LOST in the Past

So I work in the domestic securities industry in Dallas. So the market closes at 2pm here, and most deadlines officially end at around 3pm. The problem is that I can only leave as soon as my overseas friends are done for the day, and they send me an emailed report (which I then reformat and send back out). That usually comes between 5pm and 5:30pm.

There are certain things that I can do between 3 and 5, but there's only so much. So I (and don't tell anyone) spend certain time on the Internet. There are only so many things that I can wikipedia (and I'm pretty sure I've read everything on there), so I'm starting to have to be creative.

Blogging at work, for example?

One of the things I did between February and May was listen to the offical LOST podcast, which is archived at Lostpedia. I'd always stay 2-3 weeks behind so that no spoilers ever affected me (and there is the occasional spoiler), but it's very entertaining. For a couple of dorks, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are pretty cool. They don't offer a whole lot of answers, but they do give a lot of insight into the way things are done.

And since I ran out of season 5 ones, I started listening to earlier ones. I started listening to season 3 ones (they started in season 2, but none of them are archived), and it's actually pretty interesting. And what's really funny is that they reference a lot of things, often in jest, that actually happen on the show.

- They make fun of time travel being on the show. That happens.
- They reference the Island "moving." That happens.
- They reference certain characters dying that end up dying.

And that's just a few podcasts in.

And it makes me think about the whole question of whether or not the writers are coming up with things on the fly or not. When they joked about time travel in 2006, did they know it would eventually make the show in 2009? Or were they really joking about it?

I've always trusted the LOST writers because I believe they know what they're doing. I can't imagine writing a show like LOST without having some of the big answers in mind...so I trust that they're telling the truth when they say the show is planned.

But Carlton and Damon admit that they had a road map in place with certain milestones. So they know Points A, B, C, and D...but they don't know points A1, A2, A3, etc until the season is actually getting planned. And that makes sense...the whole show is mapped, but all the blanks still have to be filled in.

So I'm guessing they knew the Island would move way back when. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The other really interesting thing about the podcasts are the fan questions. A lot of fans guessed correctly on a lot of things, and I'm pretty impressed. The "moving the Island" joke came out of a fan question that guessed as much. A fan asked a question that indirectly referenced Jacob before he was ever mentioned on the show.

Stuff like that really impresses me because this show is pretty darn creative, if you ask me. I feel like I understand the show, but there are still things that surprise me. So when someone guesses something that I never would've thought of, I think that's cool.

So if you have time to kill and love LOST as much as I do, it's pretty fun to give them a listen. And even if its all old information, it's still pretty entertaining.