Things I never knew about Lost

* The production budget for the two-hour pilot was $12 million, far greater than the cost of most television shows. This led to Disney firing ABC Entertainment Chairman Lloyd Braun for greenlighting the show, which went on to became ABC’s biggest hit in years.

* The French transmission was dubbed in German for the French version.

* Charlie writes the letters L, A, T and E on each of his bandages around his fingers, spelling out LATE. In numerology, you assign numbers to each letter of the alphabet: a=1, b=2, c=3 … z=26, to find hidden meanings in text. Applying this to LATE (what Charlie writes on his bandages):
-L=12.
-A=1.
-T=20.
-E=5.
12x1x20x5=1200. 1200 can be divided by 4, 8, 15 and 16, which are almost each one The Numbers. Plus, those are 4 numbers. Once again, 4 is one of The Numbers.

* Kate’s mug shot number is 961136, which not only contains a reversed 16, but is perfectly divisible by 4, 8 and 16.

* Character name: John Locke
John Locke is the name of a famous Enlightenment philosopher (1632-1704), who championed democratic ideals, as well as promoting logic and reason. Men like Thomas Jefferson are considered intellectual heirs of John Locke, and thus he can be thought of as the godfather of the US Constitution.

* Sayid is from Tikrit, Iraq, the town where Saddam Hussein was born and later captured by the U.S Army.

* Charlie’s shoulder tattoo reads “Living is easy with eyes closed”. This is a lyric from the song “Strawberry Fields Forever” by The Beatles.

* The lyrics to “You all Everybody” from Driveshaft were originally heard by writer/producer Damon Lindelof on a television show. An angry audience member shouted “You all everybody acting like it’s stupid people wearing expensive clothes!”, which are the exact (and only) lyrics to the song.

* Although Sayid is a soldier, his surname “Jarrah” is the Arabic word for “surgeon”, which is the profession of Jack Shephard.

* At the end of episode 1×09, as Sayid enters the jungle, he hears indecipherable whispers,but by isolating the whispers it is possible to tell what they say:

Lucky the man can’t run
He’s a crash survivor
Why only isolate him
I said we do… he’s coming
(click)
You have no idea how he got here?
(Radio static)
(Beeping sound)

Right here
He’s right behind me
It’s okay
Who cares
Help him when?
Crash survivor
Why only isolate him?
Standard orders… go
You have no idea

He’s coming
Security issue
You have no idea how he got here?
Skip it.

* Rousseau is named after the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. One of his more famous papers, “Origins and Foundations of Inequality Among Men”, asserted that civilization created all the ills of mankind. He asserted that people were horrible to one another and did not help one another because of civilization and the only way for man to be free was to spurn civilization and become a “natural man”, living in the woods away from all convieniences and civilizations.

* The name Ethan Rom is an anagram of the letters found in the words “other man”.

* Vincent, the dog, is actually played by a female dog, whose name is Madison.

* Jin: (to his father) Her father wants me to deliver watches to his associates in Sydney and Los Angeles.

In China, giving a watch is a gift that symbolises the end of a person’s long lasting job. So giving watches is a gentle way of saying his job is to fire people. Also, note that Jin probably did a job in Sydney when he was there with his wife, and was going to fire yet more people in Los Angeles.

* In the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” by Douglas Adams, the number 42 is referred to as the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

* The Black Rock being revealed as a slave ship raises some interesting questions. From what era did it come? Looking at the ship it appears to be a multi-masted steamer from the late 19th or early 20th Century, when ships used a combination of sails and coal powered engines. It is way too modern to be from the “classical” period of African slave trade, which was mostly on the west coast of Africa and had been outlawed by most countries by the early 19th century (The US in 1808 I believe). According to Locke it was probably headed from the East Coast of Africa to a mining colony. There is still slavery practiced in remote areas of Africa but one wonders if they are exporting to the Indies. Also, if the ship is truely over 100 years old, how did a wood and steel vessel survive the heat and humidity for that long? It is true that older vessels have been kept in use in poorer areas of the world well past their primes (Galveston, TX features the “Elissa” which was an early 20th century sailing vessel that had been used as late as the 80’s as a cigarette smuggling boat in the Adriatic). I would guess that the Black Rock probably wrecked sometime during the 1930’s – 1950s.

* When Eko introduces himself as Mr. Eko, Sawyer asks him if that’s like “Mister Ed”, referring to the TV show about a talking horse.

* Sawyer said in episode 2×05 “I think it’s time we stage a prison break, Mike”. An allusion to the TV show Prison Break. The first season was about a character named Michael Scofield attempting to break himself and his brother out of prison. The weired thing is that the show premiered a year after Lost (and also, the plane crash). So Sawyer shouldn’t have known about it.

* When the Taillies get to the top of the cliff in episode 2×06 and lose Cindy, they hear whispering:

“Who’s this in the woods?
Sawyer
Ana
I’m in someone’s dream
Ich Weiss Nicht(German for “I don’t know”)
She’s heavy
Black rock
Bring the boy
I’m in someone’s dream

Look in the eyes, right?
Do you see her?
It’s the brothers that help us
I can see eye to eye
Sawyer
Did she see?
Bossey, eh missy?
I’m in someone’s dream
I know it all, I know it all
It’s in the eyes
I can see eye to eye
I’m in someone’s dream

I know it all, I know it all
Do you see her?
I can see eye to eye
Did she see?
Shannon
Hide behind me
Bossy, eh missy?
I’m in someone’s dream
I know it all (repeated in background)
Under the eye
It’s the eyes
I can see eye to eye
She’s bossy
I’m in someone’s dream”
–
These are the whispers that are heard in the jungle as Shannon and Sayid see Walt, and continues as Shannon runs toward Ana Lucia:

“Relax dude
She likes the guy
She’s coming
I don’t know if I can run, but I can yell
Shannon sighs (Scream)
Dying sucks
Hurry up
Shh

She likes this guy
Dying sucks
Hi sis
Here she comes, here she comes
His mouth
She drives me crazy
Hurry up
I see eye to eye
I see…

Relax dude
She likes the guy
What do you think we should do?
She’s coming
We should hide, we should run
Heard some voice
See ya (or possibly “Lucia”)
Hide the scope
Hurry up”

* 108 is the sum of the numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42).

* In 4×01 it’s revealed that 6 people from the crash left the island. In “Exodus: Part 1”, Rousseau said that (with her) was 6 people from her team that arrived to the island.

* Jeremy Bentham: The pseudonym used in this episode refers to the British philosopher and economist (1748-1832)who advocated the concept of utilitarianism, which basically states that the moral worth of an action depends on the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. His work was very influential among the utopian socialists, who sought to build the perfect community.

* Among the devices in Mrs. Hawkings’s laboratory is a Foucault’s pendulum. Umberto Eco used Foucault’s Pendulum as the title for his novel offering a conspiracy theory to explain all human history.

* Both Claire Littleton and Danielle Rousseau crashed on the Island in the seventh months of their pregnancies, and they also both gave birth on the Island only to have tragic circumstances happen to them that led to others raising their children.

* Daniel’s lab rat Eloise was named after his mother, Eloise Hawking.

* American McGee’s Alice: The idea of Charlotte spending her childhood on the island and be later told that it was all dreamed up is reminiscent of the plot of American McGee’s Alice, in which a suicidal Alice Liddell in her late teens is locked away in a mental asylum where her memories of Wonderland are considered delusions of self-hatred and guilt. Both Charlotte and Alice are threatened with death if they should ever dare to revisit the innocent magic place of their childhood.

*via TV.com