OMG! I’ve been catching up on the LOST news, and saw that a few weeks ago there was an announcement that LOST creator J.J. Abrams is executive-producing a new show starring my two favorite LOST actors — Michael Emerson (Ben) and Terry O’Quinn (Locke). The show, tentatively titled Odd Jobs, is about former black-ops agents.
ABC, Fox, and NBC all wanted it — and NBC got it.
This could be so good. Or it could be a bitter disappointment. I’m betting on “so good” though. I actually haven’t been as excited about anything LOST-related since before the Finale.
Ben and Locke together again -- Be still my heart!
Michael Emerson, in a June 2010 meet-and-greet, talking about "The New Man in Charge"
A sneak peek is available for the much-anticipated special feature that will be in the Season 6 and Complete Collection DVD sets. The feature tells what happens to Hurley and Ben after they take over the job of guardians of the Island.
Ben in "The New Man in Charge"
The entire video, which runs about 12 minutes, was leaked to YouTube earlier today, but the studio quickly pulled it down. The controversy that arose after the finale appears to be carrying over to the new feature-ette, which is said to answer some of the remaining unanswered questions, but leave others still hanging. One viewer, for example, who got a chance to see the whole video said, “After watching the full thing, I can tell you that it’s perfunctory and about tying up loose ends (although it still doesn’t manage to get them all).”
Damon Lindelof tweeted, “I’m so glad we made ‘The New Man in Charge.’ I was starting to miss getting yelled at.” That made the top tweet list, with over 100 retweets — presumably a lot more than 100, but 100 is where Twitter stops counting.
My feeling is that at this point, I’ve long since given up on ever getting any sense of resolution. Since I no longer have any expectations, I can’t be disappointed, at least when it comes to any lack of meaningful answers. I do think the opportunity to see Michael Emerson and Jorge Garcia reprise their roles will be a treat.
Here’s a clip of Michael Emerson, on a trip in June to his hometown in Iowa, casually sitting on the edge of a stage, talking about the feature, which, he says, he was “actually more excited to film than the finale.” Hmmm. I wonder if he is trying to tell us something. (The video clip was filmed by jshbckr, who also asked the question that Emerson is responding to):
It’s hard to believe, but we’re heading into the final week of LOST. So exciting and so sad.
The approaching end of LOST has unleashed a torrent of creativity around the internet. Such an excess of riches, and too much to describe everything in individual posts. I’m just going to start posting lists of links to interesting things, as I come across them:
Composer Michael Giacchino was honored in UCLA last night, May 13. The LOST folks at the event taped short tributes to him. They also said a few words about how they felt about the show ending.
Some of these videos have just been posted, so you can be among the first to watch. The videos feature Jorge Garcia (Hurley, still alive despite his red shirt), Michael Emerson (be still my heart) (Ben, who found redemption at last), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin, and fie on the producers for killing him off), L. Scott Caldwell (Rose, who is not Eve after all), Damon and Carlton (who I suppose can still be my boyfriends even though they killed off Sun & Jin right after they got back together), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert, who can ride a horse and is not a vampire), Harold Perrineau (Michaaaaaaaael, last spotted whispering in the jungle), and Sonya Walger (Penny: will she return with her boat for the finale?)
There is also a long profile of Michael Giacchino in the current (May 17) print issue of The New Yorker (only an abstract is available online to non-subscribers).
What if LOST ended like The Sopranos? Or like Saturday Night Live? Atom.com has imagined the last 10 seconds of LOST, if it were to end like eleven other television shows.
It turns out that Previously on Lost is not the only recap band. There’s another (called, appropriately, The Others), and the ultra-talented Sophie made a video to go along with their song about the Jack-centric episode, The Lighthouse.
More to come.
Picture at the top of the post, which is via Wikipedia, is from a carving at the temple of Seti I in Abydos, Egypt, and shows the Pharaoh ready to lasso a sacred bull.
Michael Emerson talks about Ben’s flash-sideways in Dr. Linus, accompanied by great clips from that episode.
Emerson expresses perfectly what it is about the flash-sidways scenes that is so intriguing:
It kind of gets you in the heart, I think, to think that had our lives been just a little different, as a result, so many things would have changed, and how easy it would have been to just have simple happinesses and not be on the front lines of some cataclysmic battle between good and evil.
The video also has a clip of part of the memorable scene where Ben confesses to Ilana, and she forgives him. and it contains more of Emerson’s insightful comments about his character.
In honor of the Ben-centric episode Dr. Linus coming up tonight, I wanted to take another look at this clip from The Substitute.
Starting at 0:52, we see Sideways Ben, wearing a sweater vest, in the teacher’s lounge, fussing over the coffeepot, saying:
How many times do we have to go over this. If you have the last cup of coffee, you remove the filter, and throw it away. Fear not, I will make a fresh pot
"If you have the last cup of coffee ... "
Every office, every workplace has someone like this. Here, in this sideways school, Ben is that guy. Michael Emerson’s inflection is perfect. I think everyone who has ever worked anywhere that had a communal coffeepot must feel at least a twinge of recognition.
What I love about this scene:
— It’s so real, such a part of everyday life, yet something that doesn’t often get portrayed in a drama, especially not a drama tackling such big issues as good versus evil, free will versus destiny, and faith versus reason.
— Michael Emerson is an acting god. To go from the terrifying Henry Gale of Season 2, to the prissy sweater-vest guy in this clip — and to make each one absolutely 100% convincing — is sheer genius.
— Sideways Ben and Sideways Locke seem to have an instant rapport, a mutual respect. Very interesting.
"Tea? Now there's a gentleman's drink."
I also wonder what this scene tells us about the sideways world.
We’ve seen some of the sideways characters get what they want or need: Locke gets Helen, a good future, a sense of humor about his plight, and a healthy sense of boundaries. Hurley gets good luck. Kate gets away. But the sideways world isn’t a Disnified land where all dreams come true. Sayid gets to be with Nadia, but only on the fringes of her life. And everyone still seems to be controlled by their character. Hurley is still warm-hearted, but Sayid is still violent.
What does it mean, then, that Ben, the larger-than-life arch-villain in the Island world, here seems so ordinary? What did Jacob do (if it was, in fact, Jacob who did it) to transform this Milquetoast into a cool killer?
Or is Ben not quite as ordinary as he seems here? That’s a possibility. Maybe we’ll find out more about that tonight, in Dr. Linus.
This has clips of fans and panelists at PaleyFest. There’s some wonderful interplay between Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson, who are very funny together.
This next short podcast has got to be the most spoiler-free podcast ever made, revealing absolutely nothing about the show — except that the show is about good and evil. I think we figured that one out already. 😉 Damon and Carlton are having fun here, talking about banjos and apple-eating contests:
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