Handy: The Island Map

It's kind of small, I hurt my eyes. Given that my glasses are in essence a couple of inches thick this could be problematic. It does, however, seem that all the Dharma stations could have easily been equipped with one of these bad boys to save them six seasons of running around.

Emily gave the ideas and the tips, I give her the credit.

LOST: New Viral Video

ABC has released a new video from a "short lived program" of theirs in the "80s" that may be of particular interest to fans of LOST. I used to sit and analyze things like this hardcore. Now I just sit and pick my belly button lint. At least there's still sensible storylines there. Ay-oh. Enjoy.

LOST: Forget All That "Whatever Happened" Bullshit

Forgive me, I took some time off from the TV recapping to keep my sanity. Also, I didn't feel I had much to say about it. However, after many questions of what happened to it, here we are again.

This week's episode "The Variable" was another somewhat stronger addition to the season after that god awful middle part we saw. I'm going to skip the recap and give my opinion:

Good things:
1. I heart Hawking. Plain and simple, it has nothing to do with the character and everything to do with Mrs. Flanagan. Anytime she's on screen I'm ok.

2. We get some reasons as to why Daniel was so bloody scatterbrained. It was all his experimenting. Daffy bastard.

3. Juliet's delightfully snide bitchy response to Sawyer calling Kate "freckles". The code is 141717, you should go.

4. They seem to be bringing the idea of them being able to actually change what can happen up as a major possibility.

5. Kate saying what's on the audience's mind if 815 were to land successfully.

Bad things:
1. So, Faraday is the offspring of two British people, one of which, we know he spent time with. He has an American accent. Also, his name is Faraday. I don't get it.

2. Daniel died. That was...weird

3.That absolutely ridiculous shoot out with Radzinsky and crew. I just don't see Jack as the little action hero they tried to pull him off as.

Ok things:

1. Widmore is Daniel's dad. Well, obviously right?

2. Miles finally decides to stop being the Dharma chauffeur

So in short, they probably can change what's supposed to happen. They're (obviously) not supposed to be in the 70s and Daniel gets shot in the back by his own mother. Not a bad episode.

Only three to go, I think perhaps it could get better. We shall see.

LOST: Welcome To Dharmaland

Alrighty, episode 5.09 of Lost, "Namaste" was a big pretty pile of not much happening. Sure, in theory things seemed to be going on left and right. However, nothing of overt consequence happens in the entire episode, in my opinion.

Let's recap:

1. We see the crash/perfecty fine landing of Ajira 316 (which we already knew to be on the island and most of its passengers alive). I think the most interesting thing about that was we finally got to see a use for that damn runway that they had Kate and Sawyer working on back in S3.

Why this was unimportant: We already have seen the aftermath in the episode "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham". Locke isn't among them yet, we know that Cesar gets his way and they explore the Hydra station, and we knew that Sun and Lapidus already took one of the outriggers. I suppose we know now why Ben was in the room with the injured people. (wowzers!)

2. Jack, Kate and Hurley are swept up into the DHARMA Initiative by LeFleur/James. Kate and Sawyer share some awkward moments. Sawyer and Jack have a little spat about how much better of a leader Sawyer is. He explains that his "think then react" strategy is superior to Jack's impulsive "action then whine" response.

Why this was unimportant: It's flipping 1977! They better pull some amazing feat off with this story line, otherwise things are looking down. We find out that Horace and Amy were Ethan's parents (all of which are now officially dead). I suppose finding out that Ethan was part of DHARMA and that Ben wasn't the only one taken into the Hostile/Other side was interesting.

Speaking of Ben, we saw our favorite little liar in his tween stages in this episode. He brought the incarcerated Sayid a sandwich, with no mustard! The treachery begins! You could see all the anger in the world behind those little Harry Potter glasses as he notes his impressive evil victory over condiment endowed sandwiches everywhere! (ugh)

Other tidbits:
1. We get to meet Radzinsky, who, after this episode, we can see was a whiny little man who may be deserving his eventual staining fate.

2. In 1977 the Swan station hasn't been built yet. Radzinsky is still in his paper model phase of the hatch. Which, it seems, means that the Pearl is not around either. That is based on the assumption that the Pearl's only purpose was to watch just the Swan.

3. According to Mr. Chang, the DHARMA peeps on the mainland are a bit dodgy with their paperwork and timing. I believe it was this poor office procedure which lead to their ultimate demise.

4. Christian is continuing his "Hey, I'm speaking for Jacob" bit. Telling Sun that she has a long journey ahead of her. I hope that involves her bringing the others back to present time and not the other way around. Having the 815ers in the 70's just seems stupid. There, I said it.
Also of note in this scene is the fact that Christian interacts with objects, which kind of goes agains the entire "he's a ghost" theory.

That's that. Hopefully 5.10 will blow me away. I'm skeptical. Thoughts?