Fri, June 15, 2007
Show Runners Discuss Lost Endgame—12:45 AM
Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse did yet another Q&A about Lost, with some vague references to their planned endgame for the show in 2010. It's interesting that J.J. Abrams – who was initially the star of the threesome because of his Alias pedigree – now seems "too good" to talk to anyone about the show. Or maybe he's just not involved any more.
Anyway, these guys continue their criminal practice of taking potshots at Nikki and Paulo – who absolutely deserved to live – and being very vague about any substantive forward-looking questions (which, given what they're up against, who can blame them?). One part I liked a lot, though:
Cuse also noted the reality of the sometimes vociferous and heavily engaged viewership of the show, which uses the Web to advance theories and post explanations and even freeze-frames to parse further meaning.
"I'm not sure there is any ending that will satisfy everyone," Cuse said. "Our hope is that the ending will be ... the logical conclusion of the story."
Damn right. Here's hoping they do that (if I'm still watching by then). I definitely agree, they've been the guinea pigs for running this type of show while trying to engage the obsessive fans without being overwhelmed by them. It has to be very, very tough. Sometimes they've responded with poise, other times quite the opposite. Can't feel too sorry for them, because in many ways they brought it on themselves. But it can't be easy.
Okay! No more Lost talk 'til February! (Except to say that the surprise twist of the finale was obvious to me from the first scene, and the way it was meted out undercut almost all of its dramatic intensity. Stop writing suspense for the sake of suspense!)
"Holly" — Fri, 6/15/07 12:40pm
Here I am, wrongly perpetuating the Lost talk... but I have to agree that the surprise twist was obvious to me from the first scene, too. Lost and I always have this pattern where it telegraphs twists, I guess them in advance, I am bored and impatient through the entire episode waiting for the twist to be openly revealed, and then I feel irritable yet self-satisfied. Come to think of it, this is actually perhaps a truly genius manipulative plan by Lindelof and Cuse... maybe they deliberately telegraph twists in order to keep gullible viewers like me lapping the gratuitous ego-boosts out of their hands. Me: "Lost is boring and unsubtle and makes me feel hella smart! More, more I say!"
...for whatever reason, I am still watching, so to any fans reading this and feeling annoyed at my negativity, I freely admit again that the show is clearly doing something right. I quit watching other shows that annoy me.
And I, too, very much respect Cuse's acknowledgement that they can't be all things to all people. Darn tootin'.
Joe Mulder — Fri, 6/15/07 3:19pm
I didn't see the first scene of the Lost finale, but, I wandered in around minute 20 while my wife and her cousin-in-law were watching it. At one point during one of Jack's scenes, I thought, "They wouldn't have had flatscreen TVs in a hospital waiting room four years ago. Hm."
Then I went back to not ever thinking about Lost. But, yeah; it was pretty obvious even to me, I guess.
Bee Boy — Fri, 6/15/07 3:31pm
The first scene (or at least the first scene of significance) has Jack on a plane, in first class, with a giant, bushy Zach Galifianakis beard, and seeming kind of like a nervous flier.
I was watching the Lost season finale mostly out of obligation (to whom, I'm sure you'll ask – I honestly don't know any more), but as soon as I saw this, I sat up. "Whoa! A flash-forward! This might be cool after all!"
Then they spent a whole hour trying to convince us it wasn't the future – with Jack mentioning his dad, and Julie Bowen popping in and not particularly hiding her obvious pregnancy. Which is kind of par for the Lost course: pretending something isn't what it is, just so at the end of the hour you can call it a "twist."