I think they are all LOST souls! That is what I think about every single human on that island regardless of their form of existence. Undecided if it also applies to the animals (dog, horse).

What I think of each individual is still negotiable. New things are revealed all the time that change how I relate to a character.

Sayid and Eko... see next part of post.

Jack... I find him fairly likeable but a little insipid and somewhat cold. There are aspects of him I dislike. He has this repressed anger. He reminds me of his dad.

Sawyer... I like him more now than I did at first but I'd not pick him as a team-mate in any game where individual performance counted. Overall I have hopes for his redemption.

Favorite? I like many/most of them, so it's hard to single one out. But if I must...

Perhaps Sayid. At least, he's deinitely up there! oops iomitted the f. well in some ways "dei" is in it - he could be a dei-ty in some respects! oh my i'm too old for this... But he's not my fave for that reason... I like his character a lot. In fact, if something happened to turn this around it might take me a while to recover! Impression thus far: he has incredible depth, sensitivity, and integrity. He has shown genuine courage and altruism imho. He isn't always altruistic but is upfront about trading favors. I like these things about him. I also like that he has done bad things - it makes him human, while the fact that he feels horribly about those things makes him respectable.

I feel similarly about Eko, to whom I also took an instant liking. However I have just "met" Eko and do not trust him yet. It will take more revelations to convince me of his claim to true priesthood than a piece of paper signed under tyranny and perhaps a sense of duty to live out his brother's LOST life.

I like Sun a great deal. She has inner strength and endurance and shows a lot of initiative, especially considering the culture she comes from. I love how she began gathering medicinal plants to help Jack, and that she started keeping a garden.

I like Jin too and I like them as a couple. I feel for them - they have a sad and lonely past.

I like Hurley a lot. He's chummy, easy-going, sensitive and a good listener.

I like Kate too. I feel angry for her. I don't think she's "bad at the core" like she was taught that she was. She grew up in a precarious situation, and those who could have helped her in formative years, instead, abandoned. She didn't stand a chance from the day she was born... but she could have, with just a little help.

I identify with Charlie in more ways than I care to disclose.

===========================

What are your favorite characters... or what were... if you are able to limit answers to what is known up to mid-second season?

~ waves ~

Waves,

This is tougher to talk about that I thought. When I first got up at noon, I tried to write a response, but things happen near the of season two that I do not want to spoil.
What happened in the last episode that you watched?

Also, the back stories we hear about the characters are not in chronological order. For example: with Sun, we learn in season 1 about how she planned to leave her husband at the airport and changed her mind. That is safe for me to write about. That was a moving scene --- that she cried and chose to stay with him and get back on the plane that was leaving Australia.
You are right about the writers . . .. giving her a garden shows that she is nurturing and capable and connected.

I like Walt and his father and the dog.
I related to Charlie's music.
I could not warm up to Jack although he seemed important to the show in moving the plot along.
I like the way you describe Sawyer --- nice guy after you get to know him but would not want to count on him for anything that requires effort.
Sayid --- not all that nice either sometimes but trustworthy as all get out. He has lots of integrity and honor somehow and does not seem to have the father issues that lots of the other characters have (I guess we do not know his father-backstory)

Mr Ecko -- big heart. Sometimes I like how the theme of faith vs logic plays out.

Kate has toughness and I do not think she would be a good friend in real life --- too intense. I think sometimes we see her choose to act for herself and sometimes for the group. Actually, I do like when she gets to be a little bit witchy.

Rose -- I was so happy that she got to do laundry with Hurley.

Regbarding how they are Lost --- Do some of them seem to want to stay "lost?" I felt that some were more able to adjust to the island because they were not in a big rush to get home.

Hurley is a great pal. He points out things sometimes that others don't notice. He is the regular guy that the group needs. His numbers thing is weird.

My ONLY disappointment with the show was that the male charaters were more strongly drawn and more numerous than the female characters. On the other hand, we do have some great male characters
We used to talk about this show at work. GAH. It was hard to wait each week. And the writer's strike in 2007-2008 felt like forever.
Mari

Dear Mari

LAST SEEN EPISODE (tonight) - S2, ep.12:

Charlie had frank hallucinations about Claire's child being endangered.... confrontations with Locke who found and confiscated his secret stash of Virgin Mary statues. He hears Aaron crying, realizes he's in the sea and swims out to him.... scene changes to him standing holding Aaron but it is deep in the night and Claire is screaming that someone has taken her child. He relinquishes the child and Locke punches him out gratuitously. Eko tells him his visions might have meaning. Charlie insists on talking to Claire and telling her the child must be baptized. Locke blows the whole "danger" thing off, but Claire goes to Eko who explains baptism and baptizes her and Aaron both.

In the episode before...
Sawyer is recovering from his infected bulletwound and receiving more attention from Kate. Michael locks Locke and Jack in the arms closet and runs off to find Walt who "seems" to have contacted him through the Dharma computer. Jack and Locke and Sawyer take off after him. Jin is stopped by Sun. Jack orders Kate to stay behind but she secretly follows them and ends up captured by "the others" led by Ethan, who had originally infiltrated the camp, and attacked the raft to get Walt. When Jack, Locke, and Sawyer run into them, they must drop their arms and leave the territory to save Kate.

-----------------------------

Do not feel pressured to write about things.

I appreciate whatever you feel like sharing - it is nice to be able to talk to someone about the show.

This show runs M-F here... and on the weekend I go into withdrawal!!! I can't IMAGINE going through a writers' strike!!!

I do realize the flashback parts are not shown in chronological order.... this complicates talking about the show for people who have seen different chunks of it.
~ waves ~

I don't think any of them want to be LOST - not in the way i intended. My read: some of them prefer being physically lost because they were already aware of being LOST before the crash. The island offers them a chance to do things differently which they embrace. Others are not aware (in denial) of being LOST, so they don't embrace the physical parallel of the situation, nor the opportunity it presents.

I do think the island presents unique challenges to each that makes them challenge previously errant ways. The role of "the others" in seeking the children and those who are good fits with this theory, as does the Dharma project (requires them to practice an act of world preservation once every couple hours - brainwashing with behavioral reinforcement).

~ waves ~

I do like Rose... I remember her helping Hurley with inventory. I appreciated her unwavering faith that her husband (Bernard from the tail group) is alive. On tonight's episode he didlaundry with Libby - the psychologist from the tail group .

I think I admire Kate because she is more ballsy than I am... in ways that perhaps I'd like to be. Not the killing stuff tho!

I like Michael too, and I despised Susan the unmother. It was painful to learn how her new companion was distant from Walt, and that Susan never gave Walt Michael's letters... so "in his own best interest" the woman cut Walt off from having a dad. Vincent is cool. I cried when Walt left him with Shannon, explaining to her very succinctly about how Vincent could help her through her loss.

My thing with Sawyer is about altruism and being a team player. In the beginning he scavenged the aircraft for any "good stuff" and basically blackmailed the others even over medicines... that was scary. I saw him as becoming more reasonable and less arrogant... that's why i have hope for him. When he was near death and the others carried him and he said leave me, I would leave you - it was believable. Had positions been reversed, I could practically hear him in my head making convincing arguments to dump the near-corpse that would just get them all killed. That is what i was trying to point out about wanting him on a team. He has no problem with hard work... he does it if there's something (eg: raft) meaningful in it for him..

~ waves ~

Makes me want to start watching again....lol
we are watching downton abby and are loving this PBS masterpiece theater. We are on season 2, my mom lent the seasons 1 and 2 , season 3 is just now over so we will have to wait for it to come out on DVD.
LOVED LOST!!!!!
bizi

Bizi,

All of Season 3 of Downton Abbey is available for free on the PBS website.

Mari

Hi Bizi

we are behind too...

We missed Season 1 entirely because mom vetoed it - she wouldn't listen to me when I described it it's right up her alley insofar as tv shows... When Season 2 came around and she latched right onto it... then she was sorry she'd missed Season 1. Sigh.

However, we won't get Season 3 here until next winter. That is if the network decides to continue bringing it in AND they don't decide to put it on pay tv which we don't have. The nice thing is it is on a network that has original audio available. At least, this last season they ran had the original audio in parallel. One can hope...

~ waves ~

Waves and Bizi,

I loved Downton Abbey in seasons one and two mostly for the costumes and sets. I had a favorite actor or two or three and some favorite characters (not always the same people --- might like a character but not the actor and vice versa ), but after three seasons, I am completely tired of it.
Most of season three I fast forwarded on my DVR to get to the plot lines with the above actors or characters.


Waves,
Season I was good, but as long as you understand the discussions of the entail and Mary's secret about the Turkish gentleman, you got the big plot points to help you with season 2.

We are starting to get spoilers about season 4 as the press here gets a hold of casting information in London.

Mari

Waves,

I became aware of how fanatical I was about that show. It was so distracting. Thank goodness at least one season was shortened due to the the strike.
I was reliving some of that time when I was thinking about the show. I took a break
and. . . truth be told . . . . my tv station that was running Lost all week last week is not running it at all this week or next week.
Parts of some episodes are clear in my mind -- like the scene with Ana Lucia and Shannon and Sayid of course but some of the Claire / Charlie bits did not register with my mind as much. I kind of tuned out whenever Sun was around.
But with Sawyer, I long remembered the things he said.
Most of the episodes I saw two and three times because I saw them in repeats. I found Libby mysterious and liked her.

===
Here is something different about your viewing experience that is neat.
At season 2 episode 11 the events of the show are at 56 days.
That means that this is less than two months since the plane crash.
I started watching Sept 2004 so Season 2 episode 11 was about Jan / Feb 2006 for me -- almost 1 1/2 years to cover 56 days.

I did spend time thinking about how those folks ended up on the island and why. I felt that most of them were there for a reason and in some cases their reason for being on the island was finished earlier than it was for other people who had to keep on.

M