Flash Forward

We have accepted that Season 4 of Lost includes flash-forwards, but are these future events necessarily determined? Remember the classic narrative device of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” in which Scrooge sees Christmas Past and Christmas Future. With fear and trembling, he asks if this must be his fate, and he learns that changes in the present can alter the outcome. We have the spectral figure of Jacob (as in Jacob Marley) along with Ben (as in Ebeneezer), which doesn’t necessarily situate us in “A Christmas Carol” territory, but viewers might consider that the flash-forwards function differently than the flashbacks.