terry won him over, too.

We could see another fan approaching, so my husband and I each shook Terry's hand again, thanked him for his time and set off on our way.

The words of Will Ferrell's "Ricky Bobby" in Talladega Nights whirled through my mind:
That. Just. Happened!


9:05 AM

Once we were at the end of the block, the physical ramifications of the whole ordeal hit me. I realized that my mouth and throat had gone completely dry, my skin felt feverish and I was breaking out in a profuse sweat. But I was indescribably happy.

After I could swallow and had regained my voice, I called my brother, but don't even remember anything about our conversation except him yelling, "CALM DOWN!!!! CALM DOWN!!!!!"
Hee, hee.

On our way back to meet Jeff and continue on our tour in the Hummer, my husband lamented that we should've mentioned something about Terry's performance in Old School, one of our favorite movies. Then I wished that I'd brought up all of the other things he's been in that I've enjoyed, like The X-Files, Primal Fear and Masters of Science Fiction. But even though I didn't get to express the full extent of my fandom verbally, I'm quite positive that Terry understood that I was a big admirer of his. After all, when we first approached him, he looked pretty darn amused (in a kind way) as he took in the state of my starstruck-ness.

If you are shocked that I didn't hang around to actually see the scene that "Locke" was in, then let me repeat what I've said several times before on this site... I HATE BEING SPOILED! Even watching the filming of Ben's short scene took a little bit of magic out of the show for me, so there was no way I was going to expose myself to a Locke scene. I'd met my hero, that's all I wanted. There is no way I could've been happier.


9:31 AM

We successfully reunited with Jeff. As we made our way out of the city, I emailed Ryan and told him about our experience. He ended up checking things out for himself later, and saw two more actors and a pretty cool scene going down. I will let you know what it was after it airs. On that note, did you hear that the Season Five premiere is set for January 21? And that it consists of two new episodes back-to-back? And that January 21 just so happens to be my birthday?

The Lost Gods are with me, I tell you!

Here's the new, very short trailer that's up on ABC.com:

THE AFTERMATH

As if seeing Michael Emerson and meeting Terry O'Quinn weren't enough, I spent the next eight hours visiting tons of other Lost filming locations from the past four seasons (and a few from Season Five - but once again, mum's the word!). Jeff couldn't help but point out that in a Lost-like twist of fate, if he hadn't missed the turn at the airport and subsequently picked us up a half-hour late, we would've been too far away to turn back and head downtown and I definitely wouldn't have run into my main man. Freaky!

I will be writing up everything (well, almost everything) I saw on the Kos Hummer Tour over the next few weeks, so stay tuned. But for now I will tell you that I was pretty much in a daze for the duration of October 29, 2008. I literally couldn't believe that I had actually met Terry O'Quinn. I kept checking my digital camera like a maniac every five seconds, thinking that the pictures with Terry were going to make like Jacob's Cabin and disappear or something.

On that momentous day I also thought about all of you, my readers -- especially those of you who have followed my posts since the beginning, when they were just email messages that kept getting forwarded on, and forwarded on, and forwarded on. I knew that you all would be very, very excited for me, and I couldn't wait to write about my experience.

Even though I've now been home for a week, that day still seems like a dream. I mean, seriously, what are the odds that in the mere TEN HOURS I was on Oahu, I would not only run into an active Lost set, but would also get to chat with -- of all cast members -- TERRY O'QUINN?!? I know how lucky I am, believe you me.

But obviously I would've never achieved my dream of meeting "Locke" if it weren't for Andy from DarkUFO and Ryan from The Transmission. If I ever meet either of YOU in person, be prepared for me to tackle you and smother you with hugs and kisses! A huge "CHEERS!" to Andy and "MAHALO!" to Ryan.

Looking back on the series of events that ended with me meeting my favorite actor, I now believe more strongly than ever that, as Locke said best in the Season Two promo below, "Everything happens for a reason."



Although I wouldn't trade my time spent talking to Terry for anything, I must admit that I'm a little bit worried about my safety from here on out. After all, as fellow Lost fans on Facebook brought to my attention, what is going to become of me now that I've LEFT THE ISLAND?!?!

You know what this means ... I HAVE TO GO BACK!!!

- e

(Pictures from the rest of my Lost tour of Oahu have now been posted here, and a few shots of the movie locations we saw are here.)

The First Look at Season Five

Hello my dear friends -

I am planning an extra-special post for early/mid-November, so check back soon... but in the meantime, I just wanted to make sure you all caught the Season Five promo for Lost!

Drumroll, please...

(If you would like to take a look at the individual screencaps, click here and then hit the "view screencaps" button underneath the video.)

All I can say is that the new footage supports writer Brian K. Vaughan's assertion that Season Five "is definitely going to be the strangest thing that’s ever been on network television. Ever."

That's a BOLD statement, buddy! I LOVE IT!

I will be back with an analysis of the video above, plus some other goodies for you, when I return from my travels in a few weeks. Trust me, it will be worth the wait.

For now, I leave you with two thoughts:

1) I shrieked with glee to see Sayid kicking ass once again
and
2) The Best Line was definitely uttered by Kate to Even Older Aaron: "We're goin' on vacation, baby."

Awwwww... YEAH!

More soon,
- e

Hints from Comic-Con

Hello my dear friends -

It's been about two and a half months since Season Four of Lost ended, and I hope all of you have been making the most of the hiatus so far. For those of us who are in countries that have been enjoying warm-weather months since May 29th, I dare to guess that the time has gone by quickly. Besides, NO major non-reality TV shows have been on since Lost's finale, so it's not like anyone feels like they're missing anything just yet, right? However, when September and October bring a bevy of season premieres, things may get a tad more depressing and Lost's return in February will still be ridiculously far, far away.

That's most likely why the producers of our favorite show once again threw us some bones to chew on during the recent Comic-Con conference in San Diego. I didn't attend the event, but have watched the video that was shown at the Lost panel, have thought long and hard about what it could mean, and am now fully prepared to provide a debrief.

You all know my strict "no spoiler" rule for this site, but for some of the Comic-Con scoop, I make an exception. That being said, I'm not going to cover any of the Season Five plot-related information that the producers discussed in a question and answer session, although I did read all of it and don't feel that any of it is too surprising. If you would like to know what they said, the best and most succinct recap I have read is here.

What I AM going to discuss, however, is the video that played. While I wasn't quite as excited about this one as I was about The Orchid Station video that debuted last summer, this clip probably raises just as many new questions, if not more.

Before you watch it (assuming you haven't seen it already), allow me to set the stage. At Comic-Con, there was a Dharma Initiative booth, because the organization is apparently in business again and is trying to recruit new people (in the world of Lost, not in the real world... sorry, folks). A Lost fan attended one of the Dharma orientation sessions, and secretly filmed the video they showed there. Then he escaped from the room and showed the rest of the Comic-Con attendees what he had taped. This was obviously all just a staged thing with actors, lest you start getting too jealous of the kid on the tape.

Knowing that, you can try to forward the video below to the one-minute mark, where the good stuff begins...

If you'd like to read a transcript of what you just saw, click here.

Time to analyze the video. I hope my brain's still up to the task after being out of practice for several weeks...


THE NAME GAME

Previously, Pierre Chang went by a different alias in each of the hatch orientation videos we've seen... and the names were connected: Marvin CANDLE, Edgar HalliWAX, Mark WICKmund. Now he has finally revealed his true identity. So did those other monikers hold any clues, or does this guy just like candles? And why did he feel he needed to use pseudonyms in the first place?

We also find out that he is a professor from Ann Arbor, Michigan (Go Blue!), the city where I spent four years of my life during college. Who else has ties to Ann Arbor, or "A-Squared" as we Michiganders say? The DeGroots. Remember them? They are the two hippie freaks -- professors at the University of Michigan (in Ann Arbor) -- who co-founded the Dharma Initiative.

The connection between Chang and the Degroots could've easily been deduced back in Season Two, when we saw them in the Swan Orientation video that Chang moderated, so what's the big deal? I personally think that Chang mentioned Ann Arbor to get us crazy fans thinking about the Degroots again... because I have a feeling they're going to factor into Season Five.

I now put the probability of the Degroots being the Adam and Eve skeletons in the cave at 39.57% (higher than before).



CAT'S IN THE CRADLE

Honest-to-God truth: until I read the video transcript, I thought some rabid cat was making a racket at the start of Chang's speech. I felt really dumb after I found out it was supposedly a baby crying. They need to get better sound effects for these videos, seriously.

So, the #2 Biggest Debate that has arisen from this new clip is: "Who is the baby?" Many people thought it was Charlotte at first, since we have been given reason to believe that she was born on the Island. We also know, from when Ben rattled off her background in "Confirmed Dead," that she was born in 1979, which would more or less fit the thirty-year time gap between when Chang shot the video and the present day (more on that shortly). However, Chang clearly says "take HIM outside," so I really don't think it's Charlotte.

The next guess that's flooding the message boards is that the baby is Miles and is Chang's son... simply because he's Asian and so is Chang. Maybe Miles' "powers" come from the fact that he was born on the Island? I throw that theory out there, but I really don't subscribe to it, for the same reason that I don't believe Abaddon is "Older Walt" just because they're both African American.

So right now, I have no intelligent guesses for who the baby might be. But I do think it might not even matter. Perhaps "Who is the baby?" isn't the question we should be asking. Perhaps the right question is, "HOW is there a baby on the Island?" Because, last we checked, pregnant women died before giving birth to any children conceived on the Island.

The baby heard in the video could've been conceived elsewhere, like Aaron, and that is why he survived. Or maybe the problem with pregnant women arose after this video was taken. As I mentioned in my Season Four finale post: "But perhaps pregnant women started dying on the Island in the first place because of Ben... because he stopped devoting himself completely to the Island and got too wrapped up in Annie. As a punishment, the Island made it so that no one else could ever have children and Ben would have to bear the guilt of that situation."

This we can be sure of: we were meant to notice the baby crying on that video for a reason, or else it wouldn't have been on the tape in the first place, nor would Chang have called attention to it.

Finally, in Season Five we need to be on the look-out for a woman named "Lara," who Chang called out to on the tape. Some people think he said "Jennifer," but the actor who plays Chang actually confirmed the name was Lara in a recent interview (he says, "Dammit, Lara!").


KARMA POLICE,
ARREST THIS MAN, HE TALKS IN MATHS

We also learn that Chang was brought to the Island to conduct "experiments to study the Kerr metric solution of the Einstein field equations." Saaaaay whhhhaaaaat?

According to Lostpedia, "the Kerr metric is used to describe the rotation of black holes and how everything, including light, must rotate when near a black hole. When the Kerr metric is applied to Einstein's theory of general relativity, we get a wormhole. Since the trajectory of observers and particles in general relativity are described by time-like curves, it is possible for observers in this region to return to their past. So, in theory, time travel is possible if one uses the Kerr metric."

Now, where else have we seen mention of the Kerr metric on the show? On the chalkboard in Daniel Faraday's experiment room in "The Constant."



Which leads us to the #1 Biggest Debate that Chang's new video spawned...


GUIDED BY VOICES

Who is/are the owner(s) of the voice(s) heard on the tape--the one or two people Chang speaks to near the end?

When I heard the unseen guy say "None of that matters. It doesn't matter. Just get to it. Please!", I (and pretty much everyone else who watched this video) thought, "Yay, it's Faraday!" How he says "please" was the giveaway.

But then when I heard "This is useless! Alright? It's just useless. They'll never gonna see this, Pierre. How do I turn this off?", I wasn't so sure. Concentrate on how this man says "off." It's a New Yorkish accent, and it definitely is not how Daniel sounds. This same person speaks again at the very end of the clip, and says "off" again, while Chang begs him not to shut down the camera.

My initial hunch was that there were two men in the room with Chang. One is Daniel, who seems hopeful that the experiment might work. The other man is the more pessimistic one. Many people on the boards seem to think it may be Horace--the dude who brought Ben and his father to the Island, and who was seen recently in Locke's dream about Jacob's cabin. I could buy that, if for no other reason than it would explain why he popped up again on the show... they wanted to make sure we remembered him in future seasons.

Further, the actor who plays Chang did confirm in an interview that "we have seen" the person who spoke on the tape. That seals the fact that it's not a new character. But it also leads me to believe it is just one person, rather than two, behind the camera (he didn't talk like there were two different people ... he used the term "the voice" in the interview). So, despite the weird-sounding pronunciation of "off," I think if I had only one guess as to who was in the room with Chang, it would be Daniel. It would explain why he was crying at the wreckage of Flight 815 when we first saw him in "Confirmed Dead" (though he appeared to have no understanding/memory of why he was upset). And Daniel obviously had a hunch he might be time-traveling one day, or else he wouldn't have noted in his journal that Desmond could be his constant.

Just as important as the identity of the unseen man/men is how the guy(s) came to meet up with Chang in the first place. Because whoever the mystery man is, he is the one supplying Chang with information not only about the future, but also with more details than the Dharma group previously had about the mysterious properties of the Island. If we assume it is Daniel's voice in the video, then my guess as to how he got there would be that when Ben moved the Island, Tie Boy got thrown through time to a point in the past... which may or may not be the same point that Locke and others will have gone to.

With his handy-dandy journal, Faraday would be able to help Chang figure out what is going on with the special space-time qualities on the Island, and then subsequently suggest an attempt at transmitting a message through a "pinhole" in time (the term Chang used on the tape). Why Daniel would sound so defeatist about the experiment working, however, is beyond me. I suppose if you thought you were going to be stuck in the past with a bunch of people who were doomed to die and didn't think you would ever see your lady love (Charlotte) again, you would be a bit exasperated.

It does lead me to wonder, however, how Daniel would get back to the "present time" (for him, at least... which would be the end of 2004) after helping Chang try to reach the Future Dharma Team.

Allow me to end this section with one note of caution. I remember being really taken aback at some of the comments I got, both on this site and on DarkUFO, about the "who's in the coffin?" debate that started after the Season Three finale. In one particular post, I had laid out all of the possibilities of whose casket it might be, and some people outright attacked me for not just accepting that it DEFINITELY WAS MICHAEL. It was a done deal in their minds. This confidence stayed with those commenters until the last five seconds of the Season Four finale. And, well... we all know how that one turned out.

So I have to chuckle again when I read about all of these people who act like they have some sort of inside knowledge that it OBVIOUSLY IS FARADAY on the tape. While I agree that most signs point to it being him... I think we all should've learned by now that nothing -- absolutely nothing -- is a given on this show. Keep that in mind, should you find yourself ripping on anyone who doesn't think it's Daniel's voice, or being the subject of such taunts if you have another theory.


HIDE AND SEEK

At the 1:45 mark, there appears to be a strange image inserted into the reel. Here it is:


Unless it is a still-shot from The Blair Witch Project, I have no guesses. Nor do I think it's important, I'm just reporting that others do.


AND I THINK IT'S GONNA BE A LONG, LONG TIME

Although static drowns out exactly what Chang says about "thirty years," we can assume that since he made references to the Internet and the current President of the United States, and since he also spoke of a "violent purge" that had not yet happened, that he is coming to us from the year 1978, thirty years in the past.

How does this fit in with the timeline that we think has been established for the show thus far? (I'm taking all dates from the timeline listed on Lostpedia, which pulls from either stated dates or implied dates within episodes).

1970 - The Dharma Initiative was created

1977 or 1978 - Ben and his dad come to the Island

1978 - Chang broadcasts the video to the year 2008, possibly with the help of Faraday. Chang still has his left arm intact and there is at least one baby on the Island.

1980 - The Swan (original hatch) Orientation film is copyrighted, and in the video Chang's left arm is a prosthetic. The Pearl's Orientation film is also copyrighted in this year, but Chang's left arm appears to be his own in that reel.

1992 - The Purge takes place, where Ben helps The Others kill the Dharma Initiative members with poison gas.

2001 - Juliet arrives on the Island, and at this point, the problem with pregnant women has been going on for some time.

2004 - Ben "moves" the Island.

2008 - Chang's video makes its way thirty years into the future.


My guess would be that Chang must lose his arm in "the incident" he refers to in the Swan film. "The incident" was apparently why they started having someone push the button in the Swan hatch every 108 minutes in the first place (ah, remember the button and the Countdown Clock 'o Doom? Those were the days...) -- to control the Island's electromagnetic anomaly. So whatever this incident was, it probably happened between 1978, when Chang still had his arm, and 1980, when he appears to have a prosthetic in at least one video. Even though he mentions "a violent purge" while looking down sadly at his arm in this newest reel... his arm was obviously already gone before he was killed in The Purge.

Who wants to bet that we're going to see Chang on the Island in Season Five (in the past)? Who wants to also bet that a lot of what happened between 1970 and 2001 is going to be covered in Season Five?


ONE MORE TRY

Before the video is cut off, Pierre pleads with his unknown transmission recipients to "continue the research," to try to save him and his group, to try and find a way to "change the past," and to "stop what's about to happen."

First and foremost, let me reiterate that the producers have said, literally countless times, that the futures we have seen for the Oceanic Six are set in stone -- they are not going to change. They admit that it would be "cheating" and that the audience would not have any stake in the characters if it wasn't certain that Jack, for example, would end up all depressed with a hillbilly beard after returning home. So any talk of theories that include some group going back in time to change the past that will therefore make a different future unravel for our Lostaways should be ignored.

However, we cannot ignore that Pierre thinks that his fate can be changed, and that he is encouraging Future Dharma members to try and save him. And we can't be certain that they won't in fact try to do just that. But if, as Ms. Hawking explained to Desmond back in "Flashes Before Your Eyes," the universe will always course-correct... then there seems to be no hope for Pierre, his poor arm and the rest of the Dharma Initiative. Maybe Future Dharma DOES travel back in time but is still unable to change Original Dharma's fate.

In fact...

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

... I would bet that's what's going to happen. Why else would The Powers That Be behind the show have chosen to create "Octagon Global Recruiting" to try and attract people to the newly reconstituted Dharma Initiative (complete with a shiny new logo!)?

Why else would this summer's new online game related to the show (or ARG, alternate reality game) revolve around Dharma? You can play the game at DharmaWantsYou.com... or you can be lazy like me and just read what other people figure out from the game here.

It would seem that the Dharma Initiative HAS been resurrected in the year 2008, and I wouldn't be surprised if they try to interfere with the past. The question is... is Widmore behind it all? I would guess that there would be some connection to him, too.

Here's how it all might work: We can assume that Jack spirals into his depression in the late fall of 2007, because when he was still sober, happy, and living with Kate and Aaron, he read a clip about the Red Sox which placed the date at the end of August 2007. I would assume it would take at least a few months for him to get to the bad state he was in when he was begging Kate to return to the Island with him in the scene outside the airport in the Season Three finale.

We can therefore assume that the final scene of Season Four, in the Hoffs-Drawler funeral home with Ben and Jack looking at Locke (sniff) in the coffin, took place in the final months of 2007. And what's after 2007? 2008. Our current year, in which Dharma is reassembling and Jack is trying to round up the Oceanic Six again; both groups would have the goal of getting back to the Island. It might take them some time... like, say, until the beginning of 2009. You know, right when Season Five premieres. I'm making a bet right now that all of the action in the show ends "real-time" in May of 2010, when the final episode of the series airs.

Let us just pause a moment and appreciate the brilliance of the Lost writers once again, shall we?

(Pause.)

Incredible. Truly incredible.

Anyway, last time we saw Sun, she appeared to be trying to strike a deal with Widmore. She could be trying to get revenge on Ben (whom she might blame for Jin's death if she learned, from Locke/Bentham that Ben let Keamy die, thus blowing up the freighter...), OR she could have hope that Jin is still alive (also from Locke/Bentham) and is using Widmore to help the O6 find the Island again. Especially if she learned that Dharma was re-forming and Widmore was backing their new mission. What Sun is up to is one of the things I'm most anxious to figure out next year.

Let me restate that this entire section is just what I think is going on/going to happen ... purely my own theory. I'm sure it will be blown to bits shortly.


This ends my analysis of the new Pierre Chang video. However, there are a few more things I wanted to share with you all that I thought you might find interesting...


YOU LOOK JUST LIKE ME, DUDE!

At Comic-Con, there was a guy who looked EXACTLY like Hurley, as you can probably see from the still clip below. If you don't want to be spoiled about any Season Five plot points, only play the video for a few seconds just to appreciate his Hurly-ness.




IN OTHER LOST-RELATED NEWS...

- Sawyer's going to be in a movie!

- Shout-out to reader KV for letting me know about Lost: The Answers Are Here, a documentary of sorts that aired after the Season Four finale on Sky One in the UK. (The link goes to a page on YouTube containing the show broken up into three parts. Be forewarned that there may be some mild spoilers in these clips, but they are definitely something that will help tame "Lost Withdrawal.")





- What's this? Locke and Chang have already met?!?! This throws all of our theories out of the window. Oh, wait. It was only on the show JAG. Phew.



- Shout-out to reader LH for telling me about an appearance by Keamy and Zeke in Wild Hogs at 23-second mark in the video below. Yes, that IS Keamy. They both have been in tons of movies, by the way. Check out IMDB for the full list (here's Zeke's, here's Keamy's).



- Shout-out to reader "Island Girl" for telling me about these truly hilarious Lost spoofs, created with Lost action figures (and a few other "guest stars"). Can you guess which one is my favorite (readers of 'According to e' over the past few years will have an easier time...)? The bigger question is, why didn't I think of this?!?! (Note: other things on this site outside of the Lost spoofs are NOT safe for work.)

- The shout-outs keep coming... this one goes to reader TC, who sent me these pictures, taken in a Trader Joe's grocery store in St. Louis. Looks like an employee there is a fan of the show...





And finally, on a personal note, I have a few things to add:

- We had a guy do some work on our condo building last week, and I swear to you, he looked like he could be Desmond's uncle. I am sure the way I kept staring was unnerving the heck out of him. If he had busted out with a Scottish accent, I might have kidnapped him. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture (that probably would've made him walk out on the job, don't you think?).

- If you've been reading 'According to e,' then you know that I saw a Sawyer look-alike at a Jimmy Buffett concert a few weeks ago. And Jimmy himself referenced Lost during his performance!

- Before there was Lost, there was The X-Files to keep all of us nerds happy. Click here if you were a fan of that show and want to see some ultra-ridiculous pictures of me from an X-Files convention in 1998.

That's all I've got! I'm going to be pretty busy over the next few months (be sure to check in to 'According to e' to keep up with my adventures and to catch a big announcement I'll be making in a couple of weeks...), so I don't think I'll post again on Lost for a while. Remember to sign up in the upper right-hand part of this site if you'd like to get any new posts emailed to you or fed into a reader. Or friend me on Facebook, where I also post any new write-ups.

In the meantime, continue to do all that you can to keep your mind off of Lost's absence, and let me know if you have any other theories, questions or comments about the newest video!

- e