Interview With One Of LOST's Creators

Thanks to DarkUFO for this


Me: At what point are you in creating the final episodes?
Lindelof: We're actually writing the eighth episode right now and breaking the story for the ninth episode. We're filming the sixth episode. The blueprint for the entire season is done, but we only write the episodes one at a time, because the actual genesis of the scene-by-scene work is the fun part. So we're almost exactly halfway through.



There's been so much analysis of the this year's promotional poster. Do you have a big part in creating that?

Yeah. Everything in the design of that poster is intentional. We oversaw it -- now we know the audience looks at that stuff so closely, so we don't want there to be anything that we don't approve, especially at this point in the game.



Why is neither Walt nor Vincent in the Season 6 promo picture? -- Holly

Well, I'm not going to explain why anything is what it is, other than that everything is by design. You'll just have to watch the final season and decide for yourself. It's a little bit like, "Why is Paul McCartney holding a cigarette with his right hand when he's a lefty on the Abbey Road cover?"



Is the ending you envisioned when you first created the show still in place? -- adanzis

That's a great question. Yes, the actual ending ending is exactly the same as we'd always planned on it being, except we didn't know if we were going to get there after two seasons, four seasons or after six seasons, so the road to the ending has had to change significantly. But the ending itself? Whether people like it or not, that's the ending we've had.



Will Walt will have any major role in the upcoming season? He was important for a while because of his "gift," but that story has never been realized. -- mrhymes01

I think a lot of people are justifiably frustrated about the Walt of it all. We said he has this special ability, and the Others obviously grabbed him and studied him for awhile, then they got freaked out by him and decided to let him go. I think that there are certain stories on the show that feel like dangling participles based on external factors. For us, we were incredibly limited by the fact that Malcolm David Kelley was growing at an exponentially faster rate than the show was progressing. So, you know, when we showed him in Season 5 and Locke is trying to recruit members of the Oceanic Six, the only way that it worked was to see him three years older. But hopefully, why Walt was special and the role he played on the show will have a new significance when all is said and done. And I'm not sure we really need the character of Walt to explain the significance.



One actor definitely won't be returning for the final season, right? Can you tell me more about that?

We did ask an actor who's played a significant role on the show to come back and do some work on Season 6, and they said no. But I'm not going to confirm who that is. All I'll say is that person was never a series regular.



Damon, I have a question about my second-favorite character on the show, Frank Lapidus. Ever since he appeared on the Season 6 promotional poster, there has been a lot of speculation on message boards. So, anyway, my question is: Will Frank be promoted to main character status next season, and if so, will he be getting a -centric episode? Because that would be basically the most awesome thing ever. -- Bish-Fiscuit

Yeah. Lapidus is definitely a series regular this season. Jeff Fahey was just a recurring character up through last year. Now, whether or not Lapidus makes it until the end of the season is anyone's guess, but he's definitely one of the A-team this year.


How many people do make it to the end of the season?

You really think I'm going to answer that question? Not all of them, that's for sure.