PALEY CENTER FOR MEDIA, THE: PALEYFEST 2014: LOST: 10TH ANNIVERSARY REUNION {LONG VERSION}
Summary
One in a series of evenings and special screenings presented as part of The Paley Center for Media's 31st William S. Paley Television Festival in Los Angeles. Held this year at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the festival celebrates the excellence and diversity of American television and is dedicated to television's creative community. This PALEYFEST 2014 seminar honors "Lost," the fantasy drama series about a group of plane-crash survivors forced to live with each other on a remote and mysterious island.
Host Maureen Reidy (chief marketing officer, The Paley Center for Media/Los Angeles) offers opening remarks and introduces moderator Paul Scheer (comedian, writer and actor, "The League"), who discusses the effect of "Lost" on pop culture and viewers' watching habits. Scheer then welcomes creators and executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to the stage. They introduce the first-season finale episode "Exodus (Part 1)," which is screened in its entirety. (For synopsis and credits, see ACCNUM 113912.)
After the episode, Scheer moderates the following panelists: Lindelof; Cuse; and cast members Josh Holloway (James "Sawyer" Ford), Ian Somerhalder (Boone Carlyle), Maggie Grace (Shannon Rutherford), Jorge Garcia (Hugo "Hurley" Reyes), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond Hume), Yunjin Kim (Sun Kwon), and Malcolm David Kelley (Walt Lloyd).
The panelists touch on such topics as: their early realizations that the show was a "juggernaut"; Kelley's experience joining the show at age fourteen; working in Hawaii's unpredictable weather; souvenirs "stolen" from the set by the cast; Cuse and Lindelof's experience working on the show from afar and being pleased with the results; fans' theories about the show's mysteries; the occasional returns of dead characters in flashback scenes; the challenge of bringing back Walt, as Kelley looked older than his character was meant to be; Cusick's ongoing curiosity about his enigmatic character; early drafts of Hurley's backstory before the introduction of the fateful numbers; Kim's conviction that her character could not be killed after becoming pregnant; the heightened intensity created by the actors' lack of knowledge of their characters' fates; the original plan to cast a big-name actor in the role of Jack (eventually Matthew Fox) and heavily promote him as the series' star before killing him in the pilot; Cuse and Lindelof's memories of calling Somerhalder after deciding that his character would die in season one; the somewhat unexplored idea of Walt being "special"; definitive confirmation that the characters were not dead all along; and explanation of the finale's ambiguous closing shots.
Questions from the audience then lead to a discussion of the following topics among others: the effects of airing on network television, including the number of episodes per season and profanity censorship; the eternally unexplained scene in season five's "The Little Prince" in which Sawyer is shot at by unknown assailants; the decision not to "tie up" every possible loose end; favorite hidden clues, or "Easter Eggs," including the Dharma shark and an unintentional visual hint in the pilot; Somerhalder's memories of Grace's pranks during the filming of their love scene; the infamous characters of Nikki and Paolo (Rodrigo Santoto and Kiele Sanchez) and the writers' decision to abort their storyline; Garcia's reflections on Hurley becoming the island's new protector; the decision to address spiritual ideas in the finale; and the thought process behind the "flash-sideways" paradox universe of the final season.
Details
- NETWORK: N/A
- DATE: March 16, 2014 7:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: N/A
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 113909
- GENRE: Seminars
- SUBJECT HEADING: N/A
- SERIES RUN: N/A
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Maureen Reidy … Host
- Paul Scheer … Moderator
- Damon Lindelof … Panelist
- Carlton Cuse … Panelist
- Malcolm David Kelley … Panelist
- Henry Ian Cusick … Panelist
- Maggie Grace … Panelist
- Ian Somerhalder … Panelist
- Yunjin Kim … Panelist
- Josh Holloway … Panelist
- Jorge Garcia … Panelist
- Matthew Fox
- Rodrigo Santoro
- Kiele Sanchez