After a week of being a beach bum and laying in the sun with my kids, I’m back and ready to get us caught back up on this thing we’re calling The Lost Rewatch.  I apologize for the delay in this post (and the next), which should have been posted a couple of  weeks ago.  The good news is that I have no more vacation time this summer and therefore no excuses (or good ones at least) for falling behind.

Hearts and Minds

So this week (or the week before last rather) we’re taking a look at season 1 episodes Hearts and Minds, Special, Homecoming, and Outlaws.  For those of you who might not have rewatched these episodes, Hearts and Minds was a Boone-centric episode, and in fact the only Boone-centric episode ever.  This week’s episodes had me reeling from the first moment, and as irrational as I know it is, and as much as I try to tell myself that its the stupidest theory ever (I really do think that) I can’t push away this feeling that the Locke we’re seeing in season 1 is actually Jacob’s nemesis.  In reality I don’t see how this could end up being true, or how it would even be played out in the last and final season.  But you have to admit, Locke’s behavior in season 1, and definitely in this stream of episodes, goes beyond strange and bizarre.  Hearts and Minds has Boone getting jealous over Shannon and Sayid’s developing relationship (actually they were just talking, and flirting with each other, but we all know what becomes of that).  Boone even threatens to tell Shannon everything about their discovery, the hatch, to which Locke lets Boone know that he allows Shannon to have far too much control over his life.  Boone, of course, disagrees and gets up to head back to camp and tell Shannon.  Locke, in turn, knocks Boone over the head, and ties him to a tree.  This is where it gets really interesting, as Locke blends up some kind of hallucinogenic substance made of berries and boar poop (at least that’s my theory) and rubs it on Boone’s forehead.  Boone’s so called vision begins, where he thinks he hears Shannon screaming for help, breaks free, rescues her, runs from the smoke monster, is ultimately attacked by the smoke monster again, and then Shannon is taken and killed by said monster.  Watching it this time, and knowing Shannon wasn’t really dead was quite different than the first time around, when I was convinced she’d really just died.

I can’t help but want to know more about this scene.  Locke’s behavior is interesting, as if he knows that Boone will hallucinate and see Shannon’s death.  He also seemed to pull together his concoction far to quickly and easy.  And the Smoke Monster’s involvement, though it makes sense being the most dangerous thing on the island, is a bit to convenient.  Not to mention that this is the first time we ever see the monster as smoke, and it’s supposed to be a hallucination in Boone’s head, yet the monster really is made of smoke.

Regardless of whether this was the “real” Locke, which it most likely was, or Jacob’s nemesis posing as Locke somehow, I still say that the berry and poopoo paste Locke made for Boone had nothing to do with what we saw happen.  I think that Boone’s hallucination was completely induced by Smokey, just as any other hallucination on the island has been (in my opinion).  So if this was the real Locke, then how did he know Smokey would help him out?  THAT is a good question, but one I don’t have the slightest answer for.

Also in Hearts and Minds we heard the first mentioning of the strange electro-magnetic properties on the island, when Sayid commented to Jack that the compass that Locke gave him wasn’t pointing to true north, and that a reasonable magnetic anomaly couldn’t account for the degrees it was off.  Also, in the flashbacks we learned that Boone and Shannon weren’t blood-related and were only step-siblings, however, at least for me, this whole thing is still weird and incestuous feeling.

Special

Next up was Special, a Walt/Michael-centric episode that got me way excited back in season one, but only depressed me now that it seems we’ll never have closure on Walt’s specialness.  Still, after watching the episode I realized how much other great stuff, besides Walt, started in Special.

The obvious awesomeness in this episode is the stuff about Walt.  In the flashbacks with his mother and her husband Brian Porter, when they stop paying attention to him, and won’t look at a book he is reading about birds, a bird oddly flies into the window.  Later, on the island he is reading a comic book about Polar Bears when suddenly he is attacked by one.  We also have Brian Porter telling Michael that Walt is “different.”  Locke uses those same words about him on the island after he teaches Walt how to throw knives, telling him to focus the task in his mind’s eye.  Walt then manages to hit the spot dead-on.

I’ll also quickly say that I love the foreshadowing of Dharma on the ceiling above Michael in the picture to the right.  Very cool.

I’ll admit that while I understand the issues they’ve faced about Walt growing up and how to include him on the show, especially in light of what his father ends up doing, I’m very disappointed to think that we won’t find out more about Walt.  I keep holding out hope that it will somehow be explained, even if Walt himself doesn’t return to do the explaining.  Either way, it’s one of the bigger plot-point mysteries that is looking like it won’t be solved, and I hate that.

But moving beyond Walt, there was plenty of great stuff in this episode.  Sayid and Shannon talk to Jack about Rousseau’s maps and the points on the map that they think might be the tower transmission.  Since they never actually found the tower using her maps its got me wondering exactly what those points on the map might have been.  If anyone out there has a better memory than me, or a theory on this, share it with us below.  Also, Michael and Walt start to build the first raft in this episode.  And finally Charlie finds Claire’s diary and reads about a dream she had about a black rock.  Sayid mentions that one of the maps had a spot marked on it as The Black Rock.  Of course, they never attempt to go there to find Clare because at the end of the episode she wanders out of the jungle, with no memories of what has happened to her since she boarded the plane in Sydney.

Homecoming

I don’t have a lot to say about Homecoming, not because it’s not a great episode, just because the second time around not as much stuff struck me based on what we now know.  The things that did catch my attention was seeing Ethan Rom.  It’s interesting, now that we know that Ethan was born on the island, and best buds with Ben in his transformation to becoming an other, that there was really no one who knew the island better than Ethan.  Its also fun to think about the fact that Sawyer made Ethan’s very existence possible, by saving his mother’s life from the Hostiles.  And of course we all know what happened to Claire while she was gone with Ethan, and we know why they were so interested in her (or at least we think we know).  Again, my bad memory might be the cause, but I can’t quite remember if we ever found out for sure if the shots the Others were giving Claire ended up having anything to do with her safe pregnancy.  It was certainly implied, but after seeing all of the manipulation that the Others utilize, it makes me wonder if they did anything to help little Aaron be born, or if there was simply something special about Claire and the birth of her baby.  Something special that made the island allow her pregnancy to not fail.  Naturally, the episode ended with the killed of Ethan, by Charlie.  However, we all know that we will be seeing A LOT more of Ethan in upcoming rewatch episodes.

Outlaws

This was a great episode simply because it was sort of ridiculous, but Josh Holloway pulled it off in such a major way.  Seeing Sawyer obsessed with the fact that a boar has it out for him was priceless, and Locke’s story about how his mother (step) had blamed herself for her daughter Jeanie’s death, and how a golden retriever showed up at the house, and his mother had instantly thought that the dog was Jeanie.  It was a great little story about redemption, a major theme in Lost, and certainly makes one think about Vincent.  I’m not saying that dog was Vincent at all, but its certainly interesting that it was the same kind of dog.  Of course, Locke could have just made the whole thing up.

To witness the horror that was Sawyer’s life for a second time was great, especially with how his character shifted from the anti-hero role to the hero role during season 5 of the series.  Still, seeing his story for a second time further revealed the tragedy in it all.

As Sawyer continues to battle the boar in this episode, there is another great scene in the jungle where Kate and Sawyer play a little game of “I never.”  In the game we learn for the first time that Kate was once married, and that both of them, Kate and Sawyer, have killed a man.  We know from the Outlaws flashbacks who Sawyer has killed, but it will be a long time before we learn that Kate killed her step-father.  The final interesting thing I wanted to mention in my post is how at the end of the episode Sawyer realizes that Jack is the son of the man, Christian, that he met in the bar in Sydney, Australia, however Sawyer doesn’t divulge this information to Jack for many more episodes.

That wraps up week 4 here at Docarzt’s, but there’s far more to read about the Lost Rewatch, happening across the web. The links below will take you to other great articles from other Lost sites. The next episodes are …In Translation, Numbers, and Dues Ex Machina.   Now here is some more Lost goodness.

Visit the Lostpedia Rewatch page for all of the most up-to-date Rewatch information, as well as their blog.

-Get Lost with Jopinionated – Rewatch Week 4

-Lostaholics Rewatch – Article 1 – Article 2 – Article 3

Solitary is an example of a really well rounded episode of LOST, perhaps of a caliber rarely seen on LOST, and therefore television in general.  On one hand, it offers background information that both informs a characters past actions – Sayid’s – and at the same time establishes a key motivator that will resonate through the rest of the series.  All of LOST’s characters are intense to the extreme, and the story of Sayid’s need for forgiveness, truth, and ultimate redemption is told effectively against a backdrop of heavy mythological advancement.

From the character arc perspective, Solitary revealed how Sayid was called upon to torture his childhood sweetheart, a task that tugged at his warm interior through a cold layer of loyalty.  We know now what that poor chicken learned this season, Sayid is a weapon in two senses: one, he is dangerously skilled at the craft of hurting people, and ‘blessed’ with an innate ability to shield himself from any remorse or pity for his ‘victim.’  Also, he is fueled by a sense of purpose.  He’s not the pull-the-wings-off-flies type of torturer, he is the ‘greater good’ style torturer.  Second, he is a weapon in the sense that he is wielded.  Throughout Sayid’s flashback, we see Sayid being pretty effectively controlled by his masters in the Iraqi military, while Nadia seems to be calling out to the human being within.

Ultimately, what saved her also saves him.  Finding himself on the torturee side of things, at the hands of the infamous French Lady, Sayid appeals to whatever signs of her humanity he can find that she still has a connection with.

Of mythological importance: we meet our first eyewitness to “The Others” in Danielle, who lays further seeds of future events by telling us about Alex, and her crews encounters with the island’s defense systems.  Sayid’s brief stay in Danielle’s ground house also nets a cache of island maps and various documents that will become increasingly important as the series progresses.

One of the new mysteries introduced in Solitary also turned out to be one of the longest running and most frustrating: the cable.  Sayid finds a cable leading into the ocean.  The cable appears again in the episode “Numbers,” but merely as a landmark.  It isn’t until much later that we learn the cable connects to the Looking Glass Station.

Watching the episode again was a hoot, particularly for how wide reaching some of the events and themes became.  Every episode of LOST is integral to the whole, naturally, but Solitary is one of the few that could be counted as essential to both future plot advancement and character arc.

Solitary was written by David Fury, and directed by Greg Yaitanes.

Talking Points

Here are some thoughts I had about the episode as I watched.  Feel free to discuss/respond below:

• Is it just me, or is Ethan just too conspicuous.  I can’t recall thinking it at the time, but watching it now he just seems too hidden in plain site.
• Rousseau gradually becomes a caricature of herself later in the series. She is dangerous, mysterious, and seems imbued with secret island knowledge here. As time goes on, she turns out to be more of a gazetteer than a grimoire.. I don’t disagree with anything they have done with her character, but she became more of an element than a human being as time went on. Cue the crazy French lady, exit stage right.
• The b story with Hurley’s golf course is a brilliant piece of humanization. The tighter constraints of season 4 and 5 are almost completely devoid of this imperative amongst the characters to normalize amongst their situation.  They have completely given in to the weird.  Is the story better for it?

Visit the Lostpedia Rewatch page for all of the most up-to-date Rewatch information, as well as their blog.

12►

In my new series, “Examining the Scene,” I will pick two to three unique, important scenes that stick out to me as special in terms of the way they are shot, cut, and directed.

With my Season 1 & 2 Blu-rays in hand, I’ve finally begun the LOST rewatch. In my first examination of a scene from the Pilot, I look at the first flashback to to before the crash. 21 minutes into the show, we get a glimpse of what the characters were like pre-crash. This is somewhat pivotal to the series, establishing the flashback for what will become the show’s major staple.

We start of with an establishing shot quickly letting the audience know where and when we are. This episode (and the next) don’t utilize the flashback sfx so they’re strictly relying on visuals to indicate when we are. The shot dollys back to reveal our main character: Jack.

Notice how Cindy is in a medium shot (MS)(waist and above) while Jack is in a medium close-up (MCU)(chest-and-above).

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot
- Charlie Chaplin

This scene is a little funny and cute. Compared to the first 20 minutes of the Pilot, this scene is down right hilarious. It’s the first departure form the dark and dreary plane crash. However, we don’t cut the medium shot of Jack right away. Staying closer on him and farther away on Cindy keeps us connected the main character. Until Jack laughs and we cut to a further away shot (indicating to us it’s funny):

As the scene dies down we’re back in the close-ups:

Then something interesting happens…

We stay on Jack for a long… long… time. Staying this close, not cutting to anything, it makes the audience nervous. Horror films do this constantly. It’s not about the big BOO, it’s about the anticipation, taking the audience to the edge. A common horror technique goes something like this: see girl walk around suburban house looking for the noise she just heard, stay on her, silent, all we hear is her footsteps; then we hear something off screen; she goes to investigate as we yell at the screen, “don’t open that door!” When she opens the door, it’s actually just her puppy that was making the noise. How cute. Relieved that there’s not a murderer in her house, she turns around and BAM there’s the guy in the mask with a giant knife!

Sound familiar? Well, here, we stay on Jack and his drink. We know the plane crashes. We know it’s coming. We know where they all end up… BUMP. “This is it!” we shout. But it’s not. It’s just turbulence. Then Jack sees that his neighbor is getting nervous.

They have an interesting moment where she tells a story of how her husband lets her know that everything is OK.

Look at this close up of Jack:

Don’t you just trust this guy? The shot is almost dead-on, as if he’s looking right at us to tell us everything is OK.

Too bad it’s not…

Cut to…

As we enter into the second week of our hiatus long rewatch, this week we focused on the season 1 episodes White Rabbit, House of the Rising Sun, The Moth, and Confidence Man.

My obvious first thoughts this week revolved around Jack seeing his father, for the second time, and following him into the jungle.  After the final events of season 5, I have to believe that Jacob’s nemesis (who I will refer to as Esau, only because so many have latched onto this name. It DOES NOT mean I think he is the real Esau, its only a name) is the source of Christian and possibly all of the other hallucinations that have been seen on the island since the Losties arrived.  As I watched “White Rabbit” I began to think more about Esau’s ability to take the form of any dead bodies on the island.  Now, my memory simply isn’t good enough to remember, but have we EVER seen a hallucination on or off the island that was NOT someone who died on the island?  I remember Kate’s black horse, which obviously wasn’t dead on the island, but since it isn’t a human being I’m not counting it.  Every other person I can remember the Losties seeing were someone who either died on the island, or their body ended up there (at least I think…).  This might also explain why the Others funeral ritual included sending their dead into the sea.  They might not have realized the reason for this ritual, but it could have still been part of a ritual that Richard, or someone else handed down to them, and could have still had the purpose of keeping the bodies away from Esau.  I also have to mention the attention many fans gave to Richard’s demands during season 5 of getting the bodies back of the two men that Sawyer had killed.  People were convinced that there was some meaning to Richard’s motives, and I admit that I felt that people were digging for something that wasn’t there.  However, in light of this rewatch, I’m inclined to agree that there could be more to Richard’s desire to have those bodies back.

The second thing that came to mind I only considered briefly, for just a moment, but I thought I’d throw it out there to see if anyone else thought the same thing, even if ultimately you don’t think its true.  But when Locke showed up at the cliff and saved Jack, for the smallest instant I wondered if that was somehow Esau posing as Locke.  After all, we don’t KNOW that Esau can only take on the identity of dead people.  I quickly let go of this idea as rationality seems to dictate that it was in fact Locke, but his timing was just so damned convenient, and he seemed to help point Jack in the right direction, the same way I’d think Esau would have done.  Anyway, I don’t think its true, but if you thought about it too, let me know!

The next major item that caught my eye was in “House of the Rising Sun” when Jack and Kate stumble onto the Adam and Eve skeletons.  Adam and Eve have been just about talked to death, however, it made me do some searching, and it seems to me that Jack and Kate never told anyone, including Locke, about finding the black and white stones.  Jack was seen putting the pouch with the stones in his pocket and I don’t think they were ever shown again (if I’m wrong on this, please let me know in the comments).  While this isn’t anything groundbreaking, I found it interesting enough to remind everyone about ,especially in lieu of the time travel that comes later.  I guess my point is that unless Adam ends up being Jack, we won’t have another “compass” situation on our hands if the skeletons are any of our Losties.

Those were the only major items that jumped out to me during these four episodes, but there was something else that I realized this week.  Since Lost first started on that fateful day in September of 2004 I have been totally and completely focused on the mythology and mysteries of the show.  I always noticed the great acting and fantastic characters but they were always second to the mythological elements for me.  However, this rewatch has made me really appreciate and notice more tiny nuances in the storytelling and the character development of this series.  Jin is a great example from these episodes.  Speaking for myself, I hated Jin from the beginning.  He was a real bastard, bossy, mean, and a total control freak with his wife.  As I watched their first flashback back in 2004 I completely understood why Sun would want to leave him.  It was obvious that he was trying to do what he thought best for them, but he was failing miserably.  Eventually I grew to like Jin more and more, even before we knew the full truth about Sun’s infidelity, but while rewatching I realized the full inner struggle that Jin is going through.  Here is a man that loves his wife so deeply and so totally.  He gave up everything to marry her, including his soul (to her father).  Everything he did, however misguided, was out of his love for her and his desire for them to have a wonderful life.  And then he learned of his wife’s infidelity, and still, despite his anger, he realized he was partly to blame.  When the plane crashed he was trying to repair the damage he’d done to his marriage, but at the same time still struggling to overcome Sun’s affair.  He was finding it difficult to trust her, difficult to allow her to express herself.  These are the types of moments that truely define this rewatch for me because they’re things that we were incapable of seeing the first time around, due to the storytelling model being utilized.

The story is similar for Sawyer in Confidence Man.  While rewatching I realized for the first time that Sawyer was trying way to hard with Kate.  He was pushing himself on her in a way that I now know he never would have actually done, had he just wanted her physically.  This is a man that knew how to get the women he wanted, and knew exactly how to manipulate them.  No, in Confidence Man Sawyer wanted to show Kate that he couldn’t be beaten, and that he was in charge of the situation.  When he let her read his note to Sawyer, he knew that she’d assume the note was written to him, and it would change her perception of him.  He was counting on it.  And it worked like a charm until the very end when Kate figured out his one weakness and got inside his head for the first time.  Although so many of you probably noticed all of this the first time around, I was too busy trying to figure out what it meant that he was reading Watership Down, and I didn’t always take the time to cherish the nuences in the character development of the story.

As a final note I do want to mention that what I think is my all time favorite quotes was from Confidence Man when Sawyer says;

“Baby, I am tied to a tree in a jungle of mystery. I just got tortured by a damn spinal surgeon and a gen-uine I-raqi. Of course I’m serious. You’re just not seeing the big picture here, Freckles. You really going to let that girl suffocate because you can’t bring yourself to give me one little kiss? Hell, it’s only first base. Lucky for you I ain’t greedy.”

That wraps up week 2 here at Docarzt’s, but there’s far more to read about the Lost Rewatch, happening across the web. The links below will take you to other great articles from other Lost sites. Next week’s episodes are Solitary, Raised by Another, All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues, and Whatever the Case May Be.   Now here is some more Lost goodness.

Visit the Lostpedia Rewatch page for all of the most up-to-date Rewatch information, as well as their blog.

-Get Lost with Jopinionated – Rewatch Week 2

-Sledgeweb’s Lost Stuff Week 2 Investigations

-Jacob’s Cabin Recaps

-Lostaholics Rewatch – Article 1 – Article 2 – Article 3

- Memories, Musings, and Mischief – Rewatch Week 2

Technorati Tags: Christian Shephard, Confidence Man, The Moth, Torture

As we delve into our hiatus-long rewatch of the first 5 seasons of Lost, I feel that it’s only fair that I mention, this will be the first time I’ve rewatched Lost since it first aired. Now, don’t get me wrong, I help run Lost websites, and as such, I’ve certainly gone back and rewatched single episodes here and there, as well as rewatching certain scenes over and over. For example, I’ve probably rewatched the scene’s where Oceanic 815 breaks apart, from Jack and Kate’s point of view, over 50 times. But I’ve never rewatched even two episodes of Lost, back to back. I know, I know, some of you may be screaming blasphemy, but that makes this rewatch even more spectacular for me, and my comments will be reflective of that, I’m sure. Now on to some Lost…

I was almost giddy rewatching the pilot, filled with a level of excitement I really didn’t expect. I immediately found myself thinking about the other things happening on the island as flight 815 was crashing.  Ben is giving orders to Ethan and Goodwin at that very instant to infiltrate the camps.  It also seems as though Jacob might have been providing lists of the people that they were supposed to be grabbing to join their little band, though I’m still a bit unclear whether the lists from Jacob were something Ben fabricated, or if Richard brought those lists to Ben, since we know that Ben never actually saw Jacob.  Also, Kelvin had just been killed in his scuffle with Desmond, and of course Desmond getting back to the hatch late is what ultimately brought the fated plane down.

On the first night after the crash, the smoke monster is heard in the jungle, and a thought crossed my mind that I hadn’t considered before…was Ben controlling Smokey?  We know that he can call him, but it doesn’t seem like every move Smokey makes is controlled by Ben, so my first instinct is to say no, Ben had nothing to do with Smokey’s appearance that first night.  But that certainly doesn’t mean that Mr. Dark Shirt (also being referred to as Esau) wasn’t Smokey in disguise that whole time.  I’ve also never been able to shake the fact that Rose said the noises Smokey makes sounded familiar.  But I still don’t have any better explanation for her comment than I did 5 years ago.

There were tons of other great moments that I won’t comment on only because these four episodes, and specifically the first two, are without a doubt some of the best television I will probably ever see in my life.  I could go on for days and days about how fantastic they were.  However, there are a few thing that I’d like to mention, beginning with Kate.  I didn’t remember how well the writers had done with the foreshadowing of her running.  I found small little comments hidden all through these first four episodes that foreshadow the runner that we know Kate to be now.  It starts in the first episode when Jack gives Kate his story about counting to five and then letting the fear go.  She tells Jack that she would have just run, and he says, “You’re not running now.”  Later he even comments “Every time there’s an expedition into the jungle you go running off,” or something along those lines.  I got a lot of enjoyment out of it.

I also found it interesting to look at each of the characters and think about their individual journey as people.  Jin surprised me the most, as I had forgotten what a giant ass he was in the beginning.  It’s amazing that the writers we able to make us fans of such a character, but I love Jin now.  Jack, however, hasn’t changed much until recently.  For most of this series he’s been the same guy, the hero that seems to be reluctant, but yet still can’t stop being the hero.  It makes the impact of the changes he’s gone through in Season 5 to be all the more impressive.  And then there’s Locke, who had the most unique perspective of all of the other survivors, which I have no doubt is why Mr. Black shirt (Esau), chose him, if that’s even a fair assumption.   Locke saw the miracle that the island had to offer and knew he was somewhere very special.  The foreshadowing in Walkabout was fantastic, with the big reveal of Locke being in the wheelchair not coming until the very end.  It was quite genius and reminded me why this show made it so big, so fast.

Finally, of these four episodes, the item that hit me the hardest and related most closely to what we’ve all just seen this past season was Locke’s interaction with Walt, and his description of the game, Backgammon.  Who would have thought such a little scene would have such long standing significance to the show, but it very obviously does, and is the kind of foreshadowing that shows that the producers have had this in the works since day one.  Locke tells Walt, “Backgammon’s the oldest game in the world. Archeologists found sets when they excavated the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia. 5000 years old. That’s older than Jesus Christ.”  He goes on to give this great overview of the game, and possibly the whole story behind Lost, “Two players. Two sides. One is light … one is dark.”  After seeing Jacob (in his white shirt) speak with his nemesis (in his black shirt) in the season 5 finale, it’s difficult to not be able to see the comparison between the game backgammon and the obvious feud between Jacob and his Nemesis.  It’s also kinda cool to think about the fact that Jacob and his black shirted nemesis might have actually been playing backgammon together 5,000 years ago!

That’s all I’ve got for the DocArzt crowd this week, but there’s far more to read about the Lost Rewatch, happening across the web.  The links below will take you to other great articles from other Lost sites.  Tomorrow (today actually, since its after midnight now) stars week 2 of the rewatch, so don’t forget to find the time this next week to watch the next 4 episodes of season 1, and I promise to have this post up next Sunday at a reasonable hour!  Now here is some more Lost goodness.

Visit the Lostpedia Rewatch page for all of the most up-to-date Rewatch information, as well as their blog.

-Get Lost with Jopinionated – Rewatch Week 1

-Jacob’s Cabin Recaps

-Lostaholics Rewatch – Article 1 - Article 2

- Memories, Musings, and Mischief – Rewatch Week 1

More articles will be added, including Sledgeweb ReInvestigations, tomorrow!

It has been almost two weeks since the season finale of Lost, and the announcement of the reWatching Lost event here at Docarzt’s & Friends Lost blog and the response has been tremendous.  If you missed the announcement, you can check it out here to catch up with the rest of us.

First and foremost, we have retitled the event The Lost Rewatch, and DocArzt and Friends has teamed up with Lostpedia.com to bring you this great event over the long hiatus leading up to the sixth and final season of our favorite show.

In addition to Docarzt.com and Lostpedia.com, there are several other great sites that will be involved in this event, either with direct links from DocArzt.com or with RSS feeds on the main Lostpedia page for the event.  Either way, there will be tons of great Lost content over the summer and fall for everyone to relive Lost.

Some of the great sites involved include:

• Sledgeweb’s Lost Stuff
• Get Lost with JOpinionated
• Lostaholics
• The Joshmeister
• All About Lost
• Jacob’s Cabin
• Lostpedia Blog
• A few other non-Lost related blogs

As a recap, we’ll be watching 3 or 4 episodes of Lost each week, based on the schedule here.  Please note that based on that schedule we will start watching Season 5 before it is available on DVD.  We are assuming that season 5 will be available either on Hulu.com by then, or on ABC.com.  If it is not available at either place, we will adjust the schedule accordingly.  However, we hope it won’t come to that, as the current schedule has us finishing all five seasons just in time for the start of Season 6 without too many episodes each week for an average person to follow.

What You, the readers, have to Do

1. Starting Monday each week watch the episodes designated on the schedule at your own pace.  Just ensure you’ve completed them all by the following Saturday.
2. Every Sunday evening, visit Docarzt.com (or the Lostpedia ReWatch page) and read about all of the new easter eggs and additional analysis on that week’s episodes, based on what we now know from 5 seasons of the show.
3. Comment and let us know how rewatching the show now, gives you a different perspective on what might be happening on the island.

That’s it!  That’s all you have to do.  And we’ve made it easier than ever for you to keep up with all of the great content that the sites mentioned above will be publishing each week.

The Lostpedia Rewatch Hub – This hub page will give you all the info you need to know, links to episode summaries, as well as RSS feeds for the participating sites.

The Lostpedia Official Rewatch Forums – An additional place, outside of the Docarzt comment areas, where you can discuss the rewatch.  If you’re already a member of Docarzt.com and would prefer to keep your discussions in our forums, you can do so here.

The Lost Rewatch Twitter page – Follow all the updates via Twitter.

The Lost Rewatch Facebook page – Keep up with the Lost Rewatch via Facebook.

In addition, Docarzt.com has a special RSS feed to allow you to follow all of the Lost Rewatch related posts.  We’ve included an email link where you can sign up with your email address, and be sent email alerts anytime Docarzt.com publishes new Lost Rewatch content.  As a note, anyone who sent me an email requesting updates on the Rewatch, please use the email link above to sign up for automatic emails about new posts.

That about sums it all up.  I hope you are all as excited as I am about this rewatch.  We will begin next Monday, on June 1, with the first four episodes from season 1.  If you get behind or can’t watch them with us, we hope that you’ll still visit the site each week to see the great new analysis that we have on the previous season’s episodes.

Technorati Tags: reWatching Lost, The Lost Rewatch

Brace yourselves LOST fans, because next year, in January, Lost will begin its sixth and final season as a television series. The excruciatingly long hiatus leading us to the end will begin by the end of the night and I can’t imagine anything worse than waiting that long just to watch the final chapter of a story that I don’t want to end at all. But all of this The End is Coming stuff got me thinking about how to pass the time this summer (and fall). For some time now I’ve wanted to go back and rewatch the entire series, from beginning to end, but it’s never felt like quite the right time for me…until now.

Myself, and the rest of the staff here at Docarzt and Friends would like you all to partake on this journey with us over the hiatus. It will be like a book club and a watch party mixed together. Here are the details.

• We’re going to watch all of Lost, and I mean all of it, from season 1 up thru season 5 in the next 7 months. We’ll all watch the same episodes each week (if you choose to participate), and then meet back here, at Doc’s at the end of the week to discuss and give our thoughts.
• Most week’s will require us to watch 4 episodes between Monday and Saturday (though some weeks only have 3 episodes on the schedule).
• I’ll write a single article that covers all of that week’s episodes each Sunday, giving a very brief synopsis and then dive into the items that I found interesting, based on things we now know. At the end of the article I will link to additional blogs and other lost fansites who will be writing their own take on the same episodes, as well as any additional resources you may find interesting.
• Then, each of you will have the opportunity to respond and give your thoughts as well, in the comments. We hope that you will all join us and watch the episodes with us each week, however, even if you just want to pop on the site every Sunday night (or Monday morning!) and see what we all had to say, that’s fine as well.
• So far Lost blogger JOpinionated is onboard to give us her reWATCHING thoughts each week, and Sledgeweb’s Lost Stuff will also feature one to two articles a week on the past episodes, focusing mostly on the mysteries, both solved and not solved.  Other Lost sites are encouraged to join us in this endeavor and keep the community riding high this summer.

Nothing will better prepare us, or be as much fun as doing this as a community. So while the days are growing shorter, and the sadness of the end looms over us, we can rejoice in all that made us fall in love with this series to begin with, and maybe even pickup a few new clues in the process. So remember, after Lost ends its fifth season there’s still work to be done. Come back to Docarzt.com regularly, every week, and reWATCH Lost with us.

reWATCHING LOST will begin on June 1.  Below is the schedule of episodes to be covered each week.

If you’re interested in participating in this event, and you’d like us to link to your articles each week, please email me at astrojones@gmail.com with the subject of “reWatching Lost” and I’ll give you any necessary details.

June 1 – June 7
	-S1E01 – Pilot: Part 1
	-S1E02 – Pilot: Part 2
	-S1E03 – Tabula Rasa
	-S1E04 – Walkabout
June 8 – June 14
	-S1E05 – White Rabbit
	-S1E06 – House of the Rising Sun
	-S1E07 – The Moth
	-S1E08 – Confidence Man
June 15 – June 21
	-S1E09 – Solitary
	-S1E10 – Raised by Another
	-S1E11 – All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
	-S1E12 – Whatever the Case May Be
June22 – June 28
	-S1E13 – Hearts and Minds
	-S1E14 – Special
	-S1E15 – Homecoming
	-S1E16 – Outlaws
June 29 – July 5
	-S1E17 – …In Translation
	-S1E18 – Numbers
	-S1E19 – Deus Ex Machina
July 6 – July 12
	-S1E20 – Do No Harm
	-S1E21 – The Greater Good
	-S1E22 – Born to Run
July 13 – July 19
	-S1E23 – Exodus: Part 1
	-S1E24/25 – Exodus: Part 2
	-S2E01 – Man of Science, Man of Faith
	-S2E02 – Adrift
July 20 – July 26
	-S2E03 – Orientation
	-S2E04 – Everybody Hates Hugo
	-S2E05 – …And Found
	-S2E06 – Abandoned
July 27 – Aug 2
	-S2E07 – The Other 48 Days
	-S2E08 – Collision
	-S2E09 – What Kate Did
	-S2E10 – The 23rd Psalm
Aug 3 – Aug 9
	-S2E11 – The Hunting Party
	-S2E12 – Fire + Water
	-S2E13 – The Long Con
	-S2E14 – One of Them
Aug 10 – Aug 16
	-S2E15 – Maternity Leave
	-S2E16 – The Whole Truth
	-S2E17 – Lockdown
	-S2E18 – Dave
Aug 17 – Aug 23
	-S2E19 – S.O.S.
	-S2E20 – Two for the Road
	-S2E21 – ?
Aug 24 – Aug 30
	-S2E22 – Three Minutes
	-S2E23/24 – Live Together, Die Alone
	-S3E01 – A Tale of Two Cities
	-S3E02 – The Glass Ballerina
Aug 31 – Sept 6
	-S3E03 – Further Instructions
	-S3E04 – Every Man for Himself
	-S3E05 – The Cost of Living
	-S3E06 – I Do
Sept 7 – Sept 13
	-S3E07 – Not in Portland
	-S3E08 – Flashes Before Your Eyes
	-S3E09 – Stranger in a Strange Land
	-S3E10 – Tricia Tanaka Is Dead
Sept 14 – Sept 20
	-S3E11 – Enter 77
	-S3E12 – Par Avion
	-S3E13 – The Man from Tallahassee
	-S3E14 – Expose
Sept 21 – Sept 27
	-S3E15 – Left Behind
	-S3E16 – One of Us
	-S3E17 – Catch-22
Sept 28 – Oct 4
	-S3E18 – D.O.C.
	-S3E19 – The Brig
	-S3E20 – The Man Behind the Curtain
Oct 5 – Oct 11
	-S3E21 – Greatest Hits
	-S3E22/23 – Through the Looking Glass
	-S4E01 – The Beginning of the End
Oct 12 – Oct 18
	-S4E02 – Confirmed Dead
	-S4E03 – The Economist
	-S4E04 – Eggtown
Oct 19 – Oct 25
	-S4E05 – The Constant
	-S4E06 – The Other Woman
	-S4E07 – Ji Yeon
Oct 26 – Nov 1
	-S4E08 – Meet Kevin Johnson
	-S4E09 – The Shape of Things to Come
	-S4E10 – Something Nice Back Home
Nov 2 – Nov 8
	-S4E11 – Cabin Fever
	-S4E12 – There’s No Place Like Home: Part 1
	-S4E13/14 – There’s No Place Like Home: Part 2
Nov 9 – Nov 15
	-S5E01 – Because You Left
	-S5E02 – The Lie
	-S5E03 – Jughead
Nov 16 – Nov 22
	THANKSGIVING BREAK
Nov 23 – Nov 29
	-S5E04 – The Little Prince
	-S5E05 – This Place is Death
Nov 30 – Dec 6
	-S5E06 – 316
	-S5E07 – The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham
	-S5E08 – LaFleur
Dec 7 – Dec 13
	-S5E09 – Namaste
	-S5E10 – He’s Our You
	-S5E11 – Whatever Happened, Happened
Dec 14 – Dec 20
	-S5E12 – Dead is Dead
	-S5E13 – Some Like It Hoth
	-S5E14 – The Variable
Dec 21 – Dec 27
	CHRISTMAS BREAK
Dec 28 – Jan 3
	-S5E15 – Follow the Leader
	-S5E16/17 – The Incident

Technorati Tags: hiatus, Lost, rewatching, summer 2009