Right. 'Cause the current ones aren't crazy enough.

Not a fantasy universe != incoherent worldbuilding. I really don't see what the one has to do with the other.

I think we're using two different meanings of "mythology": there's mythology as " a whole lot of backstory" (all the stories of the various characters, for example), and then there's mythology as "a set of worldbuilding rules", which is more applicable to a fantasy or sci-fi show. I think Lost is building its own mythology in the former sense, but I don't think it needs (or has yet built) a mythology in the latter sense--by which I mean, essentially, that I don't yet believe that the world it's set in is not our own.

Did that make sense to anyone but me?

But if there's one thing that I've learned about TV fandom after all these years, it's that I can't place too narrow restrictions on what I'm willing to accept in a certain show or storyline. If I have a really specific outcome in mind, I'm usually disappointed when the story doesn't go the way I want it to (Spike/Buffy is a prime example of this, for me). Not that it's not fun to speculate, but I'm just saying that, though I rather hope it doesn't turn out to be an afterlife/purgatory kind of situation, I won't give up on the show if it does. I think it's probably possible that it could be done in a way that I would find acceptable and consistent with what's already been done on the show.

Wow.

I'm really glad we have this as a dedicated thread.

I will add more when I have something thoughtful to say. My brain is still hurting from thinking about the debate you've all been having already! Very intelligent, are the Buffistae.

Wow.

I just have to say, I love having a show that inspires thinking and discussion and curiosity. I was so pessimistic when Angel and Wonderfalls were cancelled, but this is not a bad substitute. The only problem is I can't keep up with this AND Natter.

More on topic,

I'm still in the "lost his license" camp, especially after his conversation with his mother, in flashback.

This would work with him being called "mister," too, since he would hardly present himself as Dr. Jack (do we know his last name?) if he had lost his license.

For all that's it's fun to come up with various possibilities, and even probabilities, I actually hope that I'm wrong on some of them, because I want the writers to come up with something really fantastic that none of us has thought of.

I'm not sure what to guess based on what we've seen. I'm not leaning toward them being dead/in purgatory at all, maybe simply because I just don't want to.

t /immature

But I agree that I think the show doesn't support that theory. Or at least not yet. My speculation is something more like the Bermuda Triangle, or like it -- a place where too many/just the right kind of points have converged, creating a fluidity to reality for those who enter it alive. Has this already been postulated? This thread is brand-new and I can't keep up already. That wouldn't affect those who were dead on impact/during the crash, then, although it does leave open the issue of Jack's dad. Of course, we're not positive he's actually alive, though, just that Jack has seen him.

This theory also sounds kind of lame and non-specific now I'm typing it out. Hmmm.

Maybe it's like the Star Trek: TOS episode "Shore Leave."

Huh. Not actually sure I could be geekier unless I were writing in binary.

Maybe it's like the Star Trek: TOS episode "Shore Leave."

Now we need a leaping, idiotic, bad-brogue-having, leprechaunish characature of an Irishman to show up on the island.

::sits down in the uber-geeky corner with Dana::

a leaping, idiotic, bad-brogue-having, leprechaunish characature of an Irishman

I'm totally getting a visual from The Simpsons there.

Dr. Jack (do we know his last name?)

Sheppard. (Sheperd?) Yeah, not too subtle there.

The writers seem to like meaningful names. We have John Locke, after the philosopher. Claire, who has a certain unmarred purity of spirits about her. (Or it could be Claire as in clairvoyant, given her affinity for astrology.) Sawyer and Boone, I'm not sure about, except they have last names for their first. "Jin", if it's the often-used Chinese word I'm thinking about, means truth, which doesn't fit with what we've gather from the character. "Sun" can mean 'meek', or 'good' as in 'good vs. evil', although I suspect the name was picked for the metaphoric possibilities in its English version.

Charlie, Hurley and Shannon? No clue.

Charlie, Hurley and Shannon? No clue.

Hurley is burley.

Shannon needs to be shot out of a cannon. Into a pool of sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads.

Charlie? Clearly the Barley King. cf., Frazer.