Ever since the season finale, the producers of LOST (Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse) have been dead silent about everything and anything having to do with the finale and the fourth season. This has been particularly frustrating for most of the LOST fans out there, as we are insatiable creatures as addicted to the many, many loose ends of these shows as people are to crack or heroin. Seriously. It’s a problem. There should probably be group therapy meetings for us.
Things we did know, before the producers went all radio silence on us (they’re much better at it than The Others are):
1. There are three more seasons left of LOST.
2. There is an ending, not just blank screen.
3. If the show should get cancelled, there is a hilarious cop-out episode planned with the orangutan from the Lost Experience game, Joop.
4. LOST will begin airing in February, and will run straight through. That means no reruns (good), long wait for new episodes (bad).
On Wednesday, ABC Entertainment chief Steve MacPhearson met with 150 journalists before Lindelof and Cuse were to make their only public address this summer at Comic Con 2007 in San Fransisco. The Washington Post published and article yesterday in the Style section expressing their frustration at the way that MacPhearson handled the press. I’m gonna take a moment for a few quotes and some commentary, then move on the Comic Con 2007 panel in which some awesome hints about Season Four. Oh and… Season 3 spoilers. Obviously.
The Post’s article about the MacPhearson press conference is kind of an awesome read. It exposes the complete narcissism of television and media journalists. At the same time, it shows how little these critics understand LOST, its marketing, its fans, and its producers. Observe:
Wednesday’s melee started innocently enough when a TV critic — that nice Susan Young of the Oakland Tribune — said she’d heard “major” announcements about “Lost” would be made at the Comic-Con gathering in San Diego on Thursday. “Would you like to tell us today what that might be?” she asked nicely.
“Yeah, let me give those announcements now — of course I don’t,” McPherson said, dripping sarcasm.
“Oh, come on,” she said, nicely.
“They do have some announcements that they are going to be making that I think everyone will be pretty excited about,” said McPherson, twisting the knife, which, in retrospect, may not have been a good call.
“Can you tell us?” she pursued.
“No,” he said.
Pop! Pop! Pop! went critics’ heads.
First of all: When has the head of ABC ever spilled LOST secrets? Not last year, not the year before, not between any of the seasons. Fans — and one would assume television critics who have been dealing with LOST for three years now — would understand the absolute necessity of secrecy in this show. One of the reasons the producers have enacted radio silence all summer is because someone leaked Charlie’s death before the season finale. This show absolutely trades on viewers being surprised by the twists and turns. LOST loses that, and LOST is over.
But it wasn’t just that they weren’t getting any dirt. The TV critics were incensed about who would get what dirt first:
Comic-Con is irksome to the TV critics at the press tour.
“I don’t think my editor is going to be very happy when she reads on a blog later this afternoon that Steve McPherson promised that the biggest news regarding one of the highest-rated shows on the network would be coming at a fan convention the next day,” said one critic.
“Hear, hear!” others chimed in, which is something we didn’t think happened except in crunchy-gravel BBC adaptations of novels.
“Not to be a crybaby . . . what’s the point of having 150 reporters with access to millions of readers sitting here?” asked another critic, joining the pile-on. “You have the announcements. You can give them out. Instead you are going to hold them to give to people who have to pay to get into a convention.”
Here, once again, the journalists are missing the point entirely. While the television press have been generally kind to LOST since it premiered (well, except for about midway through Season 3 when they declared the series, um, well, “lost,” and dismissed the potential for an awesome second half of the season, which is exactly what they got, prompting them to publish a lot of articles about LOST’s “redemption,” which was total bullshit, really condescending, and probably pissed off the entire writing staff… it would piss me off), they seem to think they are the be-all and end-all of LOST’s success. Not true. The fanbase for this show is huge, and very intense. They showed themselves as primal, hungry beasts last summer, when quite literally the whole world became completely wrapped up in The Lost Experience, the internet game the producers created to help fill in some Hanso Foundation backstory between seasons. It was a brilliant marketing campaign, it was a super fun game, and it exposed how intricate and intelligent LOST really is.
[On a side note: When The Lost Experience debuted, it was a series of websites with hidden links, etc., that would help you get bits and pieces of information. While the official game websites clearly had to be numerous and ubiquitous, I don't think anyone expected the vast web of fan-made sites that popped up, either to add erroneous mythology to the game, or just to discuss and collect the clues, allowing people with lives (like me) to keep up with the intriguing progress without spending 309751039 hours online every week. Interestingly, the viral marketing campaign J.J. Abrams has begun to set up for his new movie Cloverfield looks, to me, like it's trying to take advantage of the obsessive LOST following. By premiering the trailer before Transformers, without a title, he gave this new project an air of mystery. Within a couple days people had found the enigmatic website and were beginning to blog about "clues." Granted, it's not the same as LOST, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on to see if Abrams' attempt to get an online community going for Cloverfield will work.]
So it makes sense, then, to give the one and only discussion with hints to fans who pay to show up at Comic Con and then blog about it the next day. The writers and producers are as loyal to their following as their following is to the show. And that following could not give two shits about what television critics think about LOST; you either watch it, all of it… or you don’t.
So, that being said, here’s what they had to say at Comic Con yesterday:
* Michael (Harold Perrineau) will be back. And not just back in a flashback — back for GOOD! Is he the one who sent the boat with Naomi? We know it wasn’t Penny. Will Penny find him and them? Is he good? Is he bad? Is Walt with him? Eeee!
Lindelof: We can confirm that Harold’s not coming back for a quick pop. He is coming back to the series as a regular. He has rejoined the cast. We just won’t tell you when, but it will be early in the fourth season. I think the way that we’re doing it is going to be fairly awesome.
* We may (probably will) find out who was in that coffin we saw in the season 3 finale. Harold’s guess? Locke. Lindelof and Cuse (who brought bells to ring when one came too close to revealing too much about season 4) would not say anything about it, left Harold to his guess, didn’t comment on his guess, and just said wait and see.
* There will be both flashbacks and flashforwards (like we saw in the finale) from here on out.
* We will find out why/how Ben got caught in Rousseau’s trap (way, way back in season two.. remember?)
* Sometimes it best just to quote:
Q: Will the story stay on the island?
Cuse: Going forward, you’re going to be seeing story in the past, present and future, in all three timezones. What you saw with Kate and Jack was not the end of the show.
* We will get some background on characters we’ve received little to no background on before (and one who’s dead!):
Q: There has been speculation that Libby possibly worked for Dharma, will we have a flashback with her in the future?
Cuse: It is our intention to get to her story, and we think you’ll be very happy when we do finish that.
Lindelof: You’re not exactly barking up the wrong tree with your speculative online questioning.
Q: Will Rousseau be getting her own flashback soon?
Cuse: Yes, we’re not sure if it will be next year or the year after.
Lindelof: Some very important things will be revealed in that story. Barring unforseen circumstances you’ll be seeing that story in the next season or two.
* There is a strong chance that Jack and Claire will learn they are brother/sister in Season Four.
Finally, at the end of the panel, they previewed part of a new Dharma Initiative orientation film for the Orchid station (the what now? EEEEEEE!!!!!! I love the DI!!) From TV Squad:
Aside from Lindelof and Cuse being generally charming and amiable, the panel did offer one big Lost fan preview – a short, Dharma Initiative orientation film for the Orchid Station starring your favorite and mine Dr. Marvin Candle. In the film, Dr. Candle had two fully-function arms, a bunny with the number “15″ branded on its side and a foul mouth. Yes, Dr. Candle dropped the f-bomb when a second bunny branded “15″ got loose. Candle referred to the island’s “Casimir effect,” but was cut-off before explaining what the heck he meant. I guess Lindelof and Cuse needed to keep everybody busy until February. You can expect more Dharma goodness before Season 4 debuts in February via webisode.
If the video shows up on YouTube you can bet you’ll find it here.
I. Love. This. Show.
–Sara Tenenbaum
