Fringe references LOST

No big deal - but a nice little something. I got a heads up from Dennis of TLEC and LostARGs fame about a reference to LOST in a recent episode of Fringe. Check out the screencaps here of a plane ticket one of the characters had, which is for an Oceanic flight.

It's just a minor crossover, but it's always cool to see LOST shout-outs, and we'll probably see many more in the future...

DSA post 1

Sorry for the late report - but as many of you will know by now if you're signed up to the Dharma mailing list, the first Dharma Special Access is available at this address. Your password is "lafleur" in case you missed the memo.

There's three videos. The first shows Damon and Carlton explaining, in all but explicit terms, that the ARG is over due to budget cuts, and so to say sorry they're offering exclusive content every week to us Dharma folk (which 2 days later is posted on ABC for all people to see).

Video 2 shows the guys at the Meltdown event, which the previous blog entry by Santa has eloquently covered. Finally video 3 is a run-down of Lost so far, similar to those "Lost in 4:15" or whatever things they released earlier this year. The dry witted female narrator remains, and I found it a nice refresher.

Hopefully next week's one will be more fruitful, however, with the possibility of the guys answering some fan questions.

Kubrick launch party at Meltdown Comics

Most of the Lost "The Powers That Be" (TPTB) gathered for the autograph session and launch party for the Medicom Kubrick Lost action figures at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood. The figures may or may not be to everyone's taste, but any Lost fan would be in envy of the fun time had by all last Wednesday November 19. In attendance were names such as : J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, the writing duo of Adam Horowitz & Edward Kitsis, as well as stalwart Elizabeth Sarnoff and of course the recently poached-from-the-comics-world Brian K. Vaughan.

There was also an art gallery by executive producer Jack Bender, and in the LA Weekly gallery I spied the "Hatch Painting" as well as a painting from Widmore's bedroom, a sighting that confirmed for the first time it was yet another in-show artwork by Bender.

Photo galleries: Autographed goodies were available galore, as well as what looked to be a chance to suit up in authentic DHARMA jumpsuits, from the looks of several photo galleries posted by fans as well as the LA Weekly.

Take a look at the two photo galleries and have fun.

Actor Strikewatch Update: November

The winds are fanning the possible flames of a debilitating actor's strike again, an issue largely dormant since July, when the Screen Actor Guild's primetime contract expired.

In the aftermath, there was no new contract, but there was also no strike, due to prevailing belief that the union's membership would not have the stomach to authorize a strike on the heels of the writer's strike. Life went on, and filming at all networks for a new television season commenced on schedule.

Last week, the union met with the producers (AMPTP), along with a federal mediator, for the first time since July, with negligible signs of progress.

Today, the news media are reporting that talks officially broke down completely, and the union responded by announcing a campaign to convince its members to authorize a strike. Whether they will be successful in the midst of a worldwide economic downturn, but with so much on the line such as "new media" viewing payments (have you watched Lost on abc.com lately?), has yet to be seen. Read more at a nice, in-depth article at the LA Times.

If a strike does begin in the near future, it will of course interrupt the filming of Lost's Season 5, which will probably be somewhere more than halfway through the season by the beginning of the new year. It doesn't look likely yet, but fans should keep an eye on the news to see if the Screen Actors Guild manages to muster a strike authorization. If that happens, it will almost certainly affect our 2009 fix of Lost in some fashion.

Ajira Airways - A Lostpedia Investigation

The previous blog post mentions the discovery of this mysterious company, but I wanted to both summarize what we know and further show what I've found snooping around (which isn't much).

As you probably know, during a Lost Season 5 promo music video thingy of "You Found Me" by The Fray, there was a very brief logo there, Ajira. If you visit ajiraairways.com then you'll notice a very cool airplane company with the tagline "Destiny calls" - the same tagline seen on promotional posters for Lost Season 5. Furthermore, the site is launching January 21st - the date of Season 5's premiere. You can sign up to their mailing list, and "discover new ways to get lost in the world."

I think one of the most interesting things with this whole thing is that Ajira, as mentioned in the last post, can be transliterated (whatever that is?!) from Hindi to make "island" or "isle". Thinking back to Hans Van Eeghen's final words in his last email, "in the meantime may the spirit of the island guide you" - makes a bit more sense now, and perhaps it wasn't just a flippant let's-slightly-chip-the-fourth-wall thing.

Anything else to report? Well there's one thing, but I doubt its significance. I was playing on Google and found a cached version of the Ajira site dated Nov 10th. See it here. It looked normal but I saw "Burky...Call me!" which I thought was a bit weird, especially when Lost executive producer Bryan Burk is known by that nickname. But again, probably nothing, and I'm certainly not trying that number!

Update 1 - Lostpedia Administrator Santa added details on the site. Apparently WHOIS lists that it was created October 21st, so thus the cached Nov 10th content I cite was actually added it would seem by the makers of the site. For more info and what Santa got, see Lostpedia's Ajira Airways article.

Update 2 - Sorry, another little thing. The WHOIS stuff suggests that the site is being run by LeeLee films. In other words, NOT Hoodlum. This might suggest that Ajira is unrelated to Dharma, as surely Hoodlum would produce the new site if it's from the same ARG project?

The Fray Season 5 Trailer Live

The new season 5 trailer, a mix of Lost clips and the new music video by The Fray, entitled "You Found Me" (do you see what they did there?) has gone up on ABC.com.

Being British, I obviously didn't get to see it during Grey's Anatomy, and my music taste is generally less suited to the MOR stylings of The Fray, however as a Lost devotee I did my duty, and grinned, gritting my teeth whilst bearing the new song. Sure enough, the song itself was exactly what I expect of The Fray, but that wasn't the reason I decided to watch the clip. There were many short segments in the video that could be considered spoilers, so I'll not discuss them here. I will just leave a copy of the video should you decide to clip play yourself (You have been warned!)

However, there was some information on the trailer, which is so abstract that it couldn't possibly be considered a spoiler, as we have absolutely no idea what it means yet...


Who are Ajira Airways?
Anyone else brave enough to add their e-mail address and see what happens?

Edit: Forum user theotherbilly has discovered that Ajira, when transliterated from its Hindi origin means "Island or Isle". Good find!

Season 5 promo poster

Now that the ARG is over, I was looking for something new to peak my interest about Season 5. So you can imagine how delighted I was to hear that the Season 5 promotional poster was available. Every previous poster had instantly got me overexcited about the coming season and became my wallpaper for a prolonged period of time. But this one...not a big fan.

In my eyes, it's too much of a clone of the Season 4 poster. In fact, it's pretty much exactly the same but without trees and water. The same colour scheme? Come on... And don't get me started on that building. (Although I think the off Island characters look awesome)

However, early reports have indicated there's a lot of big fans already. Let me know what you think in the comments section (but NO SPOILERS), or alternatively discuss it at this thread on the forums (which is in the Spoilers sub-forum, BEWARE, and don't say I didn't warn you for any spoilers in the thread).

P.S. For comparison, here's the posters for Season 1, 2, 3, and 4.

ARG over, submit Qs to the creators of LOST!!!!

Thanks to the surprisingly number of people who emailed me about the development with the ARG (how people remembered my address will remain a mystery). Looks like Dharma has ended its project, and you will find that the dossiers are now ready for download for recruits!

First off, check out the latest newsletter HERE. So let's break it down for bits of interest. For starters, it appears that Dharma lost its funding once again - and so they've sold the brand to the makers of LOST. They told us to look out for brand promotion, and if you saw my last blog about the logo appearing in a Season 5 trailer, then you'll see the link. Furthermore, I enjoyed that Hans has currently left the country after a broken marriage, heavy casino debts and a string of unfounded police reports - a bit of humor in an ARG never goes awry. Finally, there's mention that Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof will make an announcement...

Well, if you check the newsletter source code, you'll find "DSAqandaatgmaildotcom".... which makes DSAqanda@gmail.com

So if you send an email to this address, you get the auto-reply:

Got a question for the creators of LOST? Submit your question along with your name and hometown, and if selected, Damon and Carlton will answer it in a DSA announcement… that is, if you haven't been a bad Black Swan.

Get emailing people, you haven't got long!! Should questions be Dharma-related only? Or general? Send both I say! Also, let us know what positions you have with Dharma. I'm a "proof reader" in the Communications Division (even though I cheated, 20000+ DP may have helped). What about you?

Dharma message in Lost Season 5 trailer

The word "old news" might spring to mind, but I haven't seen this reported on any of the ARG sites, and indeed we haven't reported it here so here we go.

I know discussing a Lost Season 5 trailer is very spoilery and not what we're about. However, you might have noticed subliminal messages in the trailer if you were looking closely - namely an advertisement for the Dharma Initiative. You can see the Season 5 trailer here, but again I warn about spoils (though they are minor, and I don't class a trailer as a spoiler anyway).

But at any rate, you can see what I'm talking about in the image - right in the middle of the trailer there's the new DI brand logo. So what does this mean? Well it might be linking the ARG to Season 5, so we might just see the new DI in the new season, and they might play some bigger role?

A very minor "clue" - but anything is better than nothing at the moment.

Season 5 premiere date announced

The official countdown can now begin.

ABC has announced that Lost will return Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 8/7c.

ABC will have three hours of Lost action that night, with a recap show at 8pm, followed by 5x01 and 5x02 from 9-11pm.

This is a small satisfaction for those of us with hiatus fever, but just think, in 73 days it'll be over!

Alice in Wonderland read begins!

It seems like the wait for this book has been particularly long, what with us now having a full month for reading and discussing each book, and with the all but end of the ARG. However, we're finally here, and so we move away from the wonder of Slaughter-House Five to the lovely escapist fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland. The Lewis Carroll work is a little different to what we're used to, as we've decided to cover both titles, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There." The books aren't too long, however, and with most newer editions combining the two in one anyway, the double trouble shouldn't be so much of one.

Indeed, fellow SysOp and blogger Blue Eagle Islander posted recently that you can actually access both titles online ABSOLUTELY FREE AND ABSOLUTELY LEGAL, thanks to Carroll's work being in the public domain. Check out the details on that here. However, if you're like me and prefer the smell of a new/old book (both nice odours), then you can buy the book here (Amazon US) for a pretty good price, or go to your local library (US library listings here).

The main discussion thread for this month's read is on the Forum here, so go on over and chat about Alice's adventures, and how they might clue into the world of Lost!

Finally, it is with great pleasure that I can announce December's read - The Third Policeman!!! A lot of people wanted this one when we first started the book club, and I think it's a great way to see out the year, with the title possibly acting as the pinultimate read for the LLL, considering after January Lost will be back on our screens. We'll have to discuss it in the forums I think...