For television fans in Los Angeles, PaleyFest is an annual must. Each year, the Paley Center for Media hosts a series of panels where fans can come and hear the creators of their favorite shows discuss their work. This year’s line up includes shows like “Veep”, “How I Met Your Mother” and “Community”, among others. In addition to those current shows, PaleyFest also hosts “reunion” panels, one of which was the 10th Year Anniversary Reunion of ABC’s “Lost”. In the 31-year history of PaleyFest, this event was their fasting selling ever.
The “Lost” event was hosted at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, which is famously home to the Academy Awards. Upon taking the stage, panel moderator Paul Scheer (TV’s “The League” and podcast “How Did This Get Made?”) spoke of the relevance of the venue, where, as he said, “on this very stage Adele Dazeem performed at the Oscars.” Following that, in light of recent events, Scheer banned any questions involving other mysterious plane disappearances, saying, “it won’t be in good taste.”
Joining Scheer on stage were actors Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Yunjin Kim, Ian Somerhalder, Maggie Grace, Henry Ian Cusick, and Malcolm David Kelley as well as writers/producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. This was actually Lost’s third time at PaleyFest, having previously held panels during their first and sixth (final) season. For this panel, Lindleof and Cuse choose the season one episode “Exodus Part 1” for the audience to screen before the panel itself.
Perhaps the first big surprise for fans was the sight of a grown up Malcolm David Kelley, who played Walt on the show when he was a young tween. Kelley, now 21, spoke highly of his time on the island and the way his co-stars treated him.
“Lost” has become infamous for leaving the audience with more questions than answers, but, during the panel, some questions were answered. One such question was about what the finale meant: “No they were not dead the entire time”, said Cuse. Others questions were dodged in true “Lost” fashion. For example, when asked about who was shooting at a boatful of the castaways in one of the time jumps in season five, Lindleof confirmed that the writers had actually written a definitive answer, but decided not to use it and then swore themselves to secrecy. He did, however, propose that maybe one day he’d auction off those script pages for charity.
As much as the audience was in the dark about just what was happening on “Lost”, the actors were just as clueless. Yunjin Kim spoke about how the actors would all gather to read the scripts as soon as they were released in order to discover, among other things, if their characters would survive the week. Kim said she knew she was safe, “when Sun got pregnant… I knew for a fact they wouldn’t kill me off the show”. Other actors didn’t have such big tip offs, but they didn’t stop them from asking. Lindelof said that Daniel Dae Kim, who played Yunjin’s husband on the show, once asked him, “I was thinking of buying a house… should I buy the house?”
Alas, character deaths on “Lost” became common place, but the first to die on the show, Ian Somerhalder, apparently took it pretty well. As he recalls having a meeting with Lindelof and Cuse about their plans for the character. After hearing them out, he said he understood and thanked them for the opportunity. Lindleof joked that the meeting went so well that he realized they should kill of more characters on the show.
Lindleoff also gave some insight into the shows casting, admitting that after he and J.J. Abrams saw Jorge Garcia in an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, J.J. told him that he should write a role for the actor in “Lost”. He also told the crowd that Yunjin Kim had originally read for the role of Kate, until the producers found out that Kim was a huge star in Korea and that she had been in, “the Korean version of Titanic”, said Lindelof. After this realization, they decided to create a character for her that could utilize her Korean fluency, and decided that she should be married as well. And so the characters of Sun and Jin were born.
Despite the seeming distaste for the finale, fans at the Paley event (at least the ones asking the questions) all seemed impressed with it. Lindelof, however, recalls a mistake they made that the fans did not like: the characters Nikki and Paulo. Though, due the the way the third season of “Lost” premiered, it appeared as though the fan backlash during the first part of it’s run lead to their demise. In reality, Lindeloff, Cuse and the other writers realized the characters weren’t working as the episodes came back and decided to right their wrong even before the fans cried foul.
Throughout the panel, Scheer gave “Lost” credit for redefining the TV culture we have now, including the advent of “binge watching” and level of viewer interaction such as theories and, “websites based on those theories,” as Scheer put it. But, he concluded, “more than the mysteries — the ones that were solved and the ones that we’ll probably never know the answers to — the root of this show was the characters and their emotional and spiritual journeys.” The characters of “Lost” resonated so much with audiences, that even 10 years later, a packed theatre full of them came out to see them.