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'Lost': An Indiana Jones Connection?

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SMOKEY A vehicle for a disembodied alien mind?

JEFF JENSEN: Okay, let's forget that.
DOC JENSEN: There's at least three undeniable parallels. (1) A debate between reason and faith embodied by two main, rival characters. In Lost, it's Jack and Locke; in The X-Files, it's Scully and Mulder. (2) A tragic villain who possesses forbidden knowledge and enormous manipulative powers. In Lost, it's Ben, who had a cancerous tumor on his spine; in The X-Files, it's Cigarette Smoking Man, also known as Cancer Man. (3) Both shows have some kind of elemental black substance imbued with sentient consciousness. In Lost, it's Smokey; in The X-Files, it's the black oil, which, as it turned out, was a repository for alien life seeking to recombine with a more traditional body. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Are you trying to suggest that Smokey might also be a vehicle for a disembodied alien mind?
I'm thinking that it's a possibility. Like, what if to cheat death, the alien culture that was once on the Island downloaded the massive electrical current of their collective consciousness into a medium or vehicle that could sustain it? You know: Twister meets Being John Malkovich.

So if Smokey is E.T., then would Ben be its Elliott?
Ha! That's pretty funny. Actually, I was going to suggest that Ben might be trying to help Smokey ''phone home,'' if you will. Like, what if Smokey's spaceship crashed on the Island a loooong time ago, and the destruction of the vessel's warp engines ruptured reality and created the time-space phenomenon around the Island, and ever since, Smokey has been waiting for the day that our civilization catches up to its civilization so we can create technology that could either summon a rescue vessel or even repair its own spaceship (which is buried deep below the Island) and go home? In a sense, Smokey could be a castaway, too; he's...lost.

But how does Ben fit into that theory? You said he was helping Smokey?
Right, well you know that part about the ship's warp drive rupturing reality and creating that time-space phenomenon?

Yeah?
Well, what's happened is that, ever since, people have been coming to the Island and trying to figure out how to exploit that anomaly for their advantage.

How so?
The anomaly can be harnessed for time travel. Smokey has a problem with that, because he doesn't want the timeline screwed around with in any way that could prevent human civilization from becoming sophisticated enough to fix his ship. Ben has been helping Smokey in that effort.

Why?
I don't know. Like I said: I was going to suggest this theory, but I decided against it.

Because it's totally stupid?
No, because I'm not totally convinced Ben really has the kind of monster-in-the-closet rapport with Smokey like everyone else is currently theorizing.

It looked pretty obvious to me. He sicced Smokey on those freighter freaks like a bloodthirsty pit bull!
Actually, we don't know if he did that at all. We're just assuming he did, based on the appearance of cause and effect. But like Desmond David Hume's philosopher namesake always insisted, you can't always trust the appearance of cause and effect. For example, consider this scenario: What if Ben didn't go to Smokey's hideaway but instead got into a time machine, projected his consciousness ahead in time an hour or later, and learned about Smokey's attack on New Otherton, then zipped back and planned an escape plan around such a plan?

Yeah, I buy that. But I'm not buying your alien crap or Smokey-is-an-E.T. nonsense. It's easier for me to believe that Smokey is a supernatural entity, like that ''Jinn'' thing you mentioned a couple weeks back in your wormhole/time-travel theory.
Okay. But just remember what the late, great Arthur C. Clarke said.

And what did he say?
''Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.''

You know, it's amazing to me more people don't find you annoying. I don't know why I even put up with you.
You and me both.

Bye, Doc.
Bye, Jeff.

Tomorrow: my recap of ''Something Nice Back Home.''

Next week: therapy.

Doc Jensen

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