Q: Ooooookay. Moving on: Have you seen that new Dharma Initiative orientation video that everyone's talking about?
A: I did! And if you haven't, some background: at their Comic-Con fan summit, the producers claimed they had found and edited together strips of film found inside a Hanso Foundation warehouse in Iceland. The footage is comprised of outtakes from a botched attempt to produce an orientation film for a Dharma facility known as ''Station Six, or The Orchid.'' You can now find the clip in the Lost section at abc.com.
Q: Is it true that in the Comic-Con version of the film, Dr. Marvin Candle — or ''Dr. Edgar Halowax'' as he calls himself this time around — dropped an F-bomb?
A: He did! It was pretty funny. In fact, the uncharacteristic expletive — combined with bits like Candle/Halowax complaining about having to wear makeup (''I'm a scientist!'' he conspicuously insists/protests) and fastidiously smoothing the wrinkles his white lab coat — give this strange artifact the feel of being a parody of a Dharma orientation film.
Q: So what's your analysis?
A: For starters, it would be inaccurate to call this thing an official orientation film. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this film was never finished because the Orchid project was abandoned due to the dangerous, unpredictable environment inside the station. (Could this station be the one that mysteriously ''divested'' from the Dharma Initiative, according to the Blast Door Map?)
Q: By ''dangerous'' and ''unpredictable,'' we presume you're referring to the part in the Orchid film in which Dr. Halowax freaks out over the mysteriously replicating bunny?
A: Bingo. At one point, we see Dr. Halowax holding a white rabbit with the number 15 inked on its side — and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, another bunny with the number 15 inked on its side appears behind him. Halowax starts to panic. He clutches Number 15 (No. 1) tightly to his chest, desperate to make sure that the twin bunnies don't share the same space. Then he demands that the cameraman stop filming. The last thing we see is Halowax, now calm, stroking the rabbit and saying, ''As you have no doubt surmised, Station 6, or 'the Orchid,' is not a botanical research unit.''
Q: Yeah, that was weird. Got any theories?
A: Many. The Orchid could have been conducting time travel experiments. To wit: Number 15 (No. 2) is actually the Number 15 (No. 1) sent from the future. This would explain why Halowax got so spooked — according to sci-fi convention, lore, it would be catastrophic if someone/something touches his/her/its time traveled doppelganger.
Q: That's an interesting conjecture when you consider the whole time-travel story with Desmond this past season. Any other ideas?
A: Wellll...maybe the Orchid was all about cloning. Or maybe the Orchid was an access point into alternate realities; I'm taken by the notion that the station could conjure doppelgängers from parallel universes. Or maybe...maybe this is Ben's mythical ''Box,'' the place on the Island where your deepest wish is made manifest; maybe what Number 15 (No. 1) wanted more than anything was a friend.
Q: You know, as you were talking there about all that weird stuff, I couldn't help recalling your wacky theory about misguided scientists, teleportation, and The Fly.
A: Are my Orchid theories really that bad?
NEXT PAGE: Think about The Prestige
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