Here is Jeff Jensen's weekly theories post, which tries to tackle all of the Time Traveling fun this season.
''THE TEASE!'' + ''LOST MADE EASY!'' = LOST UNTANGLED
ABC is trying to do its part to ease Lost viewers' confusion with a new weekly web series called Lost Untangled. I'm not sure how clarifying these things truly are, but they're pretty darn entertaining. Beginning this week, we're going to embed these videos in this column. This installment offers a recap of what happened last week and a peek at tonight's episode. My hunch is that this may have been unintentional: The scene in question — the payoff of the Is Sun Gonna Gun Down Ben? cliffhanger — originally may have been the climactic moment of ''The Little Prince,'' but they decided to cut it and move it into the new episode for some reason. If you can handle being spoiled just a little bit, I think you'll find this pretty darn fun.
THE LOST LIST!
Special ''Lost in Time'' edition
In all the time I've spent publicly obsessing over Lost, I don't think I've seen the hardcore fans quite this activated by the show. (''Activated'' = talking, speculating, theorizing.) At the same time, I've never seen them so baffled, either. (''Baffled'' = ''I don't understand what the hell is going on!'') I don't think this is bad, per se. On the contrary, I think for many viewers, confusion is fueling their more-intense-than-ever interest. But for many others, confusion produces unwanted anxiety. The cause of this exciting/frustrating confusion is the time-travel story line, a sci-fi conceit that's proven to be accessible to the masses (Back To The Future, The Terminator, Peggy Sue Got Married) even though it comes with a high risk of failure (see: the too-many alternate realities/shoddy narrative logic of Heroes). This week's list focuses on five key questions pertaining to LTTA (Lost Time Travel Anxiety) and my suggestions for how to roll with them, with a minimum of nutty theories.
1. WHAT OR WHO IS DOING THE TIME TRAVELLING — THE ISLAND OR THE CASTAWAYS?
Lost certainly isn't conforming to what we expect the usual time travel story to look like. The fact that the show is defying our expectation is one reason for LTTA. The castaways should be Marty McFlys and the Island should be Doc Brown's time-traveling DeLorean. Right? Wrong. If that scenario were true for Lost, then everyone who was on the Island when Ben turned the frozen donkey — i.e., Richard Alpert and the Others — should be time traveling, too. So, too, should the actual physical environs of the Island as it existed when it vanished. What makes the most sense — based on everything we've seen so far — is that only the castaways are quantum leaping. Of course, this conclusion rips open a new can of wormy questions. Why only the castaways? What makes them so special? Those are questions that nag at me — but I feel like the story is going to answer them.
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