From Lostpedia

Orchid Orientation video

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First Introduced

Comic-Con 2007
"There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3"

Last Seen

"There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3"

Owned by

DHARMA Initiative

Found by

Ben and Locke

Used by

DHARMA Initiative

The Orchid Orientation video is a video produced by the DHARMA Initiative to explain the functions and properties of the Orchid station to DHARMA workers stationed there. It is, like the other DHARMA films, hosted by Pierre Chang under the pseudonym "Dr. Edgar Halliwax". When Ben and Locke entered the Orchid, Ben found the video in a drawer and gave it to Locke to keep him occupied so Ben could work on moving the Island. In the video, Dr. Candle discusses the purpose of the Orchid station and appears to be about to conduct a time-travel experiment before the tape malfunctions. ("There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3")

Orientation video

This is the video from "There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 & 3".

Transcript

Time discrepancy

There appears to be approximately a 90 second time discrepancy between the video's actual elapsed time compared to the VCR playback counter.

• Actual start-time 0:00 / VCR start-time unknown: The video begins with the standard station intro screen and music, then goes directly into Marvin's greeting.
• Actual end-time 1:35 / VCR end-time 3:06: Approximately 90 seconds later, the video begins to rewind for no apparent reason; however, the VCR shows that 3 minutes have elapsed.
  • VCR end-time of 3:06 can be deduced since the first shot of VCR playback counter, reading 3:04, happens at the actual time 1:37 mark, 2 second after the tape auto-rewound (i.e., 3:04 + 0:02 = 3:06)

There are a few explanations for this discrepancy:

• A, It was a completely unintentional production mistake and should be considered a blooper/continuity error; in other words, they didn't intend for us to notice the times.
• B, The VCR playback counter started at 1:31 and wasn't reset to 0:00 by Ben or Locke before playback; therefore, it's unintentional but explainable within the context of the episode.
  • An estimated VCR start-time of 1:31 can be deduced by subtracting the actual end-time from the VCR end-time (i.e., 3:06 - 1:35 = 1:31)
• C, The unusual time properties of the Orchid caused approximately 90 seconds of video to take twice as long to playback (i.e., 90 second * 2 = 3 minutes)
• D, It is standard practice on TV to leave 1 empty minute, then 30 seconds of "bars" with a 1KHz tone for audio at the start of every tape. The first actual useful timecode for a standard pro TV video tape is 1:31. The production team might have adjusted the timecodes the way they are used to do.

Outtakes

The Orchid Orientation film outtakes are a set of clips/outtakes from the filming of the orientation for the Orchid station. It was first presented at Comic-Con 2007 by the Lost panel, and later appeared on ABC's website as well as on the Region 1 third season DVDs.

ABC.com video

This is the outtakes video from ABC's official website, without the profanity and countdown alarm sound. When the object drops, it seems to make no crashing sound.

An image of Gerald DeGroot is shown for a brief moment

An image of the Narvik, Norway, Town Hall, flashed in the film.

Comic-Con video

Adult content and/or strong language This article/section contains language and subject matter not suitable for younger readers or those who are easily offended.

A quick image flashed in the film. Also seen in the Room 23 video Karl is found watching.

A clip of a person on a bicycle at the Barracks, flipped upside down, that is flashed in the film.

This is the video as it premiered at Comic-Con, with the profanity, countdown alarm sound, crashing sound, and audience reaction.

Outtakes transcript

This transcript is based on the outtakes video found on ABC.com. For a transcript of the preceding interview, including the introductory information for this video, see Official Lost Podcast transcript/August 2, 2007.

^*Note that Halliwax's line "... the fuck?!" from the original Comic-con screening was changed to "... the hell?!" in the publicly-distributed version on the ABC website. Also the alarm sound present in the original screening, apparently the same as the Swan's countdown clock alarm sound, was removed.

See also

• Dharma booth video, shown at Comic-Con 2008

Trivia

• The logo on Candle/Halliwax's jacket is from The Swan.
• There are several split-second cuts in the film of images from other DHARMA Initiative videos:
  • 0:40: Gerald DeGroot and students in a laboratory, from the Swan Orientation Film
  • 0:49: The Hanso Foundation building in Denmark, also from the Swan Orientation Video
  • 1:10: A title card reading "God loves you as He loved Jacob, from the Room 23 video
  • 1:43: An inverted shot of a bicyclist riding through the Barracks
    • A bicycle (in a rather deteriorated state) can be seen on the ground when Sayid, Kate and Miles visit the Barracks to rescue Charlotte from Locke's group. ("The Economist") It may or may not be the same bicycle as the one seen on the video.
• The rabbits in the film have the number 15 on them. In "Every Man for Himself", a rabbit with the number 8 on its back was shown to Sawyer.
  • The second rabbit numbered 15 does not appear until after the incident, suggesting the arrival of this cloned/replicated/future/past 15 caused the incident to occur.
• In the episode "The Shape of Things to Come", Ben awoke suddenly in the middle of the Tunisian Sahara wearing a hooded parka bearing a name tag reading "Halliwax", the alias used in the orientation film, and the Orchid logo.
• The background changes after the "God loves you as he loved Jacob" cut:
  • The black bottle behind Halliwax is replaced with a microscope, presumably the one that was on the shelf to his right before the cut.
  • A red rectangular object appears on the shelf to his right, above where the microscope had been.
• The outtakes shown at Comic-Con 2007 is included on the region B release of the Season 3 Blu-ray set.

Unanswered questions

For fan theories about these unanswered questions, see: Orchid Orientation video/Theories

• Who is the technician standing at the control console?
• Why is it important to keep inorganic material out of the Vault?
• Why do the rabbits need to be kept apart?