On Thursday, May 20th, the New York Times hosted Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the showrunners of ABC’s “Lost”, in a special edition of Times Talks looking at the legacy and mythos of the hit show. This insightful and straight talk from the show producers is a wonderful salute to the show. The video clip excerpts from this edition of Times Talks are unfortunately not embeddable yet, but here are the links to the clips:
Emotional reactions on the conclusions of the series
Crafting the series finale episode
Actors’ input to the show as to how their characters will be resolved
Why the answers to questions on “Lost” lead to more questions
The “specialness” of Claire’s son, Aaron
Who is to blame for Nikki and Paulo
Killing off characters on the show
The “sideways” timeline of the final season
A surprise guest joins the producers
@TimesTalks tweeted while the event was going on. Here are the play by play highlights:
- How much of the story did Damon and Carlton know before they started writing?
- The Lost writers knew the general story but have been adapting as each episode was created.
- What impact do fans have on Lost?
- Damon and Carlton admit to making mistakes and say that the fans always catch their mistakes.
- The audience reaction to Lost have somewhat forced a change in the planned story.
- When fans asked why Hurley wasn’t losing weight, the writers created the Dharma food stash.
- According to Damon, there is a Star Wars reference in the first 7 mins of the Lost finale.
- Carlton watched a lot of TV as a child, which seemed like a waste of time but clearly worked out for him.
- Damon was a huge Twin Peaks fan and used to watch it with his dad.
- Damon and Carlton often worked as referees with their team of passionate writers.
- Did Damon and Carlton ever disagree on story developments? Depends who you ask. Carlton says no. Damon says yes.
- We’re now watching the clip when Desmond and Penny connect on the phone for the first time. Oldie but goodie!
- The writers specifically wanted to make sure in their time travelling stories, no character could change the future by going back in time.
- The hardest plot choice for Damon and Carlton was killing off Charlie.
- They needed to kill off Charlie in order for the time travel storyline to work.
- They decide to kill people off the show to raise the stakes of the plot and show that anything can happen.
- As hard as it is to kill off the characters, it’s harder to tell the actors that their character is going to be killed.
- There is no guide book or answer to all Lost questions…just like life.
- Where is Walt? Looks like we may see him again on Sunday!
- The writers had charts and timelines in the writers room to keep the storylines and time travelling on track.
- Special Lost guest about to make a special appearance on stage! Who is it?
- Michael Emerson! The actor who plays Ben!
- Michael Emerson’s job is to connect the dots between what Ben says and does and to find the human being in the character.
- And Hurley has just made a surprise appearance!!! Jorge Garcia is in the house!
- Jorge Garcia loves the character of Ben on the show. He gets to say the best lines.
- Carlton and Damon have no favorite characters but Carlton does love to write for Ben in particular.
- The finale of Lost will show even more of Damon and Carlton’s views of faith.
- There is a difference btwn what a character says and what is shown. What is shown is real. What a character says isn’t always true.
- The best thing about season six for Michael Emerson is to be able to play 2 characters in one show.
- There is no time table for Damon, Carlton and Lost for the future.
- As a fan of the show, Jorge Garcia thinks the finale will satisfy your questions.
- Thanks to Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Michael Emerson and Jorge Garcia for a great talk! Can’t wait for Sunday’s finale!
The two-and-a-half- hour finale episode of “Lost”, entitled “The End”, airs tonight, May 23rd in a full night to celebrate the show, beginning with a two hour retrospective “Lost: The Final Journey” at 7pm ET. The finale begins at 9pm ET and will be followed by a special edition of “Jimmy Kimmel Live: Aloha to Lost” at 12:05am ET. On the preceding Saturday night, ABC will air the original two-hour pilot of “Lost” with pop-up trivia.
[Source] Times Talks Facebook, Times Talks Twitter
