dharma, class of ’77

screencap from the photo taken of the “new recruits”:

welcome, dudes!

no familiar faces aside from the obvious. i was wondering what job kate had been assigned to, and after further investigation, i think she’s wearing the same jumpsuit as juliet wore in “lafleur.” so it looks like she’ll be working with juliet down in the dharma auto shop. awkward much? hurley’s occupation, right now, seems unknown, although who wants to bet they put him in food service or something? or, as some people have been suggesting across the fandom, hurley will be assigned to the radio tower, where he will have to hear the numbers repeated. some are even saying that it it hurley’s voice that is reading them in the first place. which, if true, means that the numbers that drove hurley’s asylum pal leonard crazy back when he was posted at a listening post in the late 80s, the numbers that leonard repeated incessantly, the numbers that hurley played in the lottery and caused him all the bad luck, the numbers that drove hurley to australia in the first place — WERE RECORDED BY HURLEY HIMSELF! crazy, huh?

and it is only fitting that jack “dr. holier-than-thou” shepherd (sorry for the hate; i have feelings similar to sawyer’s about jack’s leadership thus far. a post on the pros and cons of our island leadership choices to follow) is now a “workman.” although, let us not forget that there is another important workman in dharma lore: ben’s dad, roger linus.

aka skeletor:

hey bu-uddy!

looks like you’ll get to have that beer together after all, sawyer. and, oddly enough, the scene below from season 3’s “tricia tanaka is dead” can be recreated in dharmaville. except with roger a little more alive this time:

on island time

all right, so this episode was not incredibly shocking, complex or freaky… but heck, i sure enjoyed it! was it not good to get back to comic, character-focused lost? sawyer easing tense situations with his quips and quick wit (eyeliner, anyone?), wandering aimlessly around the island, some good old fashioned romance: lafleur had it all!

additionally i think  josh holloway could have chemistry with a stump. (hope for me yet?) no offense to elizabeth mitchell or anything, but the man’s got talent. and abs.

FOCUS, BLOG! NO ONE WANTS TO READ ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS FOR JOSH HOLLOWAY!

errrrneway… i was talking to one k cons during this episode and we both decided that we quite like the di. we like it so much, in fact, that we could see a sitcom spin-off in the works: “the di” ; “on island time” ; “dharma daze.” i can see it now:

LAFLEUR, the Dharma Initiative’s head of secuity, gets easily annoyed with all the “hippie nutjobs” that make up the DI. But that’s probably because he’s from the future! Hilarity ensues with wacky scientist DANIEL, psychic medium MILES, sexy mecanic JULIET and all the other madcap characters that make up the DI. Life’s not always a beach — even if you DO live on a tropical island!

(a new 30 minute comedy coming this fall after samantha who)

seriously, though. lovin’ it. some were not fans of the season 2 dharma lore, but i’ve loved it since the first glimpse of the swan symbol. but i mostly appreciated this episode because so many gaps are being filled in; remember three seasons ago, asking “who are the others?” now here they are. they have rules! and treaties! and the natives of the island like to take their dead bodies!

oh yeah. that was weird. puts a little damper on the whole “happy episode” theme we have going. this was probably the biggest reveal for me (besides the shot of the intact statue — screencap tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!). why must the bodies be buried? what do the natives do with reanimated corpses? and for that matter, why are they not harmed by the SONIC FENCE OF DOOOOOM? i’m beginning to think that these natives are not true corporeal beings. but from whence they came?! and who is truly a “native” out of richard’s people? to be a native, do you have to be born on the island? or are you initiated via the smoke monster’s brainwashing? ben is not immune to the fence (right?) so that means that he is not one of the converted?

also, what must have occurred to ignite the violence between dharma and the hostiles so that children in school were traine to hide under their desks? (“through the looking glass)

WHO ARE THESE DARN HOSTILES, ANYWAY?!

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOUNG BEN GETS TO THE ISLAND? HOW MANY YEARS FROM 1974 IS THAT? WHAT ABOUT THE PURGE?

don't trust him, horace!!!

thoughts.

guys, when are we?

gah! the first two hours of season 5 have aired and i am still trying to gather up the pieces of my brain from when my head exploded in the first 60 seconds.

it looks like our good friend, dr. marvin candle aka mark wickman aka edgar haliwax AKA (for realzies) dr. pierre chang is back and better than ever. when are we: almost pre-DI; DI when it was a pilot project. before ben and roger workman and dr. goodburger (or whatever his name is). and, apparently, THE FROZEN DONKEY WHEEL (the one that ben turned to move the island) EXISTED BEFORE THE DI DID.

Adds much more mystique to the set of “island antiques” we seem to be collecting: the black smoke door inscribed with hieroglyphics,  the infamous four-toed statue, the rock sculpture that walt was familiar with. whatever history the island has it is long and has many cultural references, so i suppose we’llhave to stay tuned. of course i can’t help but ask who were the first people on the island? that wheel did not put itself there (i think). perhaps one of our only hints are those “adam and eve” bodies that jack found in the caves way back in season 1.

but i digress.

i wanted to drop some comments on the opening “teaser” sequence, which brilliantly, in my opinion, juxtaposed the history of LOST with the thematic issues this season seems to be presenting us with.

— “the broken record”: as you know, more than one season of LOST has begun with the playing of a record. the first being desmond back in the season two premiere with mama cass’ “make your own kind of music”; second with juliet and “downtown.” another “record” episode opening that comes to mind is “cabin fever”, last season’s locke-centric episode that opens with a sequence of his mother, age a5, preparing to go on a date with “him.” as emily pouts and spritzes, she bobs along to buddy holly’s “everyday.”

playing a record has immediate connections with theatrics; an overture a raising of the curtain, “hey the show’s about to start.” the playing of a record in LOST usually connotates some kind of beginning and willie nelson is there to greet us at the start of season 5.

record also makes me think of record; recorded knowledge; documentation; legacy. this episode certainly wants to leave some kind of record for the future, and certainly daniel made an indelible record in desmond’s brain: a memory he had never had before.

dan himself mentions in this episode the theme of the”broken record of time” which has been brought to us literally in the opening. records of course have grooves; the needle has to trace the correct groove to play correctly. any blips and the whole thing becomes warped, twisted, disorted. it is the wheel that has pushed the losties out of their cosmic time-space groove and now they are doomed to skip until someone re-rights the needle. i like the image of the record in this instance also because it is round; you can skip to certain parts, forward or back. you can even flip it over and play the other side.

one more thing about the record: in terms of LOST history, the playing of a record is the inauguration of a new season, and by playing it over and over, the writers are intentionally skipping, repeating the same motif over and over in order to remind us of either: 1. the connectedness of the show’s storylines or 2. even if LOST sounds like a broken record to us, we would probably still keep listening to it.

— the baby: one last point before i roll off to bed (more links and ish tomorrow) is that dr. pierre’s baby must must must be our friend miles straume. it’s too perfect. however, let me point out that this is not the first time this baby has appeared in the LOST-iverse. in hte video “leaked” from comicon chang tells someone to take a crying baby outside before continuing his plea that the DI be reinstated. in both this first episode as well as this clip the baby has been emphasized, so i think we’re pretty safe to bet that he is someone we know and it is probably miles. i’ll post a link to the video below, but listen to the voice of the interjector here. sounds a bit like faraday, non?

happy LOST-ing!