LOST Book Club discussion
The Shape of Things to Come, Ep. 9, Seas 3
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It's interesting that the name Doctor Kendrick has surfaced recently on LOST. I am currently reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, and I was actually just logging on to share a few LOST-related passages that I came across.I have to warn those who have not read the book that this post may contain a few spoilers.
To briefly summarize the book for those who have not read it, it is the story of Henry, a man who involuntarily travels through time, and his wife, Clare.
The passages that struck me as being the most connected to LOST were tied to Henry and Clare's difficulty in carrying a baby to term (Clare has several miscarriages). Henry's doctor, Doctor Kendrick, is a geneticist trying to figure out if Henry's time-traveling is a genetic condition (it is - it comes to be known as Chrono-Displacement).
In order to try to "cure" Henry's involuntary traveling, Doctor Kendrick isolates the genes that cause Henry to time-travel and places them in mice embryos (which, I suppose, could be seen as a connection to Daniel's experiments with his mouse in "The Constant"). He hopes that, by doing this, he will be able to create time-traveling mice which can be studied.
When the Doctor places the embryos in female mice, he finds that the mothers and/or their babies keep dying. He observes:
"The embryos were [time-] traveling out of their [mother's] womb, and then in again, and the mothers bled to death internally. Or they would just abort the fetus at the ten-day mark."
"We decided that it must be an immune reaction. Something about the fetal mice was so foreign that the [mothers'] immune systems were trying to fight them as though they were a virus or something. So we suppressed the [mothers'] immune systems, and then it all worked like magic."
Does this sound strangely familiar to what happens to women who get pregnant on The Island?
So what sort of implications would this "time-traveling fetus" theory have? I think it's anyone's guess at this point.
That being said, I think that this past episode definitely implied that Ben has some sort of time-traveling abilities. He asks the clerk at the hotel what YEAR it is. He seems to spontaneously appear in the Tunisian desert wearing a down coat (not exactly appropriate clothing for a hot climate).
In any case, I'm going to stop before going on more of a tangent than I already have. I'll be interested to hear what other people have to say.
Moriarty could also be a reference to Prof James Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes. He is Holmes' arch-enemy and a mathematical genius.
That is an awesome connection: the mice/pregnancies/women on the island. I hadn't even thought about that. I guess it's been too long since I have read TTTW.
1) The most apparent is the title of the episode based on H.G. Wells work of science fiction that is supposed be a work History from the future (1933-2106. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shap...
2) Ben checks into the hotel under the assumed name "Dean Moriarty" the hero from Jack Kerouac's book "On the Road"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road
3) Sawyer mentions the children's story "Chicken Little" to Hurley.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_...
4) Movie/book reference when Ben enters to check into the hotel it is very similar to the film Lawrence of Arabia. (Book: "Seven Pillars of Wisdom") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Pi...
5) This one may be a stretch but Ben's use of the expandable club a homage to Agent 355 in Graphic Novel/Comic Y:The Last Man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y:_The_L...
6) Doctor Kendrick is the name of the MD the book "The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time...
Other "cultural references" here:
http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/The_Sha...
So I am not familiar with these books. Anyone read any of these and share any insight of the books and the show or episode in particular???
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