Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Lost: Missing Pieces - "Room 23" and "Arzt and Crafts"

Christmas Bonus! (Or, Brian is finally playing catch-up on the Lost Mobisodes!)

If you visit http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces/index?pn=index, you'll find not one - but TWO newish mobisodes to check out. Here are my thoughts...

Room 23

Remember a few weeks ago, when I wondered if Walt truly had any sort of special power, or if it was merely the Island acting on Walt's behalf, which then appeared as though Walt was the special one? Well, with this mobisode, I think it's pretty safe to say that my musings was totally wrong, as this episode seems to prove that Walt, at the very least, has some power over birds (maybe he is the equivalent of the "Heart" guy on Captain Planet?).

"Room 23" also served to clear up a few plot points, and muddy a few more. We learned that the Others kept Walt on Alcatraz Island, rather than the main Island (so there really was NO CHANCE of Michael or any of the rest of our Survivors finding him). But more than that, they kept him in Room 23, which somewhat changes my interpretation of the purpose of the room.
Previously, we had seen Room 23 (lovingly referred by me as "The Rave Room") used as a mind-bending, brain-washing, soul-stealing room where Krazy Karl was subjected to glaring techno music and rapid-fire subliminal images about loving Jacob and not being enslaved by time and space. My assumption was that this room was used to "break people", to turn them into mindless followers of Ben / Jacob and the ways of the Others, rather than being an individual who would question the way things worked. However, we have heard that Walt was being subjected to "tests", rather than simply brainwashed into being an Other. I guess it's always possible that Walt was held in multiple rooms over the course of his time with the Others - but it's more likely that Room 23 served as a multi-purpose room for any "secret" Other activities - testing "special" children, brainwashing rebels, and hosting Other holiday functions.

On the other hand, who is to say that the ultimate purpose of the Others wasn't to transform Walt into a card carrying member of their crazy cult, just like Zack and Emma, who seemed a little to calm and content for my liking during their brief appearance in early Season Three.

At any rate, it's pretty clear that Walt's powers freaked everyone out. If the Others had previously performed tests on children to see if they were "special", then Walt was the most special of them all. This helps explain why they would actually agree to let him go even though he proved to have powers - he was almost "too special" for their liking. Too powerful, too dangerous, and too freaking weird.

On a side note, this mobisode got me thinking - are we ever going to see Walt on the Island again? Even though Michael is coming back, I think the answer here is a pretty big "no way". Instead, I think the Lost creators were actually pretty genius in dealing with the character. They knew that in casting a child, he would age much faster than he should on the Island.

Luckily, they knew that portions of the series would "flash forward" to the future eventually, which would be PERFECT for the actor - who would look exactly like he should for a child a few years in the future. Will Walt appear on the show again? Absolutely - but just in the future / present of the flash forward.

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Arzt and Crafts

Well, I suppose all good things must come to an end sometime (but don't burn the day away).

After a string of absolutely fantastic Lost mobisodes, along comes "Arzt and Crafts" - which is nice, but doesn't really give us much to ponder like the past few clips. It's nice to see Arzt again, and the clip hints at some of the struggles Sun had in keeping her English-speaking away from Jin, but nothing about this clip changes our perception of anything that has happened on Lost. Arzt (and we can assume other Survivors) did question the leadership credentials of Jack, just like Sun and Jin (and we can assume other Survivors) did question the relationship between Boone and Shannon.

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This one definitely felt like a deleted scene from a DVD - totally unnecessary, and totally worthy of being cut from the final product.

...and I'm back caught up! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh how I loved watching these, even if it is just filler in some cases it is WELL WORTH IT!

As for the birds and Walt...I was wondering at first why would Walt be throwing brids out the window, and why would they think a wooden baracade would help keep him in...then it occurred to me after watching and pausing several times that he was actually making the birds fly INTO the wood and that is where they ended up!

I am now thinking some weird things about the island and Walt and their connections to eachother...I must process this more.

Merry Christmas all!

Anonymous said...

On YouTube there was actually another mobisode titled "Buried Secrets". I can't get the ones at ABC so I go there. Is this one not at ABC?

Brian said...

hope - I do see the Michael / Sun clip up on YouTube, but not yet on the official ABC site. If I understand correctly, the clips are released to Verizon Wireless members a few days before they appear on ABC.

Since I've been going off of ABC all along, I guess I'll wait until it's there for my comments on it. But based on the clip, they will be pretty brief...

Anonymous said...

just rewatched the last eposode of season 3 and thought if there flash forwards why does jack constantly refer to his day?

Anonymous said...

DAD even lol sorry

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Stef said...

I am enjoying these missing pieces, even more so now knowing that we only have a few more weeks to go before Sn 4! I think having Sun and Jin gossip about the other survivors is funny - you know everyone had to be checking everyone else out, and there's lots of gossip going on even if we don't see it. Human nature prevails, even on the island!

I just rewatched Sn 1, and plan to do a crash course of 2 and 3 in January, and it amazes me to see how young Walt was. I think you're right, they've done a great job with writing around a child actor.

And speaking of Zack and Emma -- I think we have to revisit flight attendant Cindy, cuz there has to be more to her story!

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Anonymous said...

Find815.com is ABCs new site.. woot, it will go on for 5 weeks with the last update 2 hours prior to the season 4 debut on Jan 31st.

I'm soooo excited!