Lost: Discussion Thread

[Pest Spray]

Jack might love Kate, but he's drawn to Juliet, and he was taken by that kiss. I didn't get anything romantic from that "I love you" as I expected to get when it was talked about on a forum.

[EricaKane70]

I like jack with juilet and the only time I find him tolerablel is when he's with her. I like kate with sawyer, she better off with a bad boy.

[Pest Spray]

Me too. Juliet, to me, or rather, Elizabeth Mitchell, has revitalized LOST for me. It's been great this season, and I credit it to Juliet and Ben joining in addition to the people we already liked. I couldn't stand Jack most of the time throughout the first two seasons, but now I love him.

[KevC1980]

Well everyone, i finally caught up on Lost last night and today..I had been waiting to watch them with a friend, but we couldn't find time to do that..so i broke down and watched them on my own..I watched 4 episodes last night and the finale today...

The episodes leading to the finale were so exciting, and it was great watching them back to back...The finale was incredible, the flashforward really shocked me..I didn't see that coming at all, i just figured jack has hit rock bottom before his father died...I did know Charlie would die from TVguide.com's main page and Entertainment Weekly...but it was so well done and gut-wrenching...Also it was great seeing Tracy Middendorf (ex-carrie)...but i can't remember what the other actress with her has been in...I heard she was on Alias, but i didn't watch that...What else has she done? The whole episode i was trying to remember, because she looks so familiar...

Hurley saving the day was great, i'm glad he finally got to prove himself...And seeing Penny was exciting...

Also I really agree with Linn and her statement that Juliet has revitalized the show, Elizabeth Mitchell is just incredible....I hope she stays till the end...

[sheilaforever]

ITa. Liz Mitchell rocks - LOVE Juliet.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

http://tv.ign.com/articles/821/821712p1.html

Libby Returns to Lost

Cynthia Watros will be appearing on multiple episodes in Season 4.

by Eric Goldman

September 20, 2007 - Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse has told TV Guide's Michael Ausiello that Cynthia Watros will be returning to Lost this upcoming season. Watros played Libby on the series in Season 2, until her character was killed.

No, Libby isn't expected to return from the dead, and will most likely appear in flashbacks. Watros will be appearing in multiple episodes. Libby had been a source of many questions on the show, after one flashback showed she had spent time in the same mental hospital as Hurley, and a later flashback (after her character died) showed she also was connected to Desmond. At Comic-Con this summer Cuse had said "Our intention is to get to Libby's story this year."

Cuse now tells Ausiello "She'll be in enough of the show for us to fill in the missing pieces of her story. We could not be more pleased. Cynthia is a smart and engaging actor, and [executive producer] Damon [Lindelof] and I have some very cool parts of her story left to tell."

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Oops, meant for this to go in the Lost thread in the ABC section, my bad.

[JinkiesP]

I am so confused, Libby in flashbacks,...the way the season finale ended with everything being a flashforward instead of flashback I assumed that was the way next season was going to be told.

BTW they should of never killed off Libby there was too much backstory to be told about her unlike Boone and Shannon who pretty much had their entire backstory told when they were killed and to some degree Anna Lucia as well.

[Sylph]

November 20, 2007

Webisodes of ‘Lost’: Model Deal for Writers?

By Edward Wyatt

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 19 — On the picket lines, striking television and film writers adamantly claim that studios are refusing to pay for the use of writers’ scripts on the Internet.

But ABC Studios is doing just that. Over the next three months fans of the hit show “Lost” can go to ABC.com to view weekly episodes of “Lost: Missing Pieces,” a series of new two- to three-minute shorts that reveal background information and previously undisclosed details about the stranded inhabitants of the show’s mysterious island.

The “Missing Pieces” episodes were produced under an agreement with the writers’ union that provides for much of what the writers say the studios have been refusing to offer.

Payment for the use of material on the Internet will be a central issue keeping the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers apart when they head back to the bargaining table on Monday.

But as the “Lost” example shows, the two sides have found common ground before, and both have shown interest in giving some ground on the issue.

The “Missing Pieces” episodes were written by Carlton Cuse, an executive producer of the series and one of its lead writers. They feature the show’s regular actors and characters, including Matthew Fox, who plays Dr. Jack Shephard. Mr. Fox appears in the first installment, released last week. The writers, actors and others involved in the production were paid specifically for their work on the Web episodes and will earn residual income, just as they do for the broadcast show.

In an interview Mr. Cuse said that while it took five months to reach an agreement, he believes the “Missing Pieces” deal could serve as a template for resolving at least some of the dispute over payment for online use of material.

“I think it is a pretty good model,” he said last week. “What it shows is that there is basically room for a partnership between writers and the studios in a new medium. It’s where I wish we were headed instead of being stuck in this standoff.”

People close to the studios say they also see some promise in the “Lost” deal, although they note that it was negotiated with a single producers’ alliance member, ABC Studios, rather than with all of the members of the group. The deal also included a clause specifically stating that it did not set a precedent for any future deals and could not be cited as such in future negotiations.

Nevertheless, the television and film studios offered terms similar to the “Lost” deal in the negotiations that took place before writers began their strike on Nov. 5, said Barbara Brogliatti, a spokeswoman for the alliance.

Charles B. Slocum, assistant executive director of the Writers Guild of America West, said in an interview on Friday that he believed “in general terms” that the “Lost” deal created “the pattern that we are looking for in our negotiations,” although he noted that the guild was seeking better financial terms.

“Lost: Missing Pieces” paid the writers of each short episode approximately $800. For that the studio received the right to run the episodes on Verizon cellphones for 13 weeks. After that period, repeats of the episodes or their transmissions on other media — like the Internet — would generate residuals for the writers of 1.2 percent to 2 percent of the fee the studio received to license the material.

Therefore, the episodes now running on ABC.com, each preceded by an advertisement, are generating for Mr. Cuse a 2 percent residual. In its contract negotiations, the Writers Guild is seeking 2.5 percent for similar work in the future.

The “Lost” deal represents, for the writers, a significant improvement over similar situations elsewhere. On NBC.com, for example, fans of “The Office” can find episodes of “The Accountants,” a series of shorts made for the Internet, scripted by writers of “The Office” and featuring regular actors from the show. A short commercial usually accompanies episodes.

But writers of the “The Accountants” received no specific payment for their work and receive no residuals from their continued play. Writers from “The Office,” including Greg Daniels, an executive producer, have objected to that and refused to work on further shorts without a separate agreement.

There is some dispute over exactly what writers want in such agreements, however. Representatives of the studios, who agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, said writers were asking to be paid a percentage of the retail price of movies and television episodes downloaded over services like iTunes, and a percentage of the advertising revenues generated when movies or television shows or mini-episodes — like those from “The Office” and “Lost” — are streamed online.

To the studios that is like the manufacturer of a product’s being asked to pay its workers based on the retail price of what it makes, something the manufacturer has no control over.

Mr. Slocum disputes that, however, saying that the guild is only seeking to be paid a portion of the wholesale price of downloaded content, and a portion of the licensing fee that the studios receive for streamed content. In other words, Mr. Slocum says that the writers are seeking what the studios have said, in principal, that they are willing to pay.

The two sides don’t agree on when payments should begin. The studios want a six-week window in which they can replay full episodes of a television series without paying extra. The time is necessary, they say, to “promote” the series, allowing viewers who missed a show’s regular broadcast to catch up. The writers have said they would accept a much shorter window, of about three days.

Another sticking point remains in how licensing fees are measured. Because ABC Studios, which produces “Lost,” is owned by the same company that owns the ABC television network, which operates ABC.com, the Writers Guild questions whether the licensing fee being paid from one related party to another is being negotiated fairly.

The guild argues that the best indicator of what is a fair licensing fee is how much advertising revenue the Web site can earn selling ads for the Internet content. The studios object to advertising revenue being brought into the equation at all.

With the two parties seeming to agree in principle that there can be a way for studios to pay writers when their scripts are used for Internet content, the studios and the writers would seem to have already established some sort of foundation for a settlement.

Perhaps that recognition helped push the two sides to agree to return to the bargaining table in a week. As Mr. Cuse said of “The Missing Pieces” episodes, “It’s ironic that these are coming out and flourishing when this is the crux of the issue in our strike.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/arts/television/20digi.html?ref=television&pagewanted=print

[Sylph]

'Lost' charts its own path

ABC drama stays afloat during strike

By JOSEF ADALIAN, MICHAEL SCHNEIDER

Over the past three years, the castaways on "Lost" have managed to survive killer polar bears, competition from "American Idol" and some of the most complicated storylines in network TV history. But this year, they're facing what may be their toughest enemy yet: the writers strike.

The WGA walkout has put a major monkey wrench in what had been a carefully crafted master plan for "Lost," designed to take the series through a pre-announced 2010 conclusion. But the strike has forced the net to change all that, while also resulting in a risky timeslot shift and a downsized PR campaign.

As ominous as this sounds, all is not lost for "Lost."

The skein has proven to be a remarkably resilient weapon for ABC, an enduring hit that's managed to thrive in the era of digital video recorders. It's become a poster child for the power of new media to expand a brand beyond the TV screen, dominating the iTunes sales charts and spinning off all manner of Internet and mobile phone extensions.

And "Lost" has also helped redefine sci-fi for primetime, moving the genre beyond the geek core that carried "Star Trek" and "The X-Files" for so many years.

"It's sort of stealth sci-fi," says Sci Fi general manager Dave Howe, whose cabler begins airing "Lost" repeats this fall. "It's never marketed as a sci-fi show, and a lot of people wouldn't even describe it as one. It hits the sweet spot of what I call the new sci-fi."

Bottom line: While launching "Lost" this season could be tough, viewers aren't about to abandon this island any time soon.

"If there is any show where people watch the show and not the time period, it's 'Lost,'" says ABC exec VP Jeff Bader.

While he acknowledges moving the show to Thursday is a bit of a challenge, the strike has actually made things easier on that front.

"It'll have a huge advantage because it'll be the only original scripted show in the time period," he says.

ABC also faces another formidable challenge in pleasing the show's rabid fans, who aren't shy in sharing their concerns over the show.

"It's held to a different standard," Bader says. "The audience feels it's much more their show and not the network's show. People are unforgiving if it's perceived to go in a wrong direction, and it's a personal affront when we schedule the show in a way they don't like."

Still, things were supposed to be different for "Lost."

Just months before the strike, ABC announced that it was ordering three repeat-free, 16-episode seasons of the show, leading to a spring 2010 finale. It was a radical strategy with virtually no precedent in broadcast TV: killing a show in its prime, three years in advance.

"I think for story-based shows like 'Lost,' as opposed to franchise-based shows like 'ER' or 'CSI,' the audience wants to know when the story is going to be over," Cuse said at the time. "When J.K. Rowling announced that there would be seven 'Harry Potter' books, it gave the readers a clear sense of exactly what their investment would be. We want our audience to do the same."

While the end date for "Lost" remains the same, the strike could mess up just how those episodes unspool.

Only eight scripts for the new "Lost" season were in the can when the strike began. Hungry for fresh programming, Alphabet has opted to start airing those segs this week, even though there's a real chance of a long break between the eighth and ninth episodes of the show.

Days after the strike began, creator Damon Lindelof made it clear he didn't like that scenario.

"That would not be ideal," he said in November. "Shows move at their own speed. You design the speed based on the length of the season, and if that season is cut short, you careen out of control."

Fox faced the same problem with "24," another show designed to play out a specific arc over the course of the season. The net's decided to put the show on hold until the strike was resolved.

Of course, Fox could easily afford to hold "24." It has the juggernaut of "American Idol" and the Super Bowl to get it through winter.

ABC, by contrast, has no big football games and a slew of serialized shows that don't repeat well, factors that have caused the net to slip into fourth for the season following a first-place finish in the fall. Launching "Lost" as planned was a no-brainer.

If the strike ends in the next week or two, it's possible all 16 of this season's episodes could air by the end of May sweeps. If it takes a month or more to wrap, however, ABC may end up condensing the planned 16 segs into as few as 11 or 12 episodes -- or simply decide to hold all eight until next season.

Either way, in November Lindelof worried that fans could be annoyed by a short season, just as they rebelled last season when ABC split "Lost" into two cycles for its second season.

Bader isn't concerned.

"I think the question is, will they be satisfied at the end of however long the run is, and I think they will be," exec says.

Still, the strike poses other challenges. Two of the series' best PR weapons -- showrunners Lindelof and Carlton Cuse -- are boycotting publicity.

"I'm a writer on strike, and it's enormously painful not to be able to sell our show, because we're very excited about the episodes we've produced," Lindelof told Daily Variety last week. "But part of the strike is, we can't do any publicity for the show."

Marketing, however, has been as intense as ever.

In developing the promotional campaign, marketing chief Mike Benson collaborated last year with Lindelof and Cuse -- pre-strike -- in developing this year's themes.

The key message? Even if you haven't watched "Lost" in a while, now's the time to jump back in.

"The finale (from last May) advanced the story so much that the other side of the campaign is bringing back people who have watched 'Lost' but fell out of the habit," Benson says.

That finale -- which revealed, via "flash-forwards," that some of the castaways do, in fact, escape the island -- repped such a turning point in "Lost" lore that it actually makes it easier to market this year, Benson says.

"All you need to know is the plane crashed, and now they're getting off the island," he says. "We don't need to say much more than that."

Unlike past years, ABC's decision to hold "Lost" back until February also gave Benson and his team the opportunity to draw up an elaborate campaign, and fine-tune it along the way.

"Time was definitely on our side here," he says. "The more time we have to market and create work with the show's producers, the better job we can do. It makes for a more compelling campaign."

The delayed launch has also allowed "Lost" to bow with a global campaign, as the show's fourth season will launch at almost the same time in markets across the globe. Outlets in the U.K., Australia and elsewhere have all adopted the ABC campaign, with some local tweaks.

Then there's the other big message: "Lost's" move to Thursday, something the Alphabet has been hyping with a non-stop on-air bug for the past week. Benson says his team took notes from ABC's earlier successful move of "Grey's Anatomy" to the night.

"We don't want to take it for granted that people will just know what night 'Lost' is on," he says.

Benson isn't concerned about the short season. As for the smaller viewer circulation at the web -- most other scripted fare is in repeats and the net's reality replacements aren't doing big numbers -- Benson compares it to promoting programming in the summer.

"Just because there's a strike doesn't mean my life has changed at all," Benson says. "We look at this, if the numbers are off it's no different than summer. We are spending money and really trying to make a go of these things."

Sci Fi's Howe isn't worried about how the strike will impact "Lost."

"If you've built a loyal fan base for a show, they're going to seek it out and find it," he says. "I think they'll be completely fine."

Read the full article at:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117979677.html

[EricaKane70]

I'm looking forward to this season, but I really hope some questions get answered. I'm gonna be really pissed if the last episode we see is a huge cliffhanger only because of the writers strike.

[Sylph]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/arts/television/30lost.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin



January 30, 2008

Tropical Teaser: ‘Lost’ Clues Decoded

By BILL CARTER

Here is the problem for ABC: In “Lost” it has the show with perhaps the most compelling continuing story line in television history, one whose resumption this week has been hotly anticipated by its devoted fans.

But especially because the writers’ strike has stripped ABC of most of its other hit series, the network would love to find a way to restore the still substantial “Lost” audience to near the blockbuster level it reached when the show first became a phenomenon more than three years ago. During the show’s first season it averaged 18.5 million viewers an episode, a figure down to 15 million by the third season.

That is “a big challenge, though a fun one,” said Michael Benson, executive vice president for marketing of ABC Entertainment. He added that it was a little like saying, “Let’s ask people to pick up Chapter 13 and start reading.”

That is one reason ABC has made this “Lost” week, with four hours dedicated to the show, split between Wednesday and Thursday nights. The four hours include an hourlong clip recap on Thursday night at 8, Eastern time, leading up to the first new episode at 9.

The “Lost” onslaught begins on Wednesday night at 9 with a replay of the mind-boggling two-hour May finale of Season 3, which pushed new buttons on the show’s fabled character-flashback technique — chiefly the flash-forward button. Little of what happened in that episode is likely to mean much to those who have not followed the show’s labyrinthine plotline, stuffed as it is with interconnected back stories and sci-fi mind games. Trying to counter that expectation, ABC decided to transform the finale into what may be the first network show with added pop-up context. As Mr. Benson put it, maintaining his literary theme, “I kind of call it the Cliff Notes version of a TV show.”

“Lost” follows a group of oddly connected plane crash survivors on a South Pacific island marked by mysterious qualities and populated by possibly malevolent inhabitants.

ABC is labeling its revamped finale “Lost, Enhanced,” and it will include explanations of characters and events that will slide up in a bar of text at the bottom of the screen. So if Jack (Matthew Fox) is in the middle of a confrontation with Ben (Michael Emerson), Mr. Benson said, the running text commentary may explain that this is not Jack’s first encounter with Ben, or that Ben was first known as Henry Gale.

Citing that name may also inspire references to what Mr. Benson called the “pop culture clues” that abound in “Lost.” The show’s executive producers, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, have always called these references “Easter eggs”: hidden clues planted to add pleasure to the close reading by rabid fans. (One example: Henry Gale is Dorothy’s uncle in “The Wizard of Oz,” and the character in “Lost” said he arrived on the island in a hot-air balloon.)

The show’s producers, who zealously guard their central secrets, had no role in enhancing Wednesday’s episode because they were compelled to leave their posts when the Writers Guild of America went on strike in November. (They are also declining to give interviews during the strike.) However, much thought had already gone into finding some way to provide context for viewers who might find themselves lost mid-“Lost.”

The show faces an enormous challenge when its production company, ABC Studios, tries to sell the series in syndication. The dense and complex story line does not invite occasional viewing, which is mainly what goes on in syndication.

Mr. Benson said that before the strike the studio, the network and the producers discussed how to address that challenge. One idea was inspired by what the G4 cable network has been doing with the original “Star Trek” series. That network has added facts and commentary — usually humorous — along the borders of the screen in each episode. That seemed a potential solution to the “Lost” syndication problem, but it could not be addressed before the strike because time ran out.

ABC now seems to have adapted that approach. The network commissioned Met/Hodder, a marketing and production company, to enhance the Wednesday installment of “Lost.” That company has also handled all the previous “Lost” clip shows.

“They know more about this show than anyone else on the planet,” Mr. Benson said.

He acknowledged that ABC had had to “strike a balance” between feeding the hunger of the acolytes for fresh clues and cluing in the newcomers, or the only casually devoted, to the bare basics. “It can’t be too inside,” he said.

However much fans learn about the show on Wednesday, they are likely to be left wanting more. Before the strike the “Lost” producers were preparing 16 fresh episodes, but only 8 were completed.

That handful of episodes and whatever new information can be gleaned from ABC’s enhanced effort on Wednesday will have to satisfy the “Lost” legions for the moment.

[Noel]

Did anyone watch last night? I thought the show was FANTASTIC!

It was so good to see Jack again too. And Sawyer.

[Toups]

Oh how I've missed Lost and missed seeing the beautiful Evangeline Lilly.

Like Noel said, last night's episode was fantastic! So Hurley's fast-forward was before Jack's FF from the season finale because Jack doesn't want to go back yet. And who are the 6 that got off the island? We know Hurley, Jack and Kate and we know one of the other 3 died. Also, if Hurley went with Locke, how did he get off the island? Hmmmm........more questions as usual! LOL

My favorite scene was the Jack/Locke scene - it was so intense. I can't believe Jack actually fired the gun off. Woah!

[ArizonaDaze]

I agree. Great episode. And as usual I have more questions than answers but I don't care - I'm just glad it's back!