Introduction
Last week, Cinema Scholars explored the unique and unusual way that the 2004 ABC primetime drama LOST came to be. From network executive Lloyd Braun’s vision of a show similar to Cast Away, to the recruitment of JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof, to execute that vision. The casting process, along with the writing of the pilot episode, was often done off the cuff and spontaneously. With a significant amount of money being raised, the buzz was incredible.
The second entry in this two-part series will break down the historic pilot episode of LOST along with the show’s rapid success and polarization of fans and critics alike. We’ll also explore the vast mythology that was developed over six seasons, and the still discussed and often criticized series finale. While it’s impossible to truly break down all that happened in front of and behind the scenes during the production of LOST, we’ll give it our best shot.
The Pilot
The pilot episode for LOST tells the story of a group of passengers who crash land on an island. All of them – perhaps – are survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. Upon waking up, they must deal with their new and frightening reality. At the same time, they are trying to put the puzzle of the crash together, as well as what caused it. The showrunners were committed to creating an original and unique vision when it came to LOST.
This, in turn, is partially the reason why the Pilot episode was the most expensive television pilot in history, at the time it was filmed in 2004. The cost to produce the 2-part epic episode entitled “Pilot” cost approximately $14 million. This was more than double the average cost to produce a television pilot, at that time.
Further, the use of a decommissioned 1972 Lockheed 1011 jet airplane added to that staggering production cost. The massive jet was sitting in as the downed Oceanic Flight 815. JJ Abrams had personally supervised and handled the logistics of taking apart and transporting the jumbo jet – piece by piece – from the Mojave Desert to the north shore of Hawaii, which also was extremely costly.
Filming
Filming of the pilot episode of LOST commenced in March 2004 and lasted for approximately 20 days. Every day it would rain over Mokule’ia Beach in Oahu for a brief period, and then suddenly stop. This added to the visual tone and look of the show. The show’s cast and crew were overwhelmed with bugs, often getting into the actors’ hair during filming. The cast members would pick them out between takes.
For the most part, the incredibly exotic yet treacherous location filming for LOST added to the bonding between the cast during the filming of the pilot episode. Matthew Fox, who played “Jack Sheppard,” the presumptive leader of the survivors, thought that the cast skinny-dipping would be a good “off-camera” bonding experience.
Josh Holloway, portraying “Sawyer” would periodically get drunk with his castmates. The result was his frequently used nicknames for the survivors (“Stay Puft,” Mr. Clean,” “Freckles” and many more). These nicknames, like many other elements of the show, were put into the final shooting script on short notice. Regardless of the chaos that was often on set, JJ Abrams kept the production under control, winning an Emmy for the episode.
Post-Production
As previously stated, Abram’s got a call from the then head of ABC, telling him to make sure that they shot an ending. This was so they could air it as a movie when it inevitably didn’t get picked up for series. Holloway, along with the rest of the cast, periodically watched the dailies. This meant no music, sound editing, or color-grading. Holloway thought the show was a disaster and would be canceled. Holloway later stated:
“…Before the pilot got cut together, Bryan Burk invited us to a get-together in Los Angeles to watch the unsweetened dailies: no music, no color-grading, no nothing. And my wife and I, we were almost in tears when we left. We were like, “This is going to be cancelled right away. It’s terrible…”
Daniel Dae Kim (“Jin”) and Dominic Monaghan (“Charlie”) both saw the pilot ahead of time and were not sure if it would be picked up by the network. To add to that anxiety, JJ Abrams had only nine days to finish the editing. While Abrams had his doubts, the pilot episode of LOST wound up testing well. The result was that the ABC Network would end up airing it and ordering additional episodes.
Prime Time
With LOST officially being picked up by the network, relief washed over all involved. It also turned out to be the perfect platform to air a character-driven show replete with multiple cliffhangers per episode (because of the commercial breaks). Jack Bender took over on LOST as one of the series regular directors. Bender was also responsible for much of the show’s paintings and sculptures. He would later reflect:
“…I watched the pilot with my wife and two daughters. My first thought was that it was phenomenal. Every dime they spent was on the screen. And although it was about a scary, mysterious island, somehow it was beautiful. My second thought was, “You son of a bitch, JJ. This is so fucking good, how am I going to keep this up every week?” I suddenly became very insecure…”
The gamble paid off and the LOST pilot went on the become one of the most critically and commercially acclaimed TV pilots of all time. Part 1 of the pilot broke the record for a pilot episode with 18.6 million viewers, an astonishing number. Lloyd Braun’s dream and gamble had paid off. The phone call that Braun received from JJ Abrams was a memorable one:
“…JJ called me up when the show was picked up, and it was one of the sweetest calls I’ve ever gotten. He said, “This show was your baby. It’s important to us that you’re tied to it in a tangible way. So we want to send over a sound crew and have you be the voice that says, ‘Previously on Lost…'”I agreed, on the proviso that no-one other than JJ, Damon and I would know. I spent an hour in a Beverly Hills hotel doing the words a thousand times or so, and that was it. Just one more secret…”
The Internet
Online fan forums for LOST began to develop on the rapidly developing internet quickly. “The Fuselage” was the official forum for “Losties” and was endorsed by ABC, the production team and JJ Abrams. The amount of blogging, theorizing, and speculating about LOST on internet forums was extensive. Mainstream entertainment writers even began to partake in the cult of LOST.
E! Online entertainment writers, Kristin Dos Santos and Michael Ausiello both blogged about the show regularly. However, the most rabid and mainstream media member who wrote about LOST was Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen. Jensen was referred to as “Doc” Jensen whenever he wrote columns or blogged about LOST.
As the seasons progressed, Jensen soon became the liaison between the show’s rabid and growing fan base, and Lindelof and Cuse. Jensen even went on to develop a video blog series that was entitled “Totally Lost” (with co-host Dan Snierson). The video series would occasionally bring on cast members from the show for interviews.
Between Seasons 2 and 3, The Lost Experience was created. This was a web-based Alternate Reality Game. Fans were able to hunt down clues via the internet. One such addictive site was called oceanic-air.com. The goal, to eventually discover the mystery behind The Hanso Foundation, as well as who was behind the DHARMA Initiative. Both of these were major plotlines throughout the series.
The Criticism
While LOST, throughout its six-season run, would nab four Primetime Emmys, and mostly positive reviews from critics across the globe, the show wasn’t immune to criticism. Several characters on the show, and their pointless arcs (to the overall narrative), left many viewers, and critics, scratching their heads and yelling at their TVs.
The characters of Ana-Lucia, Michael, Libby, the infamous Nikki and Paolo, and several others, have been roundly criticized for being annoying (Walt!), or poorly written and developed. Cynthia Watros, who briefly portrayed Libby, deserved to have better material to work with.
Many viewers of LOST began to get annoyed from the constant use of flashbacks, after the first season. Critics and fans alike found it repetitive and stated so publicly. The writers, in response, came up with new ways to make the flashbacks more interesting. This included on-island flashbacks, and flash-forwards, starting at the end of Season Three.
Another complaint was that people felt that LOST moved at a sluggish pace and that a lot of questions weren’t being answered. This started to turn off some of the show’s fans. Subsequently, the season three premiere saw a 20 percent twenty percent drop in viewers from the season two premiere. The consensus was that Cuse and Lindelof were making it up as they went along. Lindelof later stated:
“…There was unease that they were making an investment in a show that is complicated, without any sense of where it is going to lead them, Fans have been saying, ‘Are you making it up as you go along?'”
The Mythology
One of the driving forces of LOST and what pushed the content on internet forums was the show’s vast mythology. The mythology of LOST relates to numerous elements: the supernatural, science fiction, Deja vu, spatial or temporal anomalies, and many other types of unexplained phenomena. This is what JJ Abrams had always wanted for the show.
At the heart of LOST is a timeline that is often confusing and frustrating. All the insinuations and storylines of the show leave the viewer with more questions than answers. This in turn led to mass speculating online, when the answers weren’t being delivered on the show itself. The origin and purpose of “The Numbers” is something to this day we still don’t understand. As per Lindelof:
“…We may never know what the Numbers mean…(the show) wasn’t about the answer to what the numbers meant, it was really about: ‘How did I feel while I was watching Lost?'”
Once the viewer realizes that the island itself is a source of electromagnetic energy, which defies the principles of science, all bets are off as to the direction the show is headed, and how it will end. The concept of the island having healing properties is also introduced. Its jungles appear to be inhabited by people who have died, yet not moved on to the afterlife. The island seems to have its essence and presence felt throughout the series.
Ending the Show
Lindelof and Cuse had told and convinced ABC that LOST would not run more than six seasons. This announcement came during the production of Season Three. This was done purposely so the showrunners could start to tie everything together and lock the writing and development in synch with a definitive end date and goal.
Immediately, with and end goal in sight, the buzz started about the final episode of LOST. The ABC network was promoting the final episode as “the most anticipated episode in television history.” While this was a bit much, they actually weren’t that far off. Carlton Cuse reflected on this back in 2010:
“…We went to ABC in season three and said, ‘We want to end the show.’ I believe the first counteroffer was nine seasons. We were like, ‘No, we can’t.’ But we needed to know [when we would end]. It was impossible to move forward without a clear sense of what the rest of the journey was. The best we could do was get six seasons. At least we were able to end the show on our own timetable. That was something that hadn’t been done before…”
Everyone involved in the final episode of LOST agreed that the finale had to be very dramatic, emotional, and character-based. With a show like LOST, there was no way to answer all of the mysteries and questions that had been posed over the past 119 episodes. The writers and showrunners decided that they would make the episode that they wanted to make. One that brought closure to everyone’s arc – well, almost everyone.
The Final Script
Everyone in the cast of LOST was anxious to get their hands on a copy of the final script. All of the actors were wondering and theorizing as to how such an endless show was going to finally end. Yunjin Kim, who portrayed Sun, one of the shows central characters, reflected in 2010:
“…I got the script, but it was thinner than I expected. A lot of the scenes that I was not involved in were missing. But it was like that the last five or six episodes. In season six, we had a lot of pages missing. The whole exchange between Jack and his father, Christian Shepherd, I definitely did not get those pages…”
The script for the final episode of LOST was one of the most secretive and well-protected scripts in television history. As a result, most of the actors received only the pages involving scenes in which they had dialogue. Carlton Cuse didn’t want the paparazzi, who were camped out on location, finding out what was going on.
As a result of tightened security and increased paranoia, body doubles were often dressed and driven in and out of the set to throw off the press during filming. Henry Ian Cusick, who portrayed Desmond stated:
“I had phoned Damon and Carlton before about certain things, but never to say, “What is going on?” And here I said, “I need to know what’s going on with my character.” They said, “We don’t want to tell you the ending. Are you trying to get the ending out of us?” I was like, “No, I just need to do my job. I don’t really know what’s going on.”
The End
Production of the LOST finale, which took place March-April 2010 was emotional for all those involved, cast and crew alike. Their work on the episode would be physical, emotional, and at some times a little frightening. Actor Terry O’Quinn recalls the final fight between John Locke and Jack Sheppard:
“We were wrestling and wrestling and the fire hoses were going and there was water and at one point, I had the real knife out. [Matthew] saw me pull it out and then we wrestled with it,” O’Quinn recalled. He reached for the rubber knife but picked up the wrong one. “I plunged it into Matthew’s side,” he remembers. “Well, Matthew had a pad [under his shirt] that was probably about the size of your extended palm, where I’m supposed to stab him. It was just to protect him from where I was supposed to stab him. I don’t think I held my hand out to wait for the exchange because we were caught up in the action. So I stabbed him with a real knife.”
Leading up to the final episode of LOST, from a writer’s perspective, a “sideways” universe was created. In the writers’ room, they referred to this as a “bardo” which was based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The concept was that when you die, you experience a period where you do not know that you are dead, the bardo or “sideways” universe is created to realize that you have died. It was a place made together, to find each other.
Lindelof and Cuse were concerned that at the end of this emotionally draining episode, the network would go right into an annoying commercial, thereby ruining the moment of the final moments. They looked for a way to soften this blow. The producers decided to film a montage of the wreckage of the plane as well as different props on the beach as sort of a Coda to the final episode.
Coda
It’s important to realize that LOST was not about the ending or what plotlines didn’t get resolved. The importance of the show had to be taken in its entirety, over six seasons. All the emotions that one went through. Desmond finally being reunited with Penny (in one of the best episodes of the entire series). Finally finding out what was in that hatch. That was the essence of LOST. Late-night host and LOST fanatic Jimmy Kimmel put it best:
“…The idea that people would put so much weight on what happened at the end is missing the point. The point of that show was the fun and the mystery and trying to figure out what was going on. And maybe that’s still part of the fun, that we still haven’t exactly figured out what was going on…”
