There is an art to talking about Lost. You can't be too specific, for two reasons. One, the producers of the show aren't going to give anything away. Two, fans really don't want spoilers. We just want to discuss the complex metaphysical possibilities of the time traveling island of flashbacks and flash forwards.
Damon Lindelof, the creator and show runner of Lost, is quite good at cultivating extended discussions without ever spoiling anything. As the man who came up with the ultimate six year plan for the show, and set an end date so the story would maintain the perfect momentum, Lindelof knows exactly what information he wants to be public.
There's plenty to analyze too. It's not just what's going to happen next? It's "what does this mean?" The history of Lost characters' lives, as we've seen in flashbacks, and their actions throughout the five seasons on the island, are morally ambiguous to start. Often, the show reveals that they didn't even do what you thought they did so you've been thinking about it wrong the whole time.
See how you can get caught up in vague Lost talk? Lindelof has been a giving spokesperson throughout the show's run. Even at other events, he addressed important Lost issues. Even on the picket lines outside of Disney studios during the Writer's Guild of America strike of two years ago, Lindelof would speak to press and address what a strike meant for the show (he wasn't able to stop ABC from airing the shortened season, but he was able to keep the fourth season to a tight 14 episodes.)
Now for the big finish. Lost's final season begins February 2 and it's so secret, they're not even showing footage in the TV previews. The final season premiere is so important that President Obama gave his State of the Union address last week to avoid conflicts. Lindelof gave a press conference to television reporters from across the nation, deftly avoiding specifics while giving thoughtful analysis to the issues the show must resolve in its remaining 18 hours.
Q: So you had a plan the whole time. Did you always have Ben moving the island, or did that develop later?
DL: Starting basically between the first and second season was when we started to cook the deeper mythology of the island, started talking about the physics of the island, how the island worked, why no one could find the island, who had been on the island before, what was The Others' story, how long had they been there, In those conversations, we started talking about the wheel, the idea that the island was moving not just through space but also through time and then the question just became when were we going to use that device? I do feel like we always knew we were going to do time travel on the show and we were setting that up as early as the second season.
Q: Has that been the most hotly debated jump the shark issue?
DL: Sure. I think that the show has probably jumped the shark at least a dozen times now. Fortunately for us as storytellers but unfortunately for a mainstream audience, yes, absolutely. There was a time when there were 23 million people watching Lost. That time has passed. Every time that this show takes a risk, declares itself more overtly, there are going to be people who say, 'I wasn't watching the show about time travel. I don't like that show. I don't want to watch this anymore.' We have to tell the story that we're committed to and hopefully the audience will stick with us but we can't really compromise that.
Q: But those people still watching are more passionate than ever. Does that count as much to the networks as ratings?
DL: I do feel like we are in a network climate where shows like Chuck or Friday Night Lights can survive and thrive with minimal audience but a tremendous amount of passion not just from the fans but also from you guys. I do feel like what the critical response is really makes a difference in advancing the patina of a network. People like Steve, as easy as this is for me to say because he's my boss, genuinely care about quality. It's great if you have both but sometimes they'll settle for one or the other.
Q: Does merchandising like DVD sets help?
DL: Sure, obviously for Lost the economic model of syndication doesn't really exist because you can watch an episode of Friends or an episode of Law & Order and just drop in but you're not going to in the middle of season four episode five of Lost. It's like picking up a Harry Potter book and flipping to a chapter. You have to read it beginning to end. So the DVDs I think have probably been a very profitable business for them and the brand itself has probably helped us as well.
Q: What series finales do you love and admire?
DL: I think that The Shield was a phenomenal series finale and certainly Newhart is one of my favorites, but my all time favorite series finale is MASH. I remember watching that with my folks. I remember everybody on our street was watching it. I remember Hawkeye basically saying, 'It was a baby! It wasn't a chicken, it was a baby!' And how emotional it was when the chopper finally lifted off and Klinger stayed behind. That's stuff that has stayed with me for my life and I do feel like to end the show that people still care about and to give the characters incredibly fulfilling resolutions, MASH is really the sort of pinnacle of something that we're trying to achieve. That being said, it wasn't a mystery show so we've got to kind of answer all our mysteries and give the audience those satisfying character conclusions so I'd like to say for the record that our degree of difficulty is very high.
Q: You got your end date and you've been planning your ending. Now how will you feel if people don't like it?
DL: Fortunately for us, we've been talking about how the show's going to end since Steve gave us an end date three years ago, so we really have no excuse to say anything other than this is the ending that we wanted to do on the terms that we wanted to do it. We didn't have to go two seasons too long. We've had a lot of time to think about it. Now there is certainly a hope on all our parts that everybody sort of universally loves the ending that we put forward. I don't think it would be Lost if there wasn't sort of an ongoing and active debate amongst the people who watch the show as to whether or not it was a good ending. If I could put on my predicting hat, there would be people over here who say it's the worst ending in the history of television, and hopefully to balance them out, my mom who will say it's the best ending, although she doesn't understand the show.
Q: What are your feelings as this comes to an end?
DL: You know, personally, I'm just feeling a tremendous amount of gratitude and the idea that we're getting to end something while anybody still cares and while we still kind of love each other as opposed to everybody saying, "It's about time." This is sort of a once-in-a-lifetime or once-in-a-career experience for a show that's still performing, for the network to allow us to end it is a tremendous gift. As I was walking onto the stage, I was sort of experiencing a sense of "I can't believe they're going to actually let us get away with this," so gratitude.
Q: You've said before that the last season will be a lot more like the first than it's been lately. Can you explain any more about what you mean by that?
DL: You know, for us, there's an inherent process when you're ending something to sort of be thinking about the beginning as writers, and in fact, the story of the sixth season very specifically has to go back to the beginning to examine a lot of things. I think one of the things is when you basically say, here is where our character started, when we first met them and here is where they've come to. If you think about a character like Sawyer or a character like Kate, this guy was basically the sheriff of the Dharma Initiative in 1977, and if you had said that that was going to be his eventual path five years ago, it would have sounded like the most ridiculous thing, but you take him there one step at a time.
Q: Looking back, was it really vital that you not tell the actors what was going to happen to their characters in advance?
DL: I think if we had called Terry [O'Quinn] during the shooting of "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham," which is around the sixth episode of the last season, and said, "Hey, Terry, we do not want to confuse you, but the Locke that you are now playing on the island is not actually John Locke anymore, because thousands and thousands of years ago..." He'd say, "Stop." But instead you put in the script, "There's something about Locke that's different," and Terry plays something about Locke that's different. You keep it simple and you trust your actors, and it's worked out pretty marvelously for us.
Q: Quite simply, what are your most memorable moments over the past six years?
DL: There's a bridge that basically connects where the writers work on the Disney lot to where the ABC executive offices are. We start writing the show in the summertime, so usually in around June or July, Carlton [Cuse] and I have to walk across this bridge and meet with [ABC programming executive] Steve [McPherson] and a group of ABC executives to basically present to them what we're going to be doing the following season on Lost. There's a progression of bridge walks starting with, "Okay, we're finally going to tell them what's in the hatch." And last year, Carlton and I, I remember turning to each other and going, "Is there any other way to say 'time travel' without saying 'time travel'? Can we say 'moving through time' or 'the juxtaposition of story?'" But every time we'd get over there and have that meeting, the sort of reception that we got and the faith that we received - I know it sounds like it's blatant ass-kissing to say - but again, when you look at the 104 hours of [it]Lost that you've already seen, the things that we've been able to do on the show is pretty incredible, so I think about that stuff.
Q: How happy were you that President Obama moved up his State of the Union address to avoid your premiere?
DL: What's amazing is you realize how fickle your political affiliation is. I'm a lifelong Democrat, but when I first heard that they were considering February 2nd, I was like, "That motherfucker." Being honest.
Q: What kind of legacy do you think Lost will leave behind for television?
DL: We talk about what we think the legacy of the show will be, and it will probably be two things. There will be a legacy that in the week after the finale airs, people will be talking about I think just the finale. It's almost impossible to have any perspective on the 125 hours that preceded the finale. In the same way, we were talking about The Sopranos finale the other day. We were basically like, "I think A.J. was going to be in the army and then he wasn't going to be in the army," but we remember every shot of the diner scene, and of course, the cut to black. But then as time goes on, you think about The Sopranos as a series as opposed to just the finale. There will be kind of two separate legacies, and all that we can hope for is that the legacy that really matters, the one about the series is that people really feel like the experience of watching Lost was incredibly rewarding and that they're really happy that they dedicated all that time and energy to the show.
Lost airs Tuesdays at 9 on ABC starting Feb. 2.
Damon Lindelof, the creator and show runner of Lost, is quite good at cultivating extended discussions without ever spoiling anything. As the man who came up with the ultimate six year plan for the show, and set an end date so the story would maintain the perfect momentum, Lindelof knows exactly what information he wants to be public.
There's plenty to analyze too. It's not just what's going to happen next? It's "what does this mean?" The history of Lost characters' lives, as we've seen in flashbacks, and their actions throughout the five seasons on the island, are morally ambiguous to start. Often, the show reveals that they didn't even do what you thought they did so you've been thinking about it wrong the whole time.
See how you can get caught up in vague Lost talk? Lindelof has been a giving spokesperson throughout the show's run. Even at other events, he addressed important Lost issues. Even on the picket lines outside of Disney studios during the Writer's Guild of America strike of two years ago, Lindelof would speak to press and address what a strike meant for the show (he wasn't able to stop ABC from airing the shortened season, but he was able to keep the fourth season to a tight 14 episodes.)
Now for the big finish. Lost's final season begins February 2 and it's so secret, they're not even showing footage in the TV previews. The final season premiere is so important that President Obama gave his State of the Union address last week to avoid conflicts. Lindelof gave a press conference to television reporters from across the nation, deftly avoiding specifics while giving thoughtful analysis to the issues the show must resolve in its remaining 18 hours.
Q: So you had a plan the whole time. Did you always have Ben moving the island, or did that develop later?
DL: Starting basically between the first and second season was when we started to cook the deeper mythology of the island, started talking about the physics of the island, how the island worked, why no one could find the island, who had been on the island before, what was The Others' story, how long had they been there, In those conversations, we started talking about the wheel, the idea that the island was moving not just through space but also through time and then the question just became when were we going to use that device? I do feel like we always knew we were going to do time travel on the show and we were setting that up as early as the second season.
Q: Has that been the most hotly debated jump the shark issue?
DL: Sure. I think that the show has probably jumped the shark at least a dozen times now. Fortunately for us as storytellers but unfortunately for a mainstream audience, yes, absolutely. There was a time when there were 23 million people watching Lost. That time has passed. Every time that this show takes a risk, declares itself more overtly, there are going to be people who say, 'I wasn't watching the show about time travel. I don't like that show. I don't want to watch this anymore.' We have to tell the story that we're committed to and hopefully the audience will stick with us but we can't really compromise that.
Q: But those people still watching are more passionate than ever. Does that count as much to the networks as ratings?
DL: I do feel like we are in a network climate where shows like Chuck or Friday Night Lights can survive and thrive with minimal audience but a tremendous amount of passion not just from the fans but also from you guys. I do feel like what the critical response is really makes a difference in advancing the patina of a network. People like Steve, as easy as this is for me to say because he's my boss, genuinely care about quality. It's great if you have both but sometimes they'll settle for one or the other.
Q: Does merchandising like DVD sets help?
DL: Sure, obviously for Lost the economic model of syndication doesn't really exist because you can watch an episode of Friends or an episode of Law & Order and just drop in but you're not going to in the middle of season four episode five of Lost. It's like picking up a Harry Potter book and flipping to a chapter. You have to read it beginning to end. So the DVDs I think have probably been a very profitable business for them and the brand itself has probably helped us as well.
Q: What series finales do you love and admire?
DL: I think that The Shield was a phenomenal series finale and certainly Newhart is one of my favorites, but my all time favorite series finale is MASH. I remember watching that with my folks. I remember everybody on our street was watching it. I remember Hawkeye basically saying, 'It was a baby! It wasn't a chicken, it was a baby!' And how emotional it was when the chopper finally lifted off and Klinger stayed behind. That's stuff that has stayed with me for my life and I do feel like to end the show that people still care about and to give the characters incredibly fulfilling resolutions, MASH is really the sort of pinnacle of something that we're trying to achieve. That being said, it wasn't a mystery show so we've got to kind of answer all our mysteries and give the audience those satisfying character conclusions so I'd like to say for the record that our degree of difficulty is very high.
Q: You got your end date and you've been planning your ending. Now how will you feel if people don't like it?
DL: Fortunately for us, we've been talking about how the show's going to end since Steve gave us an end date three years ago, so we really have no excuse to say anything other than this is the ending that we wanted to do on the terms that we wanted to do it. We didn't have to go two seasons too long. We've had a lot of time to think about it. Now there is certainly a hope on all our parts that everybody sort of universally loves the ending that we put forward. I don't think it would be Lost if there wasn't sort of an ongoing and active debate amongst the people who watch the show as to whether or not it was a good ending. If I could put on my predicting hat, there would be people over here who say it's the worst ending in the history of television, and hopefully to balance them out, my mom who will say it's the best ending, although she doesn't understand the show.
Q: What are your feelings as this comes to an end?
DL: You know, personally, I'm just feeling a tremendous amount of gratitude and the idea that we're getting to end something while anybody still cares and while we still kind of love each other as opposed to everybody saying, "It's about time." This is sort of a once-in-a-lifetime or once-in-a-career experience for a show that's still performing, for the network to allow us to end it is a tremendous gift. As I was walking onto the stage, I was sort of experiencing a sense of "I can't believe they're going to actually let us get away with this," so gratitude.
Q: You've said before that the last season will be a lot more like the first than it's been lately. Can you explain any more about what you mean by that?
DL: You know, for us, there's an inherent process when you're ending something to sort of be thinking about the beginning as writers, and in fact, the story of the sixth season very specifically has to go back to the beginning to examine a lot of things. I think one of the things is when you basically say, here is where our character started, when we first met them and here is where they've come to. If you think about a character like Sawyer or a character like Kate, this guy was basically the sheriff of the Dharma Initiative in 1977, and if you had said that that was going to be his eventual path five years ago, it would have sounded like the most ridiculous thing, but you take him there one step at a time.
Q: Looking back, was it really vital that you not tell the actors what was going to happen to their characters in advance?
DL: I think if we had called Terry [O'Quinn] during the shooting of "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham," which is around the sixth episode of the last season, and said, "Hey, Terry, we do not want to confuse you, but the Locke that you are now playing on the island is not actually John Locke anymore, because thousands and thousands of years ago..." He'd say, "Stop." But instead you put in the script, "There's something about Locke that's different," and Terry plays something about Locke that's different. You keep it simple and you trust your actors, and it's worked out pretty marvelously for us.
Q: Quite simply, what are your most memorable moments over the past six years?
DL: There's a bridge that basically connects where the writers work on the Disney lot to where the ABC executive offices are. We start writing the show in the summertime, so usually in around June or July, Carlton [Cuse] and I have to walk across this bridge and meet with [ABC programming executive] Steve [McPherson] and a group of ABC executives to basically present to them what we're going to be doing the following season on Lost. There's a progression of bridge walks starting with, "Okay, we're finally going to tell them what's in the hatch." And last year, Carlton and I, I remember turning to each other and going, "Is there any other way to say 'time travel' without saying 'time travel'? Can we say 'moving through time' or 'the juxtaposition of story?'" But every time we'd get over there and have that meeting, the sort of reception that we got and the faith that we received - I know it sounds like it's blatant ass-kissing to say - but again, when you look at the 104 hours of [it]Lost that you've already seen, the things that we've been able to do on the show is pretty incredible, so I think about that stuff.
Q: How happy were you that President Obama moved up his State of the Union address to avoid your premiere?
DL: What's amazing is you realize how fickle your political affiliation is. I'm a lifelong Democrat, but when I first heard that they were considering February 2nd, I was like, "That motherfucker." Being honest.
Q: What kind of legacy do you think Lost will leave behind for television?
DL: We talk about what we think the legacy of the show will be, and it will probably be two things. There will be a legacy that in the week after the finale airs, people will be talking about I think just the finale. It's almost impossible to have any perspective on the 125 hours that preceded the finale. In the same way, we were talking about The Sopranos finale the other day. We were basically like, "I think A.J. was going to be in the army and then he wasn't going to be in the army," but we remember every shot of the diner scene, and of course, the cut to black. But then as time goes on, you think about The Sopranos as a series as opposed to just the finale. There will be kind of two separate legacies, and all that we can hope for is that the legacy that really matters, the one about the series is that people really feel like the experience of watching Lost was incredibly rewarding and that they're really happy that they dedicated all that time and energy to the show.
Lost airs Tuesdays at 9 on ABC starting Feb. 2.