LOST -- Off the Island
Yes, it's Wednesday again, which means that 9-10p.m. slot is a lonely, lonely place for us Lost fans. But luckily, there's something that's pretty damn good to fill in for our pals who are stuck on Craphole Island. Jeff Heimbuch is a director with Bamfer Productions, and over the past few months he's been working with a professional crew to film a would-be episode of Lost, called "Off the Island."

Last week, the episode was officially launched. Jeff sent me an e-mail to let me know, and I finally got around to watching it a few nights ago, and was very impressed! Here's the gist: Chase (guy in green shirt in the picture there) is the brother of Scott Jackson. You know him as half of the Scott and Steve combo, the one who wasn't killed. (Yeah, yeah, I hear you saying, "But Nikki, he WAS killed... Ethan killed Scott, though Sawyer thought it was Steve, and Hurley corrected him! If you still think that, just read pp 97-98 of my book, and I'll clear it up for ya. You've been had by the Lost writers.) Anyway, poor Chase Jackson finds out his brother's plane has gone down, but a couple of days later he's contacted by someone from the Dharma Initiative and he is forced to do some crazy things to try to keep his brother alive.

It's a great idea, and since we know virtually nothing about what's going on in the outside world, Heimbuch and his cohorts pretty much had carte blanche to do whatever the heck they wanted. The acting is pretty strong, considering this is a fan movie (I especially like the creepy dude who's also pictured above; I thought he was great). I like how they've incorporated elements from Lost (look for little clues in the background) and even used the soundtrack music.

My only suggestion, if there's a way to make a difference, is for them to add a whooshing sound like the one used on the show to indicate a flashback. On Lost, we get that strange sound every time we go back into the past, but it's also obvious the time is changing, because (with the exception of Maternity Leave and Three Minutes) they're NOT ON THE ISLAND. However, in this movie, when they flashed back to the past, it wasn't clear they had because Chase looked the same, his apartment looked the same, and so it was confusing. At one point we see him make a mark on the wall that would suggest many weeks had passed, but in the next scene he tells someone his brother had died 4 days earlier, and I wasn't sure what was going on. Then I figured it out by the time the next scene was going on.

So it's just a little beef, but overall, I would definitely recommend this to Lost fans. You can download it at Bamfer Productions, or you can watch it in five parts on YouTube, which is what I did.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

Enjoy, and post your thoughts here. Congrats, Jeff!