Daniel Faraday
Encyclopedia
Dr. Daniel Faraday, often referred to as Dan or simply by his surname, Faraday, is a fictional character
on the ABC
television series Lost
played by Jeremy Davies
. Faraday is introduced in the season four
premiere
as a physicist, suffering from memory loss, and is part of the team aboard the freighter Kahana that is offshore the island. Throughout his time on the series, Faraday plays an important role by sharing his knowledge of time travel. After time traveling to 1977, Faraday, who unbeknownst to her, is her son, is shot and killed by his mother Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan).
Jeremy Davies
was cast in the role because of the "tremendous intelligence that seems to emanate from him" and was one of the writer-producers' favorite character actor
s. Davies was critically praised for his performance and critics were generally disappointed by the character's death in season five
.
(Alan Dale
), both of whom were Others
. Eloise raised Daniel on her own, hiding the identity of his father from him and pushing him to develop a scientific mind, much to the detriment of his social life and casual pursuits. After graduating from the University of Oxford
with his girlfriend Theresa Spencer, Daniel was offered a £1.5 million grant by industrialist Charles Widmore. In the 1990s, Daniel started working as a physicist at The Queen's College
, Oxford, with controversial experiments including sending a subject's consciousness through time. His initial tests on lab rats resulted in their deaths, which led to the abandonment of his studies. During his tenure, Daniel encountered Desmond Hume
(Henry Ian Cusick
), who was suffering from temporal displacement trapping him between 1996 and 2004. Daniel helped to ground Desmond's consciousness by telling him to find a constant in both time frames, which Desmond decided was to be Penny
(Sonya Walger
). This encounter had a profound effect on Daniel, reaffirming the legitimacy of his time-displacement theories and prompted him to resume his abandoned experiments. Daniel eventually performed similar experiments on Theresa, but she ended up suffering from temporal displacement as Desmond had and eventually fell into a coma, with temporary periods of lucidity.
The funds for her continuing care were provided by Charles Widmore. As a result of Theresa's fate, Oxford fired Daniel and quietly removed all references to him ever having been at the university. At some point, Daniel also performed an experiment upon himself, resulting in long-term memory damage. While in Essex, Massachusetts
, Daniel saw a news report covering the discovery of the apparent wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815 in the depths of the Sunda Trench. Widmore approached Daniel and after informing him that the Sunda Trench wreckage was a hoax, urged him to go to the island, which he said would heal him of his plight. At first, Daniel was reluctant, but Eloise convinced him to go. Daniel is then recruited into a covert team alongside Charlotte Lewis
(Rebecca Mader
), Miles Straume
(Ken Leung
) and Frank Lapidus
(Jeff Fahey
), which is organized by Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick
) and led by Naomi Dorrit (Marsha Thomason
). Their mission was to travel to the island, find Ben Linus (Michael Emerson
), the then current leader of the Others, and disable the Dharma Initiative
station called the Tempest, which contained poisonous gases.
(Matthew Fox
) confronts Faraday and he is forced to confess that the freighter upon which they arrived was not sent to the island to rescue the survivors. Around this time, Daniel realizes the Secondary Protocol, detailing the whereabouts of Ben Linus, has been activated by Widmore, necessitating their immediate departure from the island. Faraday begins to ferry survivors to the freighter, but Charlotte and Miles choose to remain on the island. Daniel and five survivors are caught midway, between the Kahana and the island, when the Kahana blows up and the island is "moved" by Ben Linus.
(Terry O'Quinn
) stops the time jumps, the remaining survivors are stranded in 1974. Faraday and his group move into the Barracks and under false pretenses, join the DHARMA Initiative. Despite the option to board the DHARMA submarine and "go back to the real world", the survivors from 2004 stay on the island together in the hope that they can somehow return to the time that they knew and Faraday becomes a scientist for DHARMA. Faraday then leaves the island and joins the DHARMA headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan
.
In 1977, Daniel arrives back on the island and sets out to stop the construction of the Swan Station before drilling hits the electromagnetic
"energy pocket", which ultimately results in the crash of Flight 815. Faraday plans to detonate the hydrogen bomb "Jughead" and destroy the unstable electromagnetic energy so no one would have to be pushing a button to save the world and Flight 815 would not crash. Before putting his plan into action, Daniel visits a young Charlotte, telling her never to return to the island once she leaves. Daniel then travels to the Others' camp with Jack and Kate Austen
(Evangeline Lily) to obtain the bomb. He breaks into their camp and threatens to shoot Richard Alpert
(Nestor Carbonell
). However, he is shot by Eloise. Before Daniel dies, he tells Eloise he is her son and she sent him to the island despite knowing he would die.
), Faraday approaches Desmond and shares his theory of the timeline being altered. He tells Desmond that he recently saw a red-haired woman he strongly felt he already knew and loved. Daniel states after the encounter, he made a series of notes in his journal which a mathematician has identified as advanced quantum mechanics
, a topic he knows nothing about. Daniel shows his notes, and hypothesises that the world as he and Desmond are experiencing is not their correct path. Faraday then tells him Penelope is his half-sister and where Desmond can find her. Later, Faraday meets Charlotte at his benefit concert, but they do not yet realize they are in the afterlife. Daniel then takes the stage with DriveShaft to play as Charlotte watches from the crowd. It is later implied that both Eloise and Desmond are both aware that they are living in the afterlife. Eloise convinces Desmond to let Faraday live out the rest of his afterlife, since Faraday was never allowed to live the life he wanted in his past, and Eloise was never allowed to spend time with her son.
After Naomi Dorrit (Marsha Thomason
) landed on the island in season three, the producers began to plan who else would be on the boat she came from. They wanted these new characters to be interested in finding the island for their own personal reasons. During the casting of the "freighter folk"—the nickname that Lost' s producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse use to refer to Daniel, Charlotte, Miles and Frank—fake names, occupations and scenes were temporarily assigned, to limit the leak of spoiler
s. In the initial casting call, Daniel was referred as "brilliant mathematician" "Russell".
Jeremy Davies
was cast as Daniel because he was one of the writer-producers' favorite character actor
s, and they think that his "transformative quality [and] the tremendous intelligence that seems to emanate from him … seemed perfect for [the part]." The producers constructed the role around Davies based on his performances in Rescue Dawn
and Solaris
. When Davies met costume designer Roland Sanchez, he was wearing a thin black tie. Sanchez merged this "cool, edgy look" with his idea for the character's clothes: a "nerdy" loosely woven dress shirt from J.Crew
. Davies reportedly took a "crash course" on physics to understand the character better. Showrunners Damon Lindelof
and Carlton Cuse
called Daniel Faraday "an obvious shout-out to Michael Faraday
, scientist and physicist". Faraday was originally planned to be a recurring
role.
(Kiele Sanchez
) and Paulo
(Rodrigo Santoro
), introduced in season three. However, following their introduction in "Confirmed Dead", the four characters were well received, with Paige Albiniak of the New York Post
citing them as a reason behind the show's improved ratings.
IGN
's Chris Carabott described Daniel, as well as the other new characters from the freighter, as "great" and "exciting". James Poniewozik of Time
liked the introduction of the new characters from the freighter because "Each got just one flashback and a little time on the island, and yet by the end of the episode, [he] felt [he] had a true handle on what they were like as individuals". Oscar Dahl of BuddyTV
called it the "perfect introduction". Michael Ausiello
of TV Guide
also liked their introduction, and praised the actors' performances. Jeff Jensen from Entertainment Weekly
liked that the "fascinating" new characters brought "mind-blowing new possibilities, and exciting new theory fodder".
Many critics praised Davies’s performance and appearance. Tom Iacuzio of The Daytona Beach News-Journal deemed Jeremy Davies's performance deserving of a Primetime Emmy Award
. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
claimed Davies's performance to be "outstanding" . Jay Glatfelter of The Huffington Post
said that Daniel "more and more becoming one of [his] favorite characters". Chris Carabott wrote that Davies presents Faraday's awkward mannerisms well. In a later review, Carabott commented, "I've become a huge fan of Davies over the course of the last couple of years thanks to his performance on this show." Rachel Dovey of Paste
said The Variable
revealed "a whole different" side of Daniel: "We've oscillated before about the true nature of the physicist, whether it's good or evil [...] We decided he's mostly a decent guy, barring the whole experimenting-on-his-girlfriend-then-running-away-when-her-brain-turned-to-mush thing. In the past, he's just seemed lost and confused, and, since he has those big, earnest puppy eyes, we decided to forgive him. But the episode showed us the dynamic at the heart of Daniel's stuttering vulnerability. Like all broken superheroes and Freudian beings, the man has mommy issues. This week we dove inside the dynamic between Daniel and his mother growing up." Also, Adam Sweeney believed Davies's acting was the "high point" of the episode.
A reviewer for TVoholic claimed he would have "loved any sort of explanation as to why [Daniel] changed his mind about changing the past or how he thought this could work. There must have been something that made Daniel think this was possible, but he was in such a rush that he never took care to explain."
Critics expressed shock regarding Daniel’s death. David Oliver of CHUD.com felt "bummed" to see Daniel go. Dan Compora of Airlock Alpha
also said the shooting of Daniel at the end was “stunning.” Jon Lachonis of TVOvermind claimed that as an internal character piece, "The Variable" was "not so much a great ending for Daniel.
Jeremy Davies submitted the episode "The Constant
" on his behalf for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Drama Series
.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television series Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
played by Jeremy Davies
Jeremy Davies
Father Jeremy Davies , an English Roman Catholic priest whose parish is based around Old Hall Green, is a former doctor and also a leading exorcist....
. Faraday is introduced in the season four
Lost (season 4)
The fourth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the American Broadcasting Company Network in the United States, and on CTV in Canada on January 31, 2008 and concluded on May 29, 2008...
premiere
The Beginning of the End (Lost)
"The Beginning of the End" is the fourth season premiere, and 73rd episode overall, of the American Broadcasting Company's television drama series Lost. It was aired on ABC in the United States and CTV in Canada on January 31, 2008...
as a physicist, suffering from memory loss, and is part of the team aboard the freighter Kahana that is offshore the island. Throughout his time on the series, Faraday plays an important role by sharing his knowledge of time travel. After time traveling to 1977, Faraday, who unbeknownst to her, is her son, is shot and killed by his mother Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan).
Jeremy Davies
Jeremy Davies
Father Jeremy Davies , an English Roman Catholic priest whose parish is based around Old Hall Green, is a former doctor and also a leading exorcist....
was cast in the role because of the "tremendous intelligence that seems to emanate from him" and was one of the writer-producers' favorite character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
s. Davies was critically praised for his performance and critics were generally disappointed by the character's death in season five
Lost (season 5)
The fifth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the ABC network in the United States and on A in Canada in January 2009, and concluded with a two-hour season finale on May 13, 2009...
.
Background
Daniel was born to Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan) and Charles WidmoreCharles Widmore
Charles Widmore is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the south Pacific. He is primarily portrayed as an older man by Alan Dale; Tom Connolly and David S...
(Alan Dale
Alan Dale
Alan Hugh Dale is a New Zealand actor. As a child, Dale developed a love of theatre and also became a rugby player. After retiring from the sport he took on a number of professions to support his family, before deciding to become a professional actor at the age of 27. With work limited in New...
), both of whom were Others
The Others (Lost)
The Others are a group of fictional characters who inhabit the mysterious island in the American television series Lost. Most serve as antagonists to the series' main characters, although more recently they seem less hostile to the survivors of Flight 815 and have become their allies to overcome...
. Eloise raised Daniel on her own, hiding the identity of his father from him and pushing him to develop a scientific mind, much to the detriment of his social life and casual pursuits. After graduating from the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
with his girlfriend Theresa Spencer, Daniel was offered a £1.5 million grant by industrialist Charles Widmore. In the 1990s, Daniel started working as a physicist at The Queen's College
The Queen's College, Oxford
The Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...
, Oxford, with controversial experiments including sending a subject's consciousness through time. His initial tests on lab rats resulted in their deaths, which led to the abandonment of his studies. During his tenure, Daniel encountered Desmond Hume
Desmond Hume
Desmond David Hume is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick. Desmond's name is a tribute to David Hume, the famous empiricist author and philosopher. Desmond was not a passenger of Flight 815. He had been stranded on the island three years prior to...
(Henry Ian Cusick
Henry Ian Cusick
Henry Ian Cusick is a Scottish-Peruvian actor of stage, television, and film. He is well-known for his role as Desmond Hume on the United States television series Lost, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination....
), who was suffering from temporal displacement trapping him between 1996 and 2004. Daniel helped to ground Desmond's consciousness by telling him to find a constant in both time frames, which Desmond decided was to be Penny
Penny Widmore
Penelope "Penny" Widmore is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Sonya Walger. Penny is introduced in the last episode of the second season of Lost as the long-lost lover of Desmond Hume as well as the daughter of British tycoon and antagonist Charles Widmore...
(Sonya Walger
Sonya Walger
Sonya Walger is an English actress known for her roles in the ABC series Lost as Penelope "Penny" Widmore, and as Olivia Benford on ABC's FlashForward.-Education:...
). This encounter had a profound effect on Daniel, reaffirming the legitimacy of his time-displacement theories and prompted him to resume his abandoned experiments. Daniel eventually performed similar experiments on Theresa, but she ended up suffering from temporal displacement as Desmond had and eventually fell into a coma, with temporary periods of lucidity.
The funds for her continuing care were provided by Charles Widmore. As a result of Theresa's fate, Oxford fired Daniel and quietly removed all references to him ever having been at the university. At some point, Daniel also performed an experiment upon himself, resulting in long-term memory damage. While in Essex, Massachusetts
Essex, Massachusetts
Essex is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, north of Boston. The population was 3,504 at the 2010 census.Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Essex.- History :...
, Daniel saw a news report covering the discovery of the apparent wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815 in the depths of the Sunda Trench. Widmore approached Daniel and after informing him that the Sunda Trench wreckage was a hoax, urged him to go to the island, which he said would heal him of his plight. At first, Daniel was reluctant, but Eloise convinced him to go. Daniel is then recruited into a covert team alongside Charlotte Lewis
Charlotte Lewis (Lost)
Dr. Charlotte Staples Lewis is a fictional character on the American Broadcasting Company television series Lost, played by Rebecca Mader. Charlotte is introduced in the second episode of season four and is a cultural anthropologist on a mission to the island where Oceanic Flight 815 crashed...
(Rebecca Mader
Rebecca Mader
Rebecca Leigh Mader is an English actress. She is known for her roles as Morgan Gordon on All My Children and Charlotte Lewis on Lost.-Career:...
), Miles Straume
Miles Straume
Miles Straume is a fictional character played by Ken Leung on the ABC television series Lost. Miles is introduced early in the fourth season as a hotheaded and sarcastic medium as a crew member aboard the freighter called the Kahana that is offshore the island where most of Lost takes place...
(Ken Leung
Ken Leung
Kenneth "Ken" Leung is an American actor best known for his role as Miles Straume in the ABC television series Lost and roles in such films as Shanghai Kiss, Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Saw.-Early life:...
) and Frank Lapidus
Frank Lapidus
Frank J. Lapidus is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Jeff Fahey. Frank is introduced in the second episode of season four as a pilot hired on a mission to the island where Oceanic Flight 815 crashed. He aids the survivors of the crash against mercenary Martin Keamy ...
(Jeff Fahey
Jeff Fahey
Jeffrey David "Jeff" Fahey is an American film and television actor. He has portrayed Captain Frank Lapidus on the ABC series Lost and the title role of Deputy Marshal Winston MacBride on The Marshal.-Early life:...
), which is organized by Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick
Lance Reddick is an American theater, film and TV actor and musician born in Baltimore, Maryland. He starred in The Wire as Cedric Daniels, appeared in Oz as Detective Johnny Basil and appeared in the fourth and fifth seasons of Lost. He now has a prominent role in Fringe...
) and led by Naomi Dorrit (Marsha Thomason
Marsha Thomason
Marsha Lisa Thomason is an English actress, who is known in the United States for playing Nessa Holt in the first two seasons of the NBC series Las Vegas, for her recurring role on ABC's Lost as Naomi Dorrit, and for playing FBI agent Diana Berrigan on USA Network's White Collar.-Early...
). Their mission was to travel to the island, find Ben Linus (Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson is an American actor who is perhaps best known for his roles as Benjamin Linus on Lost and fictional serial killer William Hinks in The Practice.-Early life:...
), the then current leader of the Others, and disable the Dharma Initiative
DHARMA Initiative
The Dharma Initiative, also written DHARMA , was a fictional research project featured in the television series Lost. It was introduced in the second season episode "Orientation". In 2008, the Dharma Initiative website was launched. Dharma's interests were directly connected with fringe science...
station called the Tempest, which contained poisonous gases.
Season 4
Faraday first arrives on the island by parachuting out of a helicopter on December 23, 2004. After setting foot on the island, Faraday's memory problem slowly diminishes. He then encounters the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, who are believed to be dead by the world at large. On the island, Faraday starts conducting an experiment regarding the island's unique passage of time. After reuniting with Charlotte, Faraday sneaks off with her to the Tempest Dharma Initiative station, where they neutralize a potential source of poison gas. Later, the corpse of the freighter's doctor washes ashore. Jack ShephardJack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and protagonist of the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader...
(Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
) confronts Faraday and he is forced to confess that the freighter upon which they arrived was not sent to the island to rescue the survivors. Around this time, Daniel realizes the Secondary Protocol, detailing the whereabouts of Ben Linus, has been activated by Widmore, necessitating their immediate departure from the island. Faraday begins to ferry survivors to the freighter, but Charlotte and Miles choose to remain on the island. Daniel and five survivors are caught midway, between the Kahana and the island, when the Kahana blows up and the island is "moved" by Ben Linus.
Season 5
When Ben causes the island to vanish, Charlotte, Faraday and the remaining survivors begin to travel through time. After the survivors are sent to the past, Faraday lures Desmond out of the Swan Dharma Initiative station, telling him to find Daniel's mother once Desmond is off the island. Upon jumping further to the past, Faraday and the group are captured by the Others in 1954. The Others mistake them for military personnel and Faraday is forced to disable a hydrogen bomb labelled "Jughead". During this time period, he confesses his love for Charlotte. After telling the Others that they must bury the bomb, the survivors experience another time jump. The time jumps cause Charlotte to experience nosebleeds, headaches, and double vision, and she eventually collapses. As she dies, Charlotte tells Faraday she remembers living on the island as a child, and recognizes him as the man who told her not to return once she left the island. After John LockeJohn Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
(Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
) stops the time jumps, the remaining survivors are stranded in 1974. Faraday and his group move into the Barracks and under false pretenses, join the DHARMA Initiative. Despite the option to board the DHARMA submarine and "go back to the real world", the survivors from 2004 stay on the island together in the hope that they can somehow return to the time that they knew and Faraday becomes a scientist for DHARMA. Faraday then leaves the island and joins the DHARMA headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
.
In 1977, Daniel arrives back on the island and sets out to stop the construction of the Swan Station before drilling hits the electromagnetic
Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
"energy pocket", which ultimately results in the crash of Flight 815. Faraday plans to detonate the hydrogen bomb "Jughead" and destroy the unstable electromagnetic energy so no one would have to be pushing a button to save the world and Flight 815 would not crash. Before putting his plan into action, Daniel visits a young Charlotte, telling her never to return to the island once she leaves. Daniel then travels to the Others' camp with Jack and Kate Austen
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
(Evangeline Lily) to obtain the bomb. He breaks into their camp and threatens to shoot Richard Alpert
Richard Alpert (Lost)
Ricardo "Richard" Alpert is a fictional character played by Nestor Carbonell in the American ABC television series Lost. Alpert is introduced in a flashback of the character Juliet Burke , where he claims to be a doctor for a bioscience company called Mittelos Bioscience; he is later revealed to...
(Nestor Carbonell
Nestor Carbonell
Nestor Gastón Carbonell is an American actor, known for portraying Richard Alpert in ABC's drama Lost and Mayor Anthony Garcia in the film The Dark Knight...
). However, he is shot by Eloise. Before Daniel dies, he tells Eloise he is her son and she sent him to the island despite knowing he would die.
Afterlife
In the afterlife, in which Oceanic Flight 815 does not crash on the Island, Faraday has a different background. Daniel was allowed to pursue his passion for music, and never trained in physics. After overhearing Eloise trying to persuade Desmond to stop pursuing Penelope (Sonya WalgerSonya Walger
Sonya Walger is an English actress known for her roles in the ABC series Lost as Penelope "Penny" Widmore, and as Olivia Benford on ABC's FlashForward.-Education:...
), Faraday approaches Desmond and shares his theory of the timeline being altered. He tells Desmond that he recently saw a red-haired woman he strongly felt he already knew and loved. Daniel states after the encounter, he made a series of notes in his journal which a mathematician has identified as advanced quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
, a topic he knows nothing about. Daniel shows his notes, and hypothesises that the world as he and Desmond are experiencing is not their correct path. Faraday then tells him Penelope is his half-sister and where Desmond can find her. Later, Faraday meets Charlotte at his benefit concert, but they do not yet realize they are in the afterlife. Daniel then takes the stage with DriveShaft to play as Charlotte watches from the crowd. It is later implied that both Eloise and Desmond are both aware that they are living in the afterlife. Eloise convinces Desmond to let Faraday live out the rest of his afterlife, since Faraday was never allowed to live the life he wanted in his past, and Eloise was never allowed to spend time with her son.
Development
Marsha Thomason
Marsha Lisa Thomason is an English actress, who is known in the United States for playing Nessa Holt in the first two seasons of the NBC series Las Vegas, for her recurring role on ABC's Lost as Naomi Dorrit, and for playing FBI agent Diana Berrigan on USA Network's White Collar.-Early...
) landed on the island in season three, the producers began to plan who else would be on the boat she came from. They wanted these new characters to be interested in finding the island for their own personal reasons. During the casting of the "freighter folk"—the nickname that Lost
Spoiler (media)
Spoiler is slang for any element of any summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot element which will give away the outcome of a dramatic episode within the work of fiction, or the conclusion of the entire work. It can also be used to refer to any piece of information...
s. In the initial casting call, Daniel was referred as "brilliant mathematician" "Russell".
Jeremy Davies
Jeremy Davies (actor)
Jeremy Davies is an American film and television actor. He is known for portraying the interpreter Cpl. Timothy E. Upham in the film Saving Private Ryan and the physicist Daniel Faraday on the television series Lost. He most recently appeared in the FX series, Justified, as Dickie Bennett.-Early...
was cast as Daniel because he was one of the writer-producers' favorite character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
s, and they think that his "transformative quality [and] the tremendous intelligence that seems to emanate from him … seemed perfect for [the part]." The producers constructed the role around Davies based on his performances in Rescue Dawn
Rescue Dawn
Rescue Dawn is a 2007 war drama film directed by Werner Herzog, based on an adapted screenplay written from his acclaimed 1997 documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly...
and Solaris
Solaris (2002 film)
Solaris is a 2002 science fiction film and psychological drama directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone...
. When Davies met costume designer Roland Sanchez, he was wearing a thin black tie. Sanchez merged this "cool, edgy look" with his idea for the character's clothes: a "nerdy" loosely woven dress shirt from J.Crew
J.Crew
J.Crew Group, Inc. is a multi-brand, multi-channel, specialty retailer. The company offers an assortment of women's, men's and children's apparel and accessories, including swimwear, outerwear, loungewear, wedding, bags, hair accessories, belts, jewelry, and shoes. As of January 30, 2010, it...
. Davies reportedly took a "crash course" on physics to understand the character better. Showrunners Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
and Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse is an AmericanEmmy Award winning screenwriter and producer, most famous as executive producer andscreenwriter for the American television series Lost for...
called Daniel Faraday "an obvious shout-out to Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
, scientist and physicist". Faraday was originally planned to be a recurring
Recurring character
A recurring character is a fictional character, usually in a prime time TV series, who appears from time to time during the series' run. Recurring characters often play major roles in an episode, sometimes being the main focus...
role.
Reception
Producers Lindelof and Cuse were worried about how the new characters would be received by fans, after the unhappy reaction to new characters NikkiNikki and Paulo
Nikki Fernandez and Paulo are fictional characters on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the south Pacific...
(Kiele Sanchez
Kiele Sanchez
Kiele Michelle Sanchez is an American actress who stars in the A&E Network drama The Glades. Previously she starred as the second-eldest Sorelli sister, Anne, a therapist in her mid-twenties, in The WB's comedic ensemble drama, Related. She was cast as a co-star in the third season of the ABC...
) and Paulo
Nikki and Paulo
Nikki Fernandez and Paulo are fictional characters on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the south Pacific...
(Rodrigo Santoro
Rodrigo Santoro
Rodrigo Junqueira dos Reis Santoro is a Brazilian actor.-Life and career:Santoro was born in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro. He is of half Brazilian and half Italian descent. In 1993, as Santoro was studying Journalism at PUC-Rio, he entered the Actor's Workshop of Rede Globo...
), introduced in season three. However, following their introduction in "Confirmed Dead", the four characters were well received, with Paige Albiniak of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
citing them as a reason behind the show's improved ratings.
IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's Chris Carabott described Daniel, as well as the other new characters from the freighter, as "great" and "exciting". James Poniewozik of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
liked the introduction of the new characters from the freighter because "Each got just one flashback and a little time on the island, and yet by the end of the episode, [he] felt [he] had a true handle on what they were like as individuals". Oscar Dahl of BuddyTV
BuddyTV
BuddyTV is an entertainment-based website based in Seattle, Washington, which generates content about television programs and sporting events. The website publishes information about celebrity and related entertainment news through a series of articles, entertainment profiles, actor biographies and...
called it the "perfect introduction". Michael Ausiello
Michael Ausiello
Michael Ausiello is an American television industry journalist and actor. He was a Senior Writer at TV Guide and its companion website, TVGuide.com. On May 28, 2008, Ausiello left TV Guide for Entertainment Weekly and posted his first blog for Entertainment Weekly on July 2, 2008...
of TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
also liked their introduction, and praised the actors' performances. Jeff Jensen from Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
liked that the "fascinating" new characters brought "mind-blowing new possibilities, and exciting new theory fodder".
Many critics praised Davies’s performance and appearance. Tom Iacuzio of The Daytona Beach News-Journal deemed Jeremy Davies's performance deserving of a Primetime Emmy Award
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming...
. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
claimed Davies's performance to be "outstanding" . Jay Glatfelter of The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
said that Daniel "more and more becoming one of [his] favorite characters". Chris Carabott wrote that Davies presents Faraday's awkward mannerisms well. In a later review, Carabott commented, "I've become a huge fan of Davies over the course of the last couple of years thanks to his performance on this show." Rachel Dovey of Paste
Paste (magazine)
Paste is a monthly music and entertainment digital magazine published in the United States by Wolfgang's Vault. Its tagline is "Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture."-History:...
said The Variable
The Variable
"The Variable" is the 14th television episode of the fifth season of Lost, and the 100th episode overall. It originally aired on the American Broadcasting Company in the United States on April 29, 2009. The hundredth episode milestone was celebrated by cast and crew on location in Hawaii...
revealed "a whole different" side of Daniel: "We've oscillated before about the true nature of the physicist, whether it's good or evil [...] We decided he's mostly a decent guy, barring the whole experimenting-on-his-girlfriend-then-running-away-when-her-brain-turned-to-mush thing. In the past, he's just seemed lost and confused, and, since he has those big, earnest puppy eyes, we decided to forgive him. But the episode showed us the dynamic at the heart of Daniel's stuttering vulnerability. Like all broken superheroes and Freudian beings, the man has mommy issues. This week we dove inside the dynamic between Daniel and his mother growing up." Also, Adam Sweeney believed Davies's acting was the "high point" of the episode.
A reviewer for TVoholic claimed he would have "loved any sort of explanation as to why [Daniel] changed his mind about changing the past or how he thought this could work. There must have been something that made Daniel think this was possible, but he was in such a rush that he never took care to explain."
Critics expressed shock regarding Daniel’s death. David Oliver of CHUD.com felt "bummed" to see Daniel go. Dan Compora of Airlock Alpha
Airlock Alpha
Airlock Alpha, formerly SyFy Portal, is an entertainment news website focusing on science-fiction, fantasy and comic book television series and films.-History:...
also said the shooting of Daniel at the end was “stunning.” Jon Lachonis of TVOvermind claimed that as an internal character piece, "The Variable" was "not so much a great ending for Daniel.
Jeremy Davies submitted the episode "The Constant
The Constant
"The Constant" is the fifth episode of the fourth season of the American Broadcasting Company's serial drama television series Lost, and the 77th episode overall. It was aired on February 28, 2008, on ABC in the United States and on CTV in Canada...
" on his behalf for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Drama Series
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Drama Series
This is a list of the winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.-1960s:*1960: no award*1961: Roddy McDowall – Not Without Honor*1962: no award*1963: no award...
.