Comic-Con '07 - Day 1: LOST panel

LOST executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse

LOST co-creator and executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse were at San Diego’s Comic-Con on Thursday to unveil the new LOST video game and to answer fan questions about upcoming seasons of the show. The capacity crowd was first treated to a short video clip entitled “Exploring the World of Others” which showed several cast and production team members talking about the show. It looked very much like a DVD extra (the season 3 DVD set comes out on December 11th). The men of the hour came out afterwards and found that their microphones didn’t work. Once that was sorted, they showed some rough cuts of the upcoming LOST video game from Ubisoft. Despite the fact that these scenes were supposed to be early renderings, characters and locations from the show were easily identifiable. The producers were eager to get to the questions, but first they explained their system for preventing inadvertent spoilers at the panel. They each had a bell that one would ring if he felt that the other was giving too much away.

Fans received several tantalizing tidbits of information despite the bells once the audience started asking questions. For example, Ben was crossing the island for some reason that we’ll find out later and was accidentally caught in Rousseau’s trap when we first met him (as Henry Gale). We’ll see more of Libby’s story (and it’s likely that she was involved with Dharma). Rousseau will get a flashback episode, but it may wait until Season 5. There will be both flash forwards as well as flash backs in future episodes. What we saw with Jack and Kate at the end of Season 3 was not the end of the story. In fact, says Lindelof, "There's this whole chapter of our story that takes place off the island, but we couldn't tell that story until we knew an end was coming. Come with us all the way to the end, and it won't be a waste of time."

Other questions did not involve spoilers. One person asked why there was so much more violence in Season 3. Lindelof felt that there was just as much if not more violence in Season 1, but people didn’t notice it as much since pretty people perpetuated it. Since the Others are less attractive, people noticed the violence more. As a result he promised that all future violence would be carried out by “catastrophically pretty people.” Unfortunately, none of the questions involved our favorite Korean couple, Sun and Jin (Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim) and the deal with their baby.

Harold Perrineau comes out to riotous applause

One major piece of news that the producers were saving for Comic-Con, but was accidentally released a day early, was the fact that Harold Perrineau’s character, Michael Dawson, would be returning to the show. The producers confirmed that he was rejoining as a series regular and that it had always been the plan to bring him back in Season 4. "We can't tell you when, but the way he does comes back is awesome," said Lindelof. As a surprise Harold Perrineau appeared in the panel while the audience went nuts. He did not, however, have any more information about the circumstances surrounding his character’s return. On getting back to work on LOST, Perrineau said, "I'm really, really excited to go back to Hawaii and hang out with my friends."

The panel concluded with Lindelof and Cuse thanking Perrineau for braving I-405 and arriving in San Diego just in time for the panel. They then said that they wanted to show the audience something special but since they had not yet started filming Season 4 they decided to show us this film. It was supposedly found in a vault in Norvik, Norway that was edited and restored. What could it be? A Dharma Initiative film, of course! This one was for Station 6: The Orchid and showed Dr. Marvin Candle, calling himself Edgar Halliwax holding a white rabbit with the number 15 on its side. There was more than one take, some chaos, swearing, another #15 rabbit, and queries as to why they were still filming. The video may be viewed on the official page here. (http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index) LOST season 4 will air with no reruns from February to May 2008.