Enhanced episodes
From Lostpedia
Beginning with the launch airdate of Season 4 of Lost, ABC has broadcast "enhanced" versions of episodes. These enhanced episodes are not part of ABC Enhanced TV, which provides Internet-interactivity during viewing.
Due to the WGA strike, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse had no involvement in the production of the enhanced version of "Through the Looking Glass". [4] It is unknown whether the writing staff have had input on the enhanced episodes that followed after the ending of the strike. Because of this, it was unknown whether the captioned information should be considered canon. On April 17, 2008, the producers settled the matter when they said, "The enhanced episode is sort of like a Cliff Notes for the shows."[5]
The enhanced episodes are a strategy by ABC to encourage the recruitment of new viewers to Lost, especially during the sparse broadcast lineup in the aftermath of the WGA strike.[6] The enhancement of episodes is reminiscent of VH1's "Pop-up Video", which provided commentary on music videos during the 1990s. [7]
The shows have yet to be broadcast outside the USA, but will be shown in the UK on May 3rd and 4th 2008 as part of the "Lost Weekend" which also features the premiere of "The Shape of Things to Come".
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Through the Looking Glass-Enhanced
"Through the Looking Glass-Enhanced" is an enhanced version of the Season 3 finale, "Through the Looking Glass", featuring pop-up captions of text, and in some cases still image headshots of the characters, on the bottom of the screen. This is so far the only enhanced episode to feature pop-up still image headshots. It was broadcast on January 30, 2008, the day before "The Beginning of the End" premiered to prepare viewers for Season 4.
In conjunction with the enhanced version of "Through the Looking Glass", the clip show Lost: Past, Present and Future was also produced and broadcast to prepare viewers for the premiere of Season 4, and incidentally is the only clip-show to be available for streaming download at ABC.com. These two broadcasts represented three hours of the relatively large investment of four hours of prime time devoted by ABC to Lost, prepping audiences for the hour-long Season 4 premiere "The Beginning of the End". The investment paid off with a strong ratings: audience of 16.1 million viewers, higher than the previous broadcasts of Season 3 in May 2007, which had garnered 14 million viewers. [8] [9]
Selected captions
- The following captions may reveal new information:
- It's unclear what the article says / but a popular theory / is that it's about a man from New York / who was found dead in Los Angeles.
- And based on the iteration count in the tower / the survivors have been on the island / for 91 days.
- The following captions clarify references:
- This episode is entitled / Through the Looking Glass / A reference to the book by Lewis Carroll / his sequel to / Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / and a story that explores /the theme of mirror opposites.
- Jack is being treated for injuries / at St. Sebastian Hospital in Los Angeles / the same hospital where he practices medicine. / St. Sebastian is a protector from the plague.
- Dr. Gary Nadler shares a last name / with our pheasant-hunting commando / Bernard Nadler.
- You may have noticed on Ben's map / there is a place called "Pascal Flats." / This could be an homage / to the 17th century scientist Blaise Pascal / who in 1654, was profoundly affected / by a mystical experience / and abandoned science for theology. / Much of the struggle / between Jack and Locke / has centered around science vs. faith.
- Jack is driving somewhere in Los Angeles / He is listening to / Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice."
- Check out the name of the funeral parlor / Hoffs/Drawlar / is an anagram / for "flash forward."
- By the way, Charlie's mission / is an homage to Return of the Jedi / as many writers and producers on LOST / are big fans of the Star Wars saga
- Ben claimed his name was Henry Gale / and that he crashed on the island / in a hot air balloon both are references to The Wizard of Oz. / another tale about a journey / to a strange and far away place
- Sweet ride, Hurley! / And another tip of the hat to Star Wars / inspired by Han Solo saving the day / with the Millennium Falcon.
The Beginning of the End-Enhanced
"The Beginning of the End-Enhanced" is the enhanced version of Season 4's premiere episode, featuring pop-up captions of text. It was broadcast on Thursday, March 27, 2008, at 9 pm EDT. (The episode previously aired as a rerun on February 7, 2008 at 8pm before the new "Confirmed Dead" episode, but was not enhanced for that airing. The first enhanced episode from Season 4 was "Confirmed Dead-Enhanced".)
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- The following captions may reveal new information:
- Matthew Abaddon is not really an attorney / nor does he work for Oceanic Airlines.
- The following captions clarify references:
- Abaddon is a Biblical reference / and a Hebrew word meaning / "guardian of the abyss."
- The drawing on the chalkboard is a clue / to Abaddon's agenda for visiting Hurley.
- In this game of Horse, Jack has "H-O" / "H" is the 8th letter of the alphabet / "O" is the 15th. Together they make "815" / the same number as the ill-fated Oceanic flight.
Confirmed Dead-Enhanced
"Confirmed Dead-Enhanced", Season 4's episode 2, was broadcast on the same night and just prior to episode 3, "The Economist". This airdate was one week after the broadcast of the original and un-enhanced "Confirmed Dead". This was the first enhanced Season 4 episode to air ("The Beginning of the End" rerun the previous week was not enhanced). It re-aired during the mid-Season 4 hiatus on April 3, 2008.
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- The following captions may reveal new information:
- This woman is not his wife, but his caretaker. (About Daniel Faraday)
- Hurley recently found Jacob's cabin. / But Ben claims one does not visit Jacob / instead, Jacob "summons you" / so perhaps Hurley is "special" as well.
- Faraday's remark about the scattering light / is a clue to the unique properties of the island.
- The following captions clarify references:
- Incidentally, Daniel shares a last name / with another physicist, Michael Faraday / a 19th century pioneer of electro-magnetism.
- Miles's last name is Straume / as in "maelstrom."
- This is Charlotte Staples Lewis / she is an anthropologist. / Her name is inspired by C.S. Lewis / author of The Chronicles of Narnia / a story about an unlikely passage / to a most unusual place.
- Abaddon is a biblical reference / meaning "guardian of the abyss."
- George Minkowski is the man / who answered Jack's first call for help. / He shares a name with Hermann Minkowski a German mathematician / who introduced the concept of "spacetime."
The Economist-Enhanced
"The Economist-Enhanced", Season 4's episode 3, was broadcast on the same night and just prior to episode 4, "Eggtown". This airdate was one week after the broadcast of the original and un-enhanced "The Economist". Like the previous enhanced episode, The "Economist-Enhanced" did not contain pop-up images accompanying the captions.
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- The following captions may reveal new information:
- Daniel Faraday is a physicist / and is using his experiments / to gain greater understanding / of the unique geophysical makeup of the island.
- There is only one thing / that could keep Jack from leaving the island / Kate.
- The following captions clarify references:
- This episode is entitled "The Economist" / a named shared by a British magazine / which publishes its articles anonymously.
- Jack Kerouac's On the Road is a story / about hitchhiking across America / its main character, Dean Moriarty / is the alias on Ben's passport.
- This turn of events is an homage / to The Empire Strikes Back / when Han Solo was lured into a trap / by Lando Calrissian. (When Sayid and Kate are lured into a trap by Hurley)
- The song playing is Make it Good / performed by Fink. Lyrics include: "If I breathe in the future /...Breathe out the past, yeah."
- It is appropriate this flash forward unfolds / against the backdrop of Berlin / a city where east meets west / where the unimaginable once happened / and two opposing sides unified
Eggtown-Enhanced
"Eggtown-Enhanced", Season 4's episode 4, was broadcast on the same night, just prior to episode 5, "The Constant". This airdate was one week after the broadcast of the original and un-enhanced "Eggtown".
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- The following captions may reveal new information:
- The following captions clarify references:
- The book is entitled VALIS / a 1981 sci-fi novel by Philip K. Dick. / It's the story of a fool's search for God / in which, ultimately, God turns out to be a joke.
- Sawyer recently called Locke "Colonel Kurtz" / a nod to the insane leader in Apocalypse Now.
- Hurley "Scooby Doo'd" Kate and Sayid / leading to their capture by Locke / in last week's episode.
- Kate's attorney shares a name / with Duncan B. Forrester / author of Apocalypse Now? / Reflections on Faith in a Time of Terror.
- Sawyer is reading Adolfo Bioy Casares's / The Invention of Morel, the story of a fugitive / on a mysterious island in the South Pacific / who finds a machine that can re-create reality.
- The theme from Xanadu, playing in the room / was performed by Olivia Newton-John. / Xanadu is the story of an unusual place / where dreams come true.
- Kate is listening to "She's Got You" / by Patsy Cline who, like Kate / grew up in a small town. / Cline died in a plane crash in 1963.
- Kate's lawyer is played by actor Shawn Doyle / He, along with Elizabeth Mitchell / was in the 2000 film Frequency. / His character's name was Jack Shepard.
The Constant-Enhanced
"The Constant-Enhanced", Season 4's episode 5, was broadcast on the same night, just prior to episode 6, "The Other Woman". This airdate was one week after the broadcast of the original and un-enhanced "The Constant".
- The name of the freighter was revealed as the Kahala. This may have been the name of the actual vessel used to portray the Kahana, or it may have been a typo on the part of the editors of the enhanced version text.
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- The following captions may reveal new information.
- You may have noticed the absence / of the familiar "whoosh" sound effect. / That is because this is not a flashback / but rather, Desmond is time traveling.
- The purple light radiating on Eloise/parallels the purple light that filled the sky/after Desmond turned the fail-safe key/in the Swan DHARMA station.
- Tovard Hanso is a distant relative / of Magnus Hanso, captain of the Black Rock.
- The following captions clarify references:
- Faraday shares a name with Michael Faraday / another physicist and the inventor / of electromagnetic induction.
- There is a real Camp Millar in Svalbard / an archipelago far north in the Arctic Circle. / In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy / Svalbard is a gateway to parallel universes.
- Desmond's name was inspired by David Hume / an 18th century Scottish philosopher / and early advocate of determinism.
- Faraday's effort to "unstick Eloise in time" / is an homage to Kurt Vonnegut's / Billy Pilgrim, hero of Slaughterhouse-Five / a man who was "unstuck in time."
- One of the equations on the chalkboard / is the Kerr metric equation / which some scientist believe / implies the existence of time travel.
- Faraday's chalkboard includes / physicist Enrico Fermi's error / in the fine structure constant / as depicted in a famous photo.
- Penny lives in the Chelsea area of London / at 423 Cheyne Walk. / Others who have lived on Cheyne Walk / include author Henry James and Mick Jagger.
The Other Woman-Enhanced
"The Other Woman-Enhanced", Season 4's episode 6, was broadcast on the same night, just prior to episode 7, "Ji Yeon". This airdate was one week after the broadcast of the original and un-enhanced "The Other Woman". This is so far the only enhanced episode to have pop-up still images of an object, in this case the Tempest station logo; there had been no pop-up images since the first enhanced episode, Through the Looking Glass-Enhanced, which had featured pop-up images of some characters.
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- The following captions may reveal new information:
- The following captions clarify references:
- "The Tempest" is a reference in part / to Shakespeare's play, The Tempest / a story about a group of people / who shipwreck on a magical island.
- Ben is reading Philip K. Dick's VALIS / the semi-autobiographical tale of a man / named "Horselover Fat," and his quest / for personal and cosmic spirituality.
- The Tempest station was named to reflect / the meaning of the word - a violent storm / and symbolizes the destructive properties / of the chemicals used in the station.
- The Tempest DHARMA logo is a huge wave / symbolic of a catastrophic event / much like the Biblical story of the great flood.
Ji Yeon-Enhanced
"Ji-Yeon-Enhanced", Season 4's episode 7, was broadcast just before "Meet Kevin Johnson-Enhanced", one week before the resumption of new episodes, at the end of Season 4's mid-season hiatus.
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- The following captions may reveal new information:
- This is the freighter / located 92 miles from the island.
- The satellite phone on the island was broken / during Juliet and Charlotte's fight / in the Tempest station in last week's episode.
- The following captions may clarify references:
- Regina's book is Survivors of the Chancellor / Jules Verne's novel about shipwreck survivors / who experience a series of terrifying events.
- Ji Yeon means "flower of wisdom."
- The bizarre incidents and strange behavior / onboard the freighter / are an homage to the haunted hotel / in Stephen King's The Shining.
- Captain Gault's name is a nod to / William Hope Hodgson's Captain Gault stories / from his 1917 book about a captain who has / occult knowledge of arcane religious artifacts.
Meet Kevin Johnson-Enhanced
"Meet Kevin Johnson-Enhanced", Season 4's episode 8, was broadcast just after "Ji Yeon-Enhanced", one week before the resumption of new episodes, at the end of Season 4's mid-season hiatus.
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- The following captions may reveal new information:
- Michael returned to his home in New York / after he left the island with Walt. / This flashback takes place / a couple of weeks after their departure.
- The following captions may clarify references:
- You may have heard the contestant / on the TV game show answer "Kurt Vonnegut." / The noted author attempted suicide in 1984 / and wrote many essays on the subject.
- Mr. Friendly is staying at the Hotel Earle / an old New York landmark / where Bob Dylan lived for a time / as did Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
- Karl's line, "I have a bad feeling about this" / is a line spoken in all the Star Wars films. / All of the writers on LOST / are big fans of the Star Wars saga.
