"In Which We Meet More Others! - 5.03"

Okay, so I nicked the title from a Fringe episode, but I was really happy that we got to see more history of the Others this week. Here are my bulleted thoughts on the ep without rehashing too much of what I and others have already mentioned on the interblogs:

* I appreciate that TPTB have given us some time to spend with Des and Penny and now their little family. Adorable. At least someone has gotten what they love and need on this show.
* I wonder why Des didn't know where Dan's lab was, since he had "been" there before? He looked like he was just walking around hoping to find a clue.
* It's too bad about Teresa, but could she have volunteered for the work? You know, the old Indiana Jones freshman crush kind of thing ("I'll do anything to help you Professor!")? I hope that we find out more about her part.
* Very interesting to learn about Widmore's funding of Dan's research, wow.
* Was Widmore forced to keep Penny away from Des in their past, as in, by the Time Lords? I know it's an old story, the rich old coot doesn't want his perfect daughter to find real love outside of their station in life. But he did go to a lot of trouble to try to separate them; hiding Des' letters, attempting to pay Des to leave, and the whole boat race, etc. Mrs.H didn't want them married either. But then again, if Wid wanted Des on the island he wouldn't have told him to stay out of it last night I guess. Unless Desmond's work is done, and now he's free to not concern himself with it anymore. Hmm.
* Why didn't Widmore tell Des about Ben trying to kill Penny? He was very coy in telling him to take good care of her without actually explaining why.
* I would have really liked to see Richard's face at the point where time skipped again and Locke disappeared before his eyes. :-)
* I don't understand, if Dan cares so much about Charlotte, why doesn't he explain to her what's going on with her problems? He's treating her the way the F-4s treated the Losties after they first landed on the island. Something's weird about that to me.

It was probably inevitable that TPTB would bring the history of atomic bomb research into a Pacific island story, and I'm happy about that because it's another one of my fave history subjects. They sure left a lot of clues to lead us to think that Jughead is buried in the Swan station, or they could be tricking again us to think something like that. One way that I could go with that theory is if, A) Jughead is patched up and encased as Dan described, B) the whole deal is buried in the ground, and C) some kind of magnetic containment devise is built to surround it to trap in any stray radiation. This could lead to the need for the periodical discharge of the radiation build-up every 108 minutes (this is pure fiction here, I'm not going by any real science) if the patch job was not quite good enough to contain it. Or, with the combination of the leaking radiation and the magnetic field mixing causing the same problem of buildup. And in that case, the Failsafe implosion could be the way to blow the bomb inward, so that the normal H-bomb explosion would not wipe out the entire island. Otherwise, if it's just Jughead in the cement containment hold in the ground, I can't see how there would be the magnetic force that pulls on fillings and metal keys and chains, or why the radiation would have to be discharged, or how the bomb could implode abnormally. Not that I'm Dan Faraday and know all these things, of course.

I also found it amusing that Richard's medieval look was apparently not his normal in-the-past accouterments, as he showed up nice and clean-cut in the 1950s. Perhaps by the time he saw Ben he was going through his hippie stage. To me the shirt he wore then just doesn't fit the raggedy-man costumes that Tom and company wore, it's got some kind of embellishment like embroidery and decorative buttons on it if you look close. Yes, those are the kinds of things that I notice. :-)

"Here We Go! -- 5.01, 5.02"

Wake up! Season 5 has begun! I should have called this post "Shock And Awe" because that's how I feel after viewing episodes 1 & 2 Wednesday night. My brain is so full that I don't even know where to begin a coherent thought. So, I figured that I'd just bullet-point my reactions and stupefication. Suffice it to say, when they said that "bad things happened", I didn't think that they were going to be this bad!

* Marvin is one very frustrated, uptight, and rude dude. He must have a massive weight on this shoulders, and he's passing it on to those underneath him. Maybe, from what we learned in the '09 ComicCon video, he can't stand the lies either like Hurley can't.
* I'm glad that we finally know what the Arrow station was for.
* Interesting that the DI knows about the energy source, but didn't seem to know about the FDW before the sonar scanned it.
* What did Dan's jumpsuit say? It's way below where the names usually are, and my VHS pause is grainy.
* I believe that Ben knows exactly what happened after Jack left, but he's just pretending to Jack that he doesn't -- maybe Jack won't want to go back if he knows it's really freaky "miracle" type stuff that will require a leap of faith.
* Dan says either the island or the Left Behinders are moving, but he says probably the LBs.
* When Dan asked if everyone is accounted for, why did they imply only Locke? Claire's not with them either. But they didn't segue to her at all after the question, only Locke.
* Obviously a lot of the drama is going to be all the obstructions to getting the O6 back to the island, I didn't really expect so much of that.
* Are the two who attacked Sayid and Hurley the other two members that Ben spoke of? If so, then, on to the next question...
* Has Sayid abandoned helping Ben out, and that's why he told Hurely to do the opposite of what Ben says and beat up the guys who might have been with Ben and the Others?
* It's very interesting that Dan studied the DI so seriously, I wonder why? Maybe just because he knew of their work somehow.
* Did Locke's leg go wonky with Boone at the drug plane site because he got shot during the time skip? That might suggest overlapping time.
* Dumb Sawyer doesn't realize that if he takes food from the Swan, it will just disappear again with the next time skip, heehee. Probably even if he eats it? :-D
* I'm very worried about Charlotte's symptoms, even thought she's not high on my "likes" list, I actually like her better than Kate.
* I hope that Dan's mother knows what to do when Dez gets to her, and I'm very glad that Dan has some kind of plan. For what, who knows.
* I liked seeing AnaLu, but I really don't care for the living dead parts of the story the way that some viewers don't care for the time travel.
* I love that Hurley's mom believed him, I thought that she would have smacked him in the head after he finished.
*Who are those British guys? Widmore's peeps? And were they a part of the DI's defense resources at the Arrow?
* I can't wait to know more about the pendulum marker that Mrs.Hawking referred to while she was doing her calculations, but I doubt that we will learn much about it.

All in all, these were two great episodes. We got more than just cryptic hints (altho we got a lot of that too) but we were treated to more insider views of the DI workings and people, Mrs Hawking and her Time Lording, and Dan was much more forthcoming about what's going on than usual. My mind is still in a whirl!

"The Kevin Callis Question"

Perhaps I've missed the answer somewhere along the way, but I've been wondering what's up with Kate's husband now that she's a worldwide celebrity who was rescued from a horrific crash. Aren't they still married? Wouldn't he notice that she was one of the Oceanic-6 in the news? Wouldn't he want some explanations from her? He didn't seem to me to be the type who would just roll over and play henpecked and go away. After all, he is an officer of the law, and the law might be important to him. (What do you think Wayne, since your dad was a policeman?)

So have I missed this topic addressed somewhere? I need to rewatch the conspiracy film on the DVD extras again, I haven't seen it since DarkUFO posted it a couple months ago, so maybe this point has been broached there. But it just seems to me that Kate's problems back home would also include having to face the guy that she deceived and blew off because she couldn't handle "taco nights". If I were him I'd want some answers.

"Dan's In The Jungle Room Too"

Professor Faraday has a very nice promo shot on the 'Pier 1' set as well. There are two, and this is the better one I think. A lot has been joked about Dan's apparel, especially the ever-present tie. I worked with scientists for 27 years at IBM, and I can vouch for the fact that some of the most hard-core scientists still dress like this every day (although they start the day with their shirt tucked in) and remain in their ties no matter what kind of equipment maintenance mess they may get into during the day. They don't all do that, but the kooky ones like Dan do. The Hitachi service engineers who fix our scanning electron microscopes always remain that way too (very classy bunch!). Although aside from the hiking boots you could say that Dan looks more like an engineer from the 1960s (and probably should take his tie off in the jungle), and today's rocket scientists are more the Dockers type. ;-)

I found the promos of Jeremy Davies at this nice fan site here: http://www.jeremydavies.net/

"Ben Get's Some Promo Gravitas"

ABC is really getting creative with the promo images for Season 5. In addition to the large one that includes the entire main cast (you know, the one where Daniel forgot to screw his pirate peg-leg back on), the images that they are releasing this hiatus are better then the usual ones where cast members are just standing in J.Crew catalog shots. And I like this one of Ben the best so far. I found it at DarkUFO in the Spoiler section (I edited out the spoiler info in the pic for y'all), which came from some article in some magazine.

Anyway, Ben looks pretty good here in all his serious glory, he appears ready to pounce. But as good as this looks, it's curious how the promo shots always look super-airbrushed, and the actors end up looking like their heads are planted onto other peoples bodies, and every character wrinkle has been erased from their faces so that our sensibilities won't be harmed by viewing anything less than perfection (accept for Daniel's missing leg, haha). Otherwise, I really like them! And I wish that I could be the person building these interesting studio sets, I'm really good at that, I bet that's a fun job to have.