The Alternate Timeline in Lost
posted in television on 2010-02-03 10:12:00A lot of people think Lost jumped the shark last season when they began to incorporate time travel into their episodes. On the other hand, there are others that believe it jumped the shark way back in season three when Jack, Kate and Sawyer spent way too much time in the Others' village doing not much of anything. Although I won't point to a particular moment that I feel entails "jumping the shark," I will say that Lost has had its ups-and-downs like any show, and the writers have done a lot to battle theorists on the Internet - some of which has result in issues and complaints about red herrings, as well as anomalous story elements.
Time travel in any movie or television show is often a problem for me. If time travel is the main element of the storyline, then fine, it can work wonderfully (The excellent Spanish film Timecrimes is a prime example of a mind-bending time travel tale). But in a storyline where time travel isn't apparent, introducing it can kill a story's appeal.
When the Lost writers introduced time travel in season four, my first instinct was to cringe. Lost was such a great mystery that I didn't want all of its mysteries to be solved by way of time travel. To do so would be a deus ex machina that completely insults the intelligence and loyalty of Lost fans. Luckily, although they did use time travel to tie up a few mysteries - as well as wrap Locke's whole "chosen one" storyline - they left most of the mysteries intact (thus far). When the time travel "flashes" finally stopped - and dropped the castaways in the 70's during the Dharma Initiative - it offered a nice glimpse into the workings of the Dharma Initiative itself. Considering that we might not ever find out any more information on the Dharma Initiative in the show, this allowed us at least a little enlightenment on who they were and what they were about. It allowed us to forgive the time travel.
Now we come to season six and the rumored alternate timeline. Well, according to last night's episode, the alternate timeline does occur. I'm against the use of the alternate timeline. I hate the idea. The whole idea of a "reset" means that all the character development is gone. All the emotional investment of the viewer is gone. It's not a good way to go... Or is it?
There are two timelines occurring simultaneously. One of the timelines deals with Oceanic Airlines 815 landing at LAX with the island events never happening. In fact, they show the island sunk beneath the seas. The second timeline deals with the events following the death of Jacob, and Juliet smashing the nuclear warhead. These two seem incompatible. They seem that way.
I have a theory which just might redeem this alternate timeline:
Juliet succeeded in detonating the warhead; however, the detonation actually causes the "incident" and doesn't "reset" the timeline. Instead, the incident occurs, the plane crashes, etc., etc. This detonation - mixed with the electromagnetism and the island's "mysterious" properties then transports the castaways back to their original time of 2007 with fake Locke and the rest.
This alternate timeline that we're watching actually has nothing to do with the nuclear warhead. What we're watching is a "reset" that will occur at the conclusion of the series. These events in 2004 are events that will show character development and "lessons learned in another life" to reestablish our emotional connection. Technically, these 2004 events are flash forwards in the continuity of the main story, even though they are occurring in 2004.
I believe that at the shows conclusion something will occur that actually does reset time, and we will discover that these alternate timeline events are a continuation of that conclusion and continuity.
Doing the story this way (if it's true) is very ballsy for the writers. I'm interested to see if they can pull it off effectively.
tags: alternate timelines, lost, time travel