Lindelof, Cuse, & Bender Q&A Session

Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and Lost director Jack Bender sat down for a little Q&A in Curzon. Dark UFO the Lost spoiler site had the audio recording and transcript from the session:


Initial thank yous, then showed a recap video of Lost.

1) D&C confirmed that Stranger In A Strange Land was the turning point for the studio, and they were allowed to establish an end date.
2) Jack’s beard is bad.
3) 16 episodes next year, but 18 hours of Lost. Jack Bender confirmed a two hour season premiere, and a two hour finale.
4) After Lost, they will go in to hiding for a while, due to the inevitably interpretive quality to the series ending.
Damon: You are married to your destiny, you can try to avoid it, but it will catch up to you. This is why Charlie shut the door in the Looking Glass station, because he embraced his death.
Sometimes they get pointers from the studio, telling them stuff is too outlandish. Originally, in the season four premiere, Hurley was going to come across himself in Jacob’s cabin, but the network urged them to change the scene to Christian Shepherd, afraid it would set a precedent of weirdness. With season six, there won’t be any of that

Questions:

Q: What was your favorite scene to watch or write?
CC: The scoring session we attended for the raft’s launch at the end of Exodus . These musicians were playing this incredible music without having rehearsed it, and the moment was so beautiful, there were tears in the control booth. That was just one of those great moments where you felt this blessed synergy of all these talented collaborators all come together and make Lost what it is.
JB: I love all of them
DL: I have many...but for me, during season one, when we first started writing the show coming out of the pilot, when it first started revealing itself, was really cool. I’m drawn to scenes that take place with just two characters and somehow they’re talking about very very heady things and I’m a huge fan of whenever Jack and Locke talk to each other. We’ve been very judicious in having those guys talk to each other, it happens very rarely. I go back back to White Rabbit and that 6 or 7 minute long scene where they’re just sitting in the jungle and Jack says he’s following the impossible and Locke says what if it’s not impossible and we were all put here for a reason, and that scene is the genesis for those guys’ relationship and if you think about how that was the 3rd episode shot out of the pilot, here we are now, 100 episodes later, and now Jack is finally saying ‘Y’know, Locke might be onto something’
CC: Jack’s kinda slow.
DL: It had to permeate through his beard
Q: My wife is fascinated with the artistry of delivering this idea into a script. We had, in a video podcast last year, a glimpse into the writers’ room and she’s fascinated that you get the idea and put it into a script
CC: We have a call centre in Delhi. We just ask them ‘we need a flashforward this week’
DL: We have a minicamp before we write, where we just discuss the season with the writers, the character arcs and we decide on the season’s final image so we know exactly our beginning and where we’re trying to get to. Once we start writing the show on a week-to-week episode basis it gets a bit more intense
CC: We spend a lot of time breaking each aspect of the story and once we have the story worked out from beginning to end, we’ll put it up on whiteboard and then pitch it back to ourselves, and we’ll have scenes in different colours, withan on island story, an off island story, and a C-story, split it into six acts for the commercial breaks and structure it so you’ll wanna come back after each act. Then we’ll give it to some writers to rewrite and send back, and we’ll give our notes, make some changes.

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Ellen's lost when it comes to Lost

The latest from TV Guide and the dancing daytime hostess with the mostess:

“What the hell’s going on with Lost? I don’t think they know. I think from week to week they go, ‘Let’s do this.’ And then someone else says, ‘No, this would be a good idea.’ I love that show, but I don’t think they know what they’re doing.” —Ellen DeGeneres

“I am flattered that Ellen is a fan of our show,” says exec producer Carlton Cuse, who promises Ellen there is a master plan, with some sweet payoffs, if she sticks through the final season. Dominic Monaghan recently had a secret breakfast meeting with producer Damon Lindelof to discuss how he might manage returning to Lost as Charlie. “We would like there to be some visitations from people we’ve loved over time,” Cuse says. Michael Emerson, who plays Ben, confirms, “The final season will resemble the first. I know there are plans for big people we have parted company with to reappear.” But one crucial component from the very first pilot episode will most likely be absent from the reunion: cocreator J.J. Abrams, who tells me he won’t be returning to Hawaii to direct the series finale. “I would selfishly love it,” he says, “but director Jack Bender has been living in Hawaii for years and doing amazing work. For me to come in and direct the finale would be cruel and unusual.”

I think the big news is that J.J. will not be stepping up to direct the series finale. I for one certainly appreciate that he'll let Jack Bender, the director who has taken Lost this far, finish out the series.