Introduction
It was quite a dismal week for the Fantasy League. It's quite ironic really. "The Constant" was one of the best and most popular episodes of Lost to date, yet it failed to break even when it came to our scoring rules. The episode officially landed in the red, coming in with a jarring -25 points overall.
What does this mean? Well, it shows that Lost is unpredictable. From a fans perspective, it doesn't really matter how well our teams scored. But for those of us who are involved with the LFL, frustration is right around the corner. Only six League characters were in the episode. Three of those six were from Group 2, so your chances of doing well were pretty limited. Needless to say, the overall points standings probably weren't shaken up too much, though there were 200 contestants that lost the full 35 points possible.
Check all the sections below, because there are some important points rulings and a new episode totals chart in the detailed point section. I want to take this time to inform you all that the Week 6 Fantasy Update will NOT be posted next Monday evening. DarkUFO and I both have plans for the weekend and won't be able to put the post together for Monday night. Look for your Week 6 LFL fix on Wednesday, March 12th.
Hopefully Week 6 will bring us back to the usual amount of points. Until then, leave us a comment and send your questions to LFLquestions@gmail.com.
“The Constant” (in 558 words or less)
While Frank maintains a steady course in the chopper, Desmond decides to jump to the left, step to the right, put his hands on his hips and bring his knees in tight. Just a pelvic thrust shy of going insane, Desmond does the Time Warp again. He wakes up in 1996 to the melodious voice of his drill sergeant shouting as if he were auditioning for a West End production of Full Metal Jacket.
Des and the boys end up doing pushups and crunches in the yard when he checks out of 1996 and into 2004, where he is totally confused and doesn’t know anybody. The freighter folk want to take him to the sick bay but all 1996 Desmond wants to do is call his girlfriend.
In the sick bay, Desmond finds he’s not the only one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest. George Minkowski, the disembodied voice from the satellite phone is given a body at last. Too bad it’s strapped down to a bed and kept sedated as often as possible by the ship’s doctor. Des takes another walk on the wild side and makes his call to Penny. She tells him to stay away. When Penny says to keep her distance, I don’t quite think she meant for Desmond to jump 8 years into the future again, but that’s what happens.
Sayid gets Jack on the phone, who hands the phone off to Daniel. Danny Boy spouts off all kinds of stuff to Desmond and then tells him to try and find him at Oxford in the past and tell him a few settings for his experiment. Great Scot!
Des hits another wrinkle in time and meets up with Faraday and spooks him good when he can tell him about the settings and his rat Eloise. Daniel reveals his crazy contraption and his whiskered assistant. Danny Boy gets his flux capacitor fluxing and cranks the oscillator up to 11 unsticking Eloise in time. Desmond goes back to the future and gets to know a bit more about Minkowski, who says someone trashed the radio equipment a few days ago and that Penny has been trying to call the boat a few times now.
Des comes to in the absent-minded professor’s office. Mrs. Brisby is dead from a brain aneurysm and Desmond is set for the same fate unless he can find his constant- something in the present and future that he cares about (aka Penny). Minkowski leads Des and Sayid to the communications room and promptly drops dead.
In the past, Desmond locates Charles Widmore, who agree to talk to him. Not only does he only talk to Des while urinating, he also leave the faucet running for Des the peon to turn off for him. Des wants Penny’s address and he complies, warning Des that she hates his guts. Des visits Penny and asks for her phone number because he needs it in the future. Freaked out and pissed off as she is, Penny gives it to him.
As his life hangs in the balance, Des makes one last future hop and uses the number to call Penny, who has been waiting eight years for this call. He makes his constant connection, his life is saved and he and Penny share a jarringly beautiful minute or two of phone conversation. Warm fuzzies abound.
1. Desmond does not receive flashback or flashforward points of any kind. The trick is in the nature of what's going on in the episode. Traditional flashback or flashforward structure is set up in such a way that the characters are not living out the experiences of their past or future with knowledge of things to come/past. In other words, Kate in the present does not inhabit herself in the past. She's not aware of future events when we jump to her flashbacks.
In "The Constant," Desmond's consciousness is literally transported across time and space. He is fully aware and alert of both junctures in time, though he is very VERY confused. Thus, we the audience are not watching an isolated portion of his life. We are still watching what he is experiencing, so (in a way) we nver really flash back or forward.
While you could argue that Desmond's past self is having flashforwards, he's really not. He's literally jumping into his own mind 8 years in the future. Because of the odd nature of this time travel construct, Desmond is disqualified from flashback or flashforward points, though he does retain centricity points.
2. Because Desmond doesn't get FB or FF points, no one he encounters in the episode gets points for appearing in either a FB or FF. It's an unfortunate consequence of the bizarre nature of the episode and it held many of you back this week, but we have to make a ruling and stand by all of the fallout resulting from it. Withholding points from League characters is, unfortunately, part of the fallout. It's all in the effort of fairness.
3. There were several issues involving the Numbers this episode:
First, neither Desmond or Sayid got points for the Numbers on the helicopter because we never saw them and the Numbers together in a clear screencapable manner. While we know that they were on the helicopter, our rules state that you must be seen with them or say them. To give them points for the helicopter would have been crediting them on proximity to the Numbers. This would open a HUGE can of worms in which DarkUFO and I would have to evaluate every single instance of the Numbers to see if anyone else was within reasonable proximity to the source of the Numbers.
Secondly, Widmore did not get Numbers points for being in the auction room and bidding on lot #2342 because we never saw him with those Numbers. Again, this is the proximity rule. It is unfortunate, especially since Widmore was cut out from getting points for appearing in any kind of flashback/forward for Desmond.
Thirdly, Penny did not get credit for her address. She lives at 423 and Desmond got points because we saw him on screen with the plaque. Penny, however, was never on screen with the plaque visible,so she did not get Numbers points. Once more, this is our proximity rule coming into play.
4. Desmond didn't lose points for falling in the phone booth or in the bathroom. While we saw the end result of his fall, we didn't see him in the act of falling. Had he cuts himself or had a bruise as a result of his spills, we could have docked him points for it. The only time he lost points for falling was when we saw him falling in the stairwell. He also lost points for the nosebleed.
5. Desmond doesn't get points for discovering Minkowski. Keamy and Omar took him to the sick bay so he was led to where Minkowski lay restrained. It may not have been their intention for them to meet but Desmond was still led there. And technically, Frank took Des and Sayid to the freighter, so technically they wouldn't get points for any discoveries on the freighter because they were taken there.
6. Desmond getting checked out by the doc doesn't count as an eye close-up. Eye close-ups are credited when an episode or scene opens tight on the eyes as we are used to.
As you can see, the overall scoring for the episode was not good! With half of the appearing League characters being from Group 2, the odds were greatly stacked against you. Of course, if your team included four of the six, you weren't hurt too badly. If Desmond was your Group 2 pick and you had the other three characters on your team, then you wound up as one of our Fantasy Geniuses of the Week!Despite many of us performing horribly this week, I think "The Constant" helped to emphasize the unpredictability of the Fantasy League and Lost itself. Just like in sports, sometimes absolutely nothing goes your way. Only, when we say a professional sports team didn't show up for the game, they were at least present! In the LFL, "not showing up for the game" literally meant having everyone on your roster not appear. This happened to 200 contestants, including myself, The Lost Ninja and even Jorge Garcia!
Here are this weeks detailed points:
Group 1-
JACK (+5): Attendance (+5)
BEN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KATE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
LOCKE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
SAWYER (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 2-
DESMOND (+75): Attendance (+5); First On Screen (+15); Episode Centricity (+25); Uses/Encounters the Numbers- 2.342 as a variation of 23 & 42 (+20); Injures Someone- Slams Daniel against the chalkboard (-5); Gets Hurt- Falls over in the stairwell when his consciousness jumps into the future (-10); Gets Hurt- His nosebleed is a result of growing brain trauma (-10); Encounters the Numbers- Stands in front of Penny's address plaque with 423 on it (+20); Last Line in Episode (+5); Last League Character on Screen (+10)
SAYID (+10): Attendance (+5); First Line in Episode (+10); Injures Someone- Throws the doctor up against a cabinet (-5)
JULIET (+5): Attendance (+5)
HURLEY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MICHAEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 3-
CLAIRE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
JACOB (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
JIN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROUSSEAU (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
SUN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 4-
ALEX (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
BERNARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KARL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROSE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
WALT (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 5-
PENNY (+20): Attendance (+5); First On Screen (+15)
AARON (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
CINDY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MARVIN CANDLE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RICHARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 6-
WIDMORE (+5): Attendance (+5)
ETHAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
LIBBY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MS. HAWKING (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RACHEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
Group 7-
CHRISTIAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KELVIN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KEVIN CALISS (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MR. PAIK (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
NADIA (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
The highest possible total you could earn this week was 90 points. TO do this, you needed to have Jack, Desmond, Penny and Charles Widmore. Groups 3, 4 and 7 were all Lost Fantasy Losers this week so any characters from those groups lost you points.
A whopping 35 contestants scored Fantasy Genius of the Week honors this week. Here's the list:
.:aLdO aLcĂnTar:.
a clever name
Andruk
anarka_91
biffopolis
biffs
C05TU
charada
chopper
crinnyann
cylune
fedegaray
gershpoker
kiilaa
kristotxurulu
LoccheandNemo
Lost It
marik7772003
MeSlapMeThrowRock
mr.guinness
MrsJamesSawyer
Nequitia
ozmissage
Pargeus
Pargeus
Random Rambles of a Radio guy
Reyloren
Sagantje
sawwad66
sendtherain
staceylea22
uolen
wallytwotone
xscg
zharnocode
Congratulations to all of you! Hopefully next week our Fantasy Geniuses will be back in the triple digits.
I really have no idea what to expect with Week 6's episode. It's called "The Other Woman" and I have two theories:The easy theory is that it will be a Juliet episode. This is a cool prospect, because Juliet has made for some very high quality episodes so far, but it's also a bit of a downer, as it is a bit of an easy episode title to decipher. Juliet is both an Other and a woman. If it is a Juliet episode, I'll be on the edge of my seat the whole time because she's now at the top of my Deathwatch list. The action is ramping up and I fear that a death will bring things to a fever pitch and really launch Lost into a new realm of momentum.
I like Juliet, so I don't want her to die. I think it's possible because she's still one of the newest characters and we know that they typically don't last that long. Also, there's not much more for her to develop into. The freighter folk know she's not from 815, so she's at risk. These are scary times.
My other theory is that it will be a Sun and Jin episode in which we learn that Jin himself was unfaithful. Again, not exactly an upper of an episode, but it's at least reading more into the title than just going with Juliet as the focus.
Or I could be completely wrong on both counts and it'll be someone else's time to shine. We'll just have to wait and see. Just remember that the Week 6 Fantasy Update won't be posted until Wednesday the 12th! If you come on Monday expecting to find the scores, you'll be sorely disappointed.
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