In the season premiere episode, Jack, Kate and Sawyer begin to discover what they are up against as prisoners of "The Others."

09/28 - The October 4 premiere belongs to Jack, who loses it in flashbacks when he suspects wife Sarah of having an affair with his boozin' dad. Desmond turns up post-hatch explosion naked. Source: TV Guide
09/18 - Guest starring are John Terry as Christian Shephard, Julie Bowen as Sarah, M.C. Gainey as Mr. Friendly, William Mapother as Ethan, Brett Cullen as Goodwin, Blake Bashoff as Karl, Julie Adams as Amelia, Stephen Semel as Adam, Isabelle Cherwin as little girl, Alexandra Morgan as moderator, Sonya Seng as receptionist, Sally Davis as teacher and Julie Ow as nurse. Source: ABC
09/14 - In the season premiere episode, "A Tale of Two Cities," Jack, Kate and Sawyer begin to discover what they are up against as prisoners of "The Others." John Terry and Julie Bowen guest star. Source: ABC
09/14 - The opening scene of the Oct. 4 premiere will be very reminiscent of the first scene from last season's premiere, with Desmond in the hatch. In other words, you're probably going to be asking yourself, "Who's that and where the hell are we?!" Source: Ask Ausiello @ TV Guide
09/11 - [The first episode is Jack-centric not Kate-centric.] We'll see more of why he feels so guilty about his dad. Jack is in a glass enclosure, and will be interacting a lot with a character we haven't yet seen. Kate is in an examining room, and will be interacting with a character we know! Source: Kristin on E!Online
08/29 - Expanding on the 08/19 spoilers posted below on the Jack's flashback with the choking girl in the park: Also in that scene, Sarah is talking to a male teacher who may be more than a friend, and a little girl (the choking girl?) ends the scene by telling Jack not to trust Sarah. Source: The Transmission
08/24 - [During the Season 2 DVD Launch Party,] Matthew Fox was on set shooting flashback scenes with Julie Bowen (who plays Jack's wife, Sarah). Source: USA Today
08/19 - According to pictures that leaked on the net, there will be a flashback where Jack performs the Heimlich manoeuvre on a little blond girl in a park. Source: Dryope
08/18 - Jack was just shooting a flashback all decked out in his hospital scrubs. Kate will be making a choice in the first six episodes. Jack is inside something you’d find in a science class. Kate is on something we’ve seen before. And Sawyer is surrounded by something through which he shares a connection with Jack’s father. Source: Kristin on E!Online
07/29 - This episode will be Kate-centric and have flashbacks featuring a 60-year-old motherly, warm, and funny woman as well as handsome twenty-year-old Karl. Source: SpoilerFix.com [Note: The role of Amelia, posted in the General Season 3 spoilers on July 14, may now be part of the episode's flashback. This flashback is either for Jack or it is for Kate and will be part of a later episode.]
07/21 - During an interview Carlton Cuse revealed: We pick up where we left off, but obviously there are different stories on different parts of the island, and, you know, we will get to all of them in the first few episodes. But like last year, we didn't deal with the raft survivors in the first episode. Not everything is going to be answered in the first episode. But the captivity story [with Jack, Kate and Sawyer] will definitely be addressed. Source: The Ausiello Report

From Yahoo Groups
Posted by ajm25 at Lost-ABC Yahoo Groups

Aloha I live in Honolulu and I was fortunate to attend the LOST 3rd season premiere. I dont have any experience typing up synopsis really, however I'll go with what I can
remember about the show:

Remember last season began with Desmond on his exercise bike with Mama Cass song "Make Your Own Kind of Music", well this season the song opens up with Petula Clark's "Downtown" with a woman named Juliet played by Elizabeth Mitchell (http://imdb.com/name/nm0593310/).

You see The Others outside on a nice sunny day, wearing nice casual clothes and they look up and see the plane splitting apart in two. Henry Gale tells Ethan to go the crash site and pretend to be a survivor and the man Ana Lucia killed, Goodwin (http://imdb.com/name/nm0191442/) was told to go to the other crash site. Then opening credits of the LOST begins...

We now see Sawyer, Jack and Kate all being held in different places. Sawyer appears to be in what looks like a animal cage one would find in a zoo, Kate looks to be in a lockeroom and Jack is in a dark chamber somewhere.

Kate is asked to take a shower and freshen up, start the day new, she takes a shower only to find her clothes are gone, she looks thru the lockers to find a nice dress and is told to put it on, she doesnt have much choice and there are no clothes around besides the towel around her so she puts it in. She is led to Henry Gale who is sitting in a nice dining table setting next to the ocean with breakfast, forks and knives, etc. He asks Kate to put handcuffs on so she wont try anything funny. Kate asks why has she been told to dress like this and why is she being given a nice breakfast and such. Henry Gale replies that he wanted her to feel civilized and enjoy the moment because for the next two weeks she will be going thru hell which made me think is she going to be put thru some sort of The Others version of a bootcamp??

Meanwhile Juliet attempts to give Jack some food, which he refuses, she asks him lots of questions and he sarcastically lies and says he is a repoman. She tells him he has to sit towards the wall in the corner so she can safely bring the food to him because he needs to eat and drink something because the medicine they gave him he may dehydrate. So he agrees to let her in and then attacks her threatening to break her neck, kill her, he is trying to find a way out of this holding chamber cell when he sees Henry Gale. Jack tells Henry Gale he will kill her if he doesnt answer him why he is there and such, Henry says go ahead and kill her because if Jack opens some door or touches some button they will all die so it wont matter.

He does and Henry bolts out of there as fast as he can as thousands of gallons of water comes rushing thru the area they are in. Jack and Juliet recover by going into some doorway and he asks if he is in a aquarium, she says somewhat that they are indeed underwater and this is where the dolphins and sharks are tested.

Now to Sawyer....he is in an outside cell that looks like it has magnetic forces inside it. Sawyer attempts all kinds of things to get out, a teenage boy is held across from Sawyer as well and tells him not to do that, Sawyer doesnt listen and gets bounced around the cell by I asssume the magnetic force. The teenage boy, Sawyer dubs "Chachi" figures out how to get out of his cell and breaks Sawyer out and they
escape, while you hear over the loudspeaker a siren that the escapees have well escaped. They are re-captured, the boy appears to have been beaten up a bit and is forced to apologize to Sawyer for getting him involved in his escape. Sawyer continues to try and figure out this strange cell he is in and tricks it and suddenly water comes out of the rain gutter and some large cracker comes out from another
area and Sawyer tests it out, finds it edible and Kate who has just been taken to a outside cell across from Sawyer is thrown a piece of the cracker to eat for herself. One guy from the Others notices Sawyer had figured out how to get food and water and says the Bears who used to be in there did it alot quicker, Sawyer asked "how many bears were in here", but didnt get an answer.

The backstory for the show is about Jack so we see him at a lawyer's office with his wife and they are preparing for the divorce, she asks him where is his lawyer and he says he fired him, it seems Jack wants to reconcile but she does not. Her cell phone rings and she talks to someone and laughs, enjoying her conversation. Jack asks who is this guy she is talking to, he will give her everything from the car, boat, money, etc. if she will tell who this man is that she is now with. She doesnt answer. Next you see Jack in his doctor's office researching phone numbers to find out who the man is. His father walks in and he tells him, "Jack just let it go". He is telling him their marriage is over, just move on and let it go. Jack's father's cell phone rings and Jack begins to think its his wife on the other end, so he follows his father around and what looks like a hotel happens to be a AAA meeting. Jack yells at his father and accuses him of sleeping with his wife, the lady at the AAA meeting
says that is father has been sober for 50 days, you should be proud of him, relax, calm down, etc. Jack's father tells him, "just let it go" again, Jack has had it and attacks his father slamming him against the wall and is beating him up. Now we
see Jack in jail and his bail is paid, its his wife and she says she called a cab for him, he follows her to her car and sees a man standing next to the car and asks if that is the guy who she is now with, she says what does it matter and that your father called me rip roaring drunk and crying and that you had been taken to jail.
She tells him if there is one positive thing you can make out all of this is that you can go fix your father since you like to "fix things".

Back to Juliet and Jack in the holding chamber, she says she has a book, that is like a book on your life, she tells him she knows all about him from his schooling, to his profession, to his family, his ex-wife, etc. She even has Jack's father autopsy report, he asks how can she get things like this and she says they can get anything they want, he asks Juliet if his ex-wife is happy and she says that she is very happy now. Juliet had been working on trying to get Jack to communicate with her and had finally succeeded.

The show ends as she leaves the chamber and Henry Gale is standing there and said, you did a good job, Juliet you got to him. She replies and doesnt seem to be quite fond of Henry, but she tells him, "thanks BEN". And the show fades to black. So the guy's real name is Ben. No previews for next week but I'm sure we'll see those on Wednesday.

CU shot of eye.
CD is put in CD player.
"Downtown" plays on the stereo.
You see Elizabeth Mitchell who plays Juliet.
Just like the first scene of the last season, you're not sure if you're seeing a flashback or something else.
(This is where my memory gets a bit hazy too.)
Juliet sits in a group and they talk about picking a book. Juliet says she is picking a book Ben won't like. In the midst of that conversation, we hear an explosion.
You see Henry Gale stand up and go outside; other people follow.
Henry Gale looks up and sees a plane split in two. He sends Ethan to follow the front piece; then sends Goodwin to track the tail section.
You realize you are on the island, these are the Others and they have very modern houses.

This is the best scene of the episode. The rest of the episode is very talky, especially between Juliet and Jack. No real big surprises on Jack's flashbacks. Kind of predictable actually.

And I don't care what TV Guide says, but we don't see Desmond at all. We never go back to the survivor's camp or the hatch. All we see is that opening flashback and what happens to Jack, Sawyer and Kate.

Desmond's rich girlfriend trying to find the island

Not only does she have a flashback episode of her own, but the "flashback" will be taking place in real-time (island time)

Jadzia didn't change her avatar