"You remember...surly-lookin' guy with the square jaw?"

I generally dislike TV series. There are a few notable exceptions which seem to be filmed with more an eye toward cinema than the TV-viewing public. Lost is defintely one of those shows. Other shows in this category would include The Shield, The Sopranos, and Nip/Tuck (in my humble opinion). I hear The Wire is also excellent.

Season 4 of Lost premiered at the end of January 2008 and is easily one of the most anticipated seasons of television in recent memory (obviously, The Sopranos was the most anticipated comeback show of 2007, with Lost Season 3 close behind).

For some strange reason, an obscure character in the series sticks out at me. That would be Federal Marshal Edward Mars, known in real life as Frederic Lehne. He has popped up in Kate's flashbacks nearly every single time, and I think the writers feel that good ol' Fred Lehne is a good enough actor - at least in that part he plays as a Federal Marshal - to keep him around as long as possible. There are a few interesting circumstances surrounding his character:

• He was the first character in the show who was murdered. Jack had to put him out of his misery after Sawyer attempted to use the last bullet (at the time) to attempt to do the same thing. All Sawyer accomplished was to puncture the guy's lungs, when he was already in painful shock due to shrapnel from the crash being lodged in his abdomen.


• He was the focal point of a few of the early episodes, in part because people wanted to know why he was carrying a gun


• My favorite: He was referred to as "the surly-lookin' guy with the square jaw...with the piece of shrapnel the size of Texas stickin' out his breadbox" by Sawyer during late Season 1, when the entire camp figures out that Kate was the prisoner being escorted back to the States.


• His voice is very distinctive. If you listen closely there's a nasal sarcasm which permeates almost everything he says, making it an adventure every time he opens his mouth. Even better, every time he does speak, he's usually criticizing Kate. During the episode, "What Kate Did", he tells Kate he knows exactly what she did and why, to which she rebuffs him, explaining that he has no idea why she blew up her "step-"daddy. He replies, "Lemme guess, goes something like this: white-trash mom divorces dad, marries new guy, only the thing is, he likes to drink. Daughter has listen to him bone her mommy in her old daddy's bedroom, and even that wouldn't be so bad if he didn't beat her mommy. Only the thing is...she loves him...she can't leave him. That sound about right?"

There are other amusing tidbits about the character, especially some of his verbatim quotes, which I'll post later. For now, go here for the "white trash" quote and to get a general idea of how great this character is. Every time the guy shows up, it's great. I only hope it comes out that he drew her to Australia and was somehow part of the plotline circulating on the fan forums, which comprises rich and/or powerful figures leading all of the survivors of the crash to the Island. It's likely wishful thinking but one never knows.

http://tviv.org/Lost/Edward_Mars