Lost Season 6 Premiere: "LA X"

[Agent Richard07]

It's an old comic book reference. For example Earth X was in a parrallel reality. Dimension X etc. I must admit, they had me guessing for months over that. I thought it was going to stand for ten, as in the Roman numeral, because we see The Others talking Latin alot.

That works for me and makes sense. It also gives "LA X" a double meaning just like so many other titles like "Walkabout".

Very clever how they managed to color within the lines and stick to their time-travel logic - if you can't change your own timeline, frakking around with it must create another reality - you're changing someone else's past/future, but they won't know you did it, you won't know you did it, and you won't get any benefit from it.

Finally, a show that does time travel right!

My thinking is that Jack and the gang, upon being propelled into the future, should be in a changed timeline and they should be aware that things are different. If a person goes back in time, kills Hitler as a child, then returns to the present, then they should find themselves in a world where Hitler never came to power. They'd know what happened in their original timeline, but no one else would since the last century would have unfolded differently for them. The only ones who would still experience Hitler's rise to power would be the rest of the population from the traveller's original timeline who never went back into the past in the first place. Two timelines, one changed and one unchanged, but only the time traveller would experience the change.

Anyway, I'm going to sit back and see how Lost does this. So far, it looks like what they did is consistent with my own thoughts on the matter. Jack and the gang are in a future, and there's another timeline where the island sank in the 70s (or whenever) and the plane never crashed. If this is the case, then good for Lost for doing what other shows and movies don't do, and that is show us how both the original timeline and the alternate timeline progressed. Usually we only get to see the altered timeline.

Oh, and remember the changing pictures on the wall in the house Miles visited? I wonder how that will fit in with this alternate timeline stuff. Maybe Miles, with his paranormal perceptions, is perceiving slightly different timelines? And maybe Juliet managed to do the same upn death? I dunno. We'll see.

Also, the podcast confirmed that both realities are equally real and valid - there's no "Prime" and "Alternate" here. Groovy.

I don't think any timeline is more valid than the other either, It's just convenient to use words like "prime" and "alternate".

 

[Temis the Vorta]

And there's probably more ways than that (Pre-existing parallels and "Y" shaped branching, perhaps....), knowing this show...

Here's another possibility that is consistent with what we've seen: there are infinite parallel realities in which every thing that could happen does happen. So it's inevitable that there's a reality in which 815 lands safely and the island is underwater. And the explosion didn't need to create a new reality because whatever reality it could have created already exists. If it altered a reality in any way, then it would be a duplicate for another reality, and a new reality, identical to the one that had been changed, would have to come into being because err, that's the way things work.

Even if this is the "truth" of the matter, I doubt the writers would ever acknowledge it too directly as the underlying structure of this story because it's dramatically inert. If there's a reality in which everything happens, then jumping between realities isn't a story, it's a travelogue, and the stakes for anything happening drop to zero.

Also, the podcast confirmed that both realities are equally real and valid - there's no "Prime" and "Alternate" here.

I regard the Primeverse and JJverse as equally valid - why wouldn't they be? One has Leonard Nimoy and the other has Zachary Quinto. That's pretty equal to me.

My thinking is that Jack and the gang, upon being propelled into the future, should be in a changed timeline and they should be aware that things are different.

Not if they were propelled back into their own unchanged timeline. For all we know, their timeline always was supposed to have them going back in time and setting off the bomb. So nothing's necessarily changed for them. They changed someone else's reality - maybe - and I'm only assuming they made a change because the rules of fiction demand a connection between the two realities. From what we've seen of the story, we could just as easily be seeing a travelogue of two completely separate realities featuring many of the same characters, which are only two out of an infinite number we could just as easily be seeing, none of which have any connection to the others.

The only element that suggests this isn't a travelogue is Juliet's mysterious "It worked." That reveals that she may have preternatural knowledge of the other reality, and implies that it was, indeed, changed. And I suspect the writers knew they had to give us some solid proof of a connection, which is why that line was written.

 

[Jono]

Voted excellent. Probably the best season opener of all the Lost seasons. Really pumped about the rest of the season now. Still hoping Kate will die at some point.

 

[Starbreaker]

Some great foreshadowing that Locke was going to end up being the smoke monster. When Ben and Sun are hanging out in the barracks last season and Ben has just called the monster, he says that whatever is about to come out of the jungle is something he can't control, and then Locke steps out.

 

[Lindley]

- There is a temple and the stewardess is there. Weird.

That was pretty much apparent already. Cindy's visit to Sawyer in season 3, together with her lack of appearance with the Others in season 5, and Richard's statement to NotLocke that "there's another group at the Temple", pretty much spelled it out. Still, nice to have the confirmation.

However unLock being the smoke monster... interesting...

I thought everyone had figured that out already. If you watch season 5 knowing that Locke is not Locke, it's fairly obvious who he must be.

At the very least, there's the issue of the ash ring that keeps the smoke monster out. That means Christian couldn't have entered the cabin like he did.

Remember, the ash ring around the cabin was broken----the Statuers noticed it in "The Incident". I don't recall whether we were shown that previously or not.

I thought the events of Not-Locke and Dead-Locke are taking place currently (2009), whereas the crash, and presumably the LAX Losties was 200whatever (the year LOST premiered). I'm making the assumption that this flight shown this time was back then.

As has been pointed out, the two timelines are in 2004 and 2007, respectively.

Which, incidentally, means we're due for another Sun/Jin reunion scene soon.....

But if the timelines intersect literally, I dunno, I think that does mean they've violated their own rules.

Nope; not if the intersection only affects the "main" timeline ahead of where we've seen so far. It's actually a really clever approach to the problem: Whatever Happened, Happened, but what has not yet happened may be affected by time travel. In other words, maybe this other timeline "always" existed and will "always" intersect with the main timeline in 2008+, but we just weren't told about it until we were shown how it causally came to be. (Wouldn't it have been confusing if we were? Surprised that didn't do that, actually...)

We already know Desmond was able to change future events, after all. Which actually brings up an interesting question: Is Charlie doomed in the alterna-verse as well? He certainly seemed to think he was......does he know something?

 

[Lindley]

Whoa, new theory.

The way that NotLocke was able to talk about Locke's last thought.....the way he can only assume forms of people whose bodies are on the Island....that all strikes me as being very similar to Miles' ability, taken to the next level. Coincidence? Seems unlikely.

"For what I do, it's better if there's a body."

Then in this very episode, we both have NotLocke talking about Locke's last thought, and Sawyer pointing out that Miles is the only one he knows who can do that....

 

[RoJoHen]

Remember the first season when there was a polar bear? And everybody was like, "OMG why is there a polar bear?!"

Hardly seems important now.

 

[Hunter X]

Heh. That's still often the first problem people I talk to mention they have with the show when they say they never got past the first episode: "Yeah, the plane crash part was cool. But then there was a polar bear and that doesn't make any sense, so the show is stupid and I bailed."

 

[RoJoHen]

I just think it's funny how mundane that polar bear seems now. Did anyone think in the first fews seasons of the show that we'd end up with time travel and alternate realities?!

 

[Hunter X]

No kidding. Though they do hint at it occasionally, even early on, with scenes like when Hurley and Sayid fix that radio and hear Moonlight Serenade. Sayid says the radio waves could be bouncing off the atmosphere and could be coming from anywhere, which which Hurley replies "Or any time. Just kidding, dude."

I think Cuse and Lindeloft back in season 2 or so used to joke about the upcoming time travel season the way they now joke about the zombie season.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I think Cuse and Lindeloft back in season 2 or so used to joke about the upcoming time travel season the way they now joke about the zombie season.

Yeah, I remember a quote from like the second or third season, when Cuse says to Lindelof during the interview, "Should we tell them about the time travel?" To which Lindelof replies, "I'm gonna go back in time and stop you from saying that just now."

 

[LitmusDragon]

Found this on another forum, had to share it:

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I just think it's funny how mundane that polar bear seems now. Did anyone think in the first fews seasons of the show that we'd end up with time travel and alternate realities?!

I was all set for purgatory and/or an alien spaceship/zoo, so this isn't too wacky by comparison...

But no, I didn't specifically think they'd frak around with space and time like this.

Though they do hint at it occasionally, even early on, with scenes like when Hurley and Sayid fix that radio and hear Moonlight Serenade.

That was the first hint, right? That really stood out for me - it didn't seem like they were just joking around with that.

 

[Starbreaker]

Well, I thought they were joking about it, especially when they specifically said that time travel would never be a factor. Ha!

 

[Zulu Romeo]

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I was all set for purgatory and/or an alien spaceship/zoo, so this isn't too wacky by comparison...

I have a theory that if they don't spell out exactly what Jacob/MiB are, that they might actually be aliens with the island being a ship... and the writers just dont want to outright say it because of the backlash. Think about it... once you get over the of "aliens", it fits almost everything.

The island has its own POWER source, Smokey is clearly mechanical and technological in some way, the donkey wheel... the island can TELEPORT through space and time and has some kind of cloaking device around it too... it's all way more sci-fi than fantasy/mythological. Damon and Carlton (especially Damon) are huge sci-fi and comic nerds..... and to cap it all off.... the comic that Walt was reading in the pilot? Yes they showed a big dome of a flying saucer, hidden in the arctic.

 

[Mallet]

Maybe they are all on a holodeck and the entire series of Lost is just a prequel to the next JJ Abram's Star Trek movie?