Andrew Ryan
Pasadena, Calif. — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 4:08PM EST Last updated on Wednesday, Mar. 03, 2010 6:18PM EST
No one is talking on Lost. Not even when plied with an Apollo candy bar.
Along with the riddle of Donald Trump’s hair and the particulars of Conan O’Brien’s severance package, any details about the show’s final season rate as the TV world’s best-kept secret. Some cast members are surprised people even bother to ask.
“Man, you know I can’t say anything about how it’s all going to end,” said a bemused Jorge Garcia, a.k.a. Hurley, when offered the sly bribe at the TV critics’ tour. “I’d get into all kinds of trouble. Besides, we’re still filming the last few shows. Not a chance.”
A certain amount of secrecy has always been part of Lost, which begins its sixth and final season Tuesday with a two-hour episode, but this time it’s very serious.
The Lost ensemble
Lost stars Zuleikha Robinson as Ilana, Nestor Carbonell as Richard Alpert, Ken Leung as Miles, Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Terry O'Quinn as Locke, Matthew Fox as Jack, Daniel Dae Kim as Jin, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Emilie de Ravin as Claire, Michael Emerson as Ben, Jorge Garcia as Hurley and Jeff Fahey as Frank Lapidus.
With security personnel in tow, ABC handlers hustled the Lost cast and producers in and out of the recent press conferences like participants in the witness-protection program. The sixth season is also the only edition of Lost not to release any first-episode preview clips or new promotional material, save for a group shot of the cast in a Last Supper-like tableau. The show that launched 1,000 – well, probably more – fan blogs, Lost debuted in 2004 and has steadily built a fiercely devoted viewer following. On the surface, the series followed the survival stories of the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815, which had crashed somewhere in the South Pacific. This was not Gilligan’s Island.
“ We do feel that the worst ending we could provide everyone who has invested this amount of time and energy in watching the show is the ‘safe’ ending. ”— Producer Damon Lindelof
Unlike other network dramas arriving that season, Lost was a series with a fantastically complicated mythology. Miss one episode of Lost, and you’d be hopelessly, well, lost.
In the first season alone, the show introduced dozens of hints suggesting a hazy conspiracy behind the survivors being on the island, with most of these hints morphing into pop-culture buzzwords – the Hatch, the DHARMA Initiative, the Hanso Corporation, the Smoke Monster, the Others. And how did a polar bear get on a tropical island anyway? The list has been growing since then.
“Between the first and second season, we cooked the mythology,” said co-executive producer Carlton Cuse, one of nine executive producers on the series. “We kind of knew what the end point was, but as you move towards the end point, you add elements. That’s part of the discovery process of writing.”
Over five seasons and 104 hours, the Lost mythology has been a learning experience for viewers, and a dream for the large ensemble cast. “We’re not bored yet,” said Alberta native Evangeline Lilly, who plays Kate, “and we’re in Season 6. That’s unheard of for television actors.”
Hence, the growing public anticipation for the last 16 episodes: Among the fan community, the curiosity about the show’s final season has been mounting since last fall, when cast regular Matthew Fox, who plays Jack, appeared on a British talk show and claimed he knew precisely how the castaway drama would come to a close.
“It’s going to end with a very specific image,” Fox told host Jonathan Ross. “I know what that image is.”
That much is true, admitted Cuse. “We came up with the final image of the show a long time ago, back when we were first plotting out the mythology in the first season.”
What we do know: Lost left off last spring with a cliffhanger episode and major character changes. Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) had seemingly perished with the explosion of a nuclear warhead. Ben (Michael Emerson) had killed the island’s mysterious Jacob.
And Locke (Terry O’Quinn) is also dead. Or is he? One of the show’s two Emmy-winning stars, along with Emerson, O’Quinn was typically cryptic regarding his possible resurrection in the show’s final season. "It was easier to play whoever Locke is now before I knew I wasn't playing Locke," he said. Say what?
Of course, sometimes people come back on Lost. The show’s producers also confirmed the character of Libby, played by Cynthia Watros, and Michael, played by Harold Perrineau, would return to the show in the weeks ahead. As expected, they did not elaborate on specifics on their return.
Nor could they be tricked into revealing a single detail about the Lost two-hour finale, scheduled to air in mid-May. “We do feel that the worst ending we could provide everyone who has invested this amount of time and energy in watching the show is the ‘safe’ ending,’” said co-executive producer Damon Lindelof, who co-created the series with J.J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber. “You know, the ending that would appeal to the most number of people.”
The only sure thing on Lost these days: The end is nigh, and when it comes, fans won’t be the only ones reaching for the hankies.
“I am gonna cry like a baby when this show ends,” said Lilly. “It’s become so nostalgic for us to look back over six years, having grown up together and grown up in front of all of you together; it’s been so intense that for it to come to an end is going to be life-changing.”
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