Series Finale Reset?

[Crewman47]

I just though of something after reading this post here from the Dharma Initiative photo thread. What if something like were to happen where a plot device of some sort, for example a meteor, was discovered buried in a cavern in the heart of the Island and was the one thing responsible for everything that's happened. (Now before I go on I do know about the events in the last episode where Faraday wants to explode the Hydrogen bomb and this could be related.) Now what if by using a controlled explosion, like the bomb, on this plot device it destroys it and it causes a temporal shockwave travelling backwards and forwards through time therby erasing the Island from ever existing.

What do you think, too far fetched or could it work?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I don't think it's too far fetched. The problem is if they wipe out everything that happened in the series, it will be aggravating for viewers, unless they think of a way to handle it that I'm not thinking of...?

 

[Hober Mallow]

No one likes a reset button.

 

[blockaderunner]

^^^^Especially on this site.

 

[Crewman47]

I knew someone would post something like that but I thought I would try anyway just to see if a reset would, or could be possible. I mean that's basically what they were hinting at in last weeks episode.

 

[Seven of Five]

They seemed to be hinting at a reset, but I don't think the writers would just wipe the slate clean just like that. It's too stupid a notion. Unless the slate is only wiped on a small scale?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I knew someone would post something like that but I thought I would try anyway just to see if a reset would, or could be possible. I mean that's basically what they were hinting at in last weeks episode.

It's possible that they would do it. What I don't know is how the heck they could do it without a pitchforks & torches type reaction.

Then again, I originally thought that the flash-forward thing in Lookingglass "destroyed the show."

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I have to believe that they know quite well that they'd take a really big hit to Goodwill if, after 6 seasons, they hit the reset button.

I'm thinking that the creative forces behind this show, which are considerable, can surely come up with something better than that.

 

[Mallet]

Well, let's work it out.

Version 1
We'll say Jack does succeed and "resets" history, so Flight 815 doesn't crash. What would happen then?

Well, if flight 815 never crashes then Faraday will never go to the Island with the freighter crew, never meet Jack. Jack will never try to go back to the island and so never end up in the 1970's, so he will never "hit the reset button" so the Incident will happen, the Swan will be built and Flight 815 will crash.

So we are stuck in a paradox/loop. He can't prevent the Crash, unless they have already crashed.

This doesn't seem to work.

Version 1.1

A slightly more in depth but different version of Version 1.

Jack detonates the bomb and "resets" everything. No flight 815 crash. No Faraday on the Island. No time jumps for those left behind.

No time jumps means Faraday can't go back to 1954 and tell the Hostiles to bury the bomb and to stay away from it.

What then? Do the Hostiles attempt to use the bomb in another way? Do they all get sick from radiation poisoning and die? Do they try and bargain with the US Military? Do they accidentally detonate it? Do Eloise and/or Charles Widmore die or become sterile from exposure to the radiation (so Faraday is never born?)? What effects on the timeline (as far as events we've seen) would having the bomb there change? Maybe Dharama would never come to the Island because of radiation? No Dharma means Ben never wen't to the Island, means no "War" with Charles Widmore.

If we believe that having the bomb on the island somehow prevents Dharma from ever going to the island whether from a detonation, radiation poisoning the land, or threats of detonation... What then? The Island lives on in peace?

Rather he creates an alternate timeline where Faraday never tells the Hostiles how to safely dispose of the bomb, so something bad happens and Dharma never goes to the island and never builds the Swan, so flight 815 never crashes.

This is the "best case" scenario, since it has the least amount of paradox, maybe even no paradox at all. All the events of season 1-5 will be erased.


Version 2

The writers ignore the whole paradox thing and have Jack hit the rest button and Flight 815 never crashes.

Jack goes back to the hospital and slowly drinks himself to death, Kate is probably in jail, Charlie is still a junky, Locke can't walk, Rose dies, etc...

The Island still there doing it's thing. Ben is still the leader, etc... Widmore is still trying to get back to the Island, Eloise is still...? Without having killed her son, who knows how Eloise turned out? And what happend to Desmond? Does he still shipwreck on the island, but is instead klilled by the Hostiles rather then rescued and brought to the hatch?

Where does the story go from there?

Well, one way is that we still have one "mystical element" without the Island. Hurley's numbers. Hurley's numbers have been causing him bad luck (and great luck) before he ever ended up on the island. The numbers could somehow bring him & Jack, & Kate & Locke, et al. back together again through random coincidence (and bad luck). Maybe the numbers will try and bring everyone together again to balance out some cosmic equation.

or, another way, could be that Eloise notices that something has changed. That what has happened is not what was destined to happen? Would she try and round up the heroes and send them to the island? To put things right? If season 5 ends with Jack preventing the crash from ever happening, will season 6 end with him trying to cause the crash to happen again? basically creating a loop where the series ends at the same place it began, with the crash of 815. The timeline has been altered, then repaired, that's what the series has show us. and now we are back at the begining.

What else could happen? Let's work at this, because if the writers do go this way (we'll know next week) then we can see who was/is right next season.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

maybe the island is destroyed and all of next season takes place on anne arbor? Dharma Headquarters. Many, many casualties

 

[zengoth]

basically creating a loop where the series ends at the same place it began, with the crash of 815. The timeline has been altered, then repaired, that's what the series has show us. and now we are back at the begining.

that's how i see it. That would mean, like [most] sci-fi time paradox stories, we will have to sit through S6 episodes of "life without the crash" - pretty bleak, yes - flashing back to more "life just before the crash". Except somehow Jack's the one who will have to manuever everyone (who will not know each other this time) onto Flight 815. A cool way to bookend S1. And it will clearly be a season for those diehard fans who have stuck by the show.

 

[Starbreaker]

I was pissed off about the flash forward, I was pissed off about Locke being dead, and i was pissed off about time travel to the 70's, but they've handled it so well I trust anything they do now.

 

[BlackestPanther]

Theory 3:

Jack succeeds in detonating the bomb. Yet, somehow, inexplicably, he and the other Losties remain on the island while, paradoxically, the folks on flight 815 land at LAX safely, essentially giving us to sets of losties in the same timeline.

 

[Mr Awe]

I don't think they'll make any change that erases their agony as Jack and Sayid are hoping. That's the easy way out. Unfortunately, it's part of life. They may well make changes that affects time but I don't think our characters will be affected, protected by the island. That means the island will continue to exist. Maybe, at most, it'll become detached from the rest of time?

Mr Awe

 

[Temis the Vorta]

After much deliberation over the past 15 minutes, I've decided to latch onto this notion as my official guess:

Jack's meddling with the timeline causes everyone to jump back into the Flight 815 right before the original crash. Jack flips out and hijacks the plane, diverting it from the island. But the plane crashes anyway, into that trench where Widmore's "fake" crash was discovered. Then we get that frakkin LOST logo will tells us we have NINE MONTHS to try to figure that one out.

Bonus points if this scenario includes Ben and/or Desmond actually on board Flight 815. Desmond caused the original crash so what is he doing on board?

Double bonus points if Greg Grunberg reprises his role as the doomed pilot.

Triple bonus points if Locke somehow misses the flight and therefore is the only survivor. Now he has to figure out how to rewrite the timeline so that his friends all come back to life.

Questions:

-Are we sure that was the "same" Flight 815?

-Are "our" Losties still alive on the island, having jumped back in time, into a timeline where they also all die?

-Or maybe this is just a parallel reality.

-Maybe they've been in a parallel reality ever since Desmond turned the key.

-Maybe they were in a parallel reality but now they've back in the real reality where it counts that they're dead.

-Does this prove that Widmore faked faking the crash (in order to lull the Losties into complacency when the real crash was inevitably discovered?)

-Could the show actually continue for the final season without any of the main cast members? Or with just one?

-Would that ending be more or less confusing/infuriating than what they did on Heroes?

 

[zengoth]

thank you temis - now my brain has exploded all over my monitor...

i actually hope it's not jack or locke or even ben trying to save everyone again. We've been there done that.

Be cooler if it were someone not already thought of as crazeee (short list, i know.)

 

[Mr Awe]

Temis, I like the idea of a number of the cast dying and the survivors trying to change time to save them. That could happen. Not sure if the scenario will match yours or not, but it could.

I do think that the Losties will change time but not in the manner that they expect. The huge twist will probably involve just how things end up, which we should get a peak at right at the end.

I also think it's likely that they'll eventually end up *way* back in time with the temple and statue builders. Not sure if that happens this season or next though.

Mr Awe

 

[bigdaddy]

"We forgot to hit the button!!!"

*Earth will blow up and the screen fades to black*

 

[Mallet]

I'm a big fan of the idea that you can learn about one project by an artist, bu looking at other works by them.

To that end I am offering up the following thoughts/ideas/theories. I am putting it in spoiler code since it involves spoilers about Star Trek & Fringe.

Spoilers are for the Star Trek Movie and from watching Fringe previews (but no specific Fringe spoilers, just speculation). No Lost spoilers.

Spoiler: Other Abram's projects & Lost

Ok, in the Star Trek time travel happens and reality is altered, basically changing the entire Trek Universe as it has been shown to us over the last 40 years. The Star Trek reality has now been changed.

In Fringe, although I haven't seen the finale yet (airs tomorrow), it looks like (from the previews and the storyline leading up to it) that Olivia (the main character) will find herself in an alternate reality, when things are different from what she remembers and the world has changed.

These are both JJ Abram projects, just like Lost is, and I have found that often an artist will go through phases and develop a frame of mind or track of thought that will have them exploring a lot of the same ideas/concepts in different ways.

To this end, since his other two current projects are dealing with alternate realities, changing the past, etc... I would not be at all surprised if on Lost Jack does manage to hit the "reset" button and we have the events of the first 5 seasons changed/erased and find the characters safely landing in LA in 2004, with no idea that they originally crashed on the island.

It would be in keeping with JJ Abram's current "phase" of creative output that probably started back when he was first working on Lost, because if the main storyline of Lost truly has been planed on since the beginning then JJ was think about "resets" and alternate realities & time travel since before Star Trek or Fringe were even being planned/written or worked on and it seems to me that the concept has obviously stuck in his mind for other projects. Just like Lost has the Dharma Initiative working on strange and advanced science experiments (as part of the background storyline) and Fringe takes the idea further with the "pattern" and Massive Dynamic as part of it's main storyline. Lost has time travel and attempts to change the past/future so does Star Trek. You get the point.