‘Lost’ Team Discusses Upcoming Death and Mysteries
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) Saturday (March 12) night’s “Lost” lovefest at the William S. Paley Television Festival ended a little after 9 p.m. and no sooner were the closing words out of the moderator’s mouth when an audible “Whoosh” could be heard in Director’s Guild of America Theatre. Fans, some of whom had arrived at 6:30 in the morning to queue up for the event, surged the stage, lunging by exiting patrons to get close to their favorite cast members and creative talent.
As this pent-up enthusiasm — to say nothing of boffo ratings, overflowing Internet boards and boundless critical adoration — suggests, “Lost” has, in short order, become a genuine obsession for those who follow its every unsolved mystery. So serious was the crowd on Saturday that much of the conversation was fueled by issues of life and death, particularly for one “Lost” character. While co-creator J.J. Abrams has made it clear that one member of the show’s core ensemble won’t make it through May sweeps, getting more information out of him might take the kind of interrogation skills that Naveen Andrews’ Sayid picked up in the Republican Guard.
Abrams would only say that the character’s death hit him hard.
“I wasn’t really surprised that the death of this character was as hard in real life as it was on the show,” Abrams said.
Showrunner Carlton Cuse added, “We felt that on a story level, we needed to retain the life-and-death stakes,” noting, somewhat humorously, that with a bursting-at-the-seams cast of series regulars, ABC wouldn’t have minded some additional casualties during the season.
None of the “Lost” producers would elaborate on which character would die, how they would die or even when the episode would air. The only hint on the latter point was Abrams’ admission that he’d seen at least a rough cut of the big episode, suggesting that the episode will come before the yet-to-be-completed two-part finale which will air as a standard episode and then as a 90-minute conclusion. The eight cast members in attendance were able to kid about the upcoming death, with Jorge Garcia acknowledging that his own mother was less interested in Hurley’s fate than in one particular fan favorite.
“I said ‘I one of us is gonna die this year,’ and she said, ‘Not Sawyer,'” Garcia said, a joke that earned both laugher and nods of agreement from more than a few of the session’s female attendees.
For Abrams, one of the evening’s major themes was passing along credit for the show’s breakout success. In absentia, former ABC bigwig Lloyd Braun, co-creator Damon Lindelof and frequent director Jack Bender got shout-outs. Abrams also frequently toasted the actors and at various points asked casting director April Webster, composer Michael Giacchino and a motley crew of writers to stand up in the crowd to receive applause.
Abrams also made sure to show love to the “Lost” fans, a choice that he may have made even if some of the more passionate followers didn’t seem just a bit rabid.
“The thing about the fans of ‘Lost’ is that they’re so smart and so aware,” he said, adding, “We can’t believe that people get the connections they get, whether they’re there or not.”
Although Abrams laughed (appropriately) at a question about when frequent “Alias” plot device Rimbaldi would become a factor on “Lost,” he admitted that the show’s staff is very conscious of viewer response on sites including “The Fuselage.” Thankfully Abrams dismissed the popularly held theory that the castaways are stranded in Purgatory, though he claimed to like the idea.
“I’m so grateful and beholden to the fans and to not listen to them would be moronic,” Abrams said, fueling many a webmaster ego.
It was a spirited session, characterized by cast banter and collegial teasing. Toward the end, the performers were asked to give their own suggestions for upcoming plot lines.
“I think Sawyer should throw a party,” suggested Josh Holloway. “He’s got all these goods.”
Making another reference to “Alias,” Harold Perrineau suggested, “I hope we find out Michael works for SD-6.”
For his part, Dominic Monaghan said that he’d pitched an episode that concluded with burnt-out rocker Charlie sipping tea with the island’s previously unseen monster.
“I just feel like Season Six we’re gonna flash back to, ‘Hey, remember that crash we were all in'” cracked Garcia.
Nobody, though, knows where things will really go. Even Abrams says as much.
“I would be an absolute liar if I said every single thing was planned out from the beginning.”
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