The Theories: Time Travel (introduction)

In my Lost theory sandwich, if Good and Evil are the bread and the Fantasy Island is the meat, Time Travel is mustard. It’s that extra layer on top that flavors the whole sandwich. Time travel is almost a bridge too far. On this mysterious and powerful island, home to a pair of opposing, near god figures, we also have to contend with laws of physics being tested at every step? Well, it does keep things interesting. To explain it in one sentence, the Time-Travel theory assumes that future, on-screen actions of the central characters will ultimately account for past and current conditions on the island. It also has a strong sense of déjà vu that maybe everything we have seen since day 1 has been done before and this is the second or third time around for these characters.


Rewatching the series it is easy to see many instances of déjà vu in the first couple seasons, even if most are probably imagined. For example, when Jack, Kate and Charlie go into the jungle searching for the plane’s cockpit, the series’ first A mission, Kate says Charlie looks familiar.[1] He assumes, of course, that she recognizes him from Driveshaft. But since Driveshaft is later revealed as a middling one-hit wonder, would Kate really remember the face of a guy who wasn’t even the band’s front man? It’s a short trip though to seeing these moments everywhere. At the end of the first season, during their classic man of science vs. man of faith debate, Locke tells Jack that Jack does believe in destiny, he just doesn’t know it.[2] Locke is 100% right. But the fifth season, Jack will be a destiny true believer. Is just the writers articulating a theme? Or is anyone really going to be an argument that Locke knows what he’s talking about, that he knows Jack will be converted. Or do we spilt the difference and think Locke might not consciously remember having heard that conversation before, but he has an intuitive sense derived from constantly repeating the same chain of events?


I am going to leave with a question for the audience. Very early on, when the castaways discover Adam & Eve and Locke says the bodies must be 50 or so years old, did we have an initiative sense that these would be people we knew before? I feel like we had that sense if not immediately then at least by the middle seasons, certainly before the island jumped back in time.



Or is that totally my imagination?


[1] “The Pilot”
[2] “Exodus”