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FLY OCEANIC? Billboard in N.Y.'s Times Square touting the Lost airline's ''service'' to London

SAM THOMAS: ASSIGNMENT IN SUMATRA
The pre-season 4 high jinks of ''Missing Pieces'' and ''Find 815''

To get us psyched for Lost season 4, ABC has launched two new-media thingies of interest to both casual and obsessed fans. The first is called ''Missing Pieces''. These are two-minute vignettes that fill in sections of the Lost saga not seen on the show. They're like deleted scenes, except they're not, since they were written in retrospect and shot last fall. Part of their (small) pleasure is figuring out where they fit into the larger Lost jigsaw. My favorite so far is a chess game between Ben and Jack in which the Über Other suggests that the good doctor may one day regret leaving The Island. Had this tidbit been part of season 3, it would have foreshadowed Jack's ''We have to go back!'' flash forward in the season finale. Many of you have asked for my opinion on some of these ''Missing Pieces''; my intention is to review each of them once they've all been posted.

The other thingie streaming through the ether is a Web-based ''alternate reality game'' dubbed ''Find 815.'' It's similar to ''The Lost Experience,'' the involving but confounding Internet initiative that took place during the summer of 2006. ''Find 815'' is less complex and the thematic link to the series itself is simpler and clearer. It tells the tale of Sam Thomas, a bearded Aussie and ex-Oceanic Airlines techie unhappy with his former bosses for ending the search for Oceanic 815 survivors. Why? Because his girlfriend, Sonya, was on the plane, working as a fight attendant. (Note the shades of ''Lost Experience'' character Gary Troup, author of Bad Twin and an Oceanic 815 casualty, who was dating stewardess-turned-Other Cindy.)

Produced by a company in Australia and developed in conjunction with Lost's producers (that is, until they went on strike), ''Find 815'' started on Dec. 28 with a new Oceanic Airlines website, flyOceanicair.com announcing the company's relaunch; it had suspended service following the crash of Oceanic 815 on Sept. 22, 2004. In a clever bit of reality-blurring viral marketing, we real-life media people received a press release trumpeting Oceanic's rebirth and service to nine cities: Sydney; Seoul; New York; Los Angeles; Miami; Knoxville; Portland, Ore.; Tustin, Calif.; and Ames, Iowa. (Each locale, by the way, has a connection to a Lost character. Kate is from Iowa, while Hurley's box company — the same one that employed Locke — is in Tustin.) There are even outdoor billboards in some of these markets — including one in Times Square (pictured) — advertising the airline. Nifty.

On Dec. 31, flyoceanicair.com was hacked by Thomas. Since then, the narrative action has shifted to find815.com. In the first chapter, which dribbled out last week, Sam received a cryptic e-mail containing a photo of Sonya — but because he's one of those romantic types/creepy boyfriends that know every microscopic inch of their lover's visage, he noticed something odd in this particular pic. It's here where the interactive gamesmanship begins. Using magnifying tools à la Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, players can see messages that have been embedded in Sonya's eyes, scar, and mole. One of them mentions The Black Rock, the slave ship that's beached on The Island. Another message references The Sunda Trench, located in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sumatra. According to Lost lore, this is not only the general vicinity where Oceanic 815 crashed, but also the possible whereabouts of The Black Rock.

As Chapter One ended, Sam, suddenly hopeful that Sonya's fate is still an open question, had booked a flight to Jakarta to hook up with a salvage vessel called Christiane 1 that's days away from embarking on a trip to the Sunda Trench.

Another important piece of business could be found in the coding of the e-mail containing Sonya's picture. It mentions an organization known as The Maxwell Group and even nods to a website: the-maxwell-group.com. However, if you try to access the site, you'll get a message telling you to wait until Feb. 1 — the day after Lost's season premiere.

NEXT PAGE: Theories! The Doc takes on Sam Thomas and The Maxwell Group


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