I know that it must really suck to be Charlie now.

I thought that was a very well-done episode and I liked it far more than watching Kate and Sawyer in a polar bear cage.

I think we know why there has been such a big deal about how the people on the island are connected. Every action influences another. But ultimately, there's one big plan.

And if you don't follow the plan, you'll get hit by a bus or have some scaffolding fall on you.

I thought it was a really, really bad episode, until the last five minutes and then it became a decent episode. I don't mind spending a lot of time off the island, but this plot involved a) bad British accents b) a recycled scenario (Sun-Jin already did this "dad doesn't approve" dance) and c) a huge revelation like this calls into question all sorts of continuity issues. Why didn't Desmond know what do to in the hatch? Why didn't Charlie remember the guy who freaked out on him in England and then made it rain? Ect.

That said, I did like the introduction of fatalism to the show. It makes the show that much more depressing and hard to deal with if it is fated that everyone must be on the island and all of the people that died were supposed to. It is a nice meta-story too, since the writers are the universe and no one can escape when they decide to kill someone off.

Well, surely the similarity between Des-Penny and Jin-Sun is not a coincidence.

And how were they bad accents?

3 - The guy who played Penny's dad (who was formerly on the OC) had a very inconsistent accent, it was part American, part British, the lady who knew the future's accent was cartoony, a couple of times it sounded almost Dick Van Dyke bad, and in general no one sounded that good.

How is it not a coincidence? They should call the show Daddy Issue Island at this point. Locke, Sun, Jin, Sawyer, Kate (step-father), Shannon, Desmond and Jack all have pretty serious issues with their fathers. In addtion Anna (mother), Eko (brother), Charlie (brother) and Boone (mother, sister) all have family drama and Michael is having issues with being a dad. Obviously these issues do have an effect on the island, but I just want them to mix it up a bit. Can't get married because of a rich father figure who is overbearing is a little too derivitive.

The actor playing Mr. Widmore, Alan Dale, is from New Zealand.

The lady who knew the future, Fionnula Flanagan, is Irish.

5 - Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. You might have been having trouble with the accents because you were expecting them all to be similarly British.

Oh well, maybe they just sounded bad to me. The show was set in England, so maybe they were trying to go Brit. I spent ~6 months in England and Ireland and I swear, no one gets those accents right. The Irish accent can be so over the top that is defies discription. I had a friend named Seamus and his accent sounded something like: "Ya wee yank hihll-bihllee."

6 - Maybe. They sounded inconsistent to me, but I trust that I was wrong, as I imagine actual Kiwi and Irish actors would be pretty right now.

Fionnula Flanagan has done a lot of theater and film work in her career, so I would expect that the director wouldn't have been doing much tinkering with her accent.

Alan Dale sounded a bit like his character on "Ugly Betty."

But what of Nikki and Paulo? One of them is supposed to be Brazilian and I have to think that they will tie in to the Portuguese guys in the Arctic at the end of Season Two.

From Broadcasting & Cable:

In an attempt to further capitalize on its internet savvy audience ABC today announced the addition of more features to its Lost website, including newly edited video footage.

Starting today users on ABC.com will be able to access short videos focusing on the back stories of specific characters. The videos are created by editing together flashback scenes that have already aired on the hit show. The scenes, which take place off of the island on which the shows characters are stranded, had previously not been available outside of the episodes in which they appeared.

Charlie deserves to get it. He is really an unlikeable character. And him calling Desmond a coward was pretty funny.

The bartender who did NOT get hit by the cricket bat (the first one, when the soccer team missed the goal, thus leaving Desmond's futuristic prediction unfulfilled) was the GM of our local public radio stations. He's very British, which is amusing during pledge drives.

I've decided that Desmond is the most sympathetic character we've met yet.

Last night's Lost episode was outstanding, right up there with the best of the series. The bit with the shop lady demanding the ring back, and explaining why she wanted it back, was fantastically spooky.

This episode was awesome; for the first time in a while I really feel like I need to re-watch it, but iTunes has gone all schizo. I was spellbound during my first viddy, though.

I enjoyed the episode. Desmond is a compelling character, and I'm not bothered by recurring themes in the show (daddy issues, for example).

This wouldn't be the first time that they played with a character's name and a philosopher's name. Locke, for one, and Rousseau for another.

13 However, when the shop-lady said "you're not supposed to...", I was disappointed. It is a shortcut to have a character break out of the reality and explain that reality -- it suggests that there are people in the reality who are all knowing.

15 -- Maybe there ARE people in that reality who -- I don't like the term "all-knowing," because that would make them God -- have a sense of "the big picture," just like the psychic who tricked Claire into flying to L.A. knowing what would happen to her.

I like the episodes that are away from the Island. This one is no exception. To find out about Desmond and that he's not quite just crazy is interesting.

Definitely one of the better ones. I like it almost as much as the Korean episodes.