tjenz
Jul 23 2008, 07:38 PM
Should be some better stuff coming after the San Diego Comic Con, this weekend.
QUOTE
"Cuse hints that "the journey about how those six return to the island" will be a major thrust of Season 5. Adds Lindelof: "You have to break your characters up to create conflict... but you can't play that too long because the audience will get frustrated.... And we have that intensely in mind as we proceed.""
Cuse teases we'll see more of Daniel Dae Kim "in some form" this season despite Jin's apparent death.
QUOTE
Meanwhile, for those of you wondering about the casting of Lance Reddick (Lost's Matthew Abbadon) as a series regular on Fringe, J.J. said it's a safe bet he'll reappear on the Island. "When we were casting him, we hesitated because of his Lost character," J.J. admitted. "But then I realized if he goes and does another show, he'll be less likely to do Lost, so let's get him on this one, because I know the producer."
QUOTE
Ausiello: Damn straight you will! Team Darlton is doing their annual “radio silence” thing, so Lost scoop is at a premium these days. Luckily, I managed to unearth this little morsel: John Terry (Christian) and Alan Dale (Widmore) are in talks to return next season on a recurring basis. Big frakkin’ whoop, right?
Well, here’s where it gets interesting: In the fine print of both their contracts, it states that Lost has the right to pick up series regular options on both actors for the show’s sixth and final season. For insight into what this could possibly portend for Lost’s endgame, please join me in welcoming the man, the myth the legend, guru of all things Lost, Mr. Doc Jensen! “The prospect of expansive roles for Jack's maybe-dead dad and Penelope's dastardly deep-pocketed pop suggests a theory about the Island's true significance. Here is a seemingly-magical place where the lame can walk anew, the impotent can once more shoot bullets, and anyone can crank o! n ancient donkey wheels and leap through time. In other words, the Island provides the means for death-spooked mortals to cheat the grim reaper. I'm betting that's why Old Man Widmore is so desperate to find it. As for Ghost Dad, the Island allows him to stick around in his inexplicable spectral state and might even be facilitating a full-blown bodily resurrection; either scenario represents a violation of the natural order of things. In the end, Jack will no doubt have to convince his father — and possibly his maybe-dead half-sister Claire, too — that they need to move on. Regardless, keeping Terry around portends an emotional climax to Jack's father issue arc.” Really? You got all of that from my one little casting item? Cool.
Angrimorfee
Aug 19 2008, 12:46 PM
(The ORIGINAL Lost? Fascinating!)
http://tvparty.com/recnewpeople.html Billy Ingram
An off-course airliner goes down on a mysterious island where the survivors find themselves in eerie, bizarre surroundings.
Lost? No, The New People, an ABC series that ran from September 22, 1969 to January 12, 1970.
The similarities to Lost are many. Like Lost, the survivors find food and shelter, although of a more conventional nature here, and a cache of guns. Like Lost, a character sabotages the only hope of rescue early on. Like Lost, the show sports a multi-cultural cast (a bit of a rarity at the time) rife with racial tensions.
Like Lost's John Locke, The New People had Mr. Hanacheck (played by Richard Kiley), a know-it-all who becomes the de-facto leader - except here he dies in the first episode leaving our college aged miscreants to fend for themselves, Lord of the Flies style.
Here the similarities end. On The New People the doomed airplane is filled with young people, mostly flower power hippies. After the crash, the castaways discover an entire city populated by department store dummies, a town fully outfitted with cars, food, drink and everything needed to sustain life. They've even got dune buggies to race. Turns out the town was set up in order to measure the effects of a nuclear explosion. Why the government needed to test the effects of a bomb blast on dune buggies was just one more unanswered mystery.
The series was developed for TV by Rod Serling and was an Danny Thomas / Aaron Spelling production although it appears Serling had little or nothing to do with the writing. Too bad, because the premise was a strong one.
The New People was mostly and opportunity to play out societal tensions, it's what they called a 'relevant' drama at the time.
More than anything the production reinforced stereotypes of 1960's hippy dippy college kids as violent anarchists, reflecting the campus unrest going on over the Viet Nam war.
The core cast included Tiffany Bolling, Zooey Hall, David Moses, Dennis Olivieri and Peter Ratray. Guest stars over the series run included Susan Howard, Tyne Daly, Billy Dee Williams and Richard Dreyfuss.
Many of the young people in the cast were interchangeable with guest stars coming in each week to play various castaways that were never seen again.
Typical plots: one of the unmarried girls becomes pregnant with the island's first baby and is overcome with guilt; several people disappear so the hippies venture to the other side of the island to discover who else might be living on the island of Bomano. Come to think of it, weren't those plotlines on Lost?!?
The format was somewhat unique, the show ran for 45-minutes. Although, with fewer commercial breaks than we are used to today, the actual running time was about what we're used to in a modern day hour-long drama.
The New People aired on Monday nights at 8:15 following another 45-minute show meant to appeal to young folks, Music Scene. Neither show caught on and both were gone by mid-season.
Angrimorfee
Dec 2 2008, 05:56 PM
http://io9.com/5100922/a-peek-into-the-ant...acklash-of-2011 (+ video)
Here's a flash-forward, featuring Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse talking about the show's fourth season from a few years in the future, after their fans have turned on them and gouged Lindelof's eye out. They showed this hilarious featurette as part of an online conference promoting the show's season-four DVDs, which will include all of the season's flash-forwards in linear form as an extra. The producers also spelled out a bit more of what to expect in season five.
Another DVD featurette we got to see was a conspiracy-theory faux documentary about the Oceanic Six and the unlikelihood of their official story being true. The nature of the plane crash, the place where it allegedly crashed and the island they allegedly reached are all counter to the laws of physics. And then there's the thing where they didn't starve, and Kate's supposed pregnancy.
And then Cuse and Lindelof answered some questions. Lindelof said Lost is made to be watched on DVD because of all the easter eggs, and "they're almost designed for repeat viewings... I sometimes think about how frustrating it would've been to read the Harry Potter books ONE CHAPTER AT A TIME once a week. I'd pretty much kill myself."
I asked if the fourth season will have an obvious break, style-wise, between the pre-strike and post-strike episodes when you watch the whole thing in one of two sittings. Lindelof replied:
Hopefully not... The fact of the matter is that we designed out — at least roughly — the entire sixteen episode season... planting flags as to what would happen where in the grand scheme of things. In that original design, there were a couple of episodes focusing more on the Freighter Folks (Faraday, Miles and Charlotte) that got pushed into this season, but more importantly, things like Jack's appendicitis and Keamy arriving at New Otherton and killing Alex happened SOONER than we had planned due to the collapsed schedule. I think if there's a sense of separation between the first eight episodes (ending with "Meet Kevin Johnson") and the final six hours, it's that the story is really moving at a much higher rate of speed than we're traditionally accustomed to.
And there's good news for those of us who don't want to see the Oceanic Six separated from the rest of the show's cast for an entire season. Lindelof wrote:
We're concerned, too! I think everyone, writers and fans alike, feels the show is at its best when our characters are together... but the fact of the matter is that the story is constantly twisting and turning to keep them apart. Let's face it — Absence makes the heart grow fonder... but there's nothing sweeter than a reunion. All we're willing to say at this point is that if we were to spend the ENTIRE duration of Season Five with the Oceanic Six trying to get back to the island, we are fully aware that the audience would strangle us.
Also, more good news: Cuse says the 17-episode seasons mean there will be no "stall episodes," and the show will just race forward every week.
Meanwhile, Cuse said the show tries to jump the shark all the time. And Lindelof said the fact that the audience was so open to flash-forwards in season four has inspired the producers to get even more bold in season five. "The cool thing about Season Five is that it takes a little while for your brain to fully absorb how the story is unfolding... but hopefully, once it does, you'll realize we're trying something new yet again." Also, there will be flash-backs and flash-forwards, but the show isn't limiting itself to those any more.
Also, the reapearance of Christian Shepherd in season four definitely ties into the empty coffin Jack discovered in season one. And it's "safe to say" we'll be seeing more of Christian in season five. "And what's up with those white tennis shoes he was wearing back in season one?" teased Lindelof. Also, he said Claire may not actually be dead. We'll get more backstory on Walt and Rousseau, but Libby's story may be already over. And we'll see more of the four-toed statue, for sure. The show will be in "answer mode" by the end of season five, and going into season six.
Also, the scene between Jack and Locke, in the greenhouse at the end of the season, is a pivotal one, says Lindelof.
Obviously, the ramifications of Locke telling Jack (once again) that he's not supposed to leave the island... but if he does, he must LIE about everything that happens... is essentially what kicks off the entire story of the Oceanic Six. We think its really cool that it was actually Locke's idea, even though Jack doesn't present it that way. And now that Jack is standing over Locke's coffin, the relationship between these two men becomes really central to the endgame of our story.
Meanwhile, Lindelof says it's liberating that the show isn't trying to hide its fantasy/scifi elements any more — but adds that it'll keep evolving and exploring the questions of science versus faith. He points to The Stand, which starts with an epidemic that kills 99 percent of the world's population and then slowly becomes more mystical until the hand of God appears at the end.
Angrimorfee
Jan 19 2009, 10:31 AM
(www.nypost.com)
To understand most shows, all you need is time, a television and the ability to understand English.
For "Lost," we needed two physics professors.
Luckily for The Post, Dr. Michio Kaku of City University here in New York, and Richard Muller of the University of California at Berkeley, are not only experts in their field, they're big fans of ABC's sci-fi series, which returns in a two-hour premiere this Wednesday.
The surprising thing they discovered: One of the show's biggest secrets - what is the mysterious island our castaways landed on? - already has been revealed. Ready? The island is a ship, essentially, one that travels through space and time using a wormhole. Trippy.
For those who need some catching up: "Lost" began with the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, which deposited a number of survivors on a puzzling South Pacific island. The island could heal - one of the castaways, John Locke, no longer needed his wheelchair; another was cured of cancer - and wasn't visible by radar to the outside world. It was inhabited by "Others," natives who seemed not to age, and the remnants of some kind of research project called the Dharma Initiative.
In last season's finale, Locke found a tape made by a Dharma scientist, which for Kaku and Muller was a big clue to the island's nature. On the recording, the scientist says that the island has a natural "Casimir Effect," which created a pocket of "exotic matter" with which Dharma was going to conduct experiments.
Exotic matter!?
"Exotic matter falls up rather than down," says Kaku, author of "Physics of the Impossible. "It has anti-gravitational properties. It's the basic gasoline for time travel."
Does exotic matter exist? Maybe, Kaku says. At this point, it's just theoretical. However, in 1948, a Dutch physicist named Hendrik Casimir predicted the existence of something similar to it, negative matter. Most people laughed him off, Kaku says, until, a decade later, they were actually able to create a very minute amount of negative energy in a lab.
"Using new tools like the Large Hadron Collider, you can't rule anything out," Kaku says. "There are many things that were thought to be impossible that were discovered."
OK, so you created exotic matter using a Casimir Effect. What is it good for? Energy. Scientists laughed at "Back to the Future," because Doc Brown was only using plutonium. "Plutonium isn't powerful enough [to bend space-time]," Kaku says. "You need power of cosmic proportions."
Even using exotic matter, you'd require a power source the size of a star, Kaku says. "We have running debates," he says. "Not whether you could build such a machine, but if such a machine would kill you."
"Lost" has taken liberties with actual theories, since the exotic matter is much smaller than a star, yet nonetheless can bend time and space - and hasn't swallowed up the Earth.
It also can be manipulated. At the end of last season, to prevent the island from falling into unscrupulous hands, Other leader Benjamin Linus "moved" the island. What he really did, Muller says, is shift the island's connection to the world.
"The island is not actually located on the Earth," says Muller, who cites "Lost" in his physics classes and is the author of "Physics for Future Presidents." "It exists within a rip in the space-time continuum."
The island is connected to the South Pacific by a "wormhole-like warp in space-time," and by manipulating that warp, it shifts. Dharma was conducting experiments on the energy with animals; that's why there are polar bears and time-traveling rabbits on the island.
Once you realize the physics of "Lost," a lot of the plot twists fall into place. You can only approach wormholes from one trajectory, otherwise the distortions of space and time become too great. Same with the island. The island isn't visible to radar because it doesn't actually exist here. The button in one of the Dharma stations, the one the castaways had to push every 108 minutes, held in a rupture in the exotic matter. When it wasn't pushed, the station imploded (sucked in by the negative energy) and briefly made the island visible. By turning the key, Desmond sealed that breach but may have moved the island in the process (remember how the sky went white?).
Of course, questions remain, the main one being the origin of the island. Perhaps an ancient alien civilization (creatures with four toes, like the statue the castaways found) actually created the exotic matter, and used the island as a vessel to move through space and time. Could the Others be their descendants? With only two seasons left, we should find out soon.
Muller knows how he doesn't want the show to end. "I worry they'll time travel back to before the plane crashed. They'll remember everything, like 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,' but nothing will change in reality," he says.
Instead, the physics professor would like to see a hero emerge - natch, it's a physics professor.
"I suspect Ben really is a physicist," Muller says. "He understands better than anyone what the island is, that's why he's terrified and will do anything to protect it. He'll save the world."
tjenz
Jan 19 2009, 12:32 PM
Read at your own risk.
It opens with an unknown man in bed with a woman. A baby cries. Woman says it's his turn. He grumbles but gets out of bed. Scenes much like the one with Desmond in the Hatch with food being prepared. Man feeds baby and leaves house which we see is in Othertown. He goes into a House which is set up like a TV studio. At this point we see the man is Candle. He is shooting the Arrow instructional video. He says the Arrow station was used for developing weaponry. He is interrupted by someone saying there is a problem at The Orchid.
He goes to the underground. They are digging. They have hit some weirdness which we know to be the donkey wheel chamber. He yells at the foreman for digging in a dangerous area. They know a power source is there that can control time. There are rules that can't be broken. If they release the energy there will be a problem. The shots widens out and we realize the worker he bumped into on the way out is the Freighter Scientist Daniel in Dharma gear.
Lost swoosh.
Future time. We are at the Funeral Home where dead Locke is with Jack and Ben. They talk about pretty much what we already know and seen. They all need to go back. They need to get everyone together. Ect. At the hotel they watch a news broadcast of an escaped mental patient that is wanted for murder. It's Hurley.
Back to the Island. Aftermath of the light.
Locke is no longer with the group of Others. It's raining and he is alone. This surprises him. He starts yelling and running around.
Daniel out on the raft says they were "within the radius" and therefore ok for now.
Sawyer is with Juliette. He is shirtless still. They are wondering what is going on. Bernard runs out of the jungle screaming for Rose. She runs out as well and they hug. Sawyer tells them to calm down and go back to the camp. Bernard says there is no camp. They go to where the camp was and all the 815ers are looking around but there is no stuff. No wreckage. No Dharma food kitchen.
Daniel finds them. He says he knows what's going on. He wants them to go to the nearest place that has "man made" items. The nearest place is the Hatch. They start heading that way. Sawyer is shoeless and shirtless. Sawyer wants answers. Daniel says he can't explain. It would be tough to explain to a Physicist he doesn't know how to explain to Sawyer. He is very insistent that they hurry. Sawyer slaps him. It's funny. Charlotte came to Daniel's defense and was told by Sawyer he'd give her a slap too. He demands to know what is going on right now. He also wants Daniels shirt which he doesn't get.
Daniel explains the island is skipping like a record. Or maybe just they are, he isn't sure. He doesn't know when they are.
Locke is walking in a field. He sees a plane in the distance coming towards him. He ducks as it flies over. Something falls out. It's a Mary statue just like the ones they found before with Boone. He goes to where the plane has crashed. It is the Nigerian plane still stuck on the cliff. He yells but no one answers. He tries to climb up. Halfway through someone starts shooting at him. He gets shot in the leg and falls. That freaks him out but not as much as the man running towards him holding a gun. The man is Ethan. Ethan asks who Locke is and where he came from. Locke tries to explain that he knows Ethan and he shouldn't shoot him. Ethan raises the gun to kill Locke.
The flash happens again.
All of a sudden it's nighttime now and there is no Ethan. Locke is very confused and upset.
Future time.
Sun is at an Airport. She goes to an Oceanic counter to check in. The agent notices her name and asks her to wait. She is thrown into a room when the door locks. Widmore comes in through a different door. He's pissed at Sun for talking to him in front of other people. He demands respect. He asks what Sun wants. Sun says she wants to kill Ben.
---I run out of notes at this time ---
The next part is the fight with Hurley and Sayid at the safe house pretty much the same as the clip that was released. It's slightly extended. While Sayid fights the man Hurley is standing outside holding a gun with blood on his shirt. A bystander snaps a cellphone pic of him. After Sayid wins the fight he is somewhat drugged and he leaves with Sayid.
It begins with a record playing (A woody nelson song) It starts skipping just like season 2 and 3.
Marvin Candle is asleep in bed with a woman. He gets up, turns the record off, and exits his house.
We see he lives in the barracks. He goes in to do a taping of a dharma orientation film.
Director: Morning!
Marvin: I don't need a script
Marvin: Let's go, I don't have all day!
Director: Okay dharma orientation film number 2, take 1. And action!
Marvin: Hello i'm Dr. Marvin Candle and this is the orientation film for station 2, the. Given your specific
area of expertise, you should find it no surprise that this station's primary purpose is to develop
defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the island's hostile, indigenous...
A man bursts in
Man: Dr. Chen!
Marvin: Damn it, what the hell?
Director: cut!
Man: Sir we've got a problem down at the orchid
[We are now taken to an underground area where workers are building the orchid station.]
Man: Over here! We were cutting through the rocks and that's when the drill melted.
Marvin: The drill melted?
Man: Yeah. 3 meters from the margin land on the plans. We went through six pair of drills and the
last one just fried. Then my operator starts grabbing his head and freaking out.
Man: [Couldn't catch it]...20 meters in behind the rock, there's something in there
Man: The only way to get to it is to lay charges here and here.
Marvin: Under no circumstances! This space is being built here because of it's proximity to what is
believed to be an almost limitless energy. And that energy, once we can (?) correctly, is going to
allow us to manipulate time
Man: Okay so what, we're going to go back and kill Hitler?
Marvin: Don't be absurd! There are rules...rules that can't be broken
Man: So what DO you want me to do?
Marvin: You're going to do nothing. If you drill just one centimeter further and release that energy. If that were to happen...God help us all
Marvin: Let's go
A man with a worker uniform and his head down bumps into Marvin
Marvin: Watch yourself!
Man: Sorry Sir, won't happen again
The man lifts his head and is revealed to be Daniel
Worker to Daniel: Did you hear that? Time travel. How stupid does that guy think we are?
[We find ourselves with Ben and Jack in front of Locke's coffin]
Ben: Why don't you close that up now, Jack? Come on, let's get him in the van. It's out back.
Jack: Where are we taking him?
Ben: We'll worry about that once we pick up Hugo
Jack: Hurley is locked away in a mental institution
Ben: Which should make recruiting him considerably easier than the rest of your friends
Jack: [People were laughing, couldn't catch what he said]
Ben: Well that's the spirit...
Jack: How did we get here? How did all this happen?
Ben: It happened because you left Jack
Ben: Now let's get started, shall we?
[Scene of Ben and Jack in a hotel room from sneak peek]
[We see Locke waking up in the jungle by himself.]
Locke: Richard? Richard?! Anyone? Anyone?!
[On the island beach]
Guy: What happened? What was that light?
Daniel: We must have been inside the radius
[A little further away...]
Sawyer: What the hell was that?
Juliet: I don't know
Sawyer: Where's the freighter?
Juliet: Maybe it went down
Sawyer: Nah uh, no way. That boat was coughing black smoke and now there's just nothing?
Juliet: What about the helicopter?
Sawyer: It was heading for the boat
[Bernard comes running into the beach]
Bernard: Rose! Rose!
Juliet: Bernard!
Bernard: Rose! Have you seen Rose?
Juliet: No
Bernard: Oh my god!
Rose: Bernard!
Bernard: Rose where were you?
Rose: I was over there by the church. What was that light?
Sawyer: There's no need to panick. Just calm down. We'll just go back to camp and figure this out
Bernard: There's no need to panick? There is no camp!
Sawyer: What the hell are you talking about there is no camp?
[They walk back towards the camp, which is no longer there]
Bernard: The whole sky lit up and then this!
The kitchen...gone! And all the tents, the food and water...well, everything but us. All of it, it's gone
Daniel [Appearing]: It's not gone
Charlotte: Daniel!
Daniel: Hey
Charlotte: I thought you were in the freighter
Daniel: No we never made it. We were on our way out there when it happened.
Sawyer: What do you mean the camp's not gone? Who the hell are you anyway?
Miles: That's Dan. He's our physicist
Daniel: Listen, we have no time. I need you take me somewhere that was man made, something
that was built. Any kind of landmark.
Juliet: There's a dharma station 15 minutes from here
Sawyer: You mean the hatch? The one we blew up?
Daniel: That's perfect. We should get going before it happens again, okay?
Sawyer: Before what happens again? And why is our camp gone?
Daniel: The camp isn't gone...it hasn't been built yet
[Kate and Aaron scene from sneak peek]
[The group walking towards the dharma station]
Juliet: Why'd you jump off that helicopter?
Sawyer: I told you, we were running out of gas. I wanted to make sure she...
I wanted to make sure they got back to the boat. Don't matter now anyway, does it?
Daniel: Excuse me, i'm gonna need the two of you to pick up the pace, okay? thanks
Sawyer: First things first. Give me your shirt
Daniel: My shirt?
Sawyer: Yeah
Daniel: I really think we have far more pressing matters than getting you a new shirt. Now let's just keep moving, ok?
Sawyer: How about we call a time out so you can tell us what the hell is going on?
Daniel: How about you trust me?
Sawyer: Trust you? I don't know you!
Daniel: we really do not have time for me to try to explain. You have no idea how difficult that would be.
For me to try to explain this...this phenomenon to a quantum physicist, THAT would be difficult.
So for me to try to explain whatever is happening...
Sawyer slaps Daniel
Charlotte: what the bloddy hell do you think you're doing?!
Sawyer: Shut it ginger or you're getting one too
[To Daniel] Now talk!
Daniel: The island...think of the island like a record spinning on a turn table only now that record is skipping.
Whatever Ben Linus did down at the orchid station...I think it may have dislaunched us.
Miles: Dislaunched us from what?
Daniel: Time
Juliet: So that's why our camp is gone? Because the island is moving through time?
Daniel: Either the island is or we are
Sawyer: What?!
Daniel: That's just the way that we're moving...(couldn't catch it)
Daniel: And everyone in your group, you're all accounted for right?
Sawyer: Not everyone....Locke
Angrimorfee
Jan 21 2009, 10:04 AM
The 'Lost' brain trust answers burning Season 5 questions (www.tribune.com, Maureen Ryan...it's a long one, I tried to format it for easier reading..ag)
...the following Q&A with Lindelof and Cuse addresses the themes, prominent characters and subjects of the season in general terms. However, Cuse and Lindelof did answer some burning questions ...In the interview below, we began by addressing the fact that the show, which famously used flashbacks and flash-forwards to flesh out the characters’ histories, is now using what Cuse and Lindelof simply call “flashes.” “Whether they’re flash-forwards or flashbacks is very relative -- it depends on where you place yourself in the story,” Cuse noted.
How do you keep the show grounded in emotions and characters, when it seems as though this season is poised to unspool a lot of the mythology and time travel and so forth? Is that a tricky balance to achieve?
Cuse: I don’t know if it’s a tricky balance. I think that this is what we always saw as the natural evolution of the show, that it would have more overt science-fiction and fantasy elements [as time went on] and that was sort of always our plan. I guess we would say our model is any of a number of great Spielberg movies, maybe even “E.T.,” as a primary example of a movie that has, obviously, very extreme science-fiction and fantasy elements, yet at its core it’s a deeply emotional story. We hope that even though we’re introducing these elements, we’re staying true to our central premise, which is that we’re making a character-based show.
Lindelof: I think the fun part for us, and this is not so much a challenge as something we hold ourselves to, is the idea that the characters react to these crazy things in real ways. So if you’re explaining to Sawyer something about time travel, he’s not going to say, “Oh, that makes sense.” He’s going to say, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and I don’t like it and I don’t want to be on the time-travel show.”
As long as the different characters on our show have real reactions to the things that are happening around them, [it works]. I think if every single character on the show basically accepted that it’s their destiny to be on the island, with all these characters sitting around talking about their destiny all the time, [that doesn’t work]. Whereas our show -- really, Locke is the only one who cares about the island. Jack cares about Jack, and Kate cares about Kate, even Hurley only cares about being jinxed most of the time.
You guys have opened up the time element of the show in this really interesting way, but how do you stop it from becoming a giant story problem? You know, “If a train left Pittsburgh going 50 miles an hour, and another train left Dallas going 25 miles an hour...” How do you make that time element clean and clear for people who might have trouble with it?
Lindelof: Carlton and I spent five weeks last year just breaking “The Constant,” with the entire writing staff. The reason it was so tricky was all these things you’re talking about, in terms of, “If Faraday told Desmond in 1996 to tell Penny to call him in 2004, wouldn’t she say to him ...”
And then eventually, you get to a point of saying, “Are we breaking any rules, according to the rules we set, is it emotionally viable, and is it confusing?” So when we were sitting down to talk about Season 5, we were like, “We’re essentially breaking ‘The Constant’ every single week now.”
I think since we’ve gone through the process the first time, we learned valuable lessons. It is very challenging to do clean time-travel stories where you can’t change the future, but also rewarding when we accomplish it.
Obviously you accomplished that with “The Constant.” The reason that worked so well was because, as you were saying, it wasn’t about time travel per se, but about this relationship between two people. Did you know that was special when you were writing it?
Cuse: I think when we wrote it, we realized it was really hard [to do]. The reason, as Damon said, it took us five weeks to break the story was because we were relentless with each other about making sure that the story -- we would not consider the story to be finished until it had emotional resonance.
We had to deal with all the consciousness-traveling craziness, but ultimately we felt the story would only be successful [under the following conditions:] Not only did the time-travel stuff have to make some sort of sense and follow its own logic, but there needed to be a really genuine emotional payoff. And it took a long time to get to a place where we felt both goals were accomplished. To echo what Damon said, that really became the template for us in terms of what our goal is this year.
Yes, time travel provides a really cool device that allows us to tell what we consider to be some really great adventure stories. But at the heart, these stories are really about the characters and what we’re most interested in, on a character level, is how are they affected by the consequences of time travel? That’s really what the show explores.
And the entire season isn’t overtly about time travel. It’s an element, but I think it would get really boring [to focus too much on that]. We’re not interested in -- every week, you climb into a time machine. That’s not what the show’s going to be.
Yeah, I think in terms of grounding that stuff, I think what becomes clear in the second half of the season premiere is how important Hurley is. He’s always been great as the comic relief and in many other ways, but in that episode, he’s playing the role of the audience, you know, “I don’t understand this, explain it to me,” and he’s the guy who can explain things to the audience, in ways that are funny and also clear. But he’s also the center of the emotional content of that second hour -- he’s the one calling people on what they’ve all done, all the Oceanic 6 survivors. Is Hurley important in that respect throughout the season, or is it in that particular episode?
Lindelof: He’s always been important in that context, and we’ve always viewed him as the moral center of the show, because of the way he processes information. Last year, in the season 4 premiere, we were basically saying, in traditional “Lost” fashion -- someone dies and the show moves forward. If eight months have gone by for the audience, are they really going to care about mourning Charlie, when [the castaways] just made their first call and the freighter folk are on their way?
We came to this decision -- let’s make the episode just about totally mourning Charlie. What are the real emotional effects of this information as it lands on [Hurley]? Because he cares. While everyone else on the show has all these varied motivations, the audience cared about Charlie dying and hadn’t had a chance to mourn him.
Exactly what you said, we’ve thought of Hurley as the closest thing the audience has to a representative on the island, and we have to treat him as such.
Is it hard to write for both the hardcore fans of mythology, of the Dharma Initiative and all that stuff, and to also write for the people who tune in maybe a half dozen times a season? I can’t get enough of the ’70s Dharma stuff, and so of course I want to know, will we be getting more of that in Season 5?
Cuse: It’s always a case of, “The porridge is either too hot or too cold” [for various fan groups]. We have learned over time that it is impossible to strike the perfect balance between satisfying the mythology fans and satisfying the character fans. So our solution in the season premiere is to provide heavy doses of both.
For the mythology fans, they will hopefully engaged by the fact that we are overtly discussing the time thing. And for the character fans, Sawyer’s got his shirt off for the whole first hour.
And God bless you for that.
Lindelof: You know, when I was a latchkey kid and had to fix my own dinner, I would eat these [Hungry Man dinners]. I would buy a baked fish dinner because it had a cherry pie. I never ate the fish, I would just eat the cherry pie.
The point being, as long as there is cherry pie in an episode of “Lost,” for everyone who watches it, they will sit through the entire dinner. They may not touch their entree, but if there’s a little bit of Marvin Candle, they’ll sit through anything. For some people, their cherry pie is the mythology, and for some people, their cherry pie is the romance story, for some people their cherry pie is Hurley. You just make sure that there is always something for everyone.
That speaks to the alchemy of the [writers] room, a few of the writers are really interested in the mythology of the island, and all they want to talk about is when the monster is going to show up again. Some of the writers don’t give a [darn] why Marvin Candle has five different names, all they want to know is, “Is Kate going to choose Sawyer or Jack?” So we have a small polling ground for the audience at large.
“Lost” was at the forefront of a wave of shows that have played around with or experimented with the concept of time. Why do that? Is it a new and different narrative frontier for TV? Is it just fun?
Cuse: Our narrative choices are based completely on, “What’s the best way to tell any individual story?” That’s why this year, we’re not strictly sticking to just flashbacks or flash-forwards. And you can probably just call them flashes, because whether they’re flash-forwards or flash-backs is very relative -- it depends on where you place yourself in the story.
It’s maybe not as radical as one thinks, if you examine the way we as people tell each other stories. You will find that the way in which we tell each other stories is not a linear narrative. “Let me tell you this, and then this happened, oh let me fill in these three pieces, and then this part had consequences.”
[For the show,] we examine whatever story we’re going to tell and then we basically dissect it and say, “What’s the best way to tell it?”
We view the show as this mosaic, and we’re placing tiles in the mosaic. A lot of the success from the storytelling comes from the way in which you place that tile. There are two phases, one is, “OK, what story are we going to tell?” And then there’s a separate discussion of the best way for us to tell it.
Obviously the big Season 5 question is, why do they have to go back to the island? Why is it so important that they go and why do they all have to go? In some ways, is that the story of this season?
Lindelof: The why of it all is always the hardest mystery to deal with on the show. If you were to say, “Locke tells them, ‘Hey, this is all happening for a reason,’" and then you’d say, "Well, what is that reason? Why were all those people on that plane?" Obviously that stuff is coming downstream. Probably much of it will be hinted at in Season 5, but why these people, why this time, why this place, why that plane? It’s Season 6 territory.
In terms of the very specific rules of -- in order to get back to the island, why do they need to bring back as many people who left the island as possible? There will be some further explanation of that stuff sooner rather than later from a source outside our characters speculating.
We’re told that bad things happen once the Oceanic 6 left the island. When will you get into that? Is that also Season 6 territory?
Cuse: Part of it unfolds this season, part of it unfolds next season. But obviously the fact that the island was moved by Ben sets in motion a chain of events, and that chain of events has very dramatic consequences. That’s really a very important question for the people who were left behind on the island -- what the hell is going on here and what are the consequences of the island being moved. What does it mean for us?
We were talking before about keeping the show on a character level, that’s really what it comes down to. Yeah, [a particular thing is happening this season; see note below], but what are the consequences of that for them in terms of their survival, in terms of their relationships, in terms of whatever their ultimate destiny with the island is? Those are the pertinent questions.
[Note: Part of this paragraph has been taken out; it referred to a plot point in the season premiere. The entire text of the paragraph will be posted after the Season 5 premiere airs.]
Ben says something in the Season 4 finale about not being able to return to the island once he’s moved it. Is there also a catch for the Oceanic 6, in that they won’t be able to go back to the regular world if they go to the island? They’ll have to stay there?
Lindelof: That’s certainly a question that we should be asking. When Ben says that whoever turns the wheel is never allowed to return to the island, is that a rule or is it a law? Those are two entirely different things. One would basically say, it would be impossible for him to get back to the island, no matter how hard he tried. The other would say that he could get back to the island, but if he did, he would be punished for it. So that’s going to unfold over the course of the season, based on whether or not Ben is successful in getting back himself.
The season seems to be structured around the Oceanic 6 getting back to the island. Is that something that doesn’t happen until the end of the season? Or is it mid-way? When do the Oceanic 6 and the island people meet up again?
Cuse: We wouldn’t want to say exactly, but we will say that we feel it would be very frustrating for the audience to have to wait until the end of the season for that to happen. The audience will be, I think, somewhat surprised at the speed of our narrative storytelling. We’re not taking our foot off the pedal this year.
Would it be accurate to say, at this point, that there’s a struggle between a Ben Linus faction and a Charles Widmore faction for control of the island? Or is that too simplistic?
Lindelof: Based on everything you’ve seen up to this point, we know that Ben and Widmore don’t get along with each other and that Widmore wants to control the island and believes that Ben has taken the island away from him. You don’t understand the context of that. You don’t know what their past is or their relationship. So if you’re going to look at it as, there’s a Ben side and Widmore side, I’d say, “Well, then what side are the Oceanic 6 on? Our castaways -- are they on their own side?”
Basically, the only two sides that matter in any grand, epic storytelling are good and evil. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? And for so long, Ben Linus has been identifying himself as a good guy, but we’ve been seeing him engage in behaviors that would lead us to believe that that is not entirely the truth. The only question that matters is, what is ultimately a force of good and what is ultimately a force of evil, and what side of it are our characters going to end up on? Will some go one way and some go the other?
The people who Locke is now leading, the Others, they are kind of the wild card in this mix. Are we going to get more into him, into the Others this season? I’m intrigued by the whole Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) thing, I was glad to read that Carbonell is going to be in nine episodes this season.
Cuse: Yeah, he’s on the show a lot. We have all these characters that are in play -- Alpert, Widmore, Ben, Locke. What you don’t really understand is, what is their inter-relationship to each other? You’ll learn a lot more about that stuff this year.
I just wanted to ask you a lightning round of quick questions, if I could, about various characters this season. Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle -- is he around this season?
Lindelof: All we’re willing to say is that [he does appear this season; see note below].
[Note: Part of this paragraph has been taken out; the full text of this answer will be posted after the season premiere airs.]
Charles Widmore -- Is he more of a force this year?
Cuse: Widmore is very much a part of the show this year. Obviously there was a very intriguing scene in last year’s finale, with him and Sun, and what that means, and what their relationships is, and how Widmore figures is something that we’re exploring. I think the audience isn’t fully invested in exactly who Charles Widmore is, but as they are, I think they will find him increasingly intriguing. He is very important to this season.
Jin? I’ve read that Daniel Dae-Kim will be back this year, but is he an ongoing presence on the island, or will he just be back here and there?
Lindelof: All we can say is, Daniel is still a series regular on the show, but Jin is not on the Season 5 poster. Sort of extrapolate what you will from that. Whether or not Jin is alive or dead does not preclude him from being on the show.
Can you talk at all about new characters coming on the show, when we might meet them -- if they’re major presences or just coming in for a few episodes here and there? And by the way, I think the casting of the people we met last season -- Faraday, Miles, Charlotte, Lapidus -- I thought they were great additions to the show.
Cuse: We don’t really want to say anything about who’s coming on the show, but we will say that we never really got our chance to finish the freighter storytelling last year. There’s a lot more to be learned about those guys.
And I think that right up front, you’re going to really have a good dose of [information about] the science team that was on the freighter. Particularly Faraday is someone who really steps to the front of the show, he’s really intriguing and we learn a lot more about him. That was the one thing that, based on the strike, we really didn’t get a chance to do. We’ve made up for that this year.
Lindelof: One of the byproducts of moving toward an end point is that we do not need to constantly introduce new characters into the mix of the show to keep it fresh and entertaining. Especially when there are so many questions about Alpert or about Miles or about Charlotte or Faraday or Lapidus. There’s still so much storytelling to do with those guys.
And what happened to Desmond and Penny over the course of the three years between the Oceanic 6’s rescue and where we are now? We’ve got our hands full without needing to go shopping for new toys.
[By the way, and this is Mo here, at Comic-Con last summer, Lindelof and Cuse said that we'd also see more of Danielle Rousseau's "story" in Season 5 as well.]
One of my favorite questions I ever heard at Comic-Con was something a fan asked you guys there two years ago, so I’m going to steal it. What question haven’t I asked you that I should have asked you?
Cuse: The question is probably, “Are you going to end the show where [fans will then go have to watch a theatrical movie to see the ending”]? The answer is no. We’re not ending it by going to black or saying it was in a snow globe. We’re ending it in a way we feel is definitive.
Speaking of that, how much of Season 6 is mapped out? I’m assuming it’s not set in stone, but are all the pieces laid out?
Lindelof: I think we have all these puzzle pieces for Season 5 and Season 6, and they’re two separate puzzles because they’re two different seasons. But all the pieces were mixed together. It’s sometimes time-consuming to take a piece and say, “Which season does this fit in better?” And some stuff is definitely in Season 6 because it’s end-of-show stuff.
We have to walk that line between giving the audience enough information so that they don’t get confused, and put off, and giving them too much information, so they’re not like, “Well, you gave me everything I care about in Season 5. So why watch Season 6?”
One thing we all decided was, the biggest mistake we could make in Season 5 would be to hold back or slow down or go back to a stalling modality. We’ve basically been feeding the audience crystal meth for a year, to cut them off cold turkey and give them a pack of chewing gum and say, “We’ll give you more crystal meth in Season 6,” would have been a disaster. When you piss off a junkie, they will do almost anything to get their drug.
