LOST Reworked!

Since the beginning of any trendy show, crazy fans always tend to take aspects about the show they love out of context. The Matrix, the X Files, and many other movies and shows have certain tendencies in them that seem to mirror religions, especially Christianity. Books have been written, groups have been created, and people actually are beginning to truly believe in these supposed truths.

 
 LOST has become one of those shows. Since the first episode aired, LOST fanatics have been finding characteristics about the show that have deeper significance. It is the kind of show that has so many details that avid fans could basically find “meaning” in anything they put their mind to, but Christianity?

 
“I started watching LOST from the beginning, but I didn’t really get into it until about the third season,” said Sara Neiman, Fort Pierce. “It was then that I started reading about it on different blogs and stuff. I found different places where they were comparing LOST to the Bible and Christianity, and it kind of scared me because everything they were saying seemed like it could be true! They had so many details!”

 
The ideas about this aspect of the show have been taken so seriously that there are actually books written about it. There is a book called “The LOST Bible” which compares details about LOST to the Christian Bible starting all the way back into Genesis.

 
“When I first came to Southeastern, I started watching LOST with the group in Aventura second floor lobby. There was this one girl who brought the book ‘The LOST Bible’ to one of the shows, and it had some pretty fanatical things in it,” said Chad Ainsworth, Jr. “It even compared Jack to Jesus and Kate to Mary Magdalene. I laughed at it because I know that it is not true, but the weird thing is that many people actually might believe in it.”

 
However, the theories about the show don’t stop with just Christianity. From Muslim to Buddhism, and even branching out to Catholicism, each of these religions is supposedly represented in the show.

 
Things such as Virgin Mary statues and Mr. Ecko being a supposed priest could represent Catholicism. Also, Charlie, a character in the first few seasons of the show, says that he grew up Catholic.

 
Mr. Ecko also quotes much Scripture, and he insisted on baptizing baby Aaron after his mother Claire gave birth to him. “Aaron” is also another reference to a character in the Bible.

 
Sayid, a character that has been focused on numerous times in the show, is represented to be very Muslim. He is seen praying many times, and his past shows that he had been part of the army in his home of Iraq in support of their religion.

 
Also, a fact that people might not know is that the “Numbers,”-4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42- that the character Hurley is always finding in his path, all add up to 108. This is the sacred number in the religion Buddhism.

 
Are these just things that LOST fans are coming up with? Or are they things that should be checked out and have relevance to the storyline of LOST? Either way, for fans of this show around the globe, it sure is fun to read about things like this and speculate if they truly mean anything. Just be warned to not take these things seriously.

       If you are a student at Southeastern University, you know how hard it is to find a room to watch TV in as a group. LOST fans here at Southeastern have discovered that this is almost an impossible task. The LOST fan club is searching for remedies to this dilemma.

      LOST is a show that cannot be missed, and the school does not aid in the process of trying to watch the show together as a fan club. They talk about the previous week’s show, and they discuss what is happening in the show during the commercials. It just is not the same when it is watched by one person.

 
               Southeastern University is a great school; however there are some things that frustrate many students on campus. One of these frustrations is their availability of any kind of a media room that can be used by the students. They have TV and internet in their rooms, but they are not allowed to have guys in the girls’ dorms and vice versa.

       This is fine with many of them, but if they have this rule, they should provide alternative places for the students to go instead of their dorms. However, their version of an “alternative” is to provide for the entire, 3,000 student body, three TV lobbies. They also have a café here, but it is a very loud environment, and LOST is a show that cannot be watched when every word is not audible.

 
 “I am always looking for a place to watch TV and to hang out with my girlfriend here on campus, but there are not really that many places. I work on campus, and up until recently I did not have a car. So I really didn’t have time to walk anywhere, and there aren’t any places close enough for it to be worth it to walk,” said Shea Doyle, a Jr. 

 
       Each of these three lobbies has one TV and currently two of them are broken. The LOST fan club always tried to get the one lobby that had the working TV, but sometimes they would get there too late and someone else had would have claimed it.

 
 “I love watching LOST with all of the other LOST fans, so I actually had to start reserving the lobby 24 hours in advance to make sure it would be available for us,” said Leah Corbett,  a Jr.

 
       This procedure of reserving the lobby each Tuesday has worked for the past few weeks. However, last week the LOST fans showed up to our lobby to find that TV also not working. They tried everything possible to figure out what was wrong, but ended up running out of time and they all had to go back to their rooms to watch the show separately. 

 
 “I plan on talking to one of the maintenance men here to see if they can possibly look at the TVs in time for Wednesday’s show,” said Josh Morway, a Jr. 

 Hopefully this plan of action will bring about working TV’s, but until then, LOST fans at Southeastern will be each watching their beloved show by themselves.

        Many fans have been wondering about what the end of LOST will entail. Will the characters all end up off the island or on the island? Will they all be together? What is the real purpose of the Dharma Initiative? How do the Dharma Initiative residents of the ‘70’s not remember the survivors when they are there later?
        All of these and many, many more questions have been rolling around in the heads of thousands out there. When is LOST going to answer us? Well fans, that greatly depends on the season that LOST producers decide to end with.
        For about two years now, a few different rumors have been circulating about the eventual end of LOST. Some heard, around May of 2007, that the season was going to go until its sixth season. Many newspapers published this same story including USAToday.
        However, more recently, about the beginning of this season until now, some rumors have been heard that this, the fifth season, is going to be its last. Supposedly it was because of viewership being down, and there not being enough support for it to go another season.
        Which of these rumors is true? Do we have LOST to look forward to for this season and the next? Or must we only enjoy it for these last few episodes? Stay in touch for updates as this blog tries hard to keep its readers “in the know.”

 Ever wonder what takes a person from being an average fan to being a passionate fan of something? LOST is a show that has more of the crazy, passionate fans than the average fans. What about LOST makes people obsess over it? Is it the characters? The spastic storyline maybe? I sat down with one of these “crazed” fans; we will call her “Mrs. Ford,” to get some answers to these questions.

Firstly, I asked Mrs. Ford what first drew her into the show LOST, and how did she first find out about it?
 

“One night while watching E, or one of those inane Entertainment Tonight type programs, they showed a clip of 10,000 Hawaiians sitting in beach chairs and on blankets on Waikiki Beach in front of a 30-foot movie screen waiting to see the 2 hour Lost Pilot three weeks before it’s ABC premiere on September 22, 2004.
After that, the LOST craze hit the internet and everyone was talking, “Lost, it’s Robinson Crusoe, The Lord of the Flies, Jurassic Park, X-Files all rolled into one”. “Drama, action, adventure, horror, eeriness - everything you could hope for. As a huge sci-fi and horror fan, this kind of show was right up my alley. ”

I then asked her how she has kept up with the show, and if she has missed any episodes since the beginning.
 “I’ve been watching since day one. I taped every single episode that first year on my VCR, and then bought all the DVD’s when they came out. Now there’s TiVo, next we’ll be able to teleport to the actual island were you can watch them filming the episode. Well, I wish.”

Next, I wanted to know if she was in any fan clubs, and if she was, was that one of the ways she found out about clues on LOST?
 “No, I’m not into fan clubs, but I am a member of several Lost boards including: The Fuselage.com: The Official Site of the Creative Team Behind ABC’s Award Winning TV Show “LOST”, sponsored by J.J. Abrams. This is a really good site for spoilers, episode discussions, theories, and even the actors will even answer fan questions. Hurley (Jorge Garcia) and Locke (Terry O’Quinn) post there from time to time.
I will admit to one dorky “fan” move I’ve made in the name of Lost. During Season One, I sent a letter to Josh Holloway (Sawyer) telling him how much I admired his work on Lost bla bla bla, and asked for an autographed photo. I received it in the mail a month later signed: Jacey, Thanks for watching. Josh Holloway.”

Then, I asked her what her favorite character on LOST was and why?
 “Obviously, we’ve covered that. Sawyer (aka James Ford) is my fave. I can’t help myself, I dig the bad boys!  With that said, I’m also a big fan of Ben Linus. He’s one scary dude and you never really know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy – one thing’s for sure, Michael Emerson is definitely a great actor.”
 

I then wanted to know about what she thought of the latest episode. (At the time of the interview it was Episode 5.05.) 
 “This Place Is Death was awesome! It was chalk full of creepiness with the re-appearance of Smokey the arm-eating monster, Danielle’s French team down with the sickness, Christian Shephard of the living dead in the donkey wheel room with Locke, and we finally see the Temple (the last safe place on the island).

“Off the island, just as Sun is finally getting a backbone, Ben manages another Jedi mind trick to make her do what he wants. Oh, and pay no attention to Mrs. Hawking behind the green curtain. Is she running the show, or is it the elusive, Jacob? We know she’s Daniel Faraday’s mom, but who’s yur daddy?

“Will they all return to the island? Does Locke move the island and stop the wonky time warps? Is there enough Kleenex to go around for all who suffer from the dreaded Epistaxis (nose bleeds)? Who knows if we’ll ever have all the answers? Who cares! The show is smart, it makes you think, and I know I’ll will be wondering and watching on the edge of my seat until the very end.”

 As I have said in previous posts, LOST is much more than just a show that you sit and watch for an hour once a week. It is a complete interactive experience. Sites including the official LOST sites on Myspace and Facebook provide loads of extra information that fans love to hear. Most fan sites would only include things about how much the fans love the show or the show’s characters, but any site on LOST doesn’t just have these things, they have essays on the next week’s show, interviews with any person from the show they can get to maybe reveal a secret about the show, and much, much more. Many of this information are very relevant to the flow of the show series, but it is really necessary to the understanding of the show? Could a person just watch the show from week to week and still be an avid fan? I talked to a few of the fans from the show’s Myspace and a few of my own friends who are LOST extremists to see what they think about this concept.
 First I went to the show’s top fan sites to communicate with a few of the most extreme fans to get their “expert” opinions. The first I talked to from the Official LOST site was a woman who would not give me her real name but goes by the name of “SNLFanForever” on Myspace.
I asked SNLFanForever if she thought that all this LOST networking and discovering new information was essential to being a big fan of the show. She replied with, “It is very [extremely] necessary! Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the show, but I get even more excited to get all the LOST sites the next day t see what all the other fans are saying about that show. I end up understanding not only that show more, but also the next week’s show.”
 However I also talked to a fan here on campus, Josh Morway, who doesn’t always have the time to sit and talk to other fans online after the show. I also asked him if he believed it was necessary to network about LOST or whether just watching would be fine. He said, “I don’t think it’s necessary, it just makes it a lot more fun! A fan could be a good fan and just watch the show, but finding out more details online later makes it so much more interesting! I do it as much as I can, but when the many times come that I don’t have time, I wish that I could. So, no I don’t think it’s necessary, I just think it adds so much to just watching the show.”
 Whether you think that it is necessary or not, there are thousands of fans that flock to these websites to check out the “new updates” and to read the latest blogs on the next show. Many believe that LOST has these many fans because of these sites. Countless fans actually started liking this show because of all the fun they could have with it online. They love feeling apart of a group, and sharing in all the “secrets” that other fans find and share. Also, a lot of these fans became fans after the first couple seasons because they saw a few of their friends getting involved in it. They caught up online just so they could also feel apart of this group of people. I believe that networking is a huge reason for the show LOST becoming so famous, and that it is these devoted fans that have keep this confusing show going on as long as it has.

                                                  Is LOST making its fans a little too lost? Many former fans are considering giving up on this once captivating show because it has become too in-depth for them. Ratings have decreased from previous seasons, and LOST producers are getting worried. I am personally an avid fan of this show, and I have been one since the beginning of the first season. Throughout the show’s history however, there have consistently been questions presented that are never really quite answered. Questions such as what was the thing the survivors first heard in the woods when they first were on the island? Why does the character Richard never seem to age? What is the deal with the weird foot statue on the island? And why was it that Michael and Walt got to leave the island, but they don’t feel the strong need to return like the rest that got to leave? These and many more are the topic of numerous people the morning after a new episode of LOST airs.
        At Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, there are two groups of more than 15 people each that get together just to watch the show. These groups have reserved lobbies of two different dorm buildings to make sure they have a place where they can watch their beloved show on a big screen. The only reason there is two lobbies being taken up also is because both groups can’t fit into one lobby. These groups began last year as only a one-lobby event with about 7 people. If so many people are becoming frustrated with the show, then why do groups such as these continue to grow?
     Margaret Pfaff, a Southeastern Alumni whom I personally have watched LOST with, said, “I enjoy the show because it is more than just watching it at a certain time. After a new episode airs, I immediately get on my computer to see what other fans are talking about. When you are watching it with other people and talking even more people after the show, you get answers to many of your questions. It is more than just viewing a show for me, it is one of my hobbies.” Maybe this is the reason why many college students are the ones who are becoming fans.
    LOST has become more than a show for them, it has become an activity to engage in. Why then are there so many fans who are dropping off of the LOST bandwagon? I believe that it can actually be the same reason. Because the show is so engaging and because it requires so much personal input, many younger teens and also older adults do not want to put this much effort into a mere TV show.
    Richard Clements of Fort Pierce, FL, said, “I don’t have time to do much more than just sit and watch the show. And when I can’t just do that, I have to also go and do research on it and talk to people about the show, it is no longer enjoyable to me.” He was actually the one who originally found the pilot of LOST and got his family excited about the show. However, as the seasons have progressed, he has disconnected more and more. Maybe this can be the answer to getting old fans back; to just answer more of the questions along the line to keep people interested, but also to allow enough mystery to still excited people such as Margaret. Will the producers of the show eventually get the hint? My guess is that we are going to find out very soon.