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Mark your calendars for Feb. 2 at 9 p.m. ET.  Because that’s when the final season of ABC’s Lost returns.  The network has decided to move the show again (Wednesday to Thursday back to Wednesday) one last time with Tuesday being its new day due to the success of this year’s new sitcoms Modern Family (did you see the episode with Ed Norton and Elizabeth Banks? Talk about wtf!) and Cougar Town.

So Tuesday night.  Good.  Because now there will be something on Tuesday worth watching.

A brand new Lost season 6 promo, unveiled during the Lost panel at SDCC, features Hurley.  In this strange world, he’s “the very lucky CEO” of Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, starring in an ad for the restaurant’s new “outback chicken.” There’s even a bonus ad touting Oceanic Airline’s safety record.

I don’t think there’s anything spoilery here, but I’m interested in how this ad serves up the dish for Lost’s final season.  Is this the eventual outcome or mere misdirection?

See Also: Season 6 promo featuring Kate the wanted fugitive.  It’s not the best quality because it’s bootlegged from SDCC, but you get the idea.

What stands out for me in these two ads (you have to watch the Kate one, as well), is that the bomb going off seems to have reset the Lost continuum.  Oceanic began in 1979?  Kate didn’t kill her stepdad, but instead a plumber?  Oy-vay.

Remember, you can make a difference.

[via.]

It was a great, great season overall for Lost and though the final episode wasn’t as crazy as last season when they made the island disappear, I don’t know anyone who isn’t dreading the eight-long-months of hibernation. 

If you’re still jonesing and high from last night, I’ll off a few tidbits and places to snack on to keep the high going. 

- The two best conversations going on about the show are happening at Pop Candy and Film Fodder.  I know there are other good ones, but the people who comment on those two places always bring their A-games. 

- We’ll try not to delve into spoilers but the promo for next season, the eye looks like Juliette’s.

- When Alana approached Richard Alpert, she asked him “what lies in the shadow of the statue?”  And Alpert replied in latin, “Ille qui nos omnes servabit.”  Translated from the latin, the phrase means: He who will protect us all.

- So Jacob is meant to protect the island.  So his counterpart, seen dressed in black with him from the beginning of the episode, is what?  Meant to destroy them all.  Seems like there’s a bit of an epic struggle between the two. 

- As some have speculated, Jacob and the other man, seem engaged in a game similar to that of God and the Devil from the Book of Job.  As the Daily What points out: Locke: “Two players, two sides, one is light, one is dark.”

- So what’s the game?  Hard to speculate without delving into episode spoiler territory.  But all throughout the show we’ve been inundated with the tug-and-pull between fate and determinism.  It was there last night as well.

- Jacob really likes to gently caress people.   

- The book he was reading when Locke fell out of the window was Flannery O’Connor’s collection of short stories: Everything that Rises Must Converge. 

- O’Connor was a southern gothic storyteller, heavily influenced by her Catholicism.  ETRMC was influenced by the work of Jesuit Priest and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, his work may hold some connections to the series.  Very interesting ideas that guy had, at odds with the Papacy. 

- Coincidentally, this month’s Atlantic has an excellent profile of Flannery O’Connor.  In the interest of full disclosure, she’s one of my favorite writers. 

- How great was it to see Rose and Bernard show up and be all chilled out retirees.  That had to be one of my favorite moments. 

- If Michael Emerson (Ben Linus) and Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliette) don’t win Emmy’s for their performances this season or Golden Globes or whatever, there is no justice. 

- Hopefully, this doesn’t end like BSG did with the characters turning into Angels and the swift hand of God working behind the scenes. 

- The statue is that of Sobek – an Egyptian God and deification of crocodiles.

And by found we mean cast the role with an actual actor and not a spooky ghost.  Looks like some developments as to how Jacob is going to fit into the series have been revealed.  If you’re curious.  [io9]

But thanks for wondering by the way.  Carbonell, better know as the ageless Richard Alpert on Lost, told SciFi Wire that he doesn’t wear men’s eyeliner.

At the TV Critics Association press tour, some reporters asked if you wore eyeliner, which Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse denied. What do you think of this?

Carbonell: My brother sent me this link about the TCA, where you guys were at. Someone had asked about whether I was wearing eyeliner. I think Carlton came to my defense, and he said, “He’s 100 percent sans makeup” or something like that. I could see why some people would think I have eyeliner on because [my eyelashes] are dark. Especially the bottom row, they’re pretty dark. I’ve been dealing with it since I was a little kid, and so to me it’s very funny when it comes up, especially at TCA. My brother told me to look online and sort of Google something about that, and my name came up as a couple things. One of them was Maybelline Man. I’ve been dubbed by some people as Guyliner. It’s very amusing.

In regards to this season’s time jumping, Carbonell admitted that it will slow down and the dizziness of the season will end.

“I’m a little dizzy,” Carbonell admitted in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. “Initially, it took me, in the first episode, [a moment to figure out] ‘OK, when am I exactly? Where are we, and when am I?’ But, no, it didn’t take long. I think the viewers, after this episode [that aired Jan. 28], the show very much settles down, and you get the gist of the season, that you’re going to be dealing with some elements of time travel.”

So what’d ya’ll think of last night’s episode of Lost? The biggest thing for me was young Charlie Widmore.  It’s funny how at this point I could take or leave the castaways, they’ve become almost secondary in the larger picture of the island.  Also?  Daniel Faraday is my new favorite character.

Now that television is on hiatus until January and nothing exciting will happen until Battlestar Galactica and Lost return, you’ll have to make do with these mini preview clips from Lost (and for those that are fans the Battlestar webisodes) until then.

The clip features Jack and Ben talking about what might have become to the other passengers who stayed on the moving island, while they prepare to “go back”.  It’s all really boring, with Jack shaving his beard – not nearly as exciting as Kate’s clip.  But it’s also tantalizingly exciting.  The possibilities!

“Because You Left”, the season premiere, airs on Wednesday, January 21st 2009.

It’s been a long time coming for Season 5, which is just around the corner.  Can’t. Get. Here. Fast. Enough.  Thankfully I was watching Samantha Who? on abc.com and got to see this extended sneak peak for Lost. So there was that.

“Because You Left”, the season premiere, airs on Wednesday, January 21st 2009.

I’m dying for January to get here.  Battlestar Galactica wraps up and Lost returns with a two-hour premiere on Wednesday, Jan. 21 at 8 p.m.

Basically, we’ve been preparing for the return of Lost for the better part of two months.� Just obssessing over its return.� Watching videos, reading interviews, talking with friends, tracking spoilers and clues all the stuff you’re supposed to do for addictive television.� I’m just hoping my excitement for the show’s return doesn’t let me be dissappointed.� The LA Times poses 48 more questions (get it?� get it?) we still have before the show resolves itself.

48. Will the WGA strike permanently disrupt the original plan to end the series with three seasons of 16 episodes apiece?

47. What is Charles Widmore’s association with the Dharma Initiative?

46. Who were those guys in the icebound monitoring station at the end of Season 2?

45. What is the significance of Claire’s baby?

44. Will Rose’s cancer return?

43. Will Sun survive her pregnancy?

42. What’s the meaning behind that crazy mural painted inside the Swan Station?

41. Where exactly is the island located?

40. What gets worshipped at the temple Ben mentions near the end of the third season?

MORE »

So with the writer’s strike, television has been a barren wasteland, but that should change tomorrow when Lost returns for about two months. Still, at this point I’ll take what I can get. That mentality served me well in college, so I’m sticking with it.

If you haven’t been watching the mobisodes, then you should do so! Thanks to the good folks at Lost Spoilers who’ve compiled all 13 of them and have allowed us to embed them for you. Not surprisingly, the final one is like a mind grenade.

And if you haven’t seen this video yet, well let’s just say it’s all about watching the plane crash from several different angles.

Lost returns Thursday night, Jan. 31, at 8 p.m. for a mondo two-hour premiere.

I feel ya Jack.� Still get shivers hearing him scream that at Kate.� Luckily audiences will be able to return to the Island with Jack, Sawyer, Kate!, Hurley and gang on January 31, 2008.� Taking over Grey’s Anatomy’s time slot Thursdays at 9 p.m.

Unfortunately it will be for only eight measley episodes.� Seems ABC needs some ratings and despite producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s insitences of waiting ABC to wait for the final eight episodes, that’s not the case.

As excited as I am for the fourth season to start, especially after watching the extended promo trailer, I feel like Lindelof and Cuse have earned my respect and if they wanted to wait to show all the episodes, I woulda waited until 2009 to see them all together.� I guess ABC wasn’t so virtuous with the whole patience thing.

Also, be sure to watch the mobisodes.� They’re really short but pretty awesome.

Okay, okay, you don’t have to tell me that we’re beginning to flog a dead horse around here.� But it sounds as if the writers are intent on not caving, which is good for them, bad for television watchers.� Joss Whedon shares his thoughts on striking and getting a fair deal and he makes it sound as if the WGA is going to be resolute.

This of course means that many shows will be pushed back if this drags on through December and into the new year.� TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello claims that everyone’s fav mystery show Lost, might not air any new episodes until 2009.� Holy schnikies you read that right: 2009!

If the strike extends into the new year and beyond, there is a chance ABC may opt to�delay the new season�until the fall. Or worse yet, February 2009. Another scenario has the network simply airing the eight episodes already in the can this February as originally planned�� something Team Darlton would not be in favor of.

Says Lost cocreator Carlton Cuse, “Damon [Lindelof] and my concern about running the [eight] episodes we will have made�is that it will feel a little like reading half a Harry Potter novel, then having to put it down. There is a mini-cliff-hanger at the end of Episode 8, but it’s like the end of an exciting book chapter; it’s not the end of the novel. Damon and I didn’t write [the ending of Episode 8] differently [with the looming strike in mind]. We wrote it to be the ending of Episode 8.”

In any case, he concedes that the decision to hold or air the episodes isn’t ultimately theirs. “It’s really [ABC honcho Steve MacPherson's] call,” Cuse notes, adding, “No one was happy with the six-episode run last season.”

Damn.� Not that I think this is a bad idea, but clearly the creators of the show had an idea for the last three seasons to each be 16 episodes long.� By tacking on the first half of what would be Season 4 to the entirety of what would be Season 5 (this would comprise the last eight episodes of Season 4 and the first eight of Season 5), ABC would then essentially be forced to air an elongated version of the final Season 6.

So all of that is to say that instead of three seasons of 16 episodes, viewers would get two seasons of 24 episodes.� Would it be worth the wait?� Would ABC dare do this to loyal viewers?

On a related note the first mobisodes shot for Lost won’t be aired on ABC.com until Nov. 22, but the first one has already popped up online in crappy quality.

“Lost: Missing Pieces are 13 two-to three-minute stories of compelling, new, never-before-seen moments from LOST. These newly-created scenes (not deleted scenes from previous episodes) reveal answers and new details about your favorite characters. For each story, we leave it up to the you, the fans, to figure out where these pieces fit into the overall mythology. Watch new episodes on ABC.com”

So we’re impossibly biting our fingernails until the new season of Lost starts up.� Nothing on television right now has us even remotely excited as the prospect of the island.

DarkUFO, which is one of the premier destination for all Lostphanatics, has taken the time to put up the video for DriveShaft’s “You All Everybody.”� What I always thought was funny was that they sounded curiously like Oasis with a similar backstory to boot.� They were one of Locke’s favorite bands and for any Alias fans out there, in one particular epsidoe Syd Bristow threw a party at her house and she was a fan of Driveshaft, as their hit single “You All Everybody” was playing in the background.

All pretty funny stuff if you ask me.

Mp3: DriveShaft – “You All (Everybody)”