There was a short mention of Henry Ian Cusick on The Independent. Of the 25 actors listed as Scotland’s finest actores, he came on Top 16.

16) Henry Ian Cusick: Plays Desmond Hume in the hit American series Lost. In 1993 he was Ian Gowrie in “Fatal Inheritance”.

Thanks to watchinglost.com for the heads up.

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Here is a great opinion article from UGO TV Blog:

I’ll admit it – being a LOST fan, I was ecstatic to see the show get nominated for Best Drama – but I didn’t expect it to win for one minute.  Like most fans, I put up the false front of hopefulness that my coveted little vial of televised heroin would somehow be validated – again – as the ‘best’ there is, but at the end of the day the nod went to Mad Men, and deservedly so – even though Damages would have been even more deservedly so.  The fact is, LOST doesn’t have to prove itself anymore.  That the show has managed to exist this long with the eclectic blend of story telling that seems to bridge every genre and literary motif known to man is a feat that they haven’t produced an award for yet.  But still, having telegraphed the pride for LOST’s scant but mighty Emmy noms this year, I find myself having to defend my gloating.

But I’m not going to.  No matter who you pulled for, there is always someone who won in another category that you never thought stood a chance, or that you’d never even heard of period.  You get up the next day to the usual buzz of who wore the worst clothes, or what ‘bits’ seemed to fall flat on their faces, and whether the host – or in this case, hosts – turned out to be a study in ineptness. (Apparently they did, if you read all that junk.) The only wins that ever seem to matter are the upsets, and when a favorite does win or lose there is always the procession of conspiracy theorists, apologists, and cranks who will point out the many known flaws in the voting system, or the fact that some independently produced show on an off-network channel got robbed.

Okay, so now having successfully marginalized my own fervent predictions that LOST stood a chance of winning – let’s ask “Why Not?” The truth is, LOST is not a show that plays well against competition, because its real competition is itself.  The episode that was submitted, “The Constant”, is a perfect example.  “The Constant” was a sequel to the episode “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” thematically.  “Flashes” achieved what a lot of folks thought couldn’t be done in the fantasy genre, it did something new with the theme of time travel.  “The Constant” was an extension of the themes setup in flashes and carried out throughout the series since.  It was LOST improving on LOST.

Unlike procedurals or vanilla dramas that have one ilk of story-telling to attempt to improve on week after week, LOST aims to break at ever higher plateaus, relying on the immensity of its ‘back-story’ to bolster any attempt to raise its bar internally.  When examined on and episode-by-episode basis, not having a sense of the history of the plot and characters makes discerning LOST’s achievements of story a formidable, if not impossible task.

The school of thought that says science fiction is just generally loathed at awards ceremonies is probably valid as well – but the cold hard reality is that LOST – an admitted serial – cannot be judged on a single episode basis.  LOST is the televised equivalent of a novel, and as such even the best chapter is never going to represent the achievement of the story as a whole.

It doesn’t really matter if LOST ever gets another Emmy, because it all comes down to the fact that as long as LOST is succeeding at being a tradition bucking chunk of television entertainment eluding an Emmy for best series is just further validation that it is doing what it does best:  coloring outside of the lines, and staying off the ‘business as usual’ radar screen.

Source: UGO TV Blog

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That being said, we would like to know your opinion about them.

[polldaddy poll="790416"]

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Now that “Lost” has an end in sight (Part 2 of the season finale airs Thursday, May 29), and its final two seasons roughly mapped out, the series’ principle performers seem to have found firmer footing, too. Matthew Fox (Jack) and Evangeline Lilly (Kate) have had the chance to play something other than scared, confused and angry (the prevailing emotions, understandably, among the castaways) in this season’s flash-forwards. Their fragile happiness in a Southern California condo, raising a child not their own, has been luminous and startlingly touching.– Laura Miller

Article taken from Salon.com

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NST reviews positively the fourth season of Lost:

A little over a year ago, the creators of Lost, ABC’s ambitious serial drama about the castaway survivors of an airplane crash in the Pacific, seemed to be quite lost themselves.

Their show, a huge hit in its first season, had become, by its third, weighed down with the expectations created by its early success.

Viewers were steadily draining away as doubts grew that the series was headed in any definite direction, while the complicated and often convoluted story line seemed to provide few entry points for new fans.

Yet as Lost embarks on the second-half of its strike-shortened fourth season, the series is moving at a breakneck pace that has excited the fan base and energised the show’s writers, actors and staff.

What happened?

“We were sort of stalling last season,” said Carlton Cuse, an executive producer of Lost who, with Damon Lindelof, forms the core of the creative team behind the island mystery.

“We didn’t know whether the mythology we constructed had to last two more seasons or seven more seasons. And that was driving us crazy because we didn’t know how fast it was going to play out.”

What the producers asked for and the network and ABC’s television studio granted was something almost unheard of in network television: an end date, when the series would conclude and the mysteries of the island would be revealed.

Early last May, ABC and the producers announced that the series would run for three more seasons, until 2010.

Weeks later, in the third season finale, the Lost writers used a surprising flash-forward sequence to show two of the crash survivors, Jack and Kate, off the island and dealing with the consequences of how they made it back to civilisation.

That has been followed in the current, fourth season by week after week of stunning revelations about who will escape the island.

Setting an end date changed everything, Lindelof said. “It was nothing less than the difference between not wanting to do it anymore and being thrilled to do it to the very end. It had become such an arduous task: How can we start working toward any of the things we’ve been doing for the last three years if we don’t know when we get to do them?”

Television critics have agreed that the change has only helped Lost.

“The show has got its mojo back, and then some,” said Alan Sepinwall, a television critic.

He had long been one of the loudest voices questioning whether the producers knew where they were going.

Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, said that he was pleased with the results, though he added that he never believed that the series was flagging or marking time.

“I think the overwhelmingly positive response to this season’s creative confirms they are doing a wonderful job of fulfilling lofty expectations,” McPherson said.

In a recent interview, Cuse and Lindelof said that much of their inspiration to ask for an end came from none other than Stephen King, a novelist who is a fan of the show.

At the beginning of the second season, King, a columnist for Entertainment Weekly, wrote that the Lost creators had the responsibility to decide when to end the series.

“He provided us with a lot of moral courage to actually go to the studio and ask for something, which is sort of unasked for,” Cuse said.

Another inspiration was J.K. Rowling, who announced near the beginning of her Harry Potter series that the story would end after the seventh book.

“It was kind of genius because it delineated what the investment was that you were going to have to make in that world,” Cuse said.

“It defined a journey, and it also gave the audience a certainty that she knew where she was going. That became a model for us.”

It remains to be seen if the re-energised show will help retain viewers who returned this season after having drifted away. The programme attracted an average of 15.2 million viewers to each of the first eight episodes this season, according to Nielsen Media Research.

That ranks just outside the Top 10 among all shows broadcast on the major networks during prime time. While it is up slightly from last season, it remains lower than the 16 million viewers each week in the show’s first year.

There are other bright spots. Among the group of viewers that advertisers covet most, adults age 18 to 49, Lost ranks sixth this season. And it is one of the most-recorded shows on television, according to Nielsen, with nearly 20 per cent of its audience viewing the programme outside of its regular time slot.

To help newer viewers catch up with the series, ABC has been running repeats of this season’s shows with footnotes attached

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Last night’s episode’s final scene is, in my opinion, the most important scene of this season:

Charles Widmore: ‘I know who you are, boy! What you are. I know everything you have you took from me….That island’s mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again.’

Simply amazing.

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Empire made recently a list of the “50 greatest TV shows of all time”. Here is the top 5:

1.- The Simpsons.

2.- Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

3.- The Sopranos.

4.- The West Wing.

5.- LOST:

Only time will tell whether it’s as clever as it seems, but few TV shows have gripped viewers’ imaginations like this hybrid of Swiss Family Robinson and Twin Peaks. An innovative structure in which each episode hones in on a different character, with flashbacks and flashforwards expanding their backstory, ensures the entire cast is fleshed out beyond the constraints of the primary narrative. But aside from the host of unique and colourful characters – from earnest Jack to cocky Sawyer, noble Jin to bug-eyed Ben – it’s the epic mysteries at the core of the story that keeps us coming back. What powers does the island have? What’s that polar bear doing in the tropics? And how come Hurley never loses weight despite being marooned on an island?

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It seems we just started watching new episodes of LOST and now we have to wait until April 24 to see a new one, whoa the poor life of a LOST fan.

This week’s episode answered a few questions and as always put more in its place.

Let’s review some of what we learned.

Walt is now living with grandma and he is disappointed in his father, Michael is miserable and the “island won’t let him die”, the rumors about Mr. Friendly’s sexual preference were put to rest, and Widmore does have a huge role with this island. What do we still need to find out?

Well, where to begin??

I thought the story line was good; we were able to finally see what happened to Michael once he left the island. It was also really great to see two of the characters Libby and Tom that had been killed in previous episodes. I loved seeing John’s group all seated in the living room like it was some family gathering, their reactions to having Ben among them was priceless. Finally we see that Miles was able to get that grenade out of his mouth, I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see how, maybe in a future episode.

As for the whole Alex, Karl and Danielle storyline, well, half of me was glad to see that they were part of the story again, but the other half of me thought it felt as if the writers are trying to find away to tie up lose end rather quickly and I don’t like any series that does that.

Over all I was expecting a much bigger mid season finale but I was relieved that it was not one of the main characters that were killed, I am not saying that I am glad Danielle and Karl are possibly dead, I was just thinking that this episode would leave me dying of anticipation until it returns in April.

As I am sure all of you have your theories as to what will happen next and I have mine, I know we all hope to get our answers soon, but not too soon.

By Samantha Kuncoro.

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Season 3 of Lost can summed up as having the best finale ever seen on television, after a mixed season of powerful highs but more than a few lows.

The biggest low occurred in the Fall. Although learning more about the Others was good, and enjoyable, the prison life of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer went on far too long. Back with the Losties, Eko’s death added little to the story. Juliet, however, is an important new character, and her introduction in the Season 3 premier opened several significant avenues in the story.

Nikki and Paolo in the Spring – the story of a Lostie couple we had not seen before – was an another example of a enjoyable tale that added little to the main story. But Desmond and his ability to see the future introduced one of the most riveting threads in the entire three seasons. We still do not know whether Desmond just sees the future or time travels – which would explain him on the steps of the stadium with Jack in season 2 (Desmond, getting to know Jack in the present, on the island, went back in time to the stadium after leaving the island).  Desmond’s story comes to intertwine with Charlie’s, and this provides one of most wrenching and effective parts of the finale, though I hated to see it: Charlie’s death.

At the same time, Locke again goes through a profound regenerative experience, and Mikhail (an Other) survives at least two takings of his life. Does the island have some kind of recuperative effect on some of its inhabitants (not all – recall Boone, Shannon, Libby, Ana Lucia, Eko).

And this, in turn, sets up the finale to end all finales:  Jack on the island insists on calling in the apparent rescuers, over Ben’s presumably heart-felt objection that they’ll all regret it and … we find that Jack, off the island, in a flashforward, indeed regrets leaving the island. The flashforwards raise all kinds of questions – who is in the casket, who is waiting for Kate at home or wherever, what happened to Jack and Kate …

I can’t wait until the end of January, and the beginning of at least a few answers…

We want to thank Paul Levinson again for his collaboration with SL-LOST.

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I found this interesting review of Season 3 DVDs on blogcritics.org, written by Chris McVetta:

The third and most intriguing season of Lost will definitely go down in fan boy history as the tale of two seasons (the first mediocre six episodes originally aired in the fall of 2006 and the final awe-inspiring sixteen episodes began their run in February of 2007). But for any fans who jumped ship mid-Oceanic 815 flight, now is the perfect time to catch up with one of the best shows on television.

More so (all mind-bending Dharma experiments aside), now that the entire third season of Lost is packaged in a beautiful seven-disc DVD collection (loaded with a plush jungle of extras to satisfy even the most diehard enthusiasts), you can judge for yourself whether the third season of Lost was good, bad or like “the Others” …just misunderstood.

Make no mistake about it, this season was all about “the Others” and their relationship to the mysterious island, The Dharma Initiative, and (last but not least) our beloved sun-soaked castaways. So, attention passengers, please be prepared to strap yourselves in for some mind-blowing episodes that shake the very space-time continuum of the Lost mythology. And, thankfully, this DVD has arrived just in time for you to relive all the excitement before the season four premiere of Lost (which debuts January 31, 2008 on ABC).

Terry O’Quinn won an Emmy for his role as John Locke this season, portraying the once-paralyzed (both mentally and physically) account executive of a box company, but it was truly Ben (Michael Emerson) and Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) who stole the show in season three – along with the eerie, Other-world, presence of that spooky cat in the shack, Jacob.

But, like the perceived timeline of Lost itself, that’s neither here nor there. The show rejuvenated itself creatively in season three despite a few cosmic speed bumps (Nikki and Paulo, anyone?) along the proverbial way. Some characters were eliminated (whether it was the result of contract negotiations gone bad, adverse reaction from the show’s fan base, or just happening upon an angry Smoke Monster out in the woods), but once Lost 3.0 truly got rolling along toward its dazzling destination, it was truly a thrill ride all the way to its jaw-dropping, season finale, conclusion.

Whatever the case, the third season of Lost had many magnificent moments and here are a few of the best episodes:

1. “Not In Portland” – The “comeback” episode that was solely responsible for recapturing the magic of Lost (a strangely satisfying, action-packed space opera blending the best worlds of Star Wars, Stephen King, and Raiders of The Lost Ark) that showcased the “devious” Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell, you were robbed of an Emmy nomination, darling) and featured a flashback of her chilling “corporate recruitment” into the shadowy underworld of the Others.

2. “Through The Looking Glass (Parts One and Two)” – A shocking, sensational end to a spectacular season of Lost that featured a new underwater Dharma-station known only as “The Looking Glass” and a final few moments of the cliffhanger that still has fans scratching their heads in absolute amazement – and suspended disbelief. Not to mention a heroic, heartfelt “goodbye” or two along the way.

3. “The Man Behind The Curtain” – This episode featured a fantastic backstory of a young Benjamin Linus (with a pre-Darth Vader transformation in his journey towards the Dharma-Dark Side) arriving on the island for the first time. Ben begrudgingly reveals a few of the secrets about the island to an eager John Locke as the two set off on a trek towards a mysterious shack in the woods to meet the fabled “Jacob“ (or as Locke put it, “The Wizard of Oz”). Who is Jacob? The caretaker of the island and all of its sordid secrets or just a spooky figment of a madman‘s imagination? Be sure to knock before you go inside, okay?

4. “Flashes Before Your Eyes” – This episode was a trip (to say the least) that featured hatch-dwelling, doomsday button-pushing Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and “opened our eyes” for the first time that time travel may indeed be an essential part of the Lost mythology (and why Desmond’s soul mate and object of his obsession, Penelope “Penny“ Widmore, is so damn intriguing – in a splendid, saucy, kind of way).

5. “A Tale of Two Cities” – The premiere episode of season three that features Dr. Jack Shephard in an abandoned shark tank being “deprogrammed” by Ben and Juliet in their secret, dolphin-safe, underground lair. In the meantime, Sawyer and Kate are held captive in separate cages in a nice sci-fi homage to Planet of the Apes as the two plan their “escape” from … well, where the hell are they exactly?

In addition to the hours of pure entertainment, the added DVD extras are also interesting as a “behind the scenes” look at season three for fans, including “Lost on Location” and the equally intriguing “The Lost Book Club” which offers a few tantalizing tidbits of its own (hint: A Brief History of Time and Space by Stephen Hawking may play a significant – if not literal – role in the remaining seasons of Lost … and beyond).

Regardless, Lost: Season 3 is a DVD-must for any soul-searching, adventure-seeking, island enthusiast, to be sure. If nothing else, the tropical, breath-taking, background scenery of Oahu is worth the price of admission alone. So, now more than ever, what better way to find yourself, ay?

Namaste!

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