Alex Strachan , canada.com
Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008It's easy for the casual viewer to get lost in Lost. Thanks to its labyrinthine subplots, its increasingly complicated cast of characters, with their increasingly complex back stories -- and, as of the past season, flash-forwards into the future -- and the ever-deepening mystery of "the island" -- what is it? where is it? what does it want? -- the casual viewer could be forgiven for overlooking next week's season finale.
Lost's producers and head writers -- Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse -- hope you don't do that. Lost is a primetime network TV drama, intended for a mainstream audience and not just a rabid core of infogeeks, genre fans and sci-fi cultists. There's plenty of detail there for the fans to obsess over, but at its core, Lost remains the simplest of tales: A disparate group of ordinary, everyday individuals are stranded on a desert island following a plane crash, and they want desperately to get home.
The island has strange properties, none of which are clearly explained. And the crash survivors, each and every one of them, hide a dark secret from their past. There are other people on the island, too, and outsiders who have supposedly come to rescue them -- but have in fact been sent to silence them and destroy the island for good.
Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have Lost's last scene already mapped out in their mind's eye, even though the end date isn't until May, 2010.
Lindelof and Cuse recently agreed to a conference call with TV reviewers, and shared some of their decision-making process with fans in Lost's official audio podcast on ABC.com (available here on iTunes Canada, free of charge).
Cuse and Lindelof's we-know-the-ending announcement that Lost will end definitively with its final episode in 2010 -- two seasons from now -- has given the show a renewed energy, and a focus on the eventual end game.
There will be many unexpected forks in Lost's story path between now and then, but Cuse and Lindelof know now where that path is headed. Yes, the final season of the final episode has already been written. And, no, it won't end with 10 seconds of silence.
GETTING LOST -- A BEHIND-THE-SCENES GUIDE WITH THE SHOW'S PRODUCERS
The Lost world, according to executive producers and head writers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof
ON JOHN LOCKE
Cuse: "Locke is a man who's on a journey. And that journey, like many biblical characters, is one that has periods of doubting and uncertainty and frustration."
Lindelof: "And the occasional Emmy win."
Cuse: "And the occasional Emmy win."
LOCKE OR JACK -- DISCUSS
In the season premiere, the castaways have to choose whether to follow man-of-faith and survivalist philosopher Locke (Terry O'Quinn) on a search for the answer to the island's secrets, or stay with man-of-reason and university educated realist Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) on the beach and wait for rescue.
Lindelof: "If I was just on the island and in the moment, I would go with Locke. Because he has the more salient argument. Remember, when Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) dies, he said, "These people are liars and are not here to save you." It wouldn't be so much that I was going with Locke as I was going away from Jack.
"What's interesting, though, is when you see the show on TV and you watch the flash-forwards, you know that Jack is right because he's going to get off the island because of the decisions he's made. But what if you didn't know he was going to get off the island? Who would you go with then? It's a fascinating question."
WHO'S IN THE CASKET? (a flash-forward at the end of Season Three shows Jack visiting the casket of a presumed former resident of the island)
Cuse: "We promise we're going to answer that question in the season finale. And I'm not going to say more about it than that."
I'M NOT DEAD YET
Death is real on Lost, but dying doesn't necessarily mean the end of the character. Confused?
Cuse: "The good thing about Lost is that oftentimes being dead leads to more work on the show. Actually, you can kind of improve your standing in the cast by being killed. If in fact Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan) does prove to be dead, for example, that really doesn't have much bearing in terms of us telling more of her story. We think her back story and how she came to the island is actually pretty interesting, and we'd love to tell that story at some point."
THE TV SHOW TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
Cuse: "We're very loathe to put out critical information in something other than the show. We don't want people who are watching the show to feel like, 'Oh, now I have to listen to the podcast too in order to know what's going on Lost?' That would be a disaster.
"Our main job is to be stewards of the mother ship, the TV show . . . We try very hard to make the other things -- the jigsaw puzzle, the video game, the mobisodes, the ancillary add-ons -- a part of the show, But, as we've said before, though, we also feel it's hugely important that people not have to seek out other things to enjoy and appreciate Lost."
ON FANBOY COMMENTS ON THE INTERNET
Lindelof: "If we were just one-tenth as smart as the (hardcore) fans are, the show would be amazing. And make no sense whatsoever."
Cuse: "We learn more from the questions than you actually learn from the show. So that's good."
LOST'S ULTIMATE END GAME
Cuse and Lindelof have Lost's last scene already mapped out in their mind's eye, even though the end date isn't until May, 2010.
Lindelof: "We've left a little bit of wriggle room for the last line. But the last scene has definitely been determined. And there would have to be a major shift in both our mind sets to back off that.
"We'd been working toward the end for a couple of years now even before the announcement of when it would end. Now that the ending is announced, we're able to determine at what speed we're working toward that scene. We know what we're working towards, but we also know where we are."
ON LOST'S CULTURAL REFERENCES
One of the helicopter rescuers is named Charlotte Staples Lewis -- C.S. Lewis. Coincidence? We think not.
Lindelof: "Not a lot of coincidences on this show."
Cuse: "Let's just say that, yes, the homage to Clive Staples Lewis is intentional. There are themes in the Narnia chronicles that are definitely relevant to Lost. A reading of the Narnia books is not only enjoyable but also probably somewhat instructive."
Lindelof: "In the same way that, I think, Alice in Wonderland is something we refer to. And The Wizard of Oz. What's great about those worlds, I think, is that they are all worlds on the other side of Earth. That is to say, they are not fantasy realms like Star Wars. Narnia is actually connected to the world we know, and so is Oz."
Cuse: "As is our island."
Lindelof: "As is our island."
Cuse: "That's a pretty good place to stop. There's no place to go from here."
(Lost's season finale airs Thursday May 29 on CTV and ABC at 9 ET/PT.)
