What Did You See?

I was a little underwhelmed by the five "teaser" promos ABC did for Flash Forward during tonight's Lost. Not that I've seen the pilot yet, but those images didn't conjure anything specifically from it... just a kind of general, creepy-ish "passage of life" vibe (unborn fetus --> kids playing --> marriage --> vacation --> funeral). I suppose it does work in an "everyday person" sort of way... you and I may not be connected to the events in the series, but if the event were to happen IRL... what would we see?

Will people be curious? Maybe. Will people be enthralled? Not yet. I was holding out hope for a glimpse of the massive pile-up on the freeway...

Lost.

Good episode.

After a few weeks of putting pieces into place and setting the stage, but ultimately running in place, stuff happened this week. Glad we checked in with Desmond and Penny. It's so weird in this series how certain people, at different points in the story, seem like they're the be-all-end-all, the most important person in the Lost universe. Daniel certainly felt like that tonight (and Desmond, Ben, Jack, and Locke all have in the past)... but then, well, the ending happened.

Which wasn't entirely unexpected given the tone of the 2007 (2008?) Hawking/Widmore conversation... but still it worked incredibly well. I'm glad the twists can be built up to in this show instead of everything having to come out of left field. I was so curious the whole episode what Hawking's true agenda is. She played Daniel, that's for sure. To what end? There obviously has to be some sort of purpose to it otherwise, yeah, you change it (although I suspect the final three episodes of this season are going to be a massive attempt to change fate / the future and it fails and thus Hawking decides to plot the course she takes). On the subject of changing fate, Lost certainly does seem to be inching toward the Greek tragedy quandary about fate. "Ethos anthropos daimon" depending on which of two ways you read it grammatically... does the fate make the man, or does the man make his fate? And, of course, there's the ever-present theme in Greek tragedy that in trying to avoid or avert one's fate, one winds up causing it (i.e. Laius is told that his son will murder him and marry his mother, so Laius gives his son to his servant to have the boy killed, only the boy isn't killed, he grows up not knowing about his true heritage, happens upon Laius on a roadway and kills his father, then goes on to, in fact, marry his mother... whoops!)

Anyway. My own Greek tragedy geekiness aside...

Hawking says (in 2007/8) that she doesn't know what's going to happen next for the first time in ages (whatever it is, can we please leave Desmond and Penny and Little Charlie out of it? No? Dang) and I assume that's because Daniel will be telling his mother everything he knows (perhaps through Miles) so when Hawking leaves the Island in the evacuation, she knows what's to come in the timeline.

We know a "war" is coming to the Island. Who are the big players in this war? The show has had us going that it was Widmore vs. Ben, and even Widmore vs. Hawking... but is there another party (after all, it was the US Army that was on the Island with Jughead and we have never really met anyone affiliated with the US armed forces)? What does ageless Richard have to do with any / all of it? Jacob? Will Aaron come back into play? Claire? Cindy the Flight Attendant?