Thursday, May 14, 2009

Time Travel

Last night's season finale of Lost was awesome. I will admit that I was a bit sceptical around the time it was revealed that some would integrate themselves with the Dharma Initiative, not because I thought it was bad writing, I just was uneasy about where the show was going. Like others who watch the show, I had assumed that the entire season would revolve around the Jack, Kate, etc trying to get back to the island. But after watching last night and reflecting on the season as a whole, I'm thoroughly satisfied. The only thing I'm pissed about is having to wait so long for the next season. It's like the seventh Harry Potter, I want want want the end to be here but I don't want it to be the end, if that makes any sense at all.
The greater issue in this season of Lost that I've been thinking about is the one of time travel-not about whether it's possible or the loopholes- no, I've been thinking about (god, I'm such a nerd) if it happened to me, how much I would suck at it. I'll allow Hurley to demonstrate:

No tests my ass, Sawyer. This was one of my favorite Hurley moments of the season (there were so many, it's hard to talk about them all) but it really got me thinking. If I was somehow transported back in time, I would suck so hard at a) convincing people that I wasn't from the future and b) at preventing catastrophic events. Ask me the date of when this happened:

or when Kennedy/MLK/Lincoln was assassinated. I dare you. Because without Wikipedia, I couldn't tell you. I have a general idea, but if it came down to me stopping something on a specific date/time, well, let's just say history would remain unchanged. I would be more than useless: if I tried to invent the light bulb or the television or vaccines or just about anything that involves more than Popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue, it would be over in two seconds. What I could do is predict what movies were going to blow up the box office. But watch that save my ass after getting transported back to medieval England. No, I would be burned as a witch, or suffer the rest of my short life blind as a bat because contacts haven't been invented yet and I'm certainly not going to get the ball rolling on that one.

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