But here are my favorite bits about Archie's beanie-wearing buddy. First, his last name is Jones. Keep your eyes peeled for that name in tonight's episode, too. Second: Jughead once starred in a spin-off comic called — and I'm not making this up — Jughead's Time Police. Check out the cover from the first issue and then peruse the synopsis. The story concerns a character whose family tree is being erased from history, thus negating the character's existence. Didn't Charlotte Lewis — who shares a surname with C.S. Lewis name and has red hair, just like the girl on the cover of that Jughead comic — didn't she complain in the last episode about forgetting her mother's maiden name?
But the best Jughead reference lies within this:
THE GREAT SMOKEY DRAGON OF LOST
Or, Meet the egghead who might be turning the sci-fi wheels of season 5.
His name is John Wheeler, a super-important physicist who used to hang with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. He died last year, at the age of 96, on April 11, 2008 — or 11 days before ''The Shape of Things To Come,'' if you keep track of time by seasons of Lost like I do. Wheeler was the man who coined the term ''black hole.'' He also coined ''wormhole.'' He also coined the phrase ''it from bit,'' the idea that, in his words, ''every item of the physical world has at bottom — a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation.'' You know, just like Lost. Right? RIGHT?!
Wheeler was opposed to pseudo-science — supernatural stuff like psychic phenomenon — and yet he championed a concept that to ordinary folks may sound very mind-over-matter weird. Wheeler suggested that we live in a ''participatory universe,'' a form of time loop theory. From a 2002 Discover Magazine article about Wheeler entitled ''Does the Universe Exist When We're Not Looking?'': ''Wheeler's hunch is that the universe is built like an enormous feedback loop, a loop in which we contribute to the ongoing [creation] of not just the present and the future but the past as well.'' (Wheeler's premise is linked to a theory called the anthropic principle; for a user-friendly articulation, check out John L. Casti's 1989 popular science book, entitled — get this — Paradigms Lost.)
Gonzo? Hell yeah. But remember the opening sequence of ''Because You Left:'' We saw Daniel Faraday present in — nay, participating in — the Dharma Initiative past. And didn't we see Dharma workers on the verge of excavating the ancient donkey wheel, the mechanism that presumably activates the Island's time jumps? Does that ''wheel'' = ''Wheeler''?
NEXT PAGE: Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Starlight Express
You Might Also Like
- Doc Jensen on 'Lost' 'Lost': Redemption song | Jeff Jensen
- TV Article 'Lost': Doc Jensen examines the new ''Lost Supper'' promo | Jeff Jensen
- TV Recap 'Lost' recap: Taking Charge | Jeff Jensen
- TV Recap 'Lost' recap: A twist of fate | Jeff Jensen
- TV Review | Ken Tucker
- Doc Jensen on 'Lost' 'Lost': Groundhog Day conspiracy? | Jeff Jensen
