The Secret Of Lost. Revealed!

Spoiler Warning!!
I am about to reveal to you the secret of the ABC hit TV series Lost!! Read on only if you want your mind blown!! You have been warned!!

Lost is Peter Pan.

Oh, not completely, but the basic elements are there in one form or another.

Peter is a mischievous boy who refuses to grow up. He spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of the Lost Boys, from time to time meeting ordinary children from the world outside.

Hmm... Richard never seems to age and has been spotted off the Island more than once...

Peter is quick to point out how smart he is, even when it's obvious he's screwed up. He has a devil-may-care attitude, and is fearless when it comes to putting himself in danger, yet Peter always wins in the end.

Hmm... sounds a little like Ben to me...

Peter is concerned for nothing but rip-snortin', rootin'-tootin' magical adventures. To hell with the real world, having fun on the island of Neverland is the only important thing to him.

Hmm... could that be John Locke...

It might be that all three represent a single, different facet of Peter Pan.

OK, that's a little far-fetched, but try the following on for size...

Peter's nemesis is Captain Hook, whose hand he cuts off in a duel. Marvin Candle/Mark Wickmund/Edgar Halliwax, the Asian scientist seen in the Dharma Initiative orientation videos has a prosthetic hand. (As seen in the two orientation videos for The Swan and the Pearl.) This was confirmed by two writers in a Lost podcast. As one of the Dharma Initiative, wouldn't Ben and Richard consider Candle the enemy? And didn't Ben and Richard conspire to slaughter the Dharma Initiative?

From time to time Peter visits the real world and befriends children there. Wendy Darling, whom he recruits to be the 'mother' of the Lost Boys, is the most significant. Later, Peter brings Wendy's daughter Jane to Neverland for the same reason. And motherhood is an important part of the mystery of the Island. Pregnant women die on the Island so... no mothers. Does Juliette represent Wendy Darling? Instead of acting as the mother, she is recruited to solve the problem of motherhood on the Island.

And then there's Tick-Tock, the Crocodile. Tick-Tock swallowed an alarm clock which could always be heard ticking, signaling his entrances in the 1954 Disney movie. Sound like a certain clanky, smoky island puffball? The mechanical clanking noises which signal "Smoky's" entrances are almost too uncanny a coincidence to ignore. After Peter chops off Hook's hand, he tosses it to Tick-Tock. I wonder if we'll see Candle/Wickmund/Halliwax lose his hand to "Smoky" next season?

Still not convinced? Fine, I give you the following irrefutable evidence:

Disney still owns rights to Peter Pan, and in owning ABC, also owns Lost.

Upon arriving in Neverland, the flying Darling children are blown out of the air by a cannon. Sound like a certain plane crash?

In Pan, pirates ran around kidnapping children. In Lost, the 'Others' dressed something like pirates, (OK, more like homeless beach bums,) and ran around kidnapping children.

Two of Wendy's brothers adopt the ways of the Lost Boys. Their names are John and Michael. Two major characters in Lost join forces with Ben: John Locke and Michael Dawson.

Both stories involve a dog: Nana in Pan and Vincent in Lost.

Both have sailing ships: Pan's Jolly Roger and Lost's Black Rock.

Peter does everything he can to keep the Darling children from returning home, just as Ben attempts to prevent the Oceanic passengers from doing the same.

In the unauthorized sequels to Peter Pan by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, Peter and his friends must combat an evil group known as the "Others."

For crying out loud, Peter's gang is called the LOST boys!!

Obviously, if Lost is indeed based on Peter Pan, the writers are not going to give us an easy retelling. They'll merge some characters into one. Others will be split into two or more. The story will be reshaped to suit modern audiences and there will be plenty of twists, turns and dead ends. If they gave us a straight retelling, we wouldn't be watching and it would have been over in about two hours.

Perhaps, like the Wizard of Oz references, the similarities above are just more red herrings, but why has no one else has noticed them after four years? Does JJ Abrams or ABC have a cadre of dedicated net-surfers out there crushing all who dare to publish these similarities? Will this blog entry be suspiciously deleted soon after it posts? Or am I just the smartest son-of-a-bitch on the planet?

I'm betting on the latter!