Doc Jensen: 'Lost:' The one scene you MUST watch before tomorrow's premiere
by Jeff Jensen
One more day until revelation. Or maybe “The Book of Revelation,” if the final season of Lost is as apocalyptic as so many fans have theorized, with all its capricious deities and judgmental monsters and damned souls. The fan base is galvanized. Last night in Hawaii, thousands of people turned out to meet the cast and watch the first hour of the two-hour premiere (Feb. 2, 9 PM and on ABC) on the beach in Oahu. The initial reaction from fans via Twitter have been raves. “The first hr of S6 is INCREDIBLE. Will say no more,” tweeted Lost blogger Jo Garfein, aka jopinionated (@jopinionated). Said the illustrious team of Jay and Jack of “The Lost Podcast with Jay & Jack” (@jayandjack): “Whew what a premiere … I must say for the people that doubted the powers that be, the premiere was awesome!”
For anyone who still feels they need a refresher to get prepped for Season 6, I (shamelessly) recommend Entertainment Weekly’s current cover story, written by yours truly, designed to get you caught up on where we last left off. Want to spend the next 24 hours cramming with 10 essential episodes? You can view our selections (and rationale behind our choices) here. Some programming alerts: Get ready for an onslaught of Lost stuff from us over the next 48 hours. Tomorrow, we’ll have a cool new gallery for you, a new Doc Jensen column in which I explain why my “Final Theory of Lost” is my “final theory” of Lost, and the season premiere of “Totally Lost,” the weekly webshow about Lost that I co-host with Dan Snierson. On Wednesday, I’ll have what is sure to be an epic recap of the premiere, plus we’ll also be posting selections from an interview with Lost exec producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse in which they will tackle some burning questions about the premiere.
Before I let you go, something interesting. If you’ve already read my cover story, then you know I spoke with Damon and Carlton, and as it happens, during the interview, I asked them about a scene from the Lost pilot back in 2004 that got a lot of fresh attention and analysis during the hiatus in the aftermath of the Jacob-Man In Black sequence in the Season 5 finale. The pilot scene, of course, is the moment when John Locke explains to Walt the significance of backgammon—a scene that now plays like foreshadowing of the Jacob-Man In Black revelation.
I asked Damon Lindelof, who co-wrote the pilot with JJ Abrams, if the backgammon scene was an attempt to plant a flag for the series end game. This is what he said:
“We can’t rewrite history and say that at the time the pilot was being constructed we were using phrases like “The Man In Black” and “Jacob,” but we can say that the overriding theme of The Island and what an endgame might look like — and that Locke was the character that was tapped into this almost instantly — was all sort of calibrated. Looking back on that scene, its intention at the time that it was written and its intention today is exactly the same, which is to basically set the stakes for the entire series. At the time that we wrote it, we didn’t think that there was going to be an episode two. At the time that we wrote it, it was a conversation about the good and evil internal in the people themselves. But obviously, as the show grew and blossomed out, that same conversation grew to encompass the nature of The Island and The Island’s affect on those people.”
Intrigued? Teased? Can’t freakin’ wait to get this season started already? I’m with you, friends. Looking forward to taking the journey with you.
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