So ‘Lost’ Is Over: Now What’s to Be Found?

I love how this article goes through Carlton's journey in finding a new show to run. Great stuff, skip to the last paragraph if you just want to find out what his new show is. Otherwise take your time with this great read!

LAST summer I went hiking with my teenage daughter in the Swiss Alps. On the first day we left the small village of Wengen and climbed above the timberline to a mountain outpost, Kleine Scheidegg, where we stopped to catch our breath. As I was drinking some water and taking in the awesome panorama, I noticed a hiker approaching. He was bearded and sunburned, wearing a kerosene-stained Swiss mountaineering pack and using trekking poles. I thought he was going to warn us of some danger. Instead he walked up to me and in German-accented English asked, “Are you Carlton Cuse, from ‘Lost’?” Startled, I answered, “Yes.”

The “Lost” show runners, Carlton Cuse, left, and Damon Lindelof.
Then he said, “Why did you not explain the polar bear?” As he detailed his own theory of how polar bears ended up in a tropical jungle on “Lost,” my daughter rolled her eyes. Even here in this remote spot I could not escape the last six years of my life. I had spent that time working an average of 80 hours a week writing and producing a TV show. After “Lost” ended last May, the first thing I wanted to do was go someplace far away and clear my brain. But I quickly discovered there was a big difference between getting away and leaving the show behind.

There is a story told in Hollywood about how right after “Tootsie” had its premiere, Dustin Hoffman was walking the streets of Manhattan with a friend when he saw his name on the marquee of a theater. He turned to him and said in all seriousness, “Do you think I’ll ever work again?”

Though probably apocryphal, this story is quite reassuring to those of us who work in the film and TV business. It underscores that even the most talented among us, after an intense period of work on a project, struggle with the question “What do I do next?”

“Lost” was a success in over a hundred countries around the world. It spawned a new term — transmedia — to describe all the associated media content (like Webisodes, alternative reality games and viral videos) surrounding a TV or film project. It was such an overwhelming phenomenon, how could I get past the large shadow it cast over my life? Should I even try?

The magnitude of my predicament seemed apparent to everyone around me. Even before the show ended, the “what are you going to do next” question seemed to be the first thing out of everyone’s mouth. What did it mean that I didn’t have an answer that satisfied me or anybody else? Most of all I wondered what, if anything, would get me excited enough to go back to work.

I was responsible for my own fate. Right around now a new season of “Lost” should be making its heavily promoted debut. Instead, three years into the show my partner, Damon Lindelof, and I did something that had never been done before in network TV: We negotiated an end date. Like J. K. Rowling, who told her readers there would be seven Harry Potter books and no more, we wanted to define the length of the show’s journey for our viewers. We agreed with ABC to make 48 more episodes over three seasons. For us, “Lost” was a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, and we wanted the opportunity to tell our story, and wrap up our show, on our own terms. The result was, we canceled ourselves.

In network TV when a show ends, it disappears from sight as quickly as Vladimir Putin’s political rivals. Within two weeks after the finale was shown, the “Lost” offices were emptied out and became the hub for a new ABC show, “No Ordinary Family.” The “Lost” billboard on the Disney lot was replaced by one for “Detroit 1-8-7.” In network promos, the mystery of the island was supplanted by the mystery of Bristol Palin on “Dancing With the Stars.”

I thought “Lost” was finally over, but I was wrong. The next week I went back into the editing room to finish work on a secret addendum to the series that we’d filmed for the DVDs. I gathered with my collaborators for the Emmys, the Saturns and the Scream Awards. And most recently, four of the six mystical numbers that kept reappearing on the show turned up in the Mega Millions lottery drawing, and I found myself back in the news media commenting on the coincidence. I eventually realized there was never going to be a definitive conclusion to the experience of “Lost.” The conclusion was going to be as ambiguous as the ending of the series itself.

Over the six years Damon and I had achieved a level of recognition usually reserved for actors or some movie directors, certainly not TV show runners. We read the Top 10 list on “Late Night With David Letterman,” looking, as one friend said, as if we’d just been beamed down from the Enterprise. We were interviewed by Diane Sawyer. We filmed sketches with Bob Newhart, Jimmy Kimmel and the Muppets, although not all at the same time. We were on TV so often that we were forced to join Aftra, the actors union.

Upon returning from Switzerland to Los Angeles, I was happy to discover that things were suddenly much quieter. I was able to stick my nose into my wife’s business and offer her indispensable advice on her daily routine that she had somehow managed to survive without. Now the phone was not ringing endlessly, and every time I checked my e-mail there weren’t 20 urgent production questions. I felt relief but also great uncertainty.

Much of the pressure I was feeling was internal, but it was magnified by the expectations of those around me. As a television show runner you are required to put out a prodigious amount of creative work. We wrote and produced as many as 25 hours of “Lost” in a single year. As an artist, if you succeed in making something fresh and new, it often looks easy: Warhol’s soup cans, for instance. And when you make it fast, it seems even easier. A tortured novelist who takes seven years to write a book gets cut a lot of slack. But if you are capable of producing a well-honed hour of filmed entertainment every eight days, how big a deal can it be to come up with a new idea?

I opened up the file where I’d dumped thoughts for new projects I’d had no time for during the run of the show. Reading them over, they felt like an elliptical diary of those years. For example, in the dark early days of Season 3, facing servicing 15 actors and the sprawling mythology, with no end date yet in sight, I was struck with what apparently seemed like a great idea for a tiny two-person romantic, comedic ... stage play.

I started going to movies and reading through long neglected piles of books. I also started watching TV again. During the series, after writing scripts and editing episodes all day, it was nearly impossible for me to come home and watch scripted television without my critical brain kicking in. Instead of being caught up in the narrative, I could see only what was underneath — the blueprints and building materials. But now, removed from the process, I was able to actually enjoy episodes of “Eastbound and Down,” “Modern Family” and “The Walking Dead.” My creative batteries started to recharge.

One day I was e-mailed an “Unfair Employer — Do Not Work Notice” from my new union, Aftra. I was not allowed to take a job as an actor on a new cable series called “Sordid Lives.” Whew. I scratched that off my to-do list.

I discussed projects with a variety of producers and executives. They ranged from the sublime — an adaptation of Stephen King’s wonderful novel “Under the Dome,” which for a variety of reasons did not work out — to some decidedly less so: a guy and a ghost are a detective team. Or my favorite: a show about a hot dolphin trainer and her dolphins who work at an aquarium by day but perform secret missions for the government by night. (I know what you’re thinking: No, I don’t know how they get the dolphins back to the aquarium every morning by dawn.)

As the months marched on, my agent displayed great patience as I turned down show-running jobs and writing assignments. I was proceeding with caution but also enjoying the liberation of not being tethered to a show.

In Hollywood there is no bigger commitment you can make than to a TV series. Even marriages pale in comparison. Marriages don’t require signing iron-clad multiyear contracts. At least most first marriages don’t. In success, I would be working unremittingly on that one project for what could easily consume the next five or more years of my life.

Before my kids started back to school, we took a family trip to the East Coast. On a stop in Washington, we walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. Deep inside that Doric temple I found myself reading the words of Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which are etched in the north wall. As I absorbed them, the back of my neck started tingling. Despite a tendency toward hypochondria, I knew this was a good sign.

Lincoln’s words were an attempt to heal the rift between a North and South deep into the Civil War. One-eighth of our population was still bound in slavery. Having majored in American history, I knew this was a period of rich and compelling drama. But more important, as I read those words about the deep divide between two very different groups of people sharing one set of borders, they felt very relevant for today. And there was something else very appealing about the Civil War: no polar bears.

The idea of a story set in this era took hold, characters sprang to life, and pretty soon it was all I could think about.

I expected my agent to scream or cry, but he did neither. Instead, he told me he had another client who was interested in working on a Civil War project, a writer-director named Randall Wallace. Would I want to meet with him? I knew Randall Wallace from his work on “Braveheart,” among other films. I said absolutely.

As Randall and I started talking, I realized how much I’d missed the creative collaborations that are at the heart of making film or television. Together we built a story, “Point of Honor,” which in its simplest form is about the journey of a Confederate family in Virginia through the turmoil of the Civil War. And while it is vastly different from “Lost,” it feels no less compelling.

As I embark on this new project, I know what is looming ahead. Immense challenges of making a period show under tight constraints of time and money. Network battles and production crises. And inevitable comparisons to “Lost.” But as tumultuous as it all can be, I realize this what I truly love doing. Because nothing outshines the thrill of having a good story to tell.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/arts/television/30lost.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Lost's Creators Talk Emmys and Life After "The End"

Today 8:09 PM PDT by Megan Masters

Guess who we just chatted with?!

We tracked down Lost's creative brain trust Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof tonight to pass along our Emmy congrats (the recently deceased series received twelve nods!), and between gentle sobs (literally!) of joy and loss, the one-time "radio silent" twosome opened up about life after the jet-setting phenomenon—just a little...

First, hi. It's so great to be talking to you both again. And congratulations on the eight Emmy nominations! What kind of emotions go into a day like today—knowing it's Lost's final season?
Carlton Cuse: We never for a minute take for granted that we're entitled to an Emmy nomination. Very worthy shows like Law & Order and 24 and Friday Night Lights weren't nominated today. We recognize that pleasing the fans at the end of Lost was very tall order, so we were extremely happy and gratified to the Academy's recognition for the work of everyone on the Lost team. It was especially gratifying to see that we got Emmy nominations for our really talented collaborators, as well.
Damon Lindelof: Emotionally, it's been a much different experience than we're used to because nomination day has always been on a working day for us. So we'd get the nominations in morning, I would come into Carlton's office, we would hug, we would do a little bit of press and then we'd go, OK what is episode three of season four going to be? This is one of those days when you really realize the fact that we're no longer making the show. We've always taken the month of June as a vacation, but the deeper we get into July without writing new episodes of Lost, the more it begins to sink in. It's like, wow, we're really done. It's one thing to write the final episode and to see the final episode, but now that sense of really looking back on it and it's really over—that cold, hard reality. In the stages of grieving, we're now moving into the acceptance stage, and that is a wonderful thing, but there is a certain degree of sadness to it, too.

Lost received a lot of Emmy love today. Do you think the nods were based more on storytelling and acting, rather than honoring its final season?
C.C.: I don't think you can get an Emmy nomination just based on nostalgia or longevity. If that was the case, Law & Order [would have, too.] What an unsurpassed accomplishment for that show to have been on the air for 20 years! That is stupendous. But we were extremely lucky and we remain enormously grateful to ABC for allowing us to end the show on our own terms. The key for Damon and me in doing so was that the story wouldn't go on too long. That we could end Lost before people got tired of it. We didn't have to stretch our storytelling beyond what we had imagined for the series. To actually get nominated after being able to do that has just made today an awesome day all the way around.

Had the two of you always intended on submitting Lost's finale, "The End," for Emmy consideration, or where there other contenders?
C.C.: It wasn't a preplanned thing, but we'd written the finale and shot it and felt really good about it, and it was at that point we made a decision to submit that episode. It did feel like it was representative of our work, and it was the appropriate culmination of the show and might be the best thing for us to submit, so that's what Damon and I decided to do.


ABC/RICK ROWELL
D.L.: We certainly had a conversation about it, and we alternate playing devil's advocate. The concern for Lost with the Emmys has always been that you don't want to submit an episode that would make no sense to somebody who's never seen the show. And maybe there were some self-contained episodes this season that would work better, but in the final season there are no self-contained episodes of Lost. Even in episodes like "Ab Aeterno," it works because of three seasons of wondering who Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) is. So the conclusion was, if the finale is not the episode we should be submitting, then season six doesn't really deserve to be nominated for an Emmy.

Have you spoken to any other Lost Emmy nominees today?
C.C.: I've not spoken to the actors directly. I've exchanged some emails with fellow nominees, but it is a little bit different this year because we're not in the office, we're not working, we're not sitting down together having breakfast. It's a little different feeling, but there's plenty of love going back and forth between everybody on the show. It's been a really celebratory day. The hidden secret of Lost's success was the incredible alchemy between everyone who worked on the show. It's been one of those days where we've been happy to have an excuse to be back in communication with each other.
D.L.: It feels like before [the end of Lost], the first thing Carlton and I would do when anybody was nominated for anything, we'd get on the phone and congratulate them. Because we were their bosses and that's what you do. But we're not their bosses anymore, now we're just all friends who worked on a show together. And that started on finale night, when we all came together it felt like we all made the show together and there is not hierarchy because we're not working together. We were able to drop the business-like attachments of the show. We were just able to hug each other and cry it out and be emotional and cool with each other. High school is over, we're graduating, everybody's going off to college, we'll always look back at this time with tremendous affection—And [Sarcastically] I don't miss it one bit.

Why break your radio silence now? Was that always the plan, too?
D.L.: It wasn't a thought at the time. Every year after the finale we've always gone into radio silence just because we're pretty sick of ourselves, so we can't even imagine what everybody else thinks of us. And we've always broken our radio silence at Comic-Con, and this year we're obviously not going to Comic-Con because it's about promoting something to come. The idea of looking back on the show is not something we were particularly interested in, looking back at ourselves. But around a week ago, Carlton and I had both been on vacation and received an email from someone at ABC asking [if we would] be willing to do some press. And that was our first contact with each other where it was like, alright, of course. If the show gets recognized, it feels totally appropriate for us to express out feelings about how awesome that is. There's no reason to not talk about Lost ever again, it's just not in our DNA. Had the show not been nominated for anything, I'm sure Carlton and I would have emerged at some appropriate time over the summer to talk about—
CC: To begin begging for work at Starbucks. [Laughs.]

Before you go, we'd love to know if you have any other Emmy nominated faves this year—besides Lost, of course.
C.C.: I was very happy for Ryan Murphy to see how much love Glee got. It's exciting that the show really feels like it's in the zeitgeist now, and for us having been fortunate to ride that zeitgeist wave for awhile, it's great to see that Ryan is surfing it, too. He's a wonderful guy and the show is worthy of all the attention it's getting.
D.L.: And also Carlton and I, and all the writers in the writer's room's favorite show this year was Modern Family. We would talk about it every Thursday morning. And Steve Levitan and Chris Lloyd are just really class acts, and everyone on that show is so sweet. Also, in the year Lost came about, it was Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, and people were saying all hail the drama, and the return of comedy is dead. Since Friends and Seinfeld, there really hasn't been anything. And now you look at comedy and there's not just Glee and Modern Family, but also The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men, and comedy has never been bigger. Comedy is completely strong. And that's not even mentioning 30 Rock and The Office, which are two incredible comedies. On the drama side, it was really cool see Matthew [Fox] get recognized as lead actor, but also to see somebody like Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton break into that mix. Friday Night Lights is clearly a show that's gotten enormous critical acclaim, but just never connected with Emmy voters, and it's really cool that it finally got acknowledged.

And that's all, folks. Do you love Darlton, or do you love them? And how much do you miss Lost, because those almost-tears on the phone were very real, and the mere sound of Damon and Carlton's voices pushed up over the edge. In the best way, of course.
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b189521_losts_creators_talk_emmys_life_after.html

Lost Emmy Nominations

Man I really hope that Lost sweeps this just like Return of the King did for the Oscars. Kind of an overall set of awards for the entire series. I expected the Emerson and O'Quinn nominations, but I was pleasantly surprised at Fox for Actor and Mitchell for Guest Actress. The Jack Bender nomination was great also along with Darlton for Writers. I love how the web/DVD special "Mysteries of the Universe" is going up against all of the teeny bopper stuff.

DRAMA SERIES
"Breaking Bad" (AMC)
"Dexter" (Showtime)
"The Good Wife" (CBS)
"Lost" (ABC)
"Mad Men" (AMC)
"True Blood" (HBO)

ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Bryan Cranston - "Breaking Bad
"Michael C. Hall - "Dexter"
Kyle Chandler - "Friday Night Lights"
Hugh Laurie - "House"
Matthew Fox - "Lost"
Jon Hamm - "Mad Men"

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Aaron Paul - "Breaking Bad"
Martin Short - "Damages"
Terry O'Quinn - "Lost"
Michael Emerson - "Lost"
John Slattery - "Mad Men"
Andre Braugher - "Men Of A Certain Age"

GUEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Mary Kay Place - "Big Love"
Sissy Spacek - "Big Love"
Shirley Jones - "The Cleaner"
Lily Tomlin - "Damages"
Ann-Margre - "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
Elizabeth Mitchell - "Lost"

DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA
Michelle MacLaren - "Breaking Bad" ("One Minute")
Steve Shill - "Dexter" ("The Getaway")
Jack Bender - "Lost" ("The End")
Lesli Linka Glatter - "Mad Men" ("Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency")
Agnieszka Holland - "Treme" ("Do You Know What It Means")

SPECIAL CLASS PROGRAMS
"ABC's LOST Presents: Mysteries Of The Universe" - "The Dharma Initiative" (abc.com/lost)
"iCarly" - (Nickelodeon)
"Jonas" (Disney Channel)
"Wizards Of Waverly Place" (Disney Channel)
"Wizards Of Waverly Place: The Movie" (Disney Channel)

WRITING FOR A DRAMA
Rolin Jones - "Friday Night Lights" - "The Son" (DirecTV)
Michelle King, Robert King - "The Good Wife" - "Pilot" (CBS)
Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse - "Lost" - "The End" (ABC)
Robin Veith, Matthew Weiner - "Mad Men" - "Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency" (AMC)
Matthew Weiner, Erin Levy - "Mad Men" - "Shut The Door. Have A Seat." (AMC)

http://www.emmys.tv/awards/primetime-emmy-awards

Carlton Cuse Talks About ABC’s Intention To Keep The LOST Franchise Alive

Lost: How It Began

Why the most expensive pilot in TV history was worth every penny
Share Comments Add your comment Cursed numbers. Hidden hatches. Miracle cures. Tropical polar bears. Wrinkles in time. Flashbacks, flash-forwards, and, yes, flash-sideways. Over the last six seasons, Lost has taken us on an adventure so trippy and labyrinthian, it's almost hard to remember how it all started. So before we reach the end of this magical mystery about a group of plane-crash survivors marooned on a freaky island, let us relive the story of the two-part Lost pilot, which in the fall of 2004 made jaws drop across the nation and raised hopes of what a network drama could be. Buckle up for a wild ride involving an out-of-control hunk of flaming metal, a furry killer pillow, and a sweaty Matthew Fox.

1. HOW TO CRASH A PLANE
Our saga opens on the eye of then-ABC Entertainment chairman Lloyd Braun, who, while vacationing in Hawaii in the summer of 2003, formulated a Cast Away-meets-Survivor series pitch. A few weeks later at a corporate retreat, he shared his vision. The feedback? ''Deafening silence,'' he recalls. ''I felt like I was the only Jewish guy at a Ku Klux Klan rally.'' Afterward, ABC drama head Thom Sherman whispered to Braun that he liked the idea, so Braun instructed him to ''quietly'' develop it. Screenwriter Jeffrey Lieber penned a script, but Braun wasn't satisfied, and in January 2004, he rang up Alias creator J.J. Abrams — who was developing another ABC pilot at Braun's request, The Catch, starring Greg Grunberg — and asked him if he would take a whack at it.

Lloyd Braun (former chairman, ABC Entertainment) I say to [J.J. Abrams], ''I know it's an almost impossible drill. But I believe in every bone in my body that in your hands this is a huge hit show.'' I'm pleading with him to consider it. He starts to joke about how completely ridiculous this scenario is, but I get him to go home and think about it.
J.J. Abrams (series co-creator) I called him back and said, ''Look, I have a version of this, but you are not going to like it. It's more Michael Crichton than it is Cast Away. There would be a hatch on this island. And you would start to learn truths about these people that aren't immediately obvious. It's a weirder version than you want to do.'' And he said, ''No, I love that version.''

Braun asked for an outline for the pilot by the following week, and Abrams signed on — with a caveat: He needed a writing partner. On Monday, Crossing Jordan writer-producer Damon Lindelof, who'd been itching to meet Abrams, was dispatched to Abrams' office.

Damon Lindelof (series co-creator) I was wearing this Star Wars Bantha Tracks T-shirt. And J.J. accused me of wearing it for purposes of impressing him, which was absolutely correct.

Abrams He had this detail of a guy waking up and having a vodka bottle in his pocket. He was not looking at it from the point of view of the horrors of the crash. He was looking at this crazy detail as a way in, which was the greatest way ever. All of a sudden, we started riffing on characters and ideas and things that we loved — Twilight Zone, Star Wars. And we very quickly realized that this could actually be something very cool, as opposed to a pain in the ass that had been dropped on us.
Lindelof We left feeling completely jazzed. In addition to the Hatch, the flashbacks [which peeked into characters' precrash lives], and Jack waking up in the jungle as the opening of the show, we had that the ending [of the pilot] would be that there was already a transmission going out that had been repeating on a loop for so long that the castaways knew they were hosed. That all happened on the very first day.

2. CASTING A WIDE NET
With the help of Alias producers Bryan Burk, Jesse Alexander, and Jeff Pinkner, Lindelof and Abrams constructed a 21-page outline that tickled Braun. But with pilot season well under way, ABC needed a finished show in about 12 weeks. Abrams agreed to direct the pilot, and they began furiously writing placeholder audition scenes, just so the actors would have something to read.

Bryan Burk (exec producer) The casting process was crazy. It was falling in love with people who were not at all what we had in mind for each role.

Jorge Garcia was invited to come in after Abrams saw him on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and he wound up with the tailor-made role of comical lottery winner Hurley. Aging rocker/addict Charlie was made younger after the producers were charmed by The Lord of the Rings' Dominic Monaghan. Harold Perrineau (Oz) and Malcolm David Kelley were cast as estranged father and son Michael and Walt.

Malcolm David Kelley (Walt) I had on my red Allen Iverson jersey, so I felt pretty lucky going into the audition.
Lindelof We did not want a lily-white cast. So [we said], ''Bring in people of every color and every ethnicity for every role. And in some cases, both genders.''

British actor Naveen Andrews was tapped as former Iraqi Republican Guard officer Sayid, a role that was originally female and not Iraqi. Korean film star Yunjin Kim auditioned as Kate.

Abrams The [foreign] couple was going to be German. Then Yunjin came in, and she was so good, we thought, ''What if the couple was Korean?''
Yunjin Kim (Sun) J.J. had this idea that it would be really interesting to be isolated on this deserted island but not speak English.

Daniel Dae Kim nabbed the role of her onscreen husband, Jin.

Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) I'd never acted in Korean before. I was really nervous about pronunciation.

Abrams dialed Alias' Terry O'Quinn and offered him the role of enigmatic man of faith John Locke.

Terry O'Quinn (Locke) It was a very tumultuous time in my life. I wasn't making a lot of money. [J.J.] said, ''There's not going to be a lot in the pilot. But we're hoping to develop the role.'' The fact that I didn't have to do an audition, I just had a role? It was a godsend.

Josh Holloway's Hollywood struggles were about to come to an end as he was asked to audition for the role of con man Sawyer.

Josh Holloway (Sawyer) I was done. I was saying, ''Acting, f--- off!'' Acting had kicked me in the teeth so hard. I had just received my real estate license in the mail four days before. I was going to build my real estate empire. The chance to audition for this came along, and I was like, ''Ahhh, f--- it. One last hurrah.''

After a protracted search for fugitive Kate, the audition tape of Evangeline Lilly — a Canadian actress with ''a blank résumé,'' as she says — caught Abrams' eye, and she ultimately scored the role. Other cast additions included Ian Somerhalder and Maggie Grace as stepsiblings Boone and Shannon, and Emilie de Ravin as pregnant Claire. The search for Dr. Jack Shephard wasn't a priority early on: In a move designed to surprise the audience, our apparent hero died halfway into the original script. (Michael Keaton was briefly considered to guest-star.) Network and studio execs ''really resented'' the twist, recalls Abrams.

Lindelof J.J. and I made the impassioned plea as to how it'd be like killing Janet Leigh off in the middle of Psycho, suddenly switching perspectives, and it was Anthony Perkins' movie. And [then-Touchstone Television president] Stephen McPherson said, ''There's a difference between a movie and a television show. If you get the audience to love this guy over the first hour, killing him will make them feel like they cannot attach themselves to anybody else, because they can be plucked away at any time.'' That was the first time that we fundamentally understood, ''Wow, this guy's right.'' So we went back to J.J.'s office and said, ''All right, what does the show look like if Jack survives?''

Enter ex-Party of Five star Matthew Fox. After Fox auditioned for Sawyer, the producers handed him the revised script and asked him to read it in the other room before trying on Jack.

Matthew Fox (Jack) I was blown away by it. I immediately felt that I wanted to do this very bad. It was such an all-in feeling. The premise. The quality of the writing. The people behind it. Where it was going to be shot.

Lindelof When he came [back] in, he was out of breath, he was sweaty. It was like, ''What was this guy doing before the audition?'' Matthew was the first actor who played it as: I was just in a plane crash an hour ago. He completely sold that reality.

3. ADVENTURES IN PARADISE
While casting and writing, the Lost team was also shopping for a jumbo jet to drop on the North Shore of Oahu. Producers Sarah Caplan and Jean Higgins procured a Lockheed L-1011 from a Mojave Desert boneyard and had it cut into pieces so it could be sent by freighter to Hawaii. (''I've shipped things all over the world all my life,'' recalls Higgins, ''but I've never shipped anything as big as an L-1011.'') That nifty set prop cost a total of $1 million; the pilot's price tag would hit a record-setting $12 million. The network and studio had other concerns besides financial ones, though. This was the era of CSI — serialized shows weren't thriving in the ratings. Nor were sci-fi series, and Lost featured an unseen monster that terrorized the castaways.

Lindelof The network kept coming at us, over and over again, saying, ''Does there have to be a monster?'' And that's where J.J. and I entrenched. The monster is representative of all the unknown forces of the Island, and it has to not just make a noise in the pilot but be an ongoing threat, so that every time they're walking through the jungle, that thing could potentially show up.
Maggie Grace (Shannon) We didn't know if we were shooting Godzilla or Lord of the Flies.

Production began on March 11, 2004, on an L.A. soundstage and included a close call in which Lilly almost had to be replaced — her work visa didn't clear until the night before her first scene was shot. Soon after, cameras rolled in Hawaii. The first things shot: Jack, Kate, and Charlie trekking into the rainy jungle to find the plane's cockpit and running from the monster, which slaughtered the Oceanic Flight 815 pilot (Abrams' old pal Grunberg).

Evangeline Lilly (Kate) It was intense, it was treacherous, it was insane. We were shooting in the jungle, with cameras tied to zip lines, running full tilt through mud up to our knees, screaming and yelling..... I got some sort of spore in my eye and it swelled to twice the size. It was baptism by fire.

Shooting the show's iconic opening scenes — in which Jack wakes up disoriented in the jungle and stumbles out to the beach to find chaos and carnage everywhere — was an elaborate and overwhelming experience.

Fox There's people screaming and smoke and s--- happening. At that time, that was the biggest stuff that I'd ever been involved in. I couldn't f--- it up. I remember feeling really exhilarated by it, challenged by it, excited by it, awed by it.
Jorge Garcia (Hurley) I was a little scared. I remember talking to Matthew, saying, ''Hey, so when the plane blows up behind us, are we supposed to jump out like they do in the movies? Does that really happen?'' And he's like, ''I dunno, we should probably at least drop down to our knees or something.'' And immediately after that, J.J. gets on his megaphone: ''Okay, and when you hear the explosion, dive out into the sand!'' We were so excited about getting to do that, we started high-fiving.
Emilie de Ravin (Claire) I've got this whole pregnancy outfit on. I was so concerned that it would look like I hurt the child while falling that I was trying to fall gently, yet make it look realistic.

Things got awfully realistic while filming the moment in which a fiery plane chunk plummets to the ground, narrowly missing Charlie.

Abrams We had this crane lift it up on this wire and we lit the thing on fire. The heat of the fire snapped the wire. This two-ton piece of metal could've killed people. It was horrifying.
Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) I do remember when they yelled ''Cut!'' that everyone was like, ''Whoa!'' We didn't get a second try at it. It seemed to work out well.
O'Quinn When Locke was running around, trying to help Jack pull somebody out from under the plane, I wasn't aware that I had just gotten up from the ground after years in a wheelchair. I thought, ''Wow, he's pretty spry for somebody who was just in a plane crash.''
Abrams We didn't know in the pilot that Locke had been in a wheelchair. When we were working on the [series] scripts, Damon pitched me the idea.

Back in the jungle, Sawyer was to gun down a charging polar bear. Alas, the stuffed animal was hardly threatening. They tried tricks like putting visual-effects guru Kevin Blank in polar-bear chaps. And even better...

Holloway I'm firing away at this thing rushing through the forest at me, and J.J. throws a furry pillow at me — and it's supposed to be a polar bear. I was like, ''Are you serious? J.J. Abrams just hit me with a pillow?''
Lindelof We launched it off this hydraulic platform. It was like, ''Everybody stand back, we don't know how high this thing is gonna go!'' They fired it, it went up a foot, and just flopped down. Everybody burst into laughter. And I said, ''This is like Bela Lugosi wrestling the octopus in Ed Wood. What are we going to do?'' And J.J. kept saying, ''Hey, man, Jaws worked. And the less you saw of the shark, the better it worked.''

The less-is-more philosophy also applied to the heard-but-not-seen beast, which was later revealed as the Smoke Monster/Man in Black.

Harold Perrineau (Michael) Is it a dinosaur? Is this Land of the Lost? We sat around for the longest time trying to figure out: What could that thing even be?
Lindelof When we wrote the pilot, people were constantly asking us, ''What's the monster?'' And J.J. and I did have a conversation where one of us said, ''Wouldn't it be interesting if the question wasn't 'What is the monster?' but 'Who is the monster?'''... And that was the catalyzing idea that started defining all future conversations about Smokey.

But it wasn't just sci-fi curiosity that the producers wanted to cultivate. There were also character-based mysteries, like Sawyer's letter.

Abrams Josh was like, ''Well? What is it?'' I was like, ''It's just insanely important to you, and it's very painful.'' It was more important that we allude to the character's pain than to wait until we've figured it out. As much as the monster and polar bear are the obvious go-to ''Oooh, what's that?'' [mysteries], the far more important hooks that we were hoping the audience would bite on were things like: What's that pain that he has? What does that letter mean?

While Lindelof and Abrams were mapping out the episode's final scenes, they received a request from the network: Can you shoot a closure-providing ending in case the pilot becomes a TV movie instead of a series?

Lindelof In the wake of ''What's the series going to be?'' which was the pervasive question in the development process, we tried to design the show [with] enough mysteries to make people have to watch the second episode. So, to write a five-minute scene at the end that answered all of those mysteries, it's like telling somebody to design the fastest car in the world, and they do that, and five minutes before they start up the assembly line you say, ''Can it also be a boat?''
Abrams I said, ''You tell me what you want me to shoot, and I will do it.'' I think they realized there was nothing really that would have been a satisfactory ending.

The producers proceeded with their ending, in which our castaways hike up a mountain to send out a distress signal, only to detect a 16-year-old looped SOS in French. The pilot concluded on a wonderfully eerie note, punctuated by Charlie's now-legendary question: ''Guys, where are we?''

Iam Somerhalder (Boone) I remember those scenes because every actor was so f---ing committed.
Naveen Andrews (Sayid) It had a kind of otherworldly energy. It set the whole thing up beautifully. That's when we knew we were onto something.
Monahan After I said it, Bryan Burk came over to me and he said, ''I don't know what you just did, but that was amazing.'' I said, ''Oh. All right.'' I thought he was being a smart-ass. It didn't feel like a big deal to me. Then over the course of the pilot, the crew started saying it. People would come over to me and go, ''Where are we?'' I'd be like, ''Whoa. Are you doing me?''

4. LOST IS FOUND (BY AN AUDIENCE)
Following a swift editing session, the pilot was submitted to ABC, and the waiting game commenced. The producers were nervous: Braun, their champion, was dismissed by ABC in an executive shakeout during the pilot shoot, and his replacement, Stephen McPherson (whose studio produced Lost), had voiced some early concerns, as did higher-ups in the company.

Abrams I didn't really feel optimistic. I kept hearing that it wasn't for sure. And then the testing came back.

When ABC showed its pilots to test audiences, Lost scored high and was ultimately given the green light.

Stephen McPherson (president, ABC Entertainment) I can remember saying to Damon, ''Aren't there GPS systems in this world? Wouldn't these people be found pretty quickly?'' The premise was a reservation from the get-go.... [But] once it was shot, it was a pretty phenomenal piece of work. I don't see how anyone could have looked at it and said, ''Let's debate this one.''

Lost buzz built over the summer — the pilot thrilled thousands of fans at Comic-Con — and when the show premiered on Sept. 22, 2004, it drew 18.7 million viewers, which was ABC's best drama-series debut in nine years. (Another new show, Desperate Housewives, would top that mark 11 days later.) Lost won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama in 2005, and Abrams scored the directing Emmy for the pilot. (After Abrams stepped away during season 1 to co-write and direct Mission: Impossible III, Nash Bridges creator Carlton Cuse assumed executive-producer/showrunner duties alongside Lindelof.) Although ratings tailed off in later seasons, Lost continued to cement its status as one of the most beloved cult hits in TV history.

Fox I just never dreamed that it would be as globally accepted as it has been.
Abrams Without the work that Damon and Carlton have done since, the pilot would be a cool but forgotten couple hours of TV. But because of what they've done, it feels like what it's become, which is the beginning of an epic story. Granted, it was an epic beginning — but that's all it was.
Lindelof We didn't dare to be different. We ended up being different because it was the only way we could figure out how to make it work. I would love to rewrite history and say we were innovators and revolting against the system. But what it really was, and this is how the show is written to this day: Every conversation started with the phrase ''Wouldn't it be cool if...'' and if the answer was ''Yes,'' we did it. (Additional reporting by Jeff Jensen)
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20367067,00.html

'Lost' Thursdays: They're gonna put Darlton in the movies

May 20, 2010 11:38 pm
You think you're going to miss "Lost"? Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse think you've got nothing on them.

When speaking about the show's impending finale, Lindelof said that he and Cuse were not acknowledging the show was about to end, that they were "Elizabeth Kubler-Rossing it."

"Once we're out of denial, we'll move on to anger, and you don't wanna be around for that," Lindelof said with a laugh.

The two spoke at an event hosted at the Times Center in New York City and broadcast at hundreds of movie theaters in the United States and Canada. The two responded to questions about the show's evolution and its history directed at them by New York Times entertainment editor Lorne Manley, as well as questions asked by fans attending at theaters around the country and in the audience at the event itself. The mood was largely festive, and the two producers (who have been the primary show runners on "Lost" since early in its first season, when co-creator J.J. Abrams left to direct "Mission: Impossible III") were largely forthcoming about the show and their creative process. Yet they still had to sidestep potential spoilers for the finale, perhaps owing to just how many heated fan queries still exist around the famously mysterious series.


The two have been planning the events of the final episode of the show for so long during the series' run that pulling all of the pieces together has been less a work of television construction for the two and more putting in place things they've been wanting to do for a long time.

"It's a lot like someone who's alive planning their own funeral," Lindelof said. He added that the two approached writing the finale by asking themselves "If we were fans of the show ... what are the scenes we'd want to see?"

Lindelof said that the question he gets asked most often now by fans is whether or not the finale is going to disappoint them. While he understands the frustrations and concerns felt by the show's vocal fan base, he also likens the process of watching the show to going on a series of dates with someone and wondering if they're going to disappoint you the whole time, rather than just letting go and falling in love.

"All we could do was make the version that we were happy with, that satisfied us," Cuse said.

The producers, who spend much of their time in other interviews dealing with questions of why this or that story choice was made during the course of the series, seemed to appreciate getting to pull back to take a longer view of the show that's so dominated their lives. Lindelof said that what has made some of the show's weirder mysteries work over the years is the fact that the series is usually able to flip a question that begins with "what" into a question that begins with "who." He gave as an example the fact that the show turned the question of "What's the Smoke Monster?" on its head and revealed that fans should have been asking, all along, "Who's the Smoke Monster?" in the early portions of this season.

It's this idea that the most absurd notions can be put across with good character byplay that has kept the show in good stead with its fans, for the most part, the two said. For example, Season Four's beloved episode "The Constant" can be boiled down to a story of a guy trying to get in touch with the woman he left on the mainland and hasn't spoken to for three years. The notion of someone's consciousness becoming loose in time and floating throughout the course of his own life is absurd on its face, but by rooting it in the characters, the show is able to get away with it. Lindelof said a similar thing happened with the button that had to be pushed every 108 minutes in Season Two, lest the world end.

"The only way we could get the audience to buy into it was if Locke could convince Jack to push it," he said, after the scene where Locke does just that (from episode "Orientation") was screened.

The question the two have been asked more than any other just might be whether they knew the answers to all of the questions on the show from the beginning. They insist that they knew roughly what the end of the show was from the very beginning, but Cuse allowed that major portions of the show's mythology were laid into place between seasons one and two, when they finally had time to deal with the fact that the series was a major hit and would likely run for several years. There would be an even stricter design for where things were going at the start of each season, laid in place by the writers at a retreat before each season began, but there was still room to improvise, particularly when writing toward evolving character relationships.

"The show is its own organic entity, and it tells you what it wants to be," Cuse said.

The two also allowed that occasional fan questions would work their way into the show -- for instance, rampant fan speculation on why Hurley wasn't losing weight led to a Season Two scene where he revealed a secret stash of DHARMA food -- but they, for the most part, are following their own course, even if it occasionally leads down disastrous trails, as with the much-maligned Nikki and Paolo episodes from Season Three. The characters were introduced because the show had no end date and needed to keep coming up with new characters to tell stories about, Cuse said, but it became quickly obvious that the introduction was a mistake.

"We are fallible. We make mistakes. The question is, when we make mistakes, how obvious are they?" Lindelof said, saying that most mistakes were caught so early the audience didn't really notice them even beginning to develop.

The flash-sideways scenes of the final season grew out of a desire to return to the sense the show had in Season One that all of its characters could have mysterious pasts and be revealed to be just about anything, Cuse said. It was both a way to examine how far the characters have come since the show began and a way to place them in new contexts and see what happened.

"Isn't Sawyer the same guy?" Lindelof said of the sideways universe. "He's a cop here; he's a con man there. But isn't he the same guy?"

Late in the program, the two were joined by actors Michael Emerson, who plays the enigmatic Ben Linus, and Jorge Garcia, who plays the gregarious Hurley. Emerson and Garcia arrived too late to offer up any real answers, though Garcia allowed his favorite non-Hurley character was Ben (who "gets to say some of the darnedest things," prompting Emerson, Cuse and Lindelof to reimagine a "Ben Says the Darnedest Things" spinoff) and Emerson said he always liked Mr. Eko to the same question. Cuse and Lindelof also asked Garcia if he, as a big fan of the show in addition to an actor on it, thought the finale answered the questions he had about the series. "As a fan," Garcia said, "I think I got it," with only a little hesitation.

Cuse and Lindelof allowed that they can't answer everything to everyone's satisfaction, but they also thought some things have been made too much of. As an example, they responded to a fan's query about the psychic who insisted both that Claire's unborn child would be special and that she had to get on a plane to Los Angeles with the fact that an episode in Season Two had revealed that character -- the only one who ever said Aaron was special -- as a hoax. But that seems to rarely satisfy those who watch the show.

"We'll give these explanations, and people will be, like, 'Nope. Why is he special?'" Lindelof said.

But it would be all but impossible to get out of a "Lost" event without a few spoilers. While Lindelof, Cuse, Emerson and Garcia only let a few slip, they also showed a scene from the finale, which hinted at some fairly interesting ideas. Suffice it to say, if you want to go into Sunday's finale completely unspoiled, don't read the next paragraph.

Initially, the only things Cuse and Lindelof would say about the finale were relatively minor, but Cuse finally allowed that Walt would be appearing before all was said and done, even though actor Malcolm David Kelley is now taller than the producers. ("I can't say there's a 'Star Wars' reference, but you drop the Walt bomb?" Lindelof grumbled.) The two also gave some indication that we'll get a better sense of both Widmore's and Eloise Hawking's plans in the finale, as well as hinting that we'll finally learn just what Desmond meant when he said "You've got to lift it up" way back in Season Two. Emerson also hinted that Ben and Hurley would have some scenes together to accomplish some important task in the finale, though this may have been a joke to bring Garcia out on stage.

And the clip screened from the finale saw Sawyer spying on the Monster (still in Locke guise) and Ben as they tried to figure out why Desmond had disappeared from the well. Ben brought Sawyer before the Monster, where all three spoke about destroying the Island before Sawyer made his escape. Ben, wondering why the Monster had told him he could have the Island all to himself once the Monster effected his escape, was told that he could have the Island all to himself. It would just be at the bottom of the ocean. And then the Monster noticed some dog tracks around the well, suggesting, perhaps, that Rose and Bernard, with the faithful Vincent in tow, were the ones to rescue Desmond.

--Todd VanDerWerff (follow me on Twitter at @tvoti)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/05/lost-thursdays-theyre-gonna-put-darlton-in-the-movies.html

The Muppets Grill Darlton For Answers!

We all want answers....even The Muppets want answers! So they sneak into the writer's room at LOST and demand them. But, as with every episode of LOST...there's a twist ending.




For you FaceBook fans...There's a link to the official LOST FB profile page that this clip originates from HERE.

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse on Lost

The Lost show runners (Darlton) on the final season.
by Fred Topel
Feb 26, 2010
This is the end of an era. Not only is the series Lost coming to an end, but this is probably the last time Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse will give us vague non-answers about what’s coming up on Lost. Thanks for this last press conference, guys. We’ll miss you.

Q: When exactly did you figure out how this all ended?

Carlton Cuse: You know, there isn't really a completely definitive answer to that. I mean, we came up with the final image of the show a long time ago back when we were first plotting out the mythology in the first season, and then we started adding elements to that as we went along. Really, between the first and the second season is when we cooked the mythology. We kind of knew what the end point was, but as you move towards the end point, you add elements. And obviously, the end is not yet written, and there are certain sort of mythological, architectural elements that are intact for that ending, but a lot of character stuff will get worked out as we go along. I mean, that's part of the discovery process of writing. Obviously, for instance, like Michael Emerson wasn't on the show at that point, and it's a fun process because we sort of have a concept of where we're going to end the show but there is still the process of actually executing it and there still is the process of discovery, particularly on a character level, that will come into play as we finish the show.

Damon Lindelof: So if you guys have any ideas, we are open-minded.

Q: In recent interviews, you've said that of all the seasons, the upcoming season of Lost will be closest to the first season. Can you at least explain sort of in what way the coming season will refer back to the first season more than any others?

Damon Lindelof: One of the things that I think we are trying to do, all of us, the actors and the writers, as well, in the sixth season is to show the audience the before so they have some sense of, oh, this is what he used to be and who they are now so you really get a sense of how far that person's come. And obviously, the process of doing that, not just thinking about it, but doing it on a story level, really makes you feel like we felt in Season 1.

Q: Was it really important all along to keep the actors from knowing what happened to their characters in advance?

Damon Lindelof: That's a great question. Our dialogue with the actors, it's one of those things where, quite honestly, we just don't speak to them at all.

Carlton Cuse: It's better that way.

Damon Lindelof: But with Terry, it's kind of one of those things where the actor reads the script, and they decide what they need in order to play the scene and they know that we are completely available to answer any questions. But I do feel like the fun of the show for us as writers and producers is to send these scripts down to Hawaii and then see what we get back as opposed to trying to micromanage it.

Carlton Cuse: And for the actors, I think, the fact that they don't know where things are going kind of makes them very present in performing those given scripts, and I think that's actually a good thing. I mean, I think they do a remarkable job basically reading the next week's episode and basically kind of bringing it to life, and there's that immediacy that's part of that process.

Q: Have you given any thought to a Lost spin-off, like the further adventures of Sawyer?

Carlton Cuse: They have not pressured us at all. I mean, the network has been fabulous, and we owe a great debt of gratitude to Steve McPherson again just for this whole notion of ending the show. We are definitively ending this story of these characters and the show that we wanted to tell in May, and there's not going to be an implanted sequel. There's not going to be a secret back-door pilot embedded in that. The story of Lost that we've been telling for these six seasons is coming to a close this May.

Q: What have been your most memorable moments in the six years of Lost?

Carlton Cuse: The raft launch in the first season was such a great example of the kind of collaborative way in which this show is made and that's, I think, the thing that really distinguishes and makes it special. It wasn't enough that we just wrote that raft launch. It was also what all the actors brought to bear. It was Jack Bender who actually came up with the idea of the dog swimming out and then turning back. And then, I remember sort of most vividly being on the scoring stage, and the orchestra that plays the music for the show was playing Michael Giacchino's cue for that and they sight-read and they hadn't played it. And after they played it the first time, it was so moving and beautiful that they all just started spontaneously applauding, tapping their bows across their instruments, and everybody was crying and it was just this moment where you realize that the show is so much larger than any one individual, and collaboration on this show is really, truly probably the most special thing that will happen for all of us.

Q: How will the events of the season finale cliffhanger wit the bomb impact the characters?

Carlton Cuse: The season premiere picks up right after the finale, and we really don't want to say too much about it. We've obviously been very circumspect about the sixth season, and primarily because there's this big cliffhanger. Juliet hits this bomb. There's a white flash. What happened? Jack and Faraday were postulating that that was going to reset the clock and the Oceanic 815 would fly along and land in Los Angeles. If she taps that bomb and something else happens, maybe they're still stuck on the island. We don't really want to kind of give away what the show is going to be this season, so that's why we've been very circumspect about what we said and why we haven't shown any new footage.

Q: Even though you set the end date and decided on the story, how do you deal with the inevitability of die hard fans having issues with the finale you wish to give them?

Damon Lindelof: It would be great to cover my bases and guarantee everybody a sh*tty ending of Lost. Now you're actually going to see the ending to Lost, and all we can do is, basically, put our best foot forward. We do feel like the worst ending that we could possibly provide everyone who has invested this amount of time and energy into watching the show is the safe ending. You know, the ending that is basically sort of like, "What's going to be the most appealing to the most number of people?" At some point, you can't take a risk just to take a risk because that's a betrayal in and of itself.

Carlton Cuse: Obviously not every question's going to be answered, so obviously, some people are going to be upset that those particular questions don't get resolved. We felt if we tried to just answer questions, it would be very pedantic. Apart from that, we also really embrace this notion that there's a fundamental sort of sense of mystery that we all have in our lives, and certainly that is a huge part of the lives of these characters, and to sort of demystify that by trying to literally explain everything down to the last little sort of midichlorian of it all would be a mistake in our view. So I think there would be, hopefully, a kind of healthy cocktail of answers, mystery, good character resolutions and some surprises.
http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment/tv/article/damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-on-lost-97097

'Lost' secret revealed: Darlton discuss how their history-making partnership began

February 23, 2010 6:00 am
By now, the story about the "Lost" pilot is the stuff of Hollywood legend. What Lostie doesn't know about former ABC President Lloyd Braun's half-baked idea about castaways on an island and his brilliant move to give J.J. Abrams a whack at writing the pilot after twice being disappointed by other writers?

It was late January 2004 -- very late in the development cycle -- when Braun introduced Abrams to Damon Lindelof, a writer and producer on "Crossing Jordan," to give him some help. Abrams and Lindelof hit it off and four days later they had the 25-page outline that was used to cast and begin production on the two-hour pilot.

Twelve weeks, a global casting search, and an estimated $11 million later, the "Lost" phenomenon was in the can, waiting for that ominous Sept. 22, 2004, premiere date.

But do you know the rest of the story? When was Darlton born? What prompted Carlton Cuse to join the series in October 2004 as an executive producer and co-show runner?

Cuse, creator of "Nash Bridges," had given Lindelof his first writing job on that series, but let's let Darlton tell you the rest of it for themselves:


-- Maria Elena Fernandez (follow me on Twitter @writerchica)

Video: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse interviewed in the appropriately named Orchid Suite of the Halekulani Hotel in Oahu last month. Credit: Maria Elena Fernandez
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/02/lost-secret-revealed-darlton-discuss-how-their-tvhistorymaking-partnership-began.html

Cuse and Lindelof Give Some Clues About the 'Lost' Timeline(s)

Posted Feb 10th 2010 4:30PM by Bob Sassone

If you're not listening to the weekly 'Lost' podcast, you're missing out on a lot of great stuff. I didn't start listening to it until recently, and I've discovered that not only are the podcasts entertaining, they're giving a lot of clues as to what's happening on the island (and these are official clues, not rumors or theories that you might find on other sites - though producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are more than a little coy in the podcasts).

What jumped out to me in the podcast posted after the season premiere last week has to do with the timeline(s).

Every 'Lost' fan has been referring to the "flash sideways" scenes off the island as an "alternate reality" or an "alternate timeline," but Cuse and Lindelof don't use this term. In fact, Lindelof says that to refer to it that way is "borderline offensive" because they say that both of these timelines are real and they both exist.

They hint that maybe - just maybe - the timelines will "reconcile" in some way at some point, but that one timeline is as real as the other. I mean, it's an alternate SOMETHING, but it's real. I'm assuming that Jack's neck injury and Claire suddenly naming her kid Aaron in the alternate something are big clues.

The 'Lost' podcasts are done weekly so there should be another one tomorrow or Friday. They also answer questions from fans. (As Mike mentioned, Jorge Garcia has a podcast too where he gives his own theories about the show.)
http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/02/10/cuse-and-lindelof-give-some-clues-about-the-lost-timeline-s/

Creators of ‘Lost’ Say the GPS Unit Is Plugged In

By EDWARD WYATT
Published: January 28, 2010
LOS ANGELES

FROM the time that Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed on a mysterious island in the 2004 premiere of “Lost” on ABC, almost everything that appeared to be true about the fate of the survivors has become if not actually false, then at least vastly more complicated that it originally seemed.

The island itself, for example, which at first seemed to be disconcertingly deserted, soon proved itself to be even more disconcertingly inhabited. While those inhabitants (known as the “others”) are liars, kidnappers and murderers, ultimately their crimes are revealed to serve a larger, protective purpose. And though it appears that for survivors of the crash the ultimate goal is to leave the island, many who do leave find themselves inexorably pulled back.

For the men pulling the levers behind the “Lost” curtain, finding ways to wrap up both the fate of the story’s characters and the mysteries of the island for the program’s final 16 episodes, which begins Tuesday, is a multifold challenge.

“Normally the thing that you have to execute is coming up with fulfilling endings and resolve the fate of your characters,” said Damon Lindelof, an executive producer who, with Carlton Cuse, oversees the series and is writing the key episodes for the coming season. “But we also have the added weight of how are we going to resolve this mythology.

“The show is so predicated on questions. So now we’re in answer mode, and have been for quite some time.”

And while the creators of “Lost” have assured viewers for much of the last five years that yes, they know the answers to those questions, they acknowledge that they do not yet know exactly how the series will come to a close. The final episodes have not yet been written, much less filmed.

“We came up with the final image of the show a long time ago, back when we were first plotting out the mythology in the first season,” Mr. Cuse said. But he added: “We still have six hours of the show to make. That is sort of the equivalent of three feature films. We have to do all the writing for those in about eight or nine weeks, and we have to finish shooting them between now and the middle of April.”

The creators are willing to make a few promises, which they outlined this month in an interview and in discussions with reporters at a meeting of the Television Critics Association. Viewers will not have to wait until the last moments of the series finale to get many of their answers, they say. Beginning with the season premiere, revelations about some of the most fundamental mysteries will come fast and furious.

Some of the “Lost” actors, in fact, implied that viewers hoping to quench their thirst for answers in the season premiere might find themselves drinking from a fire hose.

“It felt like a finale,” said Josh Holloway, who plays Sawyer, the brooding loner who seems to think best with his shirt off. “That scale. Wow.”

But providing answers does not necessarily means that resolutions will be simple. Emilie de Ravin, whose character, Claire, was pregnant when the plane crashed, gave birth on the island and all but disappeared into a spiritual netherworld in Season 4, admitted that she was initially a bit confused.

“I think I had to read it about three times before it actually made sense,” said Ms. de Ravin, whose character plays a bigger role this year. She was confused, she added, but “in a great way.”

“Not helping,” said Mr. Lindelof, who said of his biggest nightmare, deadpan: “Get ready to scratch your heads, America.”

The creators say their hope is that this final season might feel like a first, in that a viewer does not need to have watched the 95 previous episodes in order to enjoy the final chapter.

“There’s an inherent process when you’re ending something to sort of be thinking about the beginning,” Mr. Lindelof said. “One of the things that I think we are trying to do — all of us, the actors and the writers as well, in the sixth season — is to show the audience the before,” as well as the after.

Therefore episodes in the final season will continue to provide plenty of back story. That way viewers “have some sense of, ‘Oh, this is what he used to be and who they are now,’ ” Mr. Lindelof added. “So you really get a sense of how far that person’s come.”

“Lost” remains, by almost any measure, one of ABC’s biggest hits. But its viewership has fallen by about 30 percent from the first season, when an average of 15.5 million viewers tuned in each week, to the fifth, which drew about 11 million a week, according to Nielsen. Last season’s finale drew about 10 million viewers, compared with 14 million to 20 million in the earlier seasons.

And it is perhaps the most loyal viewers — who, having immersed themselves in every detail of every show, might therefore be hoping that every puzzle will be solved — who stand to be the most disappointed, according to the creators.

“Obviously not every question’s going to be answered,” Mr. Cuse said. “We felt if we tried to just answer questions, it would be very pedantic. Apart from that, we also really embrace this notion that there’s a fundamental sort of sense of mystery that we all have in our lives, and certainly that is a huge part of the lives of these characters.”

“To sort of demystify that by trying to literally explain everything down to the last little sort of midi-chlorian of it all would be a mistake in our view,” he added. (In “Star Wars,” midi-chlorians were life forms existing inside all living things; that the “Lost” creators might explain the real-world implications of their fantasy world by referring to another fantasy world is perhaps part of the reason that the series has lost viewers.)

But Mr. Cuse remains optimistic: “I think there would be, hopefully, a kind of healthy cocktail of answers, mystery, good character resolutions and some surprises.”

As with the Harry Potter series, another fantasy that the creators often cite as inspiration, the end is likely to have more to do with character resolution than with the solving of mysteries like what exactly the island is. Does Kate, the sexy fugitive, for example, end up with Sawyer or Jack, the reluctant leader of the band of survivors? Is John Locke dead or alive? Will Hurley ever lose weight?

If the creators are not saying, they do promise one other thing. While the ending of the series will almost certainly provoke some debate, it will not be of the type created by, say, the black screen that ended “The Sopranos” or the “It was all a dream” or “It all took place in someone’s imagination” endings of “Newhart” or “St. Elsewhere.” And like David Chase, the “Sopranos” creator, they do not plan to answer questions after the finale.

“We feel like over the course of the entire season we’re going to be answering questions and explaining things,” Mr. Cuse said. “We’re really going to focus on making sure the resolution of these characters comes to a place that we as writers feel satisfying. And that’s kind of the best approach we can take to make the show end well.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/arts/television/31lost.html

The 'Lost' lowdown: Part 1 of a long interview with Cuse and Lindelof (no spoilers)

In December, I interviewed "Lost" executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof over lunch on the Disney-ABC lot in Burbank, Calif. In a week or so, I'll be using that interview to write a feature for the print version of the Tribune (I'll post that "Lost" feature here too).

But with the anticipation of the "Lost" Season 6 premiere building -- the start of the final season is only two weeks away on Feb. 2 -- I thought I'd start posting the full transcript of the interview. It's looong. Check back here for additional installments (there should be two more installments over the next week or so).

Yes, what follows is only about a third of the interview. I know! But given that Lindelof and Cuse were kind enough to give me an hour of their time, I'm going to share everything they said with my fellow island fanatics. Casual fans might not want to read the whole thing; if that's the case, there are a few choice excepts here. All my other "Lost" coverage is here.

This interview contains no spoilers for Season 6. I didn't (and still don't) want to know any specifics about the season to come.

I was interested in finding out how Cuse and Lindelof approached Season 6 and how they feel about the fans' expectations for the last season. This section of the transcript also contains the first set of 'Star Wars references, and there are several "Battlestar Galactica" and "Sopranos" references too. Also, giraffes.

In the next exciting installment: Time travel!!! Later: Ewoks!!!


Here's Part 1 -- enjoy!

NOTICE (THIS IS THE NOT-FUN PART BUT PLEASE READ THIS): Do not reproduce this entire interview on your Web site. Feel free to excerpt it on your site and link back here (and if you do that, thanks much). But if you reproduce the entire thing, I'll have to send you a DMCA legal notice and that's no fun and it becomes a huge drag for all of us. So just excerpt and link, mmmmkay? Thanks!

Ryan: Even as a hardcore “Battlestar Galactica” fan, I was taken aback at how impassioned people were about the last set of episodes of that show. And I was really unprepared for how harsh people could get over the smallest things and what they meant, and over what and wasn’t dealt with in those final set of episodes. It was as if everyone had a different checklist in their mind of what had to happen.

In approaching this last season, do you have the sense that it's going to be like that? Or did you just not think about the intensity of the fan reaction?

Lindelof: I’m sure we both have similar yet vastly verbose responses to that because we talk a lot about it and been talking a lot about the ending of the show for a long time. But I think that there is a disproportionate focus on a finale and there always has been. And this happens on a micro level, where the critically and fan-hated season, Season 3, also happens to have the greatest finale probably of the series. And the taste left in your mouth in the wake of the finale is really all that matters.

If the entire series is going to be judged based on our ability to execute the dive, you can’t do your job. Part of it is -- despite what people think or say, so much of it has been talked about and planned for years now that you’re just kind of executing the plan to the best of your ability. You're changing the plan when it’s not working, but otherwise, you’re kind of married to the inevitable -- the stuff that we want to do.

Cuse: We also spent a lot of time talking about how we don’t want the last season of the show to be didactic. It’s very dangerous to basically create a checklist of answers and then start trying to tick them off, because we want to make sure we’re telling engaging stories. For us really, while the mythology is important, for us it’s a story about these characters. And so most of our focus has been on, how are we going to resolve the character stories?

We really feel we are very committed to this notion of not stripping the show of its essential mystery. I mean, mystery exists in life and we kind of always go back to the midi-chlorians example [in the 'Star Wars' prequel films]. Your understanding the Force was not aided by knowing that there were little particles swimming around in the bloodstreams of Jedi.

There are sort of fundamental elements of mystery and magic to the show that are unexplainable, and any attempt to explain them would actually harm the show, and in our opinion, the legacy of the show. So we’re trying to find the right blend of answering questions, but also leaving the things that should be mysterious mysterious.

Ryan: Yeah. I did not need to know more about Boba Fett. He has a jet pack. He a ship named Slave 1. I don’t need to know more than that.

Cuse: Yeah, exactly.

Lindelof: And for us, there are questions that we’re clearly presenting. It’s not like Lucas ever presented in the first three “Star Wars” films, "What is The Force?"

And therefore, it’s like, when people ask us, "What is the island, what do the numbers mean?" You know, we don’t know how to answer the question, "What do the numbers mean?" We can tell you what the practical application of the numbers is in the series, but how do you answer a question like that?

It’s like, if you could have a sitdown with God and say, "Why is a giraffe’s neck so tall?" You know, because he can eat from large trees. And it’s like, "But you made all these other animals that don’t need tall necks to eat, so why?" So you get into a conversation where every answer you give only makes it more frustrating.

Cuse: Or that leads to the question of, did God in fact create that giraffe or not, which is also a very, very tricky question to attempt to answer.

Lindelof: Of course. Look, the franchise of “Lost” -- in addition to the primary franchise, which is the characters and the mysteries of the island that have always been in support of the characters -- there's this idea of, "What did they mean by that?" The zeitgeist of the show has developed around different iterations of that question. What do they mean by that?

Because the show isn’t like a traditional cop show where by the end of it somebody basically says, “Here’s who did it, here’s why they did it, and here is what is going to happen to them.” Or a law show with no ambiguity. There’s going to be an element of "What do they mean by that?" long after “Lost” is done and no matter what we did, there’s nothing we could do to prevent it.

Cuse: And also, we also are aware that answering questions inevitably raises other questions. We call it the Big Bang conundrum.


Lindelof: A.k.a, Kate’s plane.

Cuse: Yeah, if you go back and you say, "OK, Jacob is obviously someone who was of great significance to the mythology of the show, but who was before Jacob? And then but who created that person?" If you go back in the universe you can say, the universe was created in an event called the Big Bang, but then you can inevitably ask the question, "Well, what was before the Big Bang?"

I think the audience has to have a sort of respect for the fact that there is only a circumscribed set of answers that we can ever give. And we’re not sitting here trying to evade our responsibility to provide answers. We are going to answer the questions that, for us, feel like they need to be answered and we feel like we have some cool and satisfying answers for them.

Lindelof: One of which will be, we will answer what caused the Big Bang.

Ryan: It was giraffes.

Cuse: It was giraffes.

You know, ultimately, we’re excited though, because it does feel like we concocted the mythology of the show a long time ago and it’s like having a Christmas present and you kept it on the shelf a long time and people are finally going to get to open it and see it. So we’re finally getting to deploy the ending of the show and that is exciting to us. It is a story and I think as storytellers, that’s always what’s delicious -- you set up the audience and then you basically finish the story. There’s a payoff and we’re actually going to finally give the audience our payoff.

And we are going to go off the grid after the show is over to avoid the actual issue of having to interpret the ending. Again, we’ve always felt that one of the compelling elements of “Lost” is its intentional ambiguity. The fact is, it’s open for interpretation and discussion and we feel like we would be doing a disservice to the fans and the viewers to say, “No, you must only look at this in one way.” We don’t think that is really good for the show or for people’s ability to read into the show what they want. I mean, that’s what I like to do when I read a good book -- basically be able to debate what the real meaning and intention of that story is.

Ryan: So, what you’re saying is, you're going to France?

Cuse: We’re not saying. We’re not saying where we are.

Lindelof: It’s an undisclosed location.

Ryan: Is it Dick Cheney’s bunker?

Lindelof: Exactly. The one promise that we are making is that what we’re not going to do is leave the show hanging so we can pick up the ball and run with it two years from now in some other television project or movie. I think that we owe ourselves and the story and the audience a sense of finality.

Cuse: The most complete ending that we can give them.

Lindelof: Yeah, you can’t break up with somebody and say, "Let’s not go out anymore, but I still want to sleep together, I still want to live in the same house, and we should still go on dates all the time." No. If it’s over, it’s over.

We’re trying to create a season that really feels like it’s over as opposed to [left open-ended]. People keep saying, "Is there going to be a Sopranos movie?" And I actually feel the question in itself is offensive to anybody who likes the cut-to-black [ending] because it completely neutralizes the deftness. Carlton and I happen to be huge fans of the “Sopranos.” But to do a “Sopranos” movie, you could never watch that series finale again with any level of respect [if you know] know that something followed it.

Cuse: The other phenomenon which is interesting is that the immediate interpretation of the ending of “Lost” may not be the same as the ultimate interpretation of the ending of “Lost.”

I mean, you as a “Battlestar” fan probably have experienced the sensation that there was an immediate reaction to how “Battlestar” ended, and [now] it seems like there’s a bit of and evolving reaction to how “Battlestar” ended. And we anticipate that the same thing might happen with “Lost.”

There’s an instantaneous sense of loss, and using the “Sopranos,” again as an example -- a lot of people were sort of outraged because the story ended and it wasn’t conclusive, but then with some perspective and a little distance from the show, the metaphor of what Chase was doing there became clearer and that seemed to resonate better over time than in the immediate aftermath.

Lindelof: What was so impactful about that ending is, as a huge “Sopranos” fan myself, I can tell you almost nothing about that episode other than that Anthony Jr. was considering going into the military and then he got into a car accident. But the episode itself is like completely like sand through my fingers. I don’t remember anything about it. All I remember is that [last] scene...

Ryan: The only other thing I remember, apart from the final scene, is Meadow trying to park the car.

Lindelof: Right. All I remember is that Journey song. What are people going to take away from the final episode of “Lost?” Will it be the final image?

Cuse: Will it be the episode in its totality?

Lindelof: We keep getting asked about the final image and we’re like, "Yeah, sure, we know what it is." But people are acting like the final image of the show is revelatory in some way, as opposed to maybe [what's revelatory] is what happens in the first hour of the finale.

Cuse: But what’s happened is, I think people have expectations that have grown from other shows, where that last moment is such a sting. Whether it’s all of a sudden you see a snow globe [as in "St. Elsewhere"] or you cut to black or somebody wakes up and it’s all been a dream. Whatever it is, it’s like that final twist negates or completely overshines everything that’s come before it.

Lindelof: Which is amazing because the fact that people invested six years of their lives and over 120 hours on “Lost” and they’re going to pay it all off in this 30-second scene. "That is going to change the entire way that I feel about the show."

Cuse: We hope it doesn’t.

Lindelof: We’ll be riding either a wave of goodwill into the finale, or bad will, and it’s happened different ways in different seasons for us. Last year, [we had] the overt time travel story mechanism and the rise of characters like Faraday and the risk of putting Sawyer with Juliet. All of those things could have been [big problems] in any other world, and we were just fortuitous enough that it worked. But we really don’t have any sense of how this season is going to be received until it’s on the air.

Ryan: James Poniewozik [Time's television critic] has written about this, about how the finale of a sci-fi show can't just be a finale, it has to provide an Answer. It can't just be an ending, it has to solve the problem. And I felt like I definitely saw that split in the "Battlestar" fandom, between the people who wanted or feel they got character payoffs and the people who don't feel various solutions to the plot and the story were arrived at correctly.

Your show, if anything, has more fans and more different camps invested in different people and also in different parts of the mythology.

Cuse: I feel like there will be diverse opinions and again, we understand that the hardcore mythology fans might react differently than the people who are really waiting to find out if Kate ends up with Sawyer or with Jack. And for us, we feel that the story lines that ultimately will be the most satisfying are the character stories. In discussing the various conundrums of mythology answers, we are very well aware that for people who are really focused on the mythology, it’s hard to provide probably completely sufficient answers for those group of people. So there will be there’ll probably be different levels of satisfaction based on what it is that interested you about the show in the first place.

All we can do is trust our guts, which is kind of where we’ve been from the beginning. We started the show sitting in my office every morning having breakfast, talking about what we thought was cool. And whatever we both would get excited about would go into the show and that’s how we’ve approached it [all along] and that’s how we approached it at the end.

So, our barometer can only be: Does this ending feel satisfying to us and to the other writers? And if we can achieve that, we feel like we will have done what we can do and what we should do. Beyond that, I think every show – certainly a lot of people have rejected “Lost” along the way. We started with a 10.2 rating at the beginning of the second season and a certain group of people said, “You know what? This is too much to invest; this is too much mythological show to invest in."

People found a way to part with the show for various reasons, or they embraced it all the way down the line. So, we’re not trying to reverse-engineer the process, we’re basically committed to doing the best version that we feel we can do and that’s all we can do.

Lindelof: There’s a certain amount of security in the idea of saying the show was never supposed to work in the first place. In the wake of the pilot, to say, "This show is actually going to be on the air for over 120 episodes," we would have laughed in your face. So the idea that it sustained as long as it has and that some of our best episodes were in our fifth season as opposed to [earlier in the shows run], or that we were able to bounce back from some sub par episodes and sort of regain our momentum. That makes us kind of think -- it’s becoming a lot more about the journey for us than it is about the ending and we hope that that’s the show's ultimate legacy.

But I think the sci-fi distinction you make is an interesting one because, when you talk about the “Sopranos” ending or the last episode of “Seinfeld” or “Friends,” there’s only so many iterations of what can happen. The “Sopranos,” the only thing that people were talking about is, "Is Tony going to live, or is somebody going to kill him?"

With “Lost,” nobody can even guess what the ending is going to be. If you were to have a contest right now saying, "In one paragraph, summarize what you think the last episode of 'Lost' might be" -- if you say it to 100 people, you will get 100 paragraphs that have nothing to do with each other.

If you say that to somebody about the “Sopranos,” 50 people will say, "I think Tony’s going to get whacked," maybe 10 people will say, "Carmela is going to kill him, but he’s going to get whacked." But no one would have said, "They’re going to be eating in a friggin' restaurant -- onion rings." That's what was so brilliant about it -- how do you do the unexpected?

Ryan: You brought up in the first season and how you thought it would never last this long. As you look back, are there things you wish you could have done differently?

Cuse: No, I don’t think so. You could ask the same question about your life. I suppose everyone has regrets, but at the same time, you can either focus on your regrets as a path to nowhere. The journey of the show has been the absolutely right journey of the show. We had to take all the steps and the occasional missteps that we took in order to get where we are. So, everything that we’ve done has been sort of right in the larger karmic sense.

It’s interesting that you talk about this. One of the central themes of the show is free will versus predetermination and that same issue was very much in play in how the show was constructed. Yes, the mythological architecture was constructed back in the first season and between the first and second season, but the actual journey of these characters is something that evolves literally, episode by episode. We view the process of making the show as a very organic one. We watch what happens and how characters play off each other, what relationships are working, what aren’t working.

So there still is an element of discovery that is a part of getting into the finale. We sort of know what the Incident is, but how that’s going to play out with the characters is still something that we discover as we write each episode of the show.

We are not only the stewards of this journey, but we also have this wonderful process of discovery ourselves, which is, I think, the essence of the creative process. It's when you get into that transcendence where the show tells you what it wants to be and that’s something that we didn’t even anticipate. So, that to us is what’s fun.

Ryan: You guys have obviously a unique relationship with the fans. Have you ever changed what you wanted to do, or reconfigured what you thought you were going to do, based on good or bad fan reaction?

Lindelof: There hasn’t been an instance in the show where we disagreed with fan reaction, or were incredibly surprised by fan reaction. By the time fans saw Nikki and Paolo deliver their first lines of dialogue, we were already writing [their final episode,] 'Expose.' Had the fans said "We actually love these characters," maybe it would have given us pause, but by then we fundamentally acknowledged we had taken a shot and it didn’t work.

We did the Sawyer/Juliet thing last year. We were introducing Juliet into a relationship with Sawyer, [even though] the debate has been about whether Kate going to chose Sawyer or Jack. Now we’re changing it into a quadrangle for the first time, and it’s going to be it is a mature love at that – we don’t even see how [their relationship] really starts. When we introduced the audience to it, [the relationship] is already up and running for three years. That was the bold risk, but when we saw those dailies with Elizabeth [Mitchell as Juliet] and Josh [Holloway as Sawyer], they just sold it and we’re like, "This works."

If the audience doesn’t like the relationship, hopefully they won’t fault us for the idea and the good news is, “LaFleur” is Episode 8 and the season is only 16 episodes long and then Juliet falls into a hole. So, if they hate it, it’s only going to last for eight episodes, but it’s really going to govern every decision that Sawyer makes from here on out.

So, there are moments where we go, "What is the fan reaction going to be to this thing?" But especially since we started premiering in January [the season is mostly written by then]. On February 2 [when the final season premieres], Carlton and I and the writers are going to be writing Episode 15 of Season 6.

Cuse: Yeah, there will be no time for course correction. Last year we committed to this concept of time travel with a certain expectation that some people really might not respond to it. I think the most pleasant surprise was how much people embraced it, because it was difficult and it was much more overtly science fiction, and yet people really seemed to like the season.

But we have the same anxiety about what we’re doing this season. We kind of feel like the fundamental tenet that we’ve tried to follow as storytellers is "Be bold." But in being bold sometimes you fall on your face.

So we committed to a narrative approach this season which we feel is bold and it’s different than what we’ve done before. And if it works, it’ll be exciting, but it might not be everybody’s cup of tea either.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2010/01/lost-carlton-cuse-damon-lindelof-season-6-abc.html

ODI: Bad Robot Team Talks LOST, Alias, Fringe and More

Posted by The ODI on Thursday, December 17, 2009

Here is the first part of GQ Magazine's Interview with the Bad Robot team, including JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Bryan Burke, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci.

It is a great read and I love this promo pic as well!

GQ: JJ, is there anything in particular that you learned from the Lost experience that you brought to Fringe?

Roberto Orci [writer/executive producer, Alias; co-creator/executive producer, Fringe; executive producer/co-writer, Star Trek]: We needed Damon and Carlton.

JJ Abrams [co-creator/executive producer/director, Lost, Fringe and Alias; director/co-writer/executive producer, Star Trek]: And they weren’t available. No—my involvement with Lost really ended within the first season. And so a lot of what I learned from Lost was what people watching the show learned, which is what great characters and story looked like. I think the work that Damon and Carlton do on that show is obviously a high-water mark for TV, and the ambition. In terms of this show, it’s a very different show. Every show’s a different show. It’s easy, in retrospect, to make comparisons, but when you’re in the thick of it, when you’re working on something, even if it’s the same people, it’s suddenly a whole new nightmare challenge. And you scramble the best you can to do your best work, and it’s especially difficult when you’re doing a mythology show that’s also aspiring to be a standalone show. Lost was very lucky early on to get really good ratings. So the network was okay with mythology, and the show’s never apologized for it. Fringe, up front, said, “Hey, it’s a standalone show, and every week you’re going to get your own little separate mystery.” But the fans who come back to watch the show– and tonight, fingers crossed, that happens again– are the people who typically like the mythology. So there’s a weird dynamic that goes on that I still haven’t learned, from Alias to Lost to Fringe, how to necessarily solve.

GQ: How to please those two audiences simultaneously, you mean.

Abrams: Yeah. This group dealt with that with Star Trek. How do we do something that’s wholly original, while also doing something that’s wholly reverent of what’s come before? And how do you do a show that’s a week to week closed story and still tell a larger overarching story? It’s hard to please both sides of that all the time. It can be done in some instances, and other times, y’know, we fail miserably. But that’s definitely one of the challenges that we face, doing the show.

GQ: Was that always your intention, that Fringe would be more of a one-and-done show that didn’t depend as much on people following the mythology over a season-long arc, the way Lost does?

Orci: We always thought it would be both. That we’d have a little clue in each episode, but then every few episodes, you can have a highly mythological serialized episode. But in general, we always try to have that right balance.

Kurtzman: Which is a challenge, because I think our collective instincts veer toward serialization.

Orci: From watching Lost, I learned characters. That characters are key. The smallest character moment can be a gigantic revelation, as a viewer.

Damon Lindelof [co-creator/executive producer, Lost]: From the outside looking in, though, as a fan, and someone who had nothing at all to do with the development of Fringe, I felt the pilot clearly signified both shows. And the show that was more interesting to me as a viewer was the mythology, because of Nina Sharp and the mysterious and elusive William Bell. There’s a moment in the pilot where Walter looks into Peter’s eye, and I’m like, “What was that all about?” The problem with mystery of the week shows is, at the end of the episodes it’s just like that [brushes his hands off] and that’s not compelling television to me.

Bryan Burk [co-producer, Alias; executive producer, Lost/Fringe/Star Trek]: [On Fringe] I found us, referencing Alias more often than Lost, in the sense that that was a serialized show, and then in the middle of the series we started dabbling with making them self-contained.

Abrams: Well, ABC insisted on it.

Burk: Yeah. And it was hard to go there. Particularly when it’s such a serialized show. So from the beginning, the idea was, is it possible, how can we do it—how do we service two different audiences, those who just pop in for the individual episodes and doing what we all love, which is the mythology.

Kurtzman [to Carlton Cuse]: You and Damon have both worked on shows that were standalone, procedural shows. Do you feel that that can be as satisfying, storytelling wise?

Carlton Cuse [creator, Nash Bridges; executive producer, Lost]: I think they’re apples and oranges. A lot of people like the satisfaction that comes with seeing that case resolved every week. There’s a certain artificiality to it, but there’s also kind of a wish-fulfillment quality—a dead body falls at the beginning, and by the end of the episode you know who did it. The puzzle’s solved. I think those shows—I did Nash Bridges for six years, and that show had a little bit of ongoing sort of character mythology, but it was just a case every week. And there’s a certain satisfaction in doing that. And obviously the audience can just drop in whenever they want to that kind of a show.

Lindelof: There’s a difference between serialization and mythology, though. Like Grey’s Anatomy is heavily serialized, in terms of the character relationships—who’s sleeping with who, who’s angry at who, who’s just been fired. And you have to watch every episode to understand the depth of it.

GQ: Once it was clear there was going to be some kind of mythology in Fringe, was there pressure from the network to bring in the payoffs more quickly than you might have in the past?

Kurtzman: Yeah. For sure, there was.

Orci: Yes and no. I think they were confused about it.

Abrams: They don’t want mythology, but when you have a [recurring, mysterious] character like The Observer, they want to make a big deal about The Observer. They want it, and then they don’t want it, at the same time.

Kurtzman: I think the core story has to be the mystery of the week. It has to be set up in the teaser and resolved by the last act. But there are things like the Observer that don’t. And as we’ve been talking about, with all these shows, there’s also the deeper backstory of these characters, and that goes on forever and ever, and that’s the serialized element of the show.

http://the-odi.blogspot.com/