1x09 Solitary

[Anfield Fox]

Thread for the discussion of The Lost Rewatch - "Solitary"

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Solitary

Interesting interview with David Fury

http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/LP_Interviewavid_Fury

[faragay4faraday]

watched it last night

first episode that really made me sad ... that whole Sayid/Nadia plot really got to me

interesting detail: since Rousseau's side note on how her team was there to examine "time" was written out of the script on behalf of the network, she says: "we dug out this temporary shelter ... phew ... TEMPORARY!" with heavy stress on 'temporary' ('temporary' in its double meaning as 'for a short period' and as 'time-related in general')

also, I forgot about this, but it turns out that Sayid thought the same thing about the B612 mission I thought when 'This Place Is Death' aired: that's an awful lot of guns for a science team

[fast1]

hmm the golf thing was pretty cool i think. a means to keep spirits high

[Anfield Fox]

So the first appearance of Danielle Rousseau. I've always had a few problems with the episode.

1. Danielle. There are just so many innconcitencies with her story. Yes it's possible to partially use the excuse "she was crazy" but:

SAYID: Have you seen other people on this island?

DANIELLE: No, but I hear them. Out there, in the jungle. They whisper.

We know she met Jin and Ben at the very least and it's hard to believe she wouldn't have seen anyone else in those 16 years. Not even Dharma?

2. Sayid speaking English in his flashback. This is probably a non-issue to most people but they take great care to attention and detail with the Korean on the show but neglected the Arabic. I know Naveen Andrews does not speak Arabic but i find it hard to believe Sayid would speak English in the Iraqi army to his commanding officer, the guards, the prisoner he interrogated and to Nadia. Ando on Heroes does not speak Japanese and has to learn all his lines phonetically, it's a shame they didn't do it in this episode. In future flashbacks they found clever ways to not have him speak Arabic like being in France or Australia or having him speak with American troops. It's only in this episode really that it feels "out of place".

Otherwise it's a very good episode. The ending with the whispers was genuinely scary. It's also interesting that ABC removed the mention of "time" as they didn't want Sci-Fi on the show back then. Finally it's a shame we never saw Sullivan again

[Locke-in-a-Box]

Originally Posted by Anfield Fox

So the first appearance of Danielle Rousseau. I've always had a few problems with the episode.

1. Danielle. There are just so many innconcitencies with her story. Yes it's possible to partially use the excuse "she was crazy" but:



We know she met Jin and Ben at the very least and it's hard to believe she wouldn't have seen anyone else in those 16 years. Not even Dharma?

2. Sayid speaking English in his flashback. This is probably a non-issue to most people but they take great care to attention and detail with the Korean on the show but neglected the Arabic. I know Naveen Andrews does not speak Arabic but i find it hard to believe Sayid would speak English in the Iraqi army to his commanding officer, the guards, the prisoner he interrogated and to Nadia. Ando on Heroes does not speak Japanese and has to learn all his lines phonetically, it's a shame they didn't do it in this episode. In future flashbacks they found clever ways to not have him speak Arabic like being in France or Australia or having him speak with American troops. It's only in this episode really that it feels "out of place".

Otherwise it's a very good episode. The ending with the whispers was genuinely scary. It's also interesting that ABC removed the mention of "time" as they didn't want Sci-Fi on the show back then. Finally it's a shame we never saw Sullivan again

1. I think if the purge was in the 80's then Dharma wasn't around when they got there, although there seems to be a lot of Others around you would think she'd see them.

2. Didnt they do some kind of camera pan behind one of them (Nadia?) while he was speaking arabic and when he appeared on the other side they switched to english? They probably just thought it would be easier for viewers to follow.

[Anfield Fox]

Originally Posted by Locke-in-a-Box

1. I think if the purge was in the 80's then Dharma wasn't around when they got there, although there seems to be a lot of Others around you would think she'd see them.

2. Didnt they do some kind of camera pan behind one of them (Nadia?) while he was speaking arabic and when he appeared on the other side they switched to english? They probably just thought it would be easier for viewers to follow.

The purge was in December 1992, she arrived in November 1988.

[wongnog]

Originally Posted by Anfield Fox

We know she met Jin and Ben at the very least and it's hard to believe she wouldn't have seen anyone else in those 16 years. Not even Dharma?

I was most confused by these lines upon rewatch as well. I simple chalk it up to one of the many plot holes/inconsistencies with the show that are inevitable upon rewatch. It's clear that at the time they hadn't fully fleshed out Danielle's backstory, but I'm surprised that by the time they got to S5 they had forgotten these lines. Having Jin come in and then Ben steal Alex clearly is inconsistent with her statement that she has seen no-one else on the island. But I think in the writers' defense they would say that Danielle was going crazy after 16 years of isolation...

Originally Posted by Anfield Fox

2. Sayid speaking English in his flashback. This is probably a non-issue to most people but they take great care to attention and detail with the Korean on the show but neglected the Arabic. I know Naveen Andrews does not speak Arabic but i find it hard to believe Sayid would speak English in the Iraqi army to his commanding officer, the guards, the prisoner he interrogated and to Nadia. Ando on Heroes does not speak Japanese and has to learn all his lines phonetically, it's a shame they didn't do it in this episode. In future flashbacks they found clever ways to not have him speak Arabic like being in France or Australia or having him speak with American troops. It's only in this episode really that it feels "out of place".

Sayid did speak Arabic at the beginning of his flashback, but then they did the classic "Hunt for Red October" sequence where they do a slow zoom in on his mouth speaking a foreign language, then switch to English with a pan out. It's a common film technique where you're supposed to figure out that the entire scene is "supposed" to be spoken in a foreign language, but for the benefit of the actors (and the audience) they are all speaking English.

On a side note, I have always LOVED Danielle Rousseau, mostly because of the actress who portrays her. Mira Furlan is a Yugoslavian actress most famous in the US for her portrayal of alien Minbari ambassador Delenn on the 90's sci-fi show Babylon 5. In many interviews with the creative team, they make light of the fact that the French woman actually has an Eastern-European accent. Also in this episodes, her accent and delivery of certain lines is so reminiscent of her best B5 scenes it's amazing. I'm thinking specifically of her saying "No, but I hear them. Out there, in the jungle. They whisper" -- so much like her description of the Shadows in B5. Love it!

[emoticon]

Originally Posted by Anfield Fox

So the first appearance of Danielle Rousseau. I've always had a few problems with the episode.

I could be wrong, but didn't Danielle also say in this episode that she was on the island for two months before everyone got sick? Don't we find out in season five that Smokey "infects" the crew their first day on the island?

[faragay4faraday]

I don't think she believed Jin was real. I mean, this guy disappeared into thin air twice ...
and Ben ... well ... post-traumatic stress, maybe her memory blocked it out completely, or she didn't believe he was real either ...

well, it was season one, they probably hadn't thought this through in detail (Ben, Dharma, Jin) and who can blame them? the time-skips are still about 4 seasons away and overall, her story was tied up neatly in This Place Is Death, where we can see that most of her memories were on the spot

[Space Lizard]

Anfield Fox, I interpreted the English as being like The Hunt for Red October. Remember, it begins in Russian, then it just zooms in on something and when it pulls out it's English? Well, they're still really speaking Russian, but it's translated for our benefit.

Of course, they never did that with any other language in the history of the show, but I think Naveen Andrews both couldn't speak Arabic and was unwilling to learn/just say it like Daniel Dae Kim did with Korean.

Also, from Dead Is Dead:

ROUSSEAU: You're the one who infected us, aren't you?!

She thought Ben was the Monster, it seems...the Monster, which apparently Danielle believes doesn't exist. Despite seeing it. And it infecting her team.

Danielle is completely insane, isn't she?

But yeah, that end is really scary, the golf subplot is funny and I loved all the scenes with Danielle, even if almost everything she said was wrong.