Carlton Cuse

In every season of Lost, there's a code name given to the final moment of the season finale. Some have made perfect sense while others ("Bagel"?) . . . not as much. This year, the show's executive producers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, are asking fans to nickname the final scene of season five.

TV Guide notes, "In seasons past, that head-scratcher has been dubbed 'Bagel' (Walt is abducted by the Others!), 'Challah' (Penny's research team locates the island!), 'The Rattlesnake in the Mailbox' (Jack is flashing forward!) and 'Frozen Donkey Wheel' (which, quite literally, Ben rotated)." We don't know for sure what the season finale will be about, so there's some guesswork involved in thinking up a code name for this final moment. There is a (possibly spoilery) clue in that TV Guide post, however, if you want a jumping-off point.

Ideas can be submitted here, and the producers' pick will be announced during ABC's weekly Lost podcast on March 26. Thinking caps: Activate!

Photo copyright 2009 ABC, Inc.

Note: I was the representative Lost fan at the show's panel in LA at TCA. Here's a bit of what to look forward to at the beginning of this season.

The fifth season of Lost kicks off tonight with the first two episodes and while we were down at the TCAs in LA last week, we got to see the third one as well. The first two are good, don't get me wrong, but episode three had the whole room gasping. Full sections of my notes look a bit like, "OMG, this hurts my mind grapes." Needless to say, Lost fans should be super excited. All the promo photos emphasize the dual nature of this season — some will be in the outside world, as evidenced by the cityscape, and some will be back on the island.

While the cast of the show is still filming on location, executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof were there to tenderly step around reporters' questions without revealing too much of what's to come. The lunch panel was brought to us by Ajira Airways, though the exec producers were careful not to enlighten us with its meaning. If you want to see a few tidbits from the panel as well as a little of what to expect from the first three episodes just read more

Here we go: a preview for the next season of Lost, which starts up in February 2009. The first part of the preview is a montage of certain plot points we've learned in the past, setting us up for some new footage we can look forward to in season five. After the fourth season with all the Oceanic Six stuff, the next season appears to deal with those six going back to the island:

Jack: "Everyone we left behind, they'd die too if I didn't come back."
Ben: "Well, thank God for second chances."

Want to check out the video and chat about it? Just read more

Yesterday, I told you about the rowdy panel of filmmaking greats I attended at Comic-Con. Today, I've got some notes from the television "Visionaries" event, which brought together showrunners Josh Schwartz (Chuck and Gossip Girl), Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (Lost), and Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies). Here are just a few of the highlights:

• A running joke throughout the panel was teasing Josh Schwartz about Gossip Girl in any way possible. At one point, when the show came up in a question, he said he thought that mentioning it was "a little verboten at Comic-Con," which led the — considerable! — GG fans in the audience to make their presence known. Later, in response to a question about so-called "genre" shows getting lots of buzz over the past few years, Schwartz quipped: "Serena is now a cyborg."
• On a related note, plenty of people (rightly) saw the Q&A portion of this panel as their best chance to ask questions of the Lost producers before the mad crush of the Lost-specific event the next day, prompting one panelist (I unfortunately couldn't see which one, as I was on the other side of the huge line) to point at the questioners and count them down, saying, "Lost, Lost, Lost, Piemaker, Piemaker, Lost . . . [mooney voice] Gossip Girl!"
• Bryan Fuller is just a big bundle of cotton candy and flowers and goodness. Some various quotes summing up the sweetness: "I am a very sensitive soul. I couldn't do a series like CSI or Criminal Minds where you have to be in a negative headspace all the time. I just wanted to cram a show with as many things that make me smile as possible, like puppies and pie." And, later, "I think we need more awe."
• Also, why is the piemaker not, say, a cake baker? "Cake is dry," Fuller said.

To find out which of these guys likes Project Runway, just read more

I'd expected the Lost panel here at Comic-Con to be as intense, fan-wise, as the Heroes one was, and there were certainly lots of fans in the audience, but the whole vibe of the thing was a little different — totally playful and fun. Executive producers/writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse sat onstage fielding questions from the audience and giving out gifts to each person who asked a question. The gifts were chosen based on what the topic was that the fan was asking about, so for example, a young man who looked a lot like Hurley was awarded a large tub of Dharma-issued ranch dressing. The producers also claimed that Dharma was sponsoring the panel here at Comic-Con.

They also chose a few of the people who took the tests at the Dharma recruitment booths on the exhibit floor to come onstage and then leave with a Dharma recruitment guy, Hans von Egan. They gave one of these chosen people a camera with which to "secretly" capture what went on when Egan took the group to a booth where they were shown a scratchy Dharma video of Marvin Candle who revealed that his real name is Pierre Cheng. In the video (which Cheng said was filmed 30 years ago), there was a screaming baby in the background until Cheng instructed someone to take the baby away. He implored the viewer to "complete the research." He said the Dharma Initiative "must be reconstituted" and he mentioned Einstein's field equations.

His most clear message was this: "Time is not just of the essence, it is the essence." In typical Lost form, the person running the camera eventually said that making the video was pointless, and the footage cut out as Cheng protested that they should keep taping.

So, there was that. From all the fan questions, we got a few more tidbits, though nothing too juicy. There was also no real footage to show, of course, since they haven't started shooting yet. Still, it was so much fun to be in a room full of Lost nerds who got every reference and insider joke. To see some of the little things we learned from the panel, read more

Do you miss Lost? Are you jonesing for a new book club (perhaps you've already read my book club selection for this month)? Are you slightly obsessed with any scene in the show that includes Sawyer reading? (Or is that just me?) Well, ABC is offering one solution to the no-Lost-'til-January-2009 blues: a Lost-themed online book club.

As ABC explains it, the book club section of Lost's official website will feature a list of "the books that have been either seen or referenced throughout the dynamic four seasons" of the show, and will include "a message board to discuss the titles, a synopsis of each book, along with when and how it was referenced in the show, and an introduction by co-creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse."

There are many titles I've never noticed in the show, though I definitely recognize some of them. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, for example, has been clearly referenced in Desmond's storyline, with all the weird time stuff he experiences. Others have been used as titles for specific episodes, like Stranger in a Strange Land and The Shape of Things to Come. Oh, and of course I'll always remember Sawyer reading Are You There God? It's Me Margaret on the beach.

Sawyer + Judy Blume? That is my kinda beach day.

Anyway, click here to start checking out the Lost book club for yourself!

Since I know some of you may not have watched the season finale of Lost (or this season of Lost in general, perhaps), I'm going to start this discussion about Michael's story arc after the jump.

To see why Harold Perrineau (who plays Michael on the show) called his plotline "disappointing" and tell me if you agree or disagree, read more