Post by Forever Xena on Nov 7, 2005 3:20:35 GMT -6
Published - November, 6, 2005
'Lost' in mystery
From 'Truman Show' to 'Matrix'-like schemes, local fans go overboard for TV's fantasy island
Kimberly Blair
@pensacolanewsjournal.com
Pensacola radio personality Mike "Sandman" Sanders never lacks for a topic to discuss on his afternoon show on Thursday, thanks to the hot ABC drama, "Lost.''
"My take on it: It's a 'Truman Show'-like comparison,'' said Sanders, 36, a radio host at WMEZ Soft Rock 94.1. He discusses the series about plane-crash-survivors-turned castaways on a very lush, albeit odd, tropical island with his listeners on Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m. "It's an experiment with "? I don't know. The government?''
Sanders' theory about the series that airs on Wednesday at 8 p.m. is one of many now circulating among "Lost'' groupies, and, for the moment, trumps earlier theories that the survivors are really dead and are now in purgatory as they work out personal issues haunting them from their past.
Other fans theorize that it's a "Matrix''-like thing in which they never even boarded the doomed plane but have been plugged into a computer taking them on a journey down the rabbit hole.
"To me, it seems like when they showed the guy down in the hatch, that maybe there are some aliens messing with their brains,'' said Rose Shelby, 40, of Pensacola, a mother who schedules her life around Wednesday nights.
"I look for clues, and sometimes I'll watch the episode again because you miss things the first time.''
Hidden clues on the screen
Shelby does what other fans do -- they search for fleeting images, such as a significant logo that appeared on a shark that attacked a raft carrying two survivors.
"When the shark swims by, it had the Dharma logo on its tail, but I had to go frame by frame to find it,'' said Megan Glasscock, 26, a graphic design student at Pensacola Junior College.
She is a self-professed "Lost" junkie who studied the freeze frame of the logo and discovered it is different from other Dharma logos that appear down a hatch in an underground bunker discovered by the plane's mid-section sturvivors and different from one that appears in another bunker housing the tail-section survivors.
"The one on the shark's tail is the I Ching wheel rotated clockwise one click and without a swan,'' she said, referring to the ancient Chinese wheel used for divination.
Tracking such detail is what keeps Glasscock hooked on the series and the spin-offs: Web sites, conventions, magazines and blogs.
She even replicated one of the Dharma logos and wears it on a vest, carries a film cell from the show's promotion in the United Kingdom on her key chain, hauls around a "Lost" tote, listens to DVD music mixes she created to embody the personalities of each character -- and if that were not enough to show her allegiance to the series -- she designed a comic book featuring two of the "Lost" hunks, Sayid and Sawyer.
She can rattle off "Lost" trivia faster than the "Hatch folks" can hit the execute button.
"Episode eight was 'The Confidence Man' with Sawyer,'' she said of the show's bad-boy hunk, played by Josh Holloway.
"In the beginning, oh my God, he's so horrible. But then you see another side of him.''
"I love Russo, the French woman, because she is such a mystery,'' Glasscock said of a castaway who has been on the island for more than a decade.
"She is so interesting because she had everything, and she lost it all, and you theorize that before she came to the island, she was a cr×_ puff, not a survivor.''
New fans getting caught up
OK. If you're shaking your head and thinking that Glasscock has lost her mind obsessing over such details, you're obviously not a "Lost" fan.
Just check out the minutiae fans are combing through 24/7 on hundreds of Web sites.
If any of this intrigues you enough to tune in to "Lost" for the first time this season, be forewarned: "If you jump into the season two, you won't have a clue,'' Glasscock said. "There is no way to be a casual fan. You have to watch it all the time.''
Thanks to the recently released DVD set of last year's season, which can be rented or purchased, new "Lost" fans can bone up.
That's what Sanders did when he picked up the series late after hearing people in Vail, Colo., talking about it.
"Right before I moved here, I lived in Denver, and I'd go up to Vail to ski,'' said Sanders, who now tunes in with his 12-year-old daughter. "I'd hear people from Michigan and Australia -- from all over -- all talking about it. I caught the tip end of it last season and had to buy the DVD to pick up on what's going on.''
" 'Lost' is intriguing like the 'X-Files,' '' Sanders said, referring to the now-defunct Fox network sci-fi hit.
"It's good programing and writing with the flashback element that foreshadows and teases you,'' he said, referring to the background stories on characters that reveal how each one came to be in Australia where they boarded the doomed Oceanic Flight 815.
"There are so many reality programs that you don't have to think about, but "Lost" challenges you to figure out what is going on,'' said Linda Brock, 28, a communications specialist at Gulf Power.
"And just when you think you have it figured out, they (writers) throw something out that ruins what you thought."
"Lost" is not for those seeking mind-numbing entertainment, Brock said.
"It appeals to people who crave smarter television and like to go online and talk in the Web community about the show," she said.
Mystery and good story line aside, Summer Guest, 27, and her fiance, David Johnson, 36, of Pensacola, also love the music score, cinematography and directing.
"We're big fans of reality TV, and this is a little like 'Survivor,' '' she said of the CBS reality show.
"The previews made it look really good, and it's turned out to be much better than we expected.''
Guest has not gotten caught up in the Web debates because she likes to be surprised.
New viewers might want to heed her course and steer clear of the blogs, especially the ones with the spoilers -- fodder that gives away what might happen next -- until they catch up with the series.
Brock believes the layers of mysteries and character flashbacks are a brilliant way to keep "Lost" alive for many seasons.
"Some shows, like 'Invasion,' I sit and watch and think, how will they keep this up for five seasons?'' she said. "But 'Lost' could go on for years with episodes on how they got on the island, their back stories, and if they do get off the island, what will their lives be like?"
'Lost' in mystery
From 'Truman Show' to 'Matrix'-like schemes, local fans go overboard for TV's fantasy island
Kimberly Blair
@pensacolanewsjournal.com
Pensacola radio personality Mike "Sandman" Sanders never lacks for a topic to discuss on his afternoon show on Thursday, thanks to the hot ABC drama, "Lost.''
"My take on it: It's a 'Truman Show'-like comparison,'' said Sanders, 36, a radio host at WMEZ Soft Rock 94.1. He discusses the series about plane-crash-survivors-turned castaways on a very lush, albeit odd, tropical island with his listeners on Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m. "It's an experiment with "? I don't know. The government?''
Sanders' theory about the series that airs on Wednesday at 8 p.m. is one of many now circulating among "Lost'' groupies, and, for the moment, trumps earlier theories that the survivors are really dead and are now in purgatory as they work out personal issues haunting them from their past.
Other fans theorize that it's a "Matrix''-like thing in which they never even boarded the doomed plane but have been plugged into a computer taking them on a journey down the rabbit hole.
"To me, it seems like when they showed the guy down in the hatch, that maybe there are some aliens messing with their brains,'' said Rose Shelby, 40, of Pensacola, a mother who schedules her life around Wednesday nights.
"I look for clues, and sometimes I'll watch the episode again because you miss things the first time.''
Hidden clues on the screen
Shelby does what other fans do -- they search for fleeting images, such as a significant logo that appeared on a shark that attacked a raft carrying two survivors.
"When the shark swims by, it had the Dharma logo on its tail, but I had to go frame by frame to find it,'' said Megan Glasscock, 26, a graphic design student at Pensacola Junior College.
She is a self-professed "Lost" junkie who studied the freeze frame of the logo and discovered it is different from other Dharma logos that appear down a hatch in an underground bunker discovered by the plane's mid-section sturvivors and different from one that appears in another bunker housing the tail-section survivors.
"The one on the shark's tail is the I Ching wheel rotated clockwise one click and without a swan,'' she said, referring to the ancient Chinese wheel used for divination.
Tracking such detail is what keeps Glasscock hooked on the series and the spin-offs: Web sites, conventions, magazines and blogs.
She even replicated one of the Dharma logos and wears it on a vest, carries a film cell from the show's promotion in the United Kingdom on her key chain, hauls around a "Lost" tote, listens to DVD music mixes she created to embody the personalities of each character -- and if that were not enough to show her allegiance to the series -- she designed a comic book featuring two of the "Lost" hunks, Sayid and Sawyer.
She can rattle off "Lost" trivia faster than the "Hatch folks" can hit the execute button.
"Episode eight was 'The Confidence Man' with Sawyer,'' she said of the show's bad-boy hunk, played by Josh Holloway.
"In the beginning, oh my God, he's so horrible. But then you see another side of him.''
"I love Russo, the French woman, because she is such a mystery,'' Glasscock said of a castaway who has been on the island for more than a decade.
"She is so interesting because she had everything, and she lost it all, and you theorize that before she came to the island, she was a cr×_ puff, not a survivor.''
New fans getting caught up
OK. If you're shaking your head and thinking that Glasscock has lost her mind obsessing over such details, you're obviously not a "Lost" fan.
Just check out the minutiae fans are combing through 24/7 on hundreds of Web sites.
If any of this intrigues you enough to tune in to "Lost" for the first time this season, be forewarned: "If you jump into the season two, you won't have a clue,'' Glasscock said. "There is no way to be a casual fan. You have to watch it all the time.''
Thanks to the recently released DVD set of last year's season, which can be rented or purchased, new "Lost" fans can bone up.
That's what Sanders did when he picked up the series late after hearing people in Vail, Colo., talking about it.
"Right before I moved here, I lived in Denver, and I'd go up to Vail to ski,'' said Sanders, who now tunes in with his 12-year-old daughter. "I'd hear people from Michigan and Australia -- from all over -- all talking about it. I caught the tip end of it last season and had to buy the DVD to pick up on what's going on.''
" 'Lost' is intriguing like the 'X-Files,' '' Sanders said, referring to the now-defunct Fox network sci-fi hit.
"It's good programing and writing with the flashback element that foreshadows and teases you,'' he said, referring to the background stories on characters that reveal how each one came to be in Australia where they boarded the doomed Oceanic Flight 815.
"There are so many reality programs that you don't have to think about, but "Lost" challenges you to figure out what is going on,'' said Linda Brock, 28, a communications specialist at Gulf Power.
"And just when you think you have it figured out, they (writers) throw something out that ruins what you thought."
"Lost" is not for those seeking mind-numbing entertainment, Brock said.
"It appeals to people who crave smarter television and like to go online and talk in the Web community about the show," she said.
Mystery and good story line aside, Summer Guest, 27, and her fiance, David Johnson, 36, of Pensacola, also love the music score, cinematography and directing.
"We're big fans of reality TV, and this is a little like 'Survivor,' '' she said of the CBS reality show.
"The previews made it look really good, and it's turned out to be much better than we expected.''
Guest has not gotten caught up in the Web debates because she likes to be surprised.
New viewers might want to heed her course and steer clear of the blogs, especially the ones with the spoilers -- fodder that gives away what might happen next -- until they catch up with the series.
Brock believes the layers of mysteries and character flashbacks are a brilliant way to keep "Lost" alive for many seasons.
"Some shows, like 'Invasion,' I sit and watch and think, how will they keep this up for five seasons?'' she said. "But 'Lost' could go on for years with episodes on how they got on the island, their back stories, and if they do get off the island, what will their lives be like?"