15 February 2008

Thoughts on Lost 4.03 The Economist

There were two things in last night's Lost that got me a thinking. Well, actually, I've been thinking about this for a while.

It's about time, and how they'll explain Walt's growing.

You see, as some might think, I do believe the creators of the series do know what they're doing, and not making it up as they go along. Between season one and two of the show, speculation from me and my friends centered on Walt. Basically, as days on the island could be spread out over many episodes, how where they going to explain actor Malcolm David Kelly's growth.

During season two, you could see the actor had grown taller, and his face started to thin out. By the end of that season, Walt and his dad Michael had left the island on a boat provided by Ben.

This solved a huge problem for the producers. Getting Walt off the the show meant no one had to explain a teenagers growth when a dozen episodes could be just one day on the island. Even during season 3, when Walt popped up during a many of John Locke's odd symbiotic times with the island you could tell that Kelly had grown.

One theory I had was that the island itself was was seperate from reality, that it could be running -time wise - at a different pace. This seemed to come true over these last 3 episodes, as Locke keeps mentioning that Walt is telling him what to do - a bigger, as in taller, version of the one they left behind on the boat.

Now, on last night's episode, Jack mentions they've been on the island for 100 days, and basing that the events of Lost began on September 24, 2004, it is now early 2005 for Jack and rest of the Losties. Now it's been established that Jack is a baseball fan, a Boston Red Sox baseball fan. There was a joke after the Red Sox's won the World Series back in 2004 that popped up in an episode, and last night Jack asks Frank Lapidus about it, and Frank just says something about not getting him started.

This struck me as odd, and a bit convenient, as the Red Sox's won the 2007 World Series. And I thought that Frank was talking about the 2007 Red Sox's and Jack was talking about the 2004 Red Sox's.

Then there's the whole rocket thing with Daniel. The rocket shot from the boat, arrived 31 minutes later than it should've and provided the largest clue yet that at least the island is not running in the same normal timeline as the rest of us, that for the Losties it's now January 2005, while the crew from the helicopter are from 2007 -or maybe now, 2008.

This will also explain how Walt has grown, by the way. He and his dad Michael (who might be Ben's "man on the boat," I'm also thinking) returned to normal time when they left the island. So when he pops up -and he's bound too considering how the producers and writers are making him such an important link between Jacob and him - Walt (and actor Malcolm David Kelly) will have grown because he's been gone from the island for over two years!

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