Lost Goes To PaleyFest For Final Season Clues, Celebration

On Saturday, February 27 the annual Paley Festival held its second night of panels saluting favorite television series, their cast and crew. This particular night was a big one as the Paley Fest was honoring the innovative ABC drama Lost.

The evening’s event started with the Paley Fest’s video introduction followed by a short welcome speech by Craig Hitchcock, Vice President and Executive Director of the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles. The night’s event was sponsored by TV Guide Magazine and Mr. Hitchcock introduced the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Debra Birnbaum, who did the honors of speaking briefly about the series Lost and bringing Executive Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to the stage.

Lost's Nestor Carbonell & Michael Emerson / Wireimage

The masterminds behind the show, since nearly its inception, were greeted by thunderous applause from the nearly 1,900-strong audience, to which Damon commented he is still not used to that sort of reception. Carlton, in turn, thanked many of the fans for braving the rain (which had been falling off and on for most of the day), as he learned many of them were tweeting about it on Twitter.

Before the cast and crew were brought on stage, Damon and Carlton asked for acknowledgment of the 400 people it takes to make the show, which was met with much applause. Damon then stated that they knew they couldn’t be there without providing the audience with a short clip of the show; and much emphasis was put on the word short.

After the short clip was run, Debra (from TV Guide Magazine) came back on stage to introduce the cast and crew, which included cast member Nestor Carbonell (Richard), writing team/producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, Damon and Carlton, writer/producer Elizabeth Sarnoff, director Jack Bender and cast members Zuleikha Robinson (Ilana), Michael Emerson (Ben Linus) and Terry O’Quinn (Locke) followed by panel moderator, comedian and actor Paul Scheer.

Paul first ran down some of the silly questions people had sent to his Twitter account, which included “Will we finally get a musical episode?”, “Why aren’t there any monkeys on the island?” and “Which house would the sorting hat from ‘Harry Potter’ put each character?”

After the laughter died down from these and several other silly questions, the real ‘grilling’ began. First of all, the crew was asked which episode they were currently writing with Carlton stating they are writing the finale right now and Damon mentioned that Liz, Adam and Eddie just submitted the penultimate episode. Eddie also joked that fans have told him most not to “screw it up” on the final episodes. Meanwhile, Damon and Carlton stated there are a lot of little questions they won’t have time to answer; however, they will answer what they can (beyond what has already been revealed in the final episodes thus far).

Lost's Terry O'Quinn / Wireimage

Throughout the panel, the cast and crew were asked the following:

• If they ever pitched any ideas for the show – to which Terry swiftly said “No”;
• Who among the actors on the show hit the hardest – to which Michael stated “the younger the actor, the more inflamed their performance, the more likely they are to hurt you.”
• If any of them had amorous fans – to which Damon and Carlton commented they were walking on the Disney lot, heard a car behind them and discovered the studio’s fire marshal inside who asked them, “What’s the smoke monster?”
• If the rumor of Disney changing Tom Sawyer’s island into a Lost island was true to which none of them confirmed but merely joked about their ideas of what the theme park ride would be like:
  Michael: “A wild ride on a VW bus with a distracted Hurley at the wheel.”
  Eddie: “A tunnel with flashbacks of an evil father.”
  Damon: “A dark room, (where you) spin them around, let them out (of the room) and punch them in the face, (telling them) you’ve just had the ‘Lost’ experience.”
• If any of the crew were responsible for any of the ‘water cooler’ moments – to which Damon stated Adam and Eddie were responsible for the idea of Hurley driving out of the jungle in the VW bus, which generated 9 other story ideas leading up to that scene.
• Damon and Carlton were asked, “What’s up with Walt?” – to which Carlton explained they would have kept Malcolm David Kelley on the show if it were possible for him not to age; however, they are “working on a way to bring Walt back before all things are said and done.”
• What was their favorite moments during filming of the show:
• Carlton: The raft launch combined with the music used to accompany the scene.
  Terry: The time they sit around between filming when (for example) Jorge sings “Are You Lonesome Tonight” and Naveen plays his guitar.
  Nestor: Finally finding out “who the hell I am.”
  Damon: How fans critiqued the CGI used in the scenes set in London (when Ben meet with Widmore in his apartment and Sun meet with Widmore along the Thames), which were actually filmed there.

Lost's Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof / Wireimage

There was then a round of quick fire questions to which the cast and crew simply had to answer yes, no or pass:

1. In the flash sideways, is Jack married to someone we know? – “Yes”
2. Was the bus that hit Juliet’s husband actually the smoke monster? – “No”
3. Was Jacob right that someone is coming to the island? – “Yes”
4. Will we learn about the connection between Libby and Hurley? – “Yes”
5. Will we learn why women can’t have babies on the island? – “Pass”
6. Will we ever get Vincent’s back story? – “No” (but we will see Vincent again)
7. What happens to Rose and Bernard? – “In which timeline” (asked Damon) to which he followed up with “We might see Bernard in a sideways”.

The audience was then invited to ask questions and some of the better ones included:

• Why there aren’t any outtakes on the DVD sets – to which the crew and cast explained that while they do make mistakes, they aren’t that funny and they don’t have time for a gag reel; Nestor also complimented Michael on always being prepared.
• Will there be anything left for Charlie fans in the remaining episodes – Yes
• Did Desmond move seats or disappear? – to which Carlton stated, “you will get the answer to that question very shortly in the show.”

And, to close off the night, Damon stated that the word “water” is what encapsulates the remaining episodes. With that the panel was brought to a close and then the audience quickly descended on the stage to get autographs. Thankfully, most of the cast and crew were obliging.

The final season of Lost airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC.