Lost: Season 5 (1 Viewer)

[Simon Young]

I'm a little confused... on the one hand you say that the freighter did not time travel (because Sawyer and Juliet noticed it was gone after the first time-hop) but on the other hand you say it did (because if the helicopter had returned to the spot where the freighter exploded, the wreckage would be gone). Which is it?

 

[Stan K]

Well said. But it's still fun to see what people theorize

 

[Simon Young]

Here's another mystery:

We're assuming that it's the Losties who are time-hopping rather than the island, in which case the island must have moved geographically. However, surely if the island has moved from its original spot, then when the Losties time-hopped into the future (from their perspective, i.e. post-freighter explosion) they'd just end up floating in the ocean!

 

[TravisR]

I'm saying that the wreckage of the freighter is 'moving' exactly like the beach camp. It dissapeared with the island but it's the survivors (and what they are in contact with) that is what is moving through time. If the survivors were in a time period after the O6 left, they would be able to scuba dive to the place where it went down and see it there. The reason it dissapeared to Sawyer and Juliet is because there was no one alive on it and it didn't travel through time. Had the ship not blown up, it would be time traveling along with the people who were on it.

EDIT: Maybe a simpler way of trying to explain what I'm saying is to apply the same logic to the freighter that you would to the camp. If it's 2004 or later, the camp and freighter are there (but the freighter is sunk off the coast). If it's before 2004, the camp and freighter aren't there.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I try not even to make sense of the time travel stuff beyond the most cursory, but TravisR, somewhere in reading your first paragraph, I actually had a moment when I thought, "That makes sense." It snuck up on me.

That said, it seems to me (as someone said above) any theories have to account for not only people traveling in time, but the island itself moving geographically at least once, right? I can no longer remember exactly what happened, but this is what I THINK happened...

Helicopter leaves going to freighter, it's too heavy (?), Sawyer jumps, helicopter continues towards freighter, freighter explodes within eyesight of the helicopter, helicopter heads back to island, island disappears. Now, if what I said is what happened, weren't the people in the helicopter looking at the island when it disappeared? If so, we know a few things...

1) The island moved geographically. The island moving in time wouldn't do Ben much good as people know where it is. He needs it to be somewhere else. But most importantly, there's no way you can go back 20 years and an island is no longer in a given spot unless it can move geographically. That said, the concept of an island moving is one I can't wrap my head around. An island is just a land mass that is high enough to exceed sea level. It doesn't float.

2) There's no scenario where the freighter is within the event horizon where the helicopter isn't also within the event horizon because at all times, the helicopter is between the island and the freighter.

3) Jin is between the helicopter and the freighter.

island ---> helicopter ---> jin --> freighter

That's assuming jin jumped or something. Otherwise, he was on it and it's jin/freighter.

Obviously, our understanding will change in the future, but am I outlining correctly what we've seen so far?

 

[Kevin Grey]

The island is almost certainly moving geographically- in addition to it disappearing right in front of the Oceanic 6 you can also see that the machine that Ms. Hawking was using in the premiere was showing different geographical places the island might appear in at a given time.

I expect that the tight time window the Oceanic 6 are operating under is that they have to be in the right place for the island to appear but at also at the right time. So that right before the 6 return to the island that the latest time flash will put Locke and Co. into 2007 so that everyone is once again at the same point in time and space.

 

[Bob_Chase]

Here's another mystery

This is about quality control. Has anyone else had problems with audio in the center channel? It sounds as though the level of the center channel is too high and clipping ensues. It sounds terrible. To the point where it's hard to hear the dialogue. I must mention that this only happens during LOST on ABCs Wed night broadcast. I don't have the problem on any other channel, any other ABC program or even during LOSTs commercial breaks, only the program itself. This used to happen when I had Comcast and it still occurs with Verizon's FIOS. I first noticed it 2 seasons ago.

I thought I was the only one having issues until I went to lunch with a few coworkers today and they mentioned the same problem.

I've watched the HD reruns on Sci-Fi channel and there are no problems whatsoever.

I'm completely mystified.

FWIW I'm in S.E. PA near Philadelphia.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

I did notice that this Wednesday's episode was much more difficult to hear/understand the dialog than normal. This has never happened to me before.

 

[Holadem]

Glad it's not just me. I stopped the DVR a couple of times, switched channels just to be sure -- other channels and recordings were fine. Something was up like 10 minutes into the episode. Dialog became very muffled.

--
H

 

[BrettB]

Well since it's come up, I normally don't have any issues with LOST but the other night the audio was totally funky, sorta muffled, upper freq. cut off, muted, also the video seemed dark.

 

[Josh Dial]

I also had issues with slightly muffled centre channel audio during this week's LOST episode. I watching the east-coast feed, but I didn't bother to check if the west-coast or central/mountain Canadian feed (via CTV) was likewise muffled.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Maybe (as has been suggested above) it's simply that the helicopter is higher.


..............helicopter
..................^
...................l
...................l
...................l
...................l
island ---> .........---> jin --> freighter

 

[Kevin Grey]

Glad to hear I wasn't the only one with a muffled center channel. I just got a new receiver last week and I was worried it was something screwed up in the settings.

 

[TonyD]

Bob, my wife and I use wpvi too and we have been complainkng about the dialog channel for this show since day 1.
it sounds like they have their microphones under their clothes.
just awful.
this season has been worse then previous.

on the other hand surround sound is great.
during the scenes on desmond's boat last week, the creaking and
water sounds were amazing. I really had to be sure someone wasnt upstairs.


I also checked out Life on Mars right after and audio wasn't much better.

 

[TravisR]

That would make sense with the time travel wheel that Ben turned being deep down in the island. So maybe whatever causes time travel emanates from that point and goes up and out rather than going straight up from the middle of the island and going up and out (like a snow globe).

 

[Simon Young]

I can't say I've noticed it before, but the audio on Wednesday night's episode was dreadful. Not just the centre channel, either - there seemed to be a lack of surround info, and some out-of-phase effects across the front soundstage. I assumed it was a one-off due to a broadcast fault.

 

[Bob_Chase]

Thanks guys. Sucks that others are having problems too but at least we have confirmation that it's not an isolated incident. I'll tune into ABC to re-check if its an issue on other programs but I could have sworn it was just LOST.

And yes Tony, surround is excellent (I noticed it on Des's boat too

) it's just that effin' center channel .

 

[TravisR]

Not if the source of time travel comes up from The Orchid station and spreads up and outward from the wheel that Ben turned. Like Micah said, "An island is just a land mass that is high enough to exceed sea level." so if the freighter is above where the island begins underwater then it could come with it and not take the helicopter.

Rather than the time travel 'force' enveloping the island like a snow globe, maybe it is more like a cup where it comes up and under it all.

 

[Simon Young]

I think there are two things happening here. A lot of the dialogue on Lost sounds muffled because it's recorded on location with lots of background noise (ocean, wind in trees, nearby traffic) and they try to fix it in post with varying degrees of success. Even on Blu-ray in uncompressed PCM, some of it is quite hard to make out. I'm sure if they had the time, they'd loop more dialogue.

However, Wednesday night's episode was far worse than normal. I suspect the error was in the broadcast and not in the source material.

 

[Steve Y]

I had problems with muffled dialogue on Wednesday, too. Glad to know it wasn't just me. I didn't even watch it with a surround receiver.

Those of you worrying about the specific "blast radius" and "blast logic" of the island's time effect may be falling down the rabbit hole. The biggest problem I have so far is the idea that they are carrying "things" with them... clothes, the boat, the camp... unless of course there is an intelligence behind their travel.

Think of it this way. If the island is in trouble because it can "discern" that specific people are no longer there, who's to say that that this special island and its immediate radius cannot pick what travels with it?

I'm not saying we have to turn off our brains, just that the show is more enjoyable (and "makes more sense") when we look for explanations like psychologists rather than like scientists.

Such large plot points (as Jin's escape, or the specific geography of time travel) are going to be explained in some manner or another, whether we accept the explanation or not. Right now they're as natural as holes in swiss cheese... just part of the mystery plot topography.