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This thread is for those that did NOT like the episode. If you liked the ep please visit the "Loved it!!!" thread. If you want to debate the episode (likes and dislikes), then please take your comments to the "Rate The Episode" thread or The "Discuss The Episode" thread. Any off topic posts will be deleted and possibly warned or given infraction points.

The eppy was okay, I suppose, but the the whole idea of the island jumping around in time or whatever just doesn't make any sense to me at all. I spent the entire episode trying to get my head around the logic behind that, and I can't find any.

The eppy was okay, I suppose, but the the whole idea of the island jumping around in time or whatever just doesn't make any sense to me at all. I spent the entire episode trying to get my head around the logic behind that, and I can't find any.

I hope we get the answer to why the Island was jumping around later in the season. But, I'm not holding my breath. MamaThor said during the episode, "It's a J.J. thing so remember he thinks it's entertaining. I don't."

I agree with her.

What we saw were the Left-Behinders in various scenes. That's all. Mostly action, but no advancing of the storyline.

I'm not disappointed, because this is what I expected after season 4.

Desmond gains the information in the past, but then only remembers it in the present. To me, this just shows that the creative team do not understand what they're doing. For this to work - Desmond would have to have forgotten seeing Daniel, and why would this happen? And why would Desmond then gain the information at this specific point in time? It suggests that the creative team view "the past" and "the present" as things which are happening "at the same time" - which of course is a total misunderstanding of those terms.

All the time jumping winds me up, because it will never be done right and it won't add up.

In addition, there are things going on which are inconsistent with what we've been shown previously. Ethan rolls up with a gun, threatening to kill John. A few questions spring to mind:

1) Didn't Alpert visit John Locke when he was younger? Wouldn't the other Others know about this, or was it a private mission? Did Ethan then just forget about the name John Locke? The answer could possibly be that Alpert didn't tell Ethan about this, so I am happy to leave that one...

2) Why would Ethan turn up with a gun? Isn't he a doctor or something, why is he the one who is sent?

3) Why would Ethan shoot at and then threaten to kill an unarmed man? This is in total contrast to the protocol that we're shown when 815 crashes and Ben orders Ethan and Goodwin to investigate. You may say that 815 is a special case as there were so many passengers it would be easy to infiltrate. But, there are other options besides killing and infiltration, such as conversation. This makes Ethan appear to be a nutcase.

4) Surely when Ethan saw John Locke in the past, he presumably then saw him vanish. You would think that Ethan would tell the Others what he saw. Alpert would remember the name since he went to see John when he was a kid... it surely would be discussed... yet, in previous episodes we are not given any reason to think this happened. Once again it appears as though the writers did not plan this, otherwise why wouldn't they have written it in somewhere, even a tiny tiny mention of it would have been awesome. Like in season 1, Ethan could have just looked at John funny, just once, and at the time we wouldn't have thought about it, but looking back it would have been like "ohhh!". But I don't remember any such incidents, and this time travel business makes for bad writing and zero continuity. When Ben is talking to John about seeing him up and walking around in season 3 - and that being the reason he was interestsed in him - that's hardly as miraculous as meeting a guy who appeared and vanished. You'd think that it would have been mentioned at this point - or any other point between Ben and Locke - or anybody else.

5) John knows Ethan's name. Surely this would halt Ethan and he would want to know how. If John is perceived as such a danger that he is to be executed - unarmed and injured - you'd think he'd be interrogated just a little bit more to find out - is anyone else coming, who do you work for - as standard...

Not to mention the incredibly convenient timing of when John then moved in time. That's just plain cheesy.

Lost has lost me. I agree, the whole time travel thing, not being a scientific fact, at least at present, means that no logic or empiricism can be applied to the story line. They can just crate their own logic that we will be forced to swallow. I knew this would happen also. Face it, with all the super brain fans following this show, not even they can come up with a good theory to explain what happens. How on earth can the producers of a TV show be smarter than the millions of fans out there, let alone explain to a TV audience what is going on. I will stick with it as I love the characters, but as I have said, I am lost, and not in a good way.

Yeah I'll keep watching as I am still interested - but I feel it has reached a point where I won't be satisfied by the ending.

The writers don't have to be smarter than the rest of us necessarily, but they need to understand the things they are attempting to portray, and they need to have a story and characters which have consistency.

I actually fell asleep during this episode. Nothing particularly thrilling. A bunch of jumping around between characters that didn't add up to anything substantial. And certainly no "OH MY GOSH!" moments. There should have been something absolutely riveting to pull everybody back in at the beginning of the season. I don't think we got that.

Not only the random time travel without continuity, but the endless exposition bothered me. These first 2 episodes were written for new viewers to catch up, but let's face it. New viewers aren't going to enjoy this without the other seasons. Especially if there is no action, just people wandering through the jungle with flashes. I loved Lost but now the thrill is gone.

Here we go again. New season; same old BS. Believe it or not (from my critique that follows), I didn’t hate it. BYL was definitely better than many episodes from last year (Eggtown, etc.) and it certainly was not boring (it was filled with a lot of action), but in the end, what were we left with? In the first three seasons we had countless flashbacks. At the end of S3 and all of S4 we had FFs. So now, S5 is going to be jumping all over the place following a bright flash? I’m sorry, but this show has gotten to be like high school homework: you find yourself spending countless time trying to figure out the logic and purpose of it and by the time you graduate you realize none of it mattered at all. By the time of the final episode of S6, I’m quite certain the majority reaction is going to be: That’s it!?! All of this led up to this!?!

Daniel used the analogy of being on a string. I can’t remember his exact words and don’t care enough to replay the scene, but essentially it’s like these people are like a ring on a string. Tilt the right end of the string up and you go back in time. Tilt the left end up and you go forward in time. But you can’t pull the ring off of the string (i.e. you can’t change what happens). This makes no sense. Isn’t the fact that they are all together, moving through space and time changing things that happened in the past and therefore altering things that will happen in the future?

This goes back to the first time they confirmed this time travel nonsense in The Constant. The paradoxes are virtually endless. Locke runs into Richard, but then Richard tells Locke the next time they meet, Richard won’t remember him, so give me this compass and… what, it will all suddenly make sense to Richard, then? Doesn’t the fact that Richard gave Locke the compass change things? And that’s just a small thing. What about bigger things, like Ethan (yes, they trotted him out yet again) shooting Locke and being ready to execute him? Then, another bright flash and the guy (Locke) just disappears (like the hatch, with Sawyer, Juliet and crew). I know that if say, someone broke into my house and I pointed a gun at him, ready to pull the trigger and then there was a bright light and he just disappeared, I’d kind of remember that. But Ethan doesn’t- I’m sure due to the all-powerful Island. When #815 crashes and he infiltrates the survivors on the beach, he had no idea who Locke was. Someone already pointed out the obvious and simple way to sell this: just have Ethan way back in S1 just keep looking at Locke and just say something like, “Don’t I know you?” That still wouldn’t do it for me, but at least they would have made the effort. Can anyone say, contrivance? That’s all this time travel stuff is. All the DHARMA stuff and their tents disappear but the life raft remains because, as Juliet basically put it, “the stuff they had with them remains.” Yeah, okay. Now I buy it.

You know the old saying you can’t have it both ways? TPTB want it all ways. They want to be able to do whatever they want, based on absolutely no logic and then explain flaws away (usually to Hurley for the audience) with simple one-liners and we’re all suppose to just say, “Okay. And by the way, can I have some more Ritalin, so that all of this stuff makes a little more sense?”

I am grateful that there are other people who feel the same as me!

Yeah definitely, going back in time, you will automatically change "things". By being there, you displace air, crush grass blades, make sound vibrations and so on. Animals will move in another path because they hear, smell and see you. Lots of things are altered. But then there are more (from a human's perspective) significant changes being made like with Ethan, Richard and Desmond for starters, and then the army chappies and anyone else they are going to meet at any point later in this series.

Those "alterations" already happened - that's what the past is, that's what it means. So for those changes to manifest themselves in the future/present, makes no sense. Those changes were there all along - and are not "changes", they are just what happened at that point in time, and would be remembered by all involved from that point onwards.

All these additional rules for time travel bug me no end also. Things you're holding onto travel in time with you? What? Why can't Locke hold onto Richard and have him transport with him?

All the DHARMA stuff and their tents disappear but the life raft remains because, as Juliet basically put it, “the stuff they had with them remains.” Yeah, okay. Now I buy it.
So much WORD to this.

And...substitute the word "plot" for the word "island" in "It's what the island demanded", and everything makes so much more sense.

Not only the random time travel without continuity, but the endless exposition bothered me.

Ah, I think you hit on what bothered me so much about this episode.

The random island flashes seem so gimmicky and, I feel, are taking away from actual story telling. Give me substance not bright, shiny make-em-guess-when-we-are flashes. Too distracting and not all that interesting. I was really expecting more from this season.

This episode started out really well, but steadily got worse by the end. It just didn't go anywhere and the next episode is even worse. BAH

I am grateful that there are other people who feel the same as me!

Yeah definitely, going back in time, you will automatically change "things". By being there, you displace air, crush grass blades, make sound vibrations and so on. Animals will move in another path because they hear, smell and see you. Lots of things are altered. But then there are more (from a human's perspective) significant changes being made like with Ethan, Richard and Desmond for starters, and then the army chappies and anyone else they are going to meet at any point later in this series.

Those "alterations" already happened - that's what the past is, that's what it means. So for those changes to manifest themselves in the future/present, makes no sense. Those changes were there all along - and are not "changes", they are just what happened at that point in time, and would be remembered by all involved from that point onwards.

All these additional rules for time travel bug me no end also. Things you're holding onto travel in time with you? What? Why can't Locke hold onto Richard and have him transport with him?
I remember debating this time travel nonsense with some people after The Constant and I was told that the TT worked for some of them because the TT only occurred in their minds- like the lab rat of Daniel’s at Oxford University, when Desmond came to visit him. I saw that logic used again and again- the time travel is only in Desmond’s mind. Now, Richard gives Locke a compass and the compass stays with Locke when he jumps in time. So, which is it? Is the TT only in their minds, or is it physical? If it’s only in their minds, how do you explain the compass staying with Locke (and apparently, he is going to give it back to Richard)? If it’s physical, then the entire TT premise set up in The Constant was just blown to hell.

I remember debating this time travel nonsense with some people after The Constant and I was told that the TT worked for some of them because the TT only occurred in their minds- like the lab rat of Daniel’s at Oxford University, when Desmond came to visit him. I saw that logic used again and again- the time travel is only in Desmond’s mind. Now, Richard gives Locke a compass and the compass stays with Locke when he jumps in time. So, which is it? Is the TT only in their minds, or is it physical? If it’s only in their minds, how do you explain the compass staying with Locke (and apparently, he is going to give it back to Richard)? If it’s physical, then the entire TT premise set up in The Constant was just blown to hell.

I don't know if I'll post my thoughts about this episode just yet because I'm still mulling it over, but I'm seeing more and more problems with the show because of time travel. We not only have people transmitting information back and forth through time (The Constant) but now we have people taking actual objects back and forth through time. And because it's physical time travel, what's gonna happen when someone jumps in time from a place where there was nothing built to the same spot at a different time when there is a building there or something solid?

Haven't thought too hard about it yet, but isn't Locke's meeting at the Beechcraft a bit of a paradox? This is what I posted in another thread.

http://forum.thefuselage.com/showpost.php?p=2064099&postcount=120
Locke shows up at the Beechcraft and gets the compass from Richard. Sometime in the future, time jumping Locke encounters Richard in the past, gives him the compass and tells him to go (or gives him the idea to go) to the Beechcraft to find his past self and give him medical treatment. Richard then gives Locke instructions based on his interactions with future Locke in the past, thus causing them to happen. Sounds like a paradox to me.

OMG if you go back in time and end up standing where a tree is growing, what happens???

After the huge hiatus, I was expecting something to blow me off my feet. This, however, didn't.

I remember debating this time travel nonsense with some people after The Constant and I was told that the TT worked for some of them because the TT only occurred in their minds- like the lab rat of Daniel’s at Oxford University, when Desmond came to visit him. I saw that logic used again and again- the time travel is only in Desmond’s mind. Now, Richard gives Locke a compass and the compass stays with Locke when he jumps in time. So, which is it? Is the TT only in their minds, or is it physical? If it’s only in their minds, how do you explain the compass staying with Locke (and apparently, he is going to give it back to Richard)? If it’s physical, then the entire TT premise set up in The Constant was just blown to hell.

You are absolutely right. It can no longer be said that only the consciousness is traveling in time, it is physical. Objects, people, the island, whatever it is, something is moving in time, the whole lot. This is especially proven when Daniel visits Desmond. Daniel wasn't on the island at that time, so he has physically appeared there. If it was a transmission of the consciousness, then Daniel would have to be on the island physically at that time to have his consciousness sent to him there. But as he wasn't - as far as we know - he has appeared in the past due to the time travel. Which is crazy.

Two things seems out of place, or rather out of character.

1. Sawyer girly slaps Daniel. That was out of character.

During the commercial, MamaThor said rather nonchalantly, "Well... didn't see that coming."


2. Before that when Sawyer told Daniel to give him his shirt.

I turned to MamaThor and said, "And what if Daniel did give him the shirt off his back. 1, it wouldn't fit and 2, there would be Daniel standing in the jungle, without his shirt on blinding everyone with his pasty white skin like Conan O'Brien."

MamaThor replied, "Yeah, but, at least he would still have his tie on. That's classy."

Well, I am not as upset about the time travel, because frankly they can do whatever they want with time in order to make it interesting. One thing tha bugs me is the story. I mean where are we going with this? First, we have to 'move the island' in order to save everyone, and Jack (and party) are 'allowed' to go (by Ben). Then, because the island moved, we now have to bring back Jack (and party) to save everyone.

In terms of just story telling, it's not very interesting. Having one thing cause another which in fact could have been avoided by not doing the first thing... And, we know Ben knows that moving the island messes things up...

I was just not impressed with they way the story was developed.

Commenting on some other posts - obviously the writers did not have this season in their minds when they wrote the first season or two. Because of this, we don't see Locke recognize Ethan in season one, and vice versa, etc.

Finally, I just want to ask, how come when Desmond is travelling through time (in his prior episodes), it is just in his mind (for example, his mind 'takes him' to his past self when he was in the military), but everyone else physically travels through time? I bet you they will never answer that because it's just sloppy writing, not something they have thought through...

There was no eye shot in the beginning, this ruines whole experience.

Bleh! So much time travelling I got a nose bleed. Rather boring, really

The only interesting thing for me, was the arrow scene, but I don't even think that was this episode. I got completely confused with the two eps, that I don't remember which scenes belongs to each of the two episodes.

Anyway, there were a few scenes that stuck out, but they got flushed away from the scenes which held no significance.

Just my opinion.