Category: Television

Season 4 of LOST Will Be Shorter Than Expected

Jack’s Mad
The Writer’s Strike is ending and it appears that Season 4 will be a total of 13 episodes, rather than the planned 16.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Cuse said he’s happy with the outcome of the strike and can’t wait to go back to his day job on “Lost.”

“We’re going to have to hit the ground running, go from zero to 100 mph in a matter of days to make as many episodes as possible,” he said.

The goal for Cuse and co-showrunner Damon Lindelof is to produce five more episodes this season, a tall order given the time constraints and the scope of storytelling and production on “Lost.” Even with five additional hours, Cuse and Lindelof will be three episodes short of the premapped fourth season.

“We will have to condense some stories,” Cuse said.

(Thanks to Andy)

Writer’s Strike Almost Over – What’s Next for LOST?

There’s an article in the LA Times talking about what the producers and writers for TV shows are up against now that the strike looks like it’s over.

But no question will have more effect this season than the one co-show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse face as the end of the strike approaches. When the walkout began in November, eight of the season’s 16 scripts were completed. Will ABC order the final eight to be aired this TV season? Or will some of the episodes get tabled for future seasons?

“I think the big task ahead of us is to basically come up with the best plan both creatively and logistically for ‘Lost’ moving forward,” Lindelof said. “If they go along with what we kind of want to do, my guess is it will be fairly aggressive. So every day counts.”

If all goes as planned, the producers will begin talking about stories with the writers on Wednesday, Lindelof said. The difficulties, he added, might lie in remembering all of the characters, mysteries and island secrets.

Like the Dharma Initiative? (If you don’t know what this is, it will take the length of another strike to explain.)

“Everything I’ve forgotten about the Dharma Initiative is best left forgotten,” Lindelof said. “The good news about time away from the show is that you remember the good stuff. If you’ve forgotten about it, it’s probably best not to be reminded. We’re looking forward to executing the resolution of Season 4. Who are all the members of Oceanic 6? What happened to everybody else? What is the secret the Oceanic 6 are keeping and why are they keeping it? And who are these freighter folk?”

The article covers other shows, like My Name is Earl, so check it out!

LOST: Confirmed Dead

“Confirmed Dead” was another good episode. There were many interesting things to think about in that episode.

1) Why were Daniel, Charlotte, Miles and Frank picked to go along with Naomi to try and capture Ben? A physicist, anthropologist, psychic, and pilot?

It seems to me that Frank was probably recruited because he started raising a red flag about the “pilot” in the plane wreck not really being the pilot. No better way to get him out of the way than sending him away from the media after “recruiting” him.

Miles seems very “into” the whole thing, and so does Charlotte. Frank does somewhat, but Daniel sure seems like a reluctant recruit.

They seem like an odd choices for a group going to do something like that; perhaps they were there to try and figure out what he was doing after Naomi grabbed him?

2) I think it’s likely we’ll find out that polar bear got transported from the island to that desert in an experiment where Dharma was trying to perfect time-jumping.

3) That freighter that Ben has a man on? I think whoever it is has already taken over the ship. The phone call that Daniel made to Minkowski was very abrupt when Regina answered; almost as if she wanted (or was told) to get off the phone quickly.

What did you think of the episode?

Writer’s Guild to Vote on Tuesday

Writer’s Strike

The president of the WGA has sent this letter to the rank and file:

Letter from the President

Dear Fellow Members,

I am are pleased to inform you that this morning the WGA Negotiating Committee unanimously and unconditionally recommended the terms of the proposed 2008 MBA to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council. The Board and Council then voted unanimously to recommend the contract, and to submit it to the joint membership of WGAW and WGAE for ratification. The ratification vote will take place over the next few weeks by mail ballot and at a special membership meeting. You will receive ballot materials and a notice of informational meetings during the next week.

There is, however, another issue to address: whether to lift the restraining order, and end the strike, during the ratification process. We are asking the members to decide this issue. A vote will take place on Tuesday, February 12, 2008. A yes vote means you are voting to end the strike immediately; a no vote means you are voting to continue the strike during the ratification process. Ballots can be cast at the Guild Theater from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm. If you aren’t able to cast a ballot in person, proxy ballots can be downloaded at http://www.wga.org/contract_07/proxy-2008.pdf and faxed. Proxy ballots and voting instructions are at wga.org. Until the votes are counted, we are still on strike. We will announce the vote count on Tuesday night.

There will be no picketing Monday or Tuesday: all pickets are suspended until the WGA membership votes to either end or continue the strike.

Thank you for your solidarity and support. We are all in this together.

Best,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW

It’s likely this vote will pass, and the writer’s strike will be over, with writer’s returning to work on Wednesday.

Lost: Hidden References in the New Character Names

Lost Logo
I’ll write more about what I thought of tonight’s show, “Confirmed Dead”, later, but for now here are the four new characters’ names:

  • Daniel Faraday – a reference to Michael Faraday, established the basis of the magnetic field concept in physics.

  • Miles Straume – “Straum” is Norse for “current”; It could also be a play on “Maelstrom”, which is a powerful whirlpool.

  • Frank Lapidus – The only thing that seems interesting about this (and it’s a stretch, I’ll grant you that), is that letters from each of his first and last name spell “Farad’, a unit of capacitance named after Michael Faraday.

  • Charlotte Staples Lewis – Is a reference to the author CS Lewis.

Time Traveling Charlie… And Locke?

Charlie
Ha! That figures. I completely forgot something until I saw it tonight.

Last week I wrote about how Charlie was probably time traveling the way Desmond has been doing, but wondered what happened that allowed him to do it.

Turns out, Charlie probably experienced EXACTLY what Desmond did. I’d forgotten that the people near the hatch when it exploded were Desmond, Mr. Eko, John Locke, and ….Charlie! Charlie was downstairs in the hatch with Eko when everything started flying through the air.

It’s not much of a leap to think that if the explosion effected Desmond that way, the same ability was transferred to Charlie.

And probably Locke too. We haven’t see this aspect of Locke, but we’ve seen him healed several times.

We might not be sure about Eko, but if he shows up “where he’s not supposed to be” (as Ms. Klugh would put it), then I think it pretty much confirms the theory that they all gained this ability.

LA Times: Contract outlined in Writer’s Strike

The LA Times is reporting:

Hollywood’s striking writers and major studios have reached the outlines of a new employment contract, resolving key sticking points over how much writers should be paid for work that is distributed over the Internet, people familiar with the negotiations said Saturday.

Hope they get the contract signed. After it does, then the hard decisions will come. Do they finish seasons? Do they just wait until the Fall? LOST has eight episodes already completed, and another eight that were supposed to air – but they’re not completed. What will they do?

There’s a similar situation for “24”. Are they going to delay the season and air it, or cancel it completely?