Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the dynamic producing/writing duo known as “Darlton,” will be appearing at Comic-Con this Saturday, July 25, 2009, from 11:00 am to Noon. This will likely be a bittersweet event, because LOST has presented a panel every year at Comic-Con since 2004, the summer before LOST premiered, and this summer will be the very last time.
In an interview a few days ago, TV Guide asked Darlton if they were going to answer questions about Season 6:
Carlton Cuse: We’ll answer some questions and we’ll be evasive about some things. I mean, again, we want to find the fine line between teasing and spoiling.
Damon Lindelof: Up until Comic-Con, we’ve been answering those questions by saying, “We’re not talking about Season 6 until Comic-Con.” Now we will no longer be able to use that as an excuse so we’ll at the very least have to find a new dodge.
With 6,500 fans packing the hall, you can be sure there will be plenty of live reports going out via Twitter. Good places to check are #lost, #sdcc, #comiccon, and #comic-con.
When the video comes out, I’ll be looking for highlights and funny lines.
Speaking of funny lines, here’s a clip from last year’s event. Damon and Carlton were talking about a special feature on the Season 4 DVD which presented the flash-forwards in linear order, when they themselves suddenly flash-forwarded to the future:
Great news: LOST got nominated for best drama series, Michael Emerson got nominated, for the third time, for best supporting actor, and Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof got nominated for best writing for the season finale episode, The Incident
Here’s the complete list of all the nominations for LOST:
Outstanding drama series: LOST
Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series: Michael Emerson
Outstanding writing for a drama series: Cuse and Lindelof, for The Incident
Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Drama Series: Stephen Semel, Mark Goldman, and Chris Nelson, for The Incident
Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour): Robert Anderson, Ken King, Scott Weber, and Frank Morrone, for The Incident
They sure are getting around! They conducted a master class today at the Roma Fiction Fest, an event, now in its third year, dedicated to television drama.
Here’s the opening of the LOST program. It’s fun to hear the way people scream “Matthew!” when Fox walks onto the stage.
In the next video, the master class begins. Damon, Carlton, and Jack Bender talk about the early days of the show, why they think it is special — and how they got away with doing weird things. Questions are in Italian and answers in English:
It looks like the master class lasted about an hour and a half. There are nine videos covering it, which you can find here: LOST at Roma Fiction Fest on YouTube.
TV Overmind has posted a transcript of the July 3 London panel discussion with Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and Jack Bender that I mentioned in my last post.
Highlights:
Season 6 will have 16 episodes, with the first and the last each being two hours.
They will start shooting Season 6 soon — on August 24.
Producer/writer Damon Lindelof
Damon, on Jack and Locke and things happening “for a reason” (give that man a duck with $100):
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 to White Rabbit and that six or seven 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 third 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.”
(I think this is the scene in White Rabbit that Damon was talking about):
Producer/writer Carlton Cuse
Carlton, on how they write an episode (I love these little glimpses into the screenwriting process):
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 colors, with an 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 want to 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.
Carlton, on destiny and how it relates to the writers themselves:
Q: You make a lot about the characters searching for their destiny and their purpose. Do you feel that you yourselves had a purpose in your own lives being involved in the show, or you’ve learned something about life from doing it?
Carlton: I think as writers we use the show to explore personal issues, spiritual or otherwise. We’re mainly concerned by how much faith and how much control do you have over your own destiny, something which is very fascinating to us… The writers’ room is diverse and that diversity gets worked out in the characters.
Damon, on the ending:
Q: I want to know about the end of LOST. Michael Emerson said in an interview this week that he suspects it will be quite bittersweet or melancholy. Is it going to be an upbeat ending or ambiguous? Just any kind of hint to the flavor of the ending.
Damon: All of the above. We are aspiring for an ending that is fair. Bittersweet comes with the territory. The ending will be different as for once, we won’t leave you on a cliffhanger. You will stay on the cliff this time.
(Darlton had mentioned earlier that they were done with time travel — see my post from May, Damon and Carlton talk about destiny and time loops — but I’m glad they confirmed it today. I’m looking forward to getting back to the character-centric stories.)
Emilie de Ravin, who plays Claire, has already said that she will be rejoining LOST next year.
Now producer/writer Carlton Cuse has confirmed it. He said that he and Damon are excited to bring Claire back, and “even more excited for people to experience just how she will return.”
Just how she will return. Interesting. Would that be through the Zombie Entrance?
Zombies from the 1968 classic horror movie "Night of the Living Dead"
Claire in Jacob's cabin, in Episode 4x11 "Cabin Fever"
Val asks:
Do we have any idea what really happened to Claire? After she turned up in Jacob’s cabin with Jack’s father, I got really confused about what her role in the whole island mystery is.
I originally thought Claire was killed after she wandered into the jungle, leaving Aaron behind. I had thought if she were alive, she would have come back for her son.
I was surprised to see her show up in Jacob’s cabin and in Kate’s house on the mainland, but I still thought she was dead. She was with Christian in the cabin, and we knew he was dead. As for showing up on the mainland, other dead characters had been doing that as well, and Clair’s appearance could also be explained as being just a dream.
But then while I was watching Destiny Calls, the Season 5 clip/recap show that aired in January 2009, Damon said something in the commentary that surprised me, and made me think that Claire might still be alive:
Damon (at 3:34 on video): And now, essentially, Claire is missing. We don’t know where she is. She saw Christian Shephard in the jungle. She left the baby behind. And that’s it.
At the time I saw the Destiny Calls recap show, I thought, “She’s only missing! So she’s not dead, after all!” But now, on second thought, I believe she could still be dead. Damon didn’t actually say, for sure, that she wasn’t — just that we didn’t know what happened to her.
Forging on, I found an interview that eonline did with Damon and Carlton last year, before the Season 4 finale, where they muddied the waters even more:
Q: “Is Claire dead?” Is that a question you are wanting the fans to be asking at this point?
Carlton: I think we want the fans to ask, “What’s happened to Claire?” I don’t think it’s “Is she dead?” I think it’s like, “Where is she?” and, “What’s going on with her?”
Damon: What’s fascinating with Lost is there’s a scene where Claire is in the cabin, and she is sitting next to a guy who is dead, and nobody is saying “What’s up with that?” They’re all asking “Is she dead?” I think the more operative question is “What is dead?” That’s a good question to ask, and one you will certainly be asking over the long hiatus.
“The operative question is ‘What is dead’?” Okey-dokey. 😉
It sounds like Claire may have joined the ranks of the undead, the quasi-dead, the not-quite-dead — or, as I like to think of them, actors who still have a job even after their characters die.
And, in fact, Emilie de Ravin recently told TV Guide that she would be coming back to LOST in Season 6:
TVGuide.com: Having been involved in all these projects as of late, will it be harder to go back to Lost for its final season?
De Ravin: No, I’m really looking forward to going back. I’ve had a wonderful time being able to express myself creatively in different ways [during this Season 5 absence]. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again and, being the last season, I’m thinking it’s going to be pretty exciting.
