yep, i was.

Me! Me!

eta: Look, time twin with tiggy! Cool.

but we just spent the last two hours of the season on the backstory of a very-occasional recurring character who may well be dead

Based on how the show ended, I think that backstory may be relevant whether he is alive or not.

Who is doing the Hanso stuff? Has anyone read these job descriptions? [link]

Well, I know a lot of the good post show discussion will happen after I leave. so I'll catch up later. Night all.

I'm so bored I can't even...bleah.

I mean, dude. I honestly don't mind shit being made up on the fly, I really don't. But after two years, someone needs to make a fucking decision about what something, anything, means. Make your world up as you go along, but damnit, commit to what you've made up once you've done it. "Look, somthing shiny!" is not good worldbuilding.

(And I wouldn't even mind the lame-ass worldbuilding if there were something interesting going on with the main characters, but there's not even any drama there anymore!)

I think I'll probably skip S3. Wake me if something happens, though.

was anyone else waiting for another plane crash?

At first I thought that plummeting hatch with the "quarantine" sign on it was the plane engine from Donnie Darko falling to earth.

As someone who keeps quitting this stupid series, it irritates the crap (and the carp, which I originally typed) out of me that no one on this show can tell another person the vital piece of information that should be obvious at the time that it should obviously be said. Everyone talks like gnomic Hallmark cards. I've said it before and will say it again: these people deserve any bad luck that befalls them because they are all written to be as stupid a possible. Why would Hume (was his first name Desmond?) not tell Locke immediately that he tried not entering the numbers before and the whole station nearly went kablooey? Why would Jack confront Michael about his betrayal when he did rather than later? Why wouldn't Michael mention the thing Walt said about the Others not being who they appear to be? Why do the Others assume that directionally-challenged Hurley can find his way back to the camp? How in hell was Clancy Brown (!) painting the stupid map from memory so accurately? And, most importantly, how was his character a representation of the ideas of John Calvin or Hume's character a representation of the ideas of David Hume? I get why Locke & Rousseau are so named, but is this shit just arbitrary?

That said, I'm pretty sure that most aircraft navigational equipment would be affected by powerful electromagnet bursts. It's not unreasonable that the plane could have been flying blind at a different altitude than it thought (which would explain the high survival rate, too).

Also, if what's-his-face, Eko, and Locke aren't all dead, I'm quitting this show again. Heck, I'm still disappointed that the boat Michael & Walt were on didn't blow up immediately.

That said, I'm pretty sure that most aircraft navigational equipment would be affected by powerful electromagnet bursts. It's not unreasonable that the plane could have been flying blind at a different altitude than it thought (which would explain the high survival rate, too).

A powerful magnetic source would have an effect on navigation systems, by interfering with GPS signals. However, IIRC the pilot said they were 1000 miles off course, which would imply that the nav/radio systems were affected at least an hour before the crash. As for the altitude, a drop from 5000 ft is just as likely to be fatal as a drop from 37,000 ft. Unless it's magic (or technology sufficiently advanced that it's indistinguishable from magic).

We all remember that Clancy Brown was the CIA agent who used Sayid in Iraq, right?

My dad used to work in the RAF (Royal Air Force), on 'fly-by-wire' systems (that is, electronic aircraft control systems). He did tell me that electromagnetic interference could cause problems - for example, the controllers on the Tornado jets could occasionally 'lock up' for a few seconds.

That said, the 1000 miles off course line comes from the pilot episode, which I know for a fact didn't have a lot of the current show canon worked out. Ultimately, as it goes along you are going to see more and more events which don't match very early episodes, but there's no way out of that really.

I can say the show has suffered a big loss of audience share this year - about 30% down - so I presume they are going to have to change things next year. A very arc heavy focus lost them audience share.

ETA: Well, attempted arc.

THAT'S who that was!

Also, who was Penny's dad? He looked very familiar.