THE POLYMORPHOUSLY PERPLEXING PUZZLE OF MARVIN CANDLE
What the Dharma Dude of Many Names tells us about Lost

To further prepare you for tonight's premiere, I thought I'd recap the previous appearances of Pierre Chang, a.k.a. Dr. Marvin Candle, Dr. Mark Wickmund, Dr. Edgar Halliwax — the mercurial emcee/narrator of all the Dharma Initiative orientation films. You'll soon see Chang as you've never seen him before, although as usual, he brings with him a whole bunch of insight into (and bunches more questions about) the Island's mythology. I recently realized that Chang embodies the show's keen sense of self-awareness, and the subtext of his messages speak to the state of Lost itself. My analysis of his major appearances (extracurricular Comic-Con videos not included):

FIRST APPEARANCE: ''Orientation'' (Season 2, Episode 3)
LOCATION: Station 3: The Swan
ALIAS: Marvin Candle

CHANG SAYS: Hatch occupants must routinely input a code every 108 seconds, without fail, or risk unspecified consequences.
SUBTEXT: ''Keep watching.'' Having just asked the audience to buy into its weird, open-to-interpretation Dharma Initiative mythology, Lost was no doubt sweating the prospect of taxing patience and losing audience. Faithful button pushing = a plea for patience and continued faithful viewing.

SECOND APPEARANCE: ''?'' (Season 2, Episode 21)
LOCATION: Station 5: The Pearl
ALIAS: Mark Wickmund

CHANG SAYS: Hatch occupants must observe a psychological experiment taking place in another Hatch (presumably The Swan) and take careful notes. The implication: that button-pushing business is meaningless.
SUBTEXT: ''Do you trust us?'' Ditching the lab coat for a '70s-era car salesman/game show host suit and sporting a devilish grin, Wickmund embodied the possibility that Lost's many mysteries may not add up to anything, thus making fools of theory-mongers. Did the show truly deserve the obsessive scrutiny of its fans?

THIRD APPEARANCE: ''Enter 77'' (Season 3, Episode 11)
LOCATION: Station 4: The Flame
ALIAS: Unspecified.
CHANG SAYS: Those who manage this station, Dharma's telecommunications complex must execute certain protocols if the ''hostiles'' infiltrate the facility. One of them involves inputting a self-destruct code.
SUBTEXT: ''If the show is going to end, let's end it on our own terms.'' Chang's ominous appearance came during Lost's most troubled season. Critics turned on the show, ratings dropped, and everyone — fans, producers, and even the network — realized that to preserve the cool thing that was Lost, the show needed to move into its endgame story lines, which meant receiving permission to actually end the show.
TANGENTIAL ASIDE: Until this point, the trajectory of Chang's appearances mirrored the evolution of television: from film to video to computer file. Note also the introduction of interactivity: The Flame recording was an Easter egg hidden inside a computer chess game. I find it impishly ironic that this interactivity facilitates the destruction of a station that's basically... an old fashioned television broadcasting facility. Hmmm....

NEXT PAGE: More Marvin, and the Competing Timelines Theory of Lost

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