While I’m otherwise occupied, you must, must, must read the first installment of Maureen Ryan’s lengthy interview with Damon Lindelof and Carleton Cuse as a walk-up to the Feb. 2 final-season premiere of Lost. No spoilers, no plot-heavy interrogation: instead, thankfully, Ryan got the producers to engage in a really thoughtful conversation about storytelling, the need to please fans vs. the need to be true to one’s vision, and which answers are important vs. which answers are better left un-given. Of which Cuse gives a great example:
We really feel we are very committed to this notion of not stripping the show of its essential mystery. I mean, mystery exists in life and we kind of always go back to the midi-chlorians example [in the ‘Star Wars’ prequel films]. Your understanding the Force was not aided by knowing that there were little particles swimming around in the bloodstreams of Jedi.
Preach it. And read it. Team Darlton seems to be setting us up for a series finale that will take risks and not try to be all things to all people—the Sopranos finale is referenced—and I can’t wait.
[By the way, Ryan gives a shout-out to an observation I made when Battlestar Galactica ended: that fans of sci-fi shows often expect that “the finale of a sci-fi show can’t just be a finale, it has to provide an Answer. It can’t just be an ending, it has to solve the problem.” Just to make clear: I don’t think it should be that way—I think it cheapens a show like BSG or Lost to reduce it to a cosmic Encyclopedia Brown mystery. But I do think shows like that inevitably run up against that expectation. Then again, I liked the Sopranos’ finale.]