Lostwatch: Premature Explication Edition

SPOILER ALERT: There are no spoilers in the following post about Lost, because the new season doesn't start until next Wednesday. Although who knows? Maybe I'm lying! Maybe there are spoilers! Maybe you should read anyway to find out! You're so totally going to, aren't you?

Last night I watched the pre-season clips episode of Lost, although I had no particular professional or even personal-entertainment reason to do so and was already up to speed, having just written a four-page article on the show. I'm just that big a dork. A few thoughts:

1. So why did the clips episode pay such attention to that went-nowhere subplot, from the end of season 2, in which Hurley asked Sayid if he could fix a radio to pull in signals from outside the island? Is it going to have some unsuspected significance in season 3? Was it just a way of telling new viewers that, yes, the island really exists in the world, and it's not Purgatory? Will the survivors pick up some other outside-world transmissions on the radio next season other than Moonlight Serenade? Or did the makers just want to include a storyline involving Hurley even though, for some reason, the clips show totally ignored Libby? Speaking of which...

2. Why no Boone or Shannon in the clips show? Saving money on residuals? Sure, they were more significant in season 1 than season 2, but man. Being killed on a show is one thing. Being erased from the clips show is like having your face scratched out of the family pictures.

3. The narration--which, while I don't have the information at my fingertips, I believe was done by Michael Emerson--was further proof the producers were right to keep him around. (In interviews for my Lost feature, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof said he was only meant to have 2 episodes last year, but the dailies from the set were so good, they went back and beefed up his role.) The guy could give you the chills narrating the phone book--which, for much of the clips episode, with all its corny plays on the word "lost," he might as well have been. Hopefully they threw a few more bucks his way. Don't listen to what anyone says, Fake Henry Gale: you are one of the good guys.