Two months from today, the new season of Lost begins! I cannot wait, and further adding fuel to the fire is this new promo video that’s been making the rounds online. Now, the Lost producers are not allowing new footage from the upcoming season to be shown, because even a single shot could spoil the Season 5 cliffhanger; namely, were the Losties able to push a giant reset button on their lives? But more on that in a second. This video was made for a Spanish channel that carries Lost, and it’s pretty damn cool. Though it isn’t “official” in the sense that the guys who make the show didn’t have a hand in it, executive producer Carlton Cuse apparently loved it. Check it out:

Pretty funky, and very well done.

So on to the reboot debate. The fantastic Jeff Jensen at ew.com has written two columns so far about the upcoming season (here
and here), and it’s really gotten me thinking about how the show will play out next year. All signs seem to be pointing to a “reboot;” that our heroes were able to successfully change time in Season 5 by detonating the atomic bomb on the Island. What signs specifically? Well, the title of the Season 6 premiere episode is “L.A.X.” That could stand for something other than Los Angeles International Airport (why isn’t it L.A.I., anyway?), but it definitely teases the fact that Oceanic Flight 815 has landed in L.A., just like it was supposed to, and did not crash on the Island. Need more evidence? Check out these videos that were shown at Comic-Con this summer:

The fact that Oceanic Airlines advertises a spotless safety record obviously implies an alternate timeline, in which Flight 815 does not crash. But more interesting are the Hurley and Kate videos, because these imply that their lives were significantly different BEFORE having boarded 815; Hurley claims he’s had nothing but good luck after winning the lottery, and Kate apparently didn’t kill her father, but his apprentice by mistake.

Which begs the question: How does preventing Flight 815 from crashing impact events that happened BEFOREHAND?

Any theories?

Well, messing around with time travel and alternate timelines is certainly murky business. But the concept of the castaways preventing their crash onto the Island also rises another interesting point for us viewers: Does that nullify the past 5 seasons of events and character development and arcs and mysteries and things that people like me have gotten so obsessed over? This would make me nervous, except for the fact that I have all the faith in the world in the Lost writers to be able to juggle both scenarios in a way that ultimately makes sense. I have no idea what or how they’ll do it, but I know I can’t wait for the new season to start!