Raise your hand if you liked Nikki (Kiele Sanchez, top) and Paulo. Put your hand down, liar! The characters were introduced at the beginning of season 3 as a response to viewer complaints that the show focused too much on the same dozen-or-so characters. There were always more survivors of the plane crash lurking in the background but we never got to know any of them. So the creators came up with these two…and the audience hated them. In a pretty shocking episode, their backstory was introduced and once we started to get to know them, they were killed off in a pretty sweet manner. At least they got one cool episode dedicated to them, right? I was shocked to see on IMDB that they were credited for 14 episodes, as I couldn’t believe they had lasted that long. Then I realized that they were merely credited in 8 of those, and therefore only appeared in 6 episodes.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Penny Widmore, played by Sonya Walger. Penny was the love of Desmond Hume and most of his subplots dealt with his desire to return to her. I, like many, had assumed that would be one of the final, happy resolutions of the series, so color me surprised when the fourth season finale rolled around and Desmond and Penny were already together at last. And how about that episode earlier in the same season when Desmond was seemingly jumping back and forth through time, between his time on the freighter and being off the island with Penny, culminating in that Christmas phone call with the one he loved? Yeah, they worked up some pretty sweet material for these two.
Check back tomorrow as we recognize two more lovely ladies from that mysterious island.
Posted by Michael 
The Daily Blowhole 