remember when kate sawyer and jack went after micheal with locke and the other had then surrounded?why didnt the others take those three there and then?i know this is a bit outdated but it has always bothered me,maybe ive missed something.

i know ben was captured and micheal helped him escape before dragging them along,but ben wasnt in the picture when they had their first chance.

It IS really weird. Only thing I can come up with was that they thought of a new experiment after that incident--perhaps based on additional surveillance.

I see you are new...welcome aboard!

I would strongly recommend using the advanced search function and surfing around the board as this topic has been discussed at length in various threads...you aren't the only one who thought that was very strange of them to not take the crew when they had them...

Happy posting:)

To keep us in the suspense for the finale i guess:p

all i can think of as that they had a change in hoo they wanted to take or sumthin

megz x

bad writing

There's a theory floating around somewhere involving time travel / time loops that suggests (if you extrapolate) The Others didn't take them at that point because they weren't supposed to -- doing so would change the course of events of the future.

Or maybe the Others didn't know anything about them yet. We saw that dosier they had on Jack. I'm sure it took time to compile that kind of info on all the 815 survivors and figure out who they might need for whatever purpose.

bad writing

bingo!

Oops never mind I forgot to drink my kool-aid today. It was all a ruse which will be explained...partially...if at all during season 6. Dont worry I'm told over and over and over again by posters here that the writers have it all figured out.

Maybe it was because they hadnt lost their surgeon yet....Oh wait, no, they lost their surgeon the moment the plane crashed.

Maybe it's because Ben didnt know he had cancer yet...Oh wait, no, Ben knew he had cancer when the plane crashed.

Well so much for my theories. Guess that I'll have to go with Bdrewery' theory

hehe or maybe the fact that if you look at three minutes you see there were only about 4 of the others there at that moment. well 5 if you count alex i guess. but it was tom, pickett alex and two others. they had michael who they wanted to take bk, then they had kate captive, but at the time jack sawyer and locke were all armed and prolly had more weapons than the 5 others had on them. they probably werent willing to risk the odds of getting killed since 5 on three with at least two needed to hold kate and michael makes it not good odds of the others winning. then you might ask what about when they gave up the weapons? well its still 5 others to 5 people, that means that for the two day walk they would have had to have 1 holding 1 the entire time. the odds of an escape even without them having weapons are pretty good.

i dont get how in 8 posts someone couldnt have figured that out. heh.

Were the Others even expecting anyone other than Michael to show up at that time? I can buy that they weren't ready to take them at that time. Whether we find out that reason remains to be seen, but it's not hard to figure that out. Any reason can fit. Perhaps Ben wanted to infiltrate the camp himself and get a feeling for the Losties, especially Jack. Perhaps Ben hadn't yet told the other Others that he wanted Jack for the surgery (afterall he wasn't on Jacob's list). I think claiming poor writing is a bit over presumptious at this point. A simple analogy: I go to the store to get milk. I return the next day to get eggs. Is it a big mystery that I didn't get the eggs on the first trip? No, because I didn't know I needed eggs at the time. :cool:

Most likely because he didnt know Jack was a spinal surgeon

I dont see thas so hard about that :)

and even if he did---and we have no reason to think he had that specific information at that time--. A plan had to formed--which included knowing about the love triangle in order to have kate Choose Sawyer by putting her in that dress, in a cage next to him, have them work together, fight for their lives together and BOND--All separated from Jack

Then they have Jack SEE this on the monitors

I posted that this was the setup right after the first few episodes. Of course Jack had more loyalty, in the end, than Ben thought. But either way..ben got what he wanted.

Exactly! Just because Ben knew he had a tumor the day the plane crashed, doesn't mean he already knew a spinal surgeon was on it. Once he found out Jack was a spinal surgeon (I'm guessing after The Hunting Party) he made the connection between a "spinal surgeon falling out of the sky" 2 days after he found out he had a tumor. Though I could be wrong :)