What about Walt?

If we are to take what we saw last week as a timeline split...in other words, there are now 2 Jack's(one on the Island and one not), two Sawyers(one on the Island and one not), two Kate's, etc.......

What about those who crashed on the Island but already got back before the Oceanic 6?

What will Walt say to himself if he ever meets himself?

....jeeesh, no wonder this kid is special, there's two of em;)

From my most recent experience, the price will drop significantly within a few months of release. The much anticipated Farscape boxed set was released for $120 or $150 and a few months later it dropped to $63. Now it's $59.99

Bite your tongue!

Oh, well if you want to get technical about it :p

We better find out more about Walt. If he was so damn special (we were told that how many times? and we went on a rescue mission and found the other island because of him, why?) we need to know why. If it turns out it was just a plot vehicle I'm going to be pissed. I don't care of the actor is now 16, 6ft2 and baritone. I want to know!

I say no, no, no to a spin off. For me, the most satisfying ending will be one that has answered the big questions (and a relatively high number of the smaller ones) but has left just enough unanswered that I am still ruminating over the series' meaning long after it's over.

(I do, however, want to be assured that Vincent is safe. :D)

I'd be surprised if Vincent doesn't turn out to be Jacob. And the Hurleybird.

Walt is the best evidence that the writers made all this up as they went along.

Any show that knows they are going to be reshooting the same scenes over and over again, even 5 years down the line, is NOT going to cast a child. He couldn't even stay young enough to last more than a short while. As a result, we may have a split timeline but we are not going to see Walt and Michael in LA X, unless they go the soap opera route and cast the role with a new kid.

It's a bummer, since I liked their story a lot.

we knew they were shooting from the hip. Michael Emerson was only supposed to be a short part and ended up being a regular and one of the most intriguing characters on the show.

The writers vehemently argue that they always had a story to tell and that they knew it would take them 6 seasons to do it (and in fact told the network that at the begining).

Having said that, I don't think having Walt in the original story means anything (re them not knowing where it's going). The sideways timeline is clearly not a continuation of what would have happened had the plane never crashed, things vary like Shannon, Michael and Claire not being on the plane. There is every possibility that in the sideways timeline Walt never existed in Michael's reality.

I'm sure it's a little of both. They may have had the broad strokes of the story arc in mind, however the details of how they were going to get from A to B had to at the very least have a lot of flexibility built in.

Among other things, it would have been lunacy to plan for a 5 year show (that was their original plan, stretched to 7 after it proved successful) and not have a way to deal with unexpected things like cast members leaving, popularity waning, unexpected popularity of what they thought would be a minor character.

The way I figure it, they had big picture things like, "The island is moving in time", "there was a society of scientists there beforehand", and "the island is a complex analogy for the greek concepts of hades and the river styx" or whatever it turns out being. But the details of who is working with whom, or against whom, or the mechanics behind how and why the island might be moving in time would by necessity had to have remained fluid.

They always said they had an ending and a 5 year plan (it was supposed to end last year but the writers strike extended it). What's left as filler is up to debate if they had that planned out. I think some of it was, but a lot of it seems like they got distracted by a shiny object and followed it a different direction.

I stick with what I said earlier:

I would add that there have been wrenches thrown into their plan (i.e. Micael Emerson) that they have decided to incorporate into the story and/or had to explain them away. I also think the idea that they had planned the story from the begining doesn't mean they had the entire story fleshed out; it merely means that they had their story arc, they knew the story they wanted to tell. The specifics have been fleshed out as circumstances changed and the story was being told.




eta: Of course now I could just sum up my thoughts as, "I agree with GD."