I finally got around to checking my backlog of affiliate submissions, so as a result, I've added six awesome new affiliates! These are Art of Being // An Emilie De Ravin Fansite, Lost -- Retour aux sources (The First French Site on Lost), Billy-Boyd.net, lost-island.net, Looking Lost, and Lost_tv@LJ. Check them all out! Permanent Link | 8:46 PM

   Many thanks to DisGuy23 from the boards for this scan of a full-page article appearing in the October 2004 issue of Sci-Fi Magazine. My favorite quote?
   "...every once in a while someone will tag along with them (the regular cast) in the jungle, and we'll assume that that person is dead because we haven't seen them before, and then one of our regulars will get killed off and that person will become a new regular on the show. So that signals to the audience that in any given week you don't know what you're going to get. That's the beauty of having 11 characters." Permanent Link | 12:37 AM

   Many thanks to DisGuy23 on the boards for sharing with us two pictures of the panel at Comic-Con! You can take a look at this and this. Permanent Link | 12:28 AM

   Channel 4 and sister channel E4 have secured the rights to US drama series 'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' to be screened in a primetime slot next year.
   'Lost' is an action thriller about a group of plane crash survivors who are stranded on a remote island where dark forces are at work around them. It was written by the creator of hit show 'Alias', and features 'Lord of the Rings' star, Dominic Monaghan.
   'Desperate Housewives' is a dark comedy drama following the apparent domestic bliss of a group of upmarket suburban housewives. It is narrated through the eyes of deceased wife, who aims to uncover the group's secrets. It features 'Superman' star and Bond girl Teri Hatcher.
   The shows will first air in the US on ABC this autumn. Both dramas were licensed from Buena Vista International Television.
   June Dromgoole, controller of acquisitions for Channel 4, said: "We are thrilled to have acquired these two shows, which represent the latest in our tradition of acquiring the best of American series, and that our relationship with Buena Vista continues with these two highly anticipated dramas."
   Channel 4 recently screened the last ever episodes of 'Friends', 'Sex and the City' and 'Frasier', leaving a marked gap in the broadcaster's schedule.
   Jay Kandola, head of acquired programming at Channel 4, told Broadcast magazine that she already has the shows tipped for the top: "While I wouldn't describe it ['Desperate Wives'] as a replacement for either 'Ally McBeal' or 'Sex and the City', it does feel like this is going to be an indulgent female watch that gives the same kind of pleasure."
   SOURCE: Media Bulletin Permanent Link | 9:05 PM

   Channel 4 has outbid rival broadcaster Five for exclusive U.K. rights to two of the hottest shows at this year's L.A. Screenings, Buena Vista Intl. Television's edgy drama "Desperate Housewives" and thriller "Lost."
   The duo will air in primetime on C4 and its digital, youth-skewed niche net E4 and help fill the gaps in its schedules left by the demise of "Friends," "Frasier" and "Sex and the City."
   Deal was inked between C4 acquisitions maven June Dromgoole and BVITV senior VP and managing director Tom Toumazis. The agreement was concluded for BVITV by Haydn Arndt, sales director, U.K. and Ireland. No figures were announced.
   Both series, in production, will premiere in the U.S. on ABC this fall. C4 and E4 will broadcast both next year.
   SOURCE: Yahoo! News Permanent Link | 8:57 PM

   Lost has been sold to Channel 4 in the UK, so our British friends will be able to see this. When? From day one? Who knows! Write to Channel 4 and let them know you're interested! Permanent Link | 12:28 PM

   I've said this before, but it bears repeating: It isn't "run-away production" that the American entertainment industry should be worried about. Hell, back in Toronto, we're only now starting to get back into the game. If California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the "Blame Canada" doomsayers were really on the ball, they'd realize that the Canadian threat to Hollywood comes not from without, but within.
   Welcome once again to the "Frostback Report," my annual wrap-up of Canadian talent featured on new U.S. fall-season shows. The tally this year is only 13, down perhaps a half-dozen from the totals of each of the past three seasons. But that drop is somewhat compensated for by the fact that so many of those already entrenched remain in key roles in shows still on the air.... here's who's joining their ranks:
   Evangeline Lilly, Lost: Born in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., Lilly was "discovered" on the streets of Kelowna, B.C. by the famous Ford agency. She initially passed on a modelling career, but six months later moved to Vancouver to attend the University of British Columbia, and signed with Ford to pay her tuition. A passionate advocate of humanitarian causes, she spent time with a missionary group in the Philippines before embarking on an acting career, and a role on Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital. On Lost she portrays one of 48 stranded survivors of a plane crash.
   SOURCE: Toronto Star Permanent Link | 12:32 AM

   Damon Lindelof, co-creator and executive producer of "Lost," has agreed to a telephone interview with Lost-TV! The details are currently being worked out, but keep coming back to this site for updates! We are thrilled to be able to have an opportunity to talk to Mr. Lindelof. If you have any ideas for questions you'd like to ask, email them to xander1600@yahoo.com or post them on the message board. We cannot guarantee that your question will be asked and/or answered, but we'll certainly consider every question submitted. Permanent Link | 10:24 PM

   Lost-TV briefly talked to Sala Baker last Friday night following the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Extended Edition DVD panel at Comic-Con, and revealed that he would appear on the show as a guest. Details will be coming as soon as we get them. Permanent Link | 10:09 PM

   Tody sent in this report of filming being done in Hawaii last Friday (posted it a bit late, oops). Sounds very interesting; feel free to make your own hypotheses and draw your own conclusions.
   Aloha!! Just want to tell you that I am living in Honolulu for a while and I watched them film some shots for "Lost" in downtown Honolulu today. They had the windows of a store front painted with the words "Melbourne Walkabout Tours" and they kept filming a "sort of middle aged man" in a wheel chair buying a ticket for this plane tour (I guess). It seemed like they did not want to sell him a ticket and he ranted and raved and probably finally got the ticket... They also filmed in a restaurant (Indigo - an upscale place) and also in Chinatown (in downtown Honolulu also). Dom was not there today. They were filming "flashbacks" for some characters. They are not selling Lost Crew T-shirts yet. But you can bet I
will grab one if given the chance. Sorry but no pix. Oh yes, their catering truck had things like hamburgers, hot dogs, cold sandwiches, etc. No fancy foods... Permanent Link | 9:55 PM

   On Saturday morning, July 24, 2004 at San Diego Comic Con, Lost-TV talked with Executive Producer Bryan Burk. No dark and bloody secrets were revealed... yet!
   Yes, you will find out what is making that noise in the bushes, and no it is not a dinosaur.
   But "outing" the Big Noisy Thing will not be the death knell of "Lost." The creators and producers of this series are more forward thinking than that. This is a series for which JJ Abrams already knows how the next six seasons will end. Or was it seven or eight seasons?
   Isn't that being just a touch optimistic, you ask? After all, ABC has only picked up the show for 11 episodes. And a full season for a TV show is 22 episodes.
   Let's put it this way: "Lost" is not a series which will run out of ideas. Nor is it a series short on savvy. Bryan paraphrased Damon Lindelof, one of the creators of "Lost," by saying that doing a series was a lot like a cross country drive. You have to know where you're going. You might make some detours and you might change your destination, but you do have a general idea about where you hope to wind up when you set out.
   "We're huge fans of 'Twin Peaks,'" Bryan said. "And we loved it, but our fear (with 'Lost') was to have a situation like 'Who Killed Laura Palmer?' In Episode 9 (of 'Twin Peaks') they tell you and it's like, now what?"
   If JJ and Co. know how each season will end for the next six (or was it eight?) seasons, it doesn't look like "now what?" will be an issue.
   The very nature of a television series puts it in a different realm of story telling than a film. With a movie, the creators know what the end is. With a series, there are many factors to take into consideration, particularly as the project gains momentum. Maybe someone is cast originally as a walk on, everyone loves the character and or the actor who portrays that character and more scenes are added and he gets to stay. Maybe a cast member has a developing fan base and the big, "I'm gonna die" sign blinking over his head is turned off and he or she gets to live.
   The point is, how does a writing staff maintain freshness and vitality week after week?
   By knowing how each season will end. By establishing a core group of characters, each of whom have issues which are more or less serious. What those issues are and how the character reacts to them will affect how the story evolves. And, as BagEndInn's MsAllegro found out in HER conversation with Bryan, by revealing to each cast member the nexus of only his or her own character and not that of the others, just like real people in real life, harboring real secrets. Each actor might have a copy of the script, but not the backstory of the people he or she is working with. So as filming progresses the actors will be just as surprised as the rest of us.
   "Lost" is currently filming in Oahu. The cast has moved to Hawaii for now and are well on their way to becoming locals, according to Bryan. He hinted though that the production team was competing for space, since there seems to be quite a few shows and projects filming on Oahu at the moment.
   Bryan and other production team members are based in Los Angeles, however, and see "dailies" which are overnighted to them. An episode takes 8 days to shoot and the shooting schedule is Monday - Friday with 12 hours days, often longer. As of this writing, they were working on Episodes 3 and 4.
   And what is Bryan's background? He's been making movies since he was ten. We didn't ask him what would compel a ten year old to set out on that path and stick to it but that’s a question we'll save for next time.
   But Bryan, while deferring all creative comments to Damon Lindelof is definitely not out of the loop on the low down on "Lost" and its denizens. We observed that we felt that the Big Noisy Thing had more to fear from Evangeline Lilly's character, Kate, than anyone else on the island.
   Bryan looked around innocently. "Kate has issues," he said. And that was all he said. If we want to know what those issues are, we'll have to learn it each Wednesday night at 8 PM starting on September 22.
   But one thing we did learn. Bryan loves Lost-TV. Tom Sherman, formerly with ABC and now overseeing all of JJ's productions, loves Lost-TV. Damon Lindelof loves Lost-TV.
   "Tell Xander we love him!" Bryan said.
   More than happy to oblige!
   (NOTES: Love ya too, Bryan! Anyway, many thanks to my staff who went to Comic-Con and snapped this up. Also, if you wish to put this article up anywhere, please credit it to Lost-TV and link it to http://www.lost-tv.com/.) Permanent Link | 10:41 AM

   Here's a little snippet from MsAllegro of Bag End Inn, courtesy of her LiveJournal.
   I found myself face to face with Lost's executive producer, Bryan Burk. Since I had him there, I asked if I could ask him a few questions about the show. More details if I remember them, but basically, the rumors about them needing to modify content because of their early timeslot or any conservative feeling in the industry aren't an issue. He said about the only thing they might have to deal with is the scenes of drug use, but that otherwise, they haven't had any pressure from ABC or Touchstone about content issues. We talked some about Dom and how he got hooked up with the production, and he said Charlie was originally written for someone about 10 years older, and that Dom wasn't interested in doing TV until he heard about this and Abrams' involvement. He went in to read for the part, and the writers absolutely adored him, and set about molding the character to his strengths. The article where Terry O'Quinn mentions that each actor gets to hear their character's backstory, but not the others is correct. I told Bryan that was a fantastic idea, letting the actors get to know the other characters organically as the season progresses. He also said that each of the main characters would have an episode that was "theirs" which did flashbacks, etc. to talk about their character's backstory. Overall, the impression I got from both him and the panel is that this isn't going to be a "how do they get off the island" show, but a series of character studies, which sounds great. Oh, and Damon promised "no dinosaurs on the island." Permanent Link | 10:36 AM

   It's hard to describe an enigma. That's the challenge facing "Alias" creator J.J. Abrams as he prepares to launch the new series "Lost" on ABC this fall.
   The writer-director spent a day at Comic-Con International to mingle with sci-fi fans and talk about "Lost," which is about 48 people who survive a plane crash and become stranded on a remote island inhabited by strange creatures.
   Part of the pilot, which airs Sept. 22, was screened for an audience of thousands at Comic-Con.
   "When you have a new show, people tend to want to compare it to what they already know," he told The Associated Press. "Is it a medical drama, a thriller, a mystery, a romance, sci-fi? But this is hard to classify because it has elements of all those things."
   "Lost" producer Damon Lindelof had this to say about the mysterious creatures that inhabit the show: "First off, I want to go on the record as saying there are no dinosaurs on the island. There haven't been, there won't be, it will never happen."
   As for what is out there, he's not saying.
   "Lost" stars Matthew Fox, best know for TV's "Party of Five," as a resourceful doctor, and Dominic Monaghan, one of the Hobbits from "The Lord of the Rings," as a drug-addicted rock star.
   SOURCE: ABC News Permanent Link | 10:32 AM

   Herc of AICN has reviewed the Lost pilot, and rated it five stars! It's a very glowing review, but one filled with SPOILERS, so beware. Check it out! Permanent Link | 7:33 AM

   Comic-Con has come and gone, and we're going to have a full report and update soon. But our representatives have told us that they've talked to Executive Producers Brian Burk and Damon Lindelof, who are both excited about this website. Keep watching this website for more! Permanent Link | 4:52 AM

   Terry O'Quinn, who plays one of the survivors of a plane crash in the upcoming ABC series Lost, told SCI FI Wire that the origin of his enigmatic character was revealed to him exclusively by the creators of the show. "They've given me some of my backstory, and they've told me where it's going, which is extremely helpful," O'Quinn said in an interview during ABC's fall season preview in Los Angeles. "[Co-creator Damon Lindelof] called me and said, 'Here's where you were, and here's where we're going.'"
   O'Quinn's character is one of 48 survivors stranded on a mysterious island after a plane crash. The actor, who has previously worked with co-creator J.J. Abrams on the spy drama Alias, couldn't share what he knew about his character, but he did offer a hint of sorts. "What I can say is that I think this guy is probably the happiest person in the group who have crashed on this island," O'Quinn said.
   The large cast of castaways also includes Matthew Fox (Party of Five), Dominic Monaghan (The Lord of the Rings), Harold Perrineau (The Matrix Reloaded), Daniel Dae Kim (Angel) and Emilie de Ravin (Roswell), among others. As for the backstories of the other characters, O'Quinn said he's been kept in the dark, and he prefers it that way. "I haven't been filled in, which is wonderful," he said. "Everybody's a mystery to me, and I'm a mystery to them. None of us knows. We're all mysteries to each other. And they're pretty much keeping it that way, and I'm happy for it." Lost premieres Sept. 22 and will air on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
   SOURCE: Sci Fi Wire Permanent Link | 10:28 AM

From mhs82: How sick is it to anticipate a show for which I've seen like, 10 seconds of. Lost...you there?
I'm here. And I think it is the most anticipated (critics-wise) new show of the season. The panel session was standing room only. And when you meet Evangeline, the leading lady, you're going to looove her like you have not loved since Keri and Jen.

From hannibalsmith: Evangeline indeed is Keri/Jen material. Really good!
Yay! It's the best thing in the world when I'm right. See, there I go again...

SOURCE: E! Online Permanent Link | 10:14 AM

   We can't make any promises, because it hasn't happened yet, but there might be a possibility that Lost-TV will be able to get cast interviews as we near the premiere date. We've been in touch with some very nice people at Touchstone , who indicated that Lost-TV might be able to get some "face time" with cast and crew.
   Keep your fingers crossed! As soon as we have any more news in that department, we'll be sure to post it right here.
   Meanwhile. we'll be at Comic Con in San Diego, CA this coming weekend and as we have spies everywhere, we'll bring you all the news from the screening of the first hour of the pilot, and the Q&A to follow.
   The screening will be at 10 am on Saturday, 6/24, Following the screening and the Q&A, cast and crew will be signing autographs. Permanent Link | 5:35 PM

   The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. And the TV critics are amazed.
   "It's beyond bizarre that this year ABC and UPN are the buzz networks," said Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic, one of more than 100 writers meeting here for the Television Critics Association summer press tour.
   The critics, a cantankerous and contentious bunch, are as close to consensus as they have been in years. In interview after interview, most agree that these are the new shows to watch this fall:
   "Desperate Housewives" (ABC, Sundays at 9 p.m.), a partly satirical soap opera with Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman, has a title that superbly describes the women whose secret lives are revealed.
   "Kevin Hill" (UPN, Wednesdays at 9), a surprisingly poignant drama about a swinging bachelor lawyer who becomes an instant daddy.
   "Lost" (ABC, Wednesdays at 8), in which survivors must cope after their plane crashes on a jungle isle.
   "Veronica Mars" (UPN, Tuesdays at 9), combining Nancy Drew perkiness with ominous overtones of Elmore Leonard....
   ...Despair and hyperbole are big here, too.
   Critics fret like protective mothers over beloved new series that seem destined to struggle for commercial success.
   Effusive over "Housewives," "Lost," and, more mutedly, the "reality" show "Wife Swap," TV Guide's Matt Roush noted, "ABC's whole history is littered with great shows, some of which could last three or four years, some of which could last three or four weeks. We just have to hope -- all we can do is hope -- that these new shows somehow find a connection with the viewers."
   Citing the series' "interesting pilots," Boedeker mused, "Will they develop into series or just be one-show flashes? Will ABC schedule them in such a way to get people looking at their network again? I mean, it's a really, really interesting question."
   These folks like television. They really, really do....
   SOURCE: Ventura County Star Permanent Link | 6:53 AM

   Matthew Fox, who stars in the upcoming ABC television series Lost, told SCI FI Wire that his character was originally going to die in the first draft of the pilot script. Series creator J.J. Abrams "wanted to do this really intense thing, where he sets up a really heroic character and then he kills him after the second act," Fox said in an interview during ABC's fall season preview in Los Angeles. "And then everybody kept reading the script and going, 'You just can't kill this guy. You just can't kill him.'"
   Fox plays the lead role of Jack, a surgeon trapped on a remote island after surviving a plane crash. He was the last actor to join the cast of 15 and one of the few to have the opportunity to read the finished script before signing on. "It was just the best script I've ever read," Fox said. "I just love the entire premise and the opportunity that gives this incredible cast to do some really fantastic dramatic material. I was completely 100 percent sold, totally excited about it."
   Through the process of filming the two-hour pilot (which will be shown as the first and second episodes of the show), the script changed constantly to fit the strengths and dynamics of Fox and the cast, which includes Dominic Monaghan (The Lord of the Rings), Harold Perrineau (The Matrix Reloaded), Terry O'Quinn (Alias), Daniel Dae Kim (Angel) and Emilie de Ravin (Roswell), among others. "As a writer you have an idea of what the character is on the page, but then you meet somebody that you think has got all these qualities, and they adjust the character," Fox said. "[The writers are] always watching us, and they're also watching the dynamics that go on between us, and I think it elicits ideas they have for pairings of characters." Lost premieres Sept. 22 and will air on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
   SOURCE: Sci Fi Wire Permanent Link | 10:04 AM

   "Lost," ABC's castaway drama that begins principal photography today in Mokuleia, might be too scary for some children, so the producers/creators of the show will edit some of the more frightening scenes before the two-hour pilot airs in September.
   The producers are concerned that the content could be too violent for children watching the show in the early 8 p.m. prime-time slot, sources said. The show is the saga of 48 plane crash survivors stranded on an unnamed Pacific island populated by at least one person-eating monster.
   The show is produced and created by J.J. Abrams (ABC's "Alias") and Damon Lindelof (NBC's "Crossing Jordan").
   Abrams told the Television Critics Association last weekend in Los Angeles that "certain things ... we're going to have to adjust, not just for the time slot, but to air at all." He also indicated that the network hasn't asked producers to make the edits.
   Costs for the "Lost" pilot are estimated to have cost $10 million to $16 million, but the result is high production values in a gorgeous tropical setting.
   The first hour of the two-hour pilot features horrific and realistic plane crash scenes and explosions, beach wreckage and the "monster," which is not the show's star, Abrams said.
   "If you have a monster ... you call it a monster ... then it's sort of disposable and silly and feels kind of irrelevant or gimmicky," he said. "If you have something that represents terror and represents fear and represents sort of the darkness of this place, to me that's incredibly valuable."
   Abrams also said that "Lost" guest stars will not suddenly wash up on shore in each episode, but are featured in flashbacks to the survivors' lives before the crash.
   Abrams, who is on Oahu preparing for filming, was not immediately available for interviews, but sources said two episodes will be shot simultaneously and directed by Jack Bender, another producer on the show.
   The pilot opens with Matthew Fox ("Party of Five"), who plays the physician Jack, waking up on a tropical beach after an accident. Moments later, the viewer sees that it's a plane crash. The pilot episode uses flashbacks to show the plane ride and learn more about the passengers stranded on the island.
   When Jack starts walking around the beach, he sees the L-1011's wreckage and bodies littering the area. Survivors include a pregnant woman.
   A male passenger is sucked into the wing's spinning jet engine turbine, then someone else is impaled by shrapnel. Without warning, the plane's fuselage collapses and explodes in a fiery ball.
   The survivors move away from the wreckage, then try to figure out what to do. They realize their predicament when they notice that the aircraft's nose is missing, as well as the plane's black box and transceiver, which rescuers would need to find them.
   A woman named Kate helps stitch Jack's cut, then reports seeing smoke in another area of the island.
   The group hikes through the jungle to search for the cockpit, where they find one of the two pilots barely alive. But he's suddenly wrenched from the cockpit by something very big that no one sees.
   The transceiver's battery is nearly dead and doesn't provide much of a signal. A few survivors hike a steep climb to a ridge top to see if a signal can be reached up there.
   The transceiver gets a small signal -- a distress call in French -- but they soon learn that it's been repeating for more than 15 years.
   SOURCE: Honolulu Star-Bulletin Permanent Link | 9:44 AM

   LOS ANGELES, July 13
   Visited the Church of J.J. today.
   Its founder, J.J. Abrams, has a new series on ABC called "Lost." It's about a bunch of people who survive a plane crash and find themselves on an island inhabited by a big scary monster who, grievously, is not a vegetarian.
   The Reporters Who Cover Television worship at the feet of J.J. for reasons we do not entirely understand.
   The Church of J.J. sprang up right about the time Abrams created WB's hot-chick-in-college series "Felicity," which was supposed to be Very Big, only it turned out it was only a moderate success and its popularity was contingent upon the star's hairstyle. And everyone knows the mark of a true hit is its ability to survive a change in the star's hairstyle -- like Jennifer Aniston on "Friends."
   Even more of TRWCT joined the Church of J.J. when he created ABC's hot-chick spy drama "Alias." "Alias" was definitely going to be Very Big, only it turned out that even when it aired after the Super Bowl the show still got only a middling rating, even though its star did not change her hair -- though she did dump her husband.
   But church membership never stopped growing. So naturally ABC suits asked Abrams to step in and save a new show it wanted to order that included a plane crash, an island and a big, scary monster.
   Miracles happen every day in the Church of J.J. For instance, although middle-aged women will not survive a plane crash on a remote island, miraculously all of the hot young ones will, as will all of the hot young men. Also surviving will be one young though fat male, one middle-aged man and one precocious child.
   Equally miraculous, the hot young women's bikinis will survive the crash and will be found in time for the promo shots, no matter how far they were flung upon impact, though their sensible shoes will be lost in the wreckage and they will have to pull sensible shoes off the feet of dead middle-aged women whose bodies are strewn around the crash site.
   Really, is it any wonder there are so many followers of the Church of J.J. among TRWCT?
   This morning, at Summer TV Press Tour 2004, surrounded by 11 hot young plane crash survivor-actors, plus the one young fat guy, the one middle-aged guy, the one precocious kid and a partridge in a pear tree, J.J. talked to his fans.
   One critic noted that the premise might cause a viewer to comment, "What a stupid show."
   But "Lost," the critic continued, "went way beyond 'that could never happen,' " and, he forecast, viewers will not say, "What a stupid show."
   "What," the critic wondered, "is the difference between those two kinds of shows, and how do you do it?"
   "I have no idea why anything doesn't work or does," J.J. responded calmly.
   "I think the idea is to take a premise that is maybe a B premise and, whether it's the spy world or characters who crash-land on an island, say, 'How do you do this A?' "
   Speaking of B premises, that big, scary monster seemed difficult for the critics to swallow. But, J.J. assured them, the monster is not the star. And though he said he understood their skepticism, he asked them to believe.
   "If you have a monster and it's, you know, you call it a monster, it's like, then it's sort of disposable and silly and feels kind of irrelevant or gimmicky. If you have something that represents terror and represents fear and represents sort of the darkness of this place, to me, that's incredibly valuable."
   "Lost" is not "Gilligan's Island," critics were assured, because guest stars will not be washed up on shore each week, though they will be featured in flashbacks to the survivors' precrash lives, J.J. explained.
   And "Lost" won't be like "Survivor" in that the big, scary monster won't devour one of the survivors each week, as it did in the pilot.
   What, then, is it? critics wondered aloud.
   "I've just got to say that the fact I don't know how to answer that question in a way that would satisfy anyone who's not seen the first few, six episodes of the show is why I'm so excited," J.J. replied.
   After nearly an hour of this, critics finally asked him to reveal whether this island is on Earth and whether Big Scary Monster had a master, to which J.J. replied: "I have to say, the fact that you would ask that question is one of the things that gets me excited. It's, like, you don't want to do a show that is so weird, you go, 'Oh, it's like this creepy science- fiction show only.'
   "But to me, if this show were on, I would watch it," he said.
   SOURCE: The Washington Post Permanent Link | 11:05 AM

   One of the great lessons of the network race: Don't count anyone out.
   CBS was limping along until, seemingly overnight, it found new vitality with the help of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Survivor." And now ABC may be about to pull itself out of a deep rut, which has seen the network stumbling from bad idea ("Threat Matrix") to bad idea ("Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital") for years. This week, as TV critics gather to assess the new fall season, the No. 4-rated network is pushing a new slate of scripted dramas that aren't just not awful, but are awfully good.
   "It's no secret to anyone that we haven't had a drama that has really broken out in the last few years," said Stephen McPherson, the new president of ABC prime-time entertainment. And with McPherson's guidance, the network has scheduled a cluster of series that are as unpredictable and colorful as its recent ones have been formulaic and generic. Indeed, its best shows -- "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" -- are original enough that they almost defy categorization....
   ..."Lost" is also the creation of one of TV's most imaginative storytellers: J.J. Abrams, the man behind the ever-inventive "Alias." Abrams and his co-executive producer, Damon Lindelof, have come up with a beautifully filmed drama that will be compared to "Survivor" and even "Gilligan's Island" but that deserves a category of its own.
   The two-hour pilot finds a large ensemble of strangers stranded on an island after a gruesome plane crash. There's lots of character drama afoot, of course, as the scripts will explore the society that arises out of the ashes. (The huge cast includes a beefed-up Matthew Fox from "Party of Five," Harold Perrineau from "Oz," and Dominic Monaghan from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.) But there's also a mythological element to the plot, as the castaways encounter supernatural mysteries including a monster. Lest it all sound too Michael Crichton-like, Abrams is quick to note, "It's not a dinosaur." And lest it all sound overly involved in an "X-Files" kind of way, Lindelof says, "The key is not to become a slave to the mythology."
   SOURCE: Boston Globe Permanent Link | 10:57 AM

   J.J. Abrams, co-creator of the upcoming ABC television series Lost, told SCI FI Wire that he wasn't excited about the premise of the show until he and executive producer Damon Lindelof added an element of mystery to it. "In fact, I didn't even like the premise," Abrams ( Alias) said during an interview at the network's fall press preview in Los Angeles. "I mean, the idea of a plane crash and people who land on an island, ... it wasn't very interesting to me. But Damon came in, and we started talking. And I started to think, '[What] if the island isn't just an island, and if there's a story about the island, and if it very slowly becomes about where they land and not just that they crash-landed?'"
   In Lost, Matthew Fox leads a large cast playing survivors of a devastating plane crash on a remote island. The survivors slowly realize that they're not alone on the mysterious island, which may harbor hostile creatures or worse. The cast includes Dominic Monaghan (The Lord of the Rings), Harold Perrineau (The Matrix Reloaded), Terry O'Quinn (Alias), Daniel Dae Kim (Angel) and Emilie de Ravin (Roswell), among others.
   In creating the tone of Lost, Abrams said that he and Lindelof were inspired by the works of Michael Crichton, who often mixes science fiction with science fact in his novels. "When [Crichton's] stuff works at its best, it's usually a story that takes you in through the characters and explains stuff sort of in a science-fact sort of way," Abrams said. "So by the time you get to the science fiction, you've been sort of initiated. And it felt to us that ... we can do the same and tell a story that's from the inside out about these characters, something that interests us, which is an aspect of science fiction, [and] not do a science-fiction series, but ... have a show that has a thread of that in the fabric of it. We need to do it in the beginning of the show and not, 'Oh, by the way, we're now turning this into something that also has science fiction.'"
   Abrams promised that each episode of Lost will offer small clues to the secret of the island. "We're doing things in order for people to go, 'Oh, that's what that is,'" he said. Lost premieres Sept. 22 and will air on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
   SOURCE: Sci Fi Wire Permanent Link | 10:54 AM

   The fantasy/adventure series "Lost," about plane crash victims landing on a strange island created by J.J. Abrams ("Felicity," "Alias"), is another winner.
   "Alias" co-star Greg Grunberg says he was happy when Abrams offered him a guest star role in the pilot because "Lost" films in Hawaii.
   "I thought, what a wonderful thing. I get to vacation in Hawaii and get paid for it," Grunberg says. "Of course, he failed to mention that I get yanked out of a plane by my head and brutally killed."
   Grunberg's "Alias" co-star, Berkeley's Carl Lumbly, says he's been hard at work at his other job: working on his home.
   "I had to remove mold from my basement," Lumbly says. "I'm now quite an authority on the subject."
   And you thought being an actor was all about limo rides and good times.
   SOURCE: Alameda Times-Star Permanent Link | 10:52 AM

   Let the production madness commence: Two Hawai'i-based TV series are starting production this morning, bringing to three the number of major network dramas shooting on O'ahu.
   NBC's Honolulu cop drama "Hawaii" is kicking off what producers hope will be a long series run with an early morning blessing by kahu Franklin Pao at its temporary Kawainui Park base camp.
   Meanwhile, ABC's survivor drama "Lost," starts shooting today near the Pali.
   "North Shore," Fox's hotel drama, got the early green light and has been shooting here for longer than a month.
   A fourth show, the WB's "Rocky Point," will likely join the fray. Producers are in town this week to see if a suitable location can be found on O'ahu, Maui or Kaua'i, with a tentative shooting schedule set to begin August 31.
   Both "Hawaii" and "Lost" are being shot on location while their respective soundstages are being built.
   "Hawaii" is retrofitting the old Hopaco building in Mapunapuna.
   "Lost" is leasing the old Xerox Building on N. Nimitz Highway.
   State film commissioner Donne Dawson said the show's producers and the property's owner, the Weinberg Foundation, are considering changing the name of the building out of sensitivity to the 1999 incident in which seven Xerox employees were gunned down by co-worker Byran Uyesugi.
   The ABC show follows a group of plane-crash survivors on a deserted island. Production designer Carlos Barbosa is overseeing the construction of a "cave" set, where the show's characters will take shelter.
   Executive producer Damon Lindelof, who arrived in Ho-nolulu yesterday afternoon, said the soundstage should be completed in five to seven weeks.
   Lindelof has said previously that a permanent soundstage was necessary to keep the filming on schedule.
   "Otherwise," he said in May, "we're a slave to the weather."
   Before this year, Hawai'i's only soundstage was a state-owned one at Diamond Head Film Studio. NBC's "Hawaii" used the facility to shoot its pilot, but "North Shore" took it over when it became the first of the Hawai'i-based shows to get picked up by its network.
   Lindelof said the three shows shooting on O'ahu have a "good working relationship" that includes a no-poaching understanding with regard to local crews.
   He said the addition of "Rocky Point" could be tricky.
   SOURCE: Honolulu Advertiser Permanent Link | 10:46 AM

   ...Now, a lot of people say they know where a show will be in five years. Five years is the old-school deadline for syndication. People in this town dream of syndication because it is the Holy Grail, not just the difference between a BMW and a Mercedes, but the difference between splashing your wealth around a bit and having a couple of summer homes while still having the staff at the Post Ranch Inn recognize your face from 100 yards.
   Nevertheless, the best-laid plans of mice and movers often get dragged out into the valley and shot behind the ear. It's hard to launch a hit, hard to stay on top of the Nielsens and hard to stay great. But a show with good genes that starts with well-mapped DNA has the best odds.
   So it was good to see that ABC, which will be playing the role of Lazarus next season, not only trotted out its surprising buzz shows for further investigation by the nation's critics but also that most of the shows held up under scrutiny. Two, in particular, stand out....
   ...Another promising drama on ABC, "Lost," takes a standard premise -- an airplane crash strands people on a remote island -- and gives it legs. The cast is enormous, but each character will be fully fleshed out and you won't be so comfortable categorizing them (are they good or bad?) for a while. The cast is diverse in various ways, too. There's a Korean couple who don't seem to speak English. There's a father with his son (and lost dog). There's a doctor, a fugitive, a squabbling brother and sister, a pregnant woman, a man who sits, ominously enough, away from everybody else. These people and their situations were thought out, with multiple overlapping storylines imagined.
   Also, this is no ordinary island. It's clear there's a Big Bad in the jungle. The pilot teases it, but creator J.J. Abrams says that's just so that if it appears in episode nine, you won't dismiss the idea of it as foolish. You know it's there. He'll get back to you. In the meantime, something is killed in the second episode that hints at strange goings-on indeed, completely aside from the Big Bad.
   Abrams and partner Damon Lindelof sat down and seriously thought about how to break free of typical castaway storytelling confines. If you've watched "Alias" at all you know two things: Abrams knows how to spin plates, but he also set up a template that doesn't make viewers demand airtight storytelling. But in "Lost," there's a much more defined road map, and, after the pilot, you immediately want another hour. And the true delight is that after that second hour, you want another one. It has almost everything to do with mystery, a feeling that the island is not just an island, that it has all kinds of possibilities (other people on it, the fact that it may not be anywhere on the original flight path). And the producers are going to tell stories in flashbacks -- a flexible, useful tool -- but they'll also be tweaking the format a bit by, say, getting a glimpse of the father and son while the flashback is ostensibly focusing on the Korean couple (that's just an example; it doesn't actually happen).
   In any case, Abrams and Lindelof didn't just sell a story about castaways. They sold a vision that stretches five years.
   With a lot of luck, "Lost" -- and "Desperate Housewives," too -- will get there.
   SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle Permanent Link | 10:40 AM

   Stephen McPherson, ABC's president of prime-time entertainment since April, is in his honeymoon period, both literally and figuratively.
   On a voyage with his new bride in Paris, McPherson appeared before TV critics at the summer press tour via satellite. Nobody minded, mostly because McPherson's at the helm of the strongest lineup of new series in years and there's no way he can mess the place up more than his predecessors.
   Many years have passed since ABC has been a real attraction. The network hasn't has a hit drama since the outgoing "NYPD Blue" premiered and its comedies have had the perfume of last week's tuna casserole.
   The former regime's attempt to become family friendly resulted in a series of pedestrian misfires on every front. Granted, there are a few of those this season in the guise of ABC's new comedies. "Rodney" might make it on the strength of Rodney Carrington's blue-collar appeal, but "Complete Savages," a mortal sin visited upon us in part by Mel Gibson, deserves to see the afterlife sooner rather than later.
   But most of the 2004-05 season shows signs of a drastic turnaround from the top down. McPherson has given the fourth place ABC exactly what it needs -- an extreme makeover. The trick will be persuading people to watch....
   ...ABC's cream is in its bigger ticket items, including one from "Crossing Jordan" supervising producer Damon Lindelof and J.J. Abrams, the conjurer behind "Alias." They've created "Lost," which takes the kind of attractive people you could only dream of sitting next to for hours on end and crashes them on a far-flung island.
   It gets better. There's a jungle on that island and it's hiding a monster.
   You'll have to trust Abrams; it looks much better than it sounds.
   "My favorite movies are movies in which, if you describe the premise, they're not very good," he said. "But they're executed in a way that you really care about the characters. ... I think the idea is to take a premise that is maybe a B premise and, you know, whether it's the spy world or characters who crash land on an island, and say, '... How do you do this so you actually care about the people?' To me, it's always at least trying to get into the characters first."
   That's a very tall order when there are more than 40 characters to "get into." From the interest "Lost" is already generating, though, Abrams has a lot of true believers in his corner. Good thing, too. The pilot was outrageously expensive, reflected in the high productions values and lush tropical setting.
   SOURCE: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Permanent Link | 10:35 AM

   Hey, look at this! The landscape this fall isn't all copycat reality shows.
   Two of ABC's new series, "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," are very original scripted dramas - which, in this climate, makes them both unusual and endangered.
   "Desperate Housewives," a comedy-drama about suburban women with secrets, comes from sitcom writer Mark Cherry, and includes a narrator from beyond the grave.
   "Lost," the story of airline passengers who survive a crash on a remote and mysterious island, comes from "Alias" creator J.J. Abrams. It includes elements of science fiction, "Twilight Zone"-style mysteries, and even a deadly creature lurking in the jungle.
   "My favorite movies," Abrams told TV writers yesterday, "are movies in which, if you describe the premise, they're not very good, but they're executed in a way that you really care about the characters."
   The examples Abrams supplied included "Jaws," "Die Hard," "Alien," "Back to the Future" and even "Tootsie."
   "So I think the idea is to take a premise that is maybe a 'B' premise," he continued, "whether it's a spy world [as in 'Alias'] or characters who crash-land on an island, and say, how do you do this 'A'? How do you do this so you absolutely care about the people?
   It's one reason Abrams and co-creator Damon Lindelof took such great care choosing their unusually large, 48-member cast.
   "There are a lot of upsides to this premise," Abrams said, "and there's one enormous downside, which is, apparently, you're stuck with the people forever. These are the people [on the island], and that's it."
   SOURCE: New York Daily News Permanent Link | 10:33 AM

   One good thing about being at the bottom — there is nowhere to go but up.
   But the fourth-rated underdog ABC has risen to the challenge, with the coming TV season's most impressive slate of new shows. Credit an all-new team of development executives headed up by Stephen McPherson, who made an appearance here at the annual critics' fall-season preview by satellite from Paris, where he is honeymooning.
   "The creative process is all about getting in business with the right people," he allowed. "It is about finding writers, directors, producers who you believe in, whether it's their vision, their writing, their acting, an idea, a piece of material ... it's about finding people who have vision and can execute."
   A quick look at some of the highlights of ABC's 2004-05 season — and the creative visionaries behind them:
   Lost: Another new ABC hour creating considerable buzz here is this airplane disaster epic, in which 48 survivors of a horrific crash awake on an uncharted jungle island to discover that their problems are just beginning.
   The massive cast of the Hawaii-shot series includes Lord Of The Rings hobbit Dominic Monaghan, veteran heavy Terry O'Quinn (The Stepfather), Naveen Andrews (The English Patient), Party Of Five's Matthew Fox, Harold Perrineau from Oz, Alberta-born former model Evangeline Lilly and a host of diverse and intriguing new faces.
   But again, the Lost name to be reckoned with is the one behind the scenes — co-creator/producer J.J. Abrams, the mind behind Alias.
   "We think J.J. brings an enormous vision and exciting kind of look to what otherwise could be just an `island show,'" enthuses McPherson.
   "What I like to do," explains Abrams, "is to take a premise that's maybe a `B' premise — castaways, spy stuff — and ask, `How do we do this?' And inevitably, it's all about getting into the characters."
   SOURCE: Toronto Star Permanent Link | 10:27 AM

   The creators of ABC's new drama "Lost" -- the ultimate antidote to "Gilligan's Island" -- said Tuesday they probably will have to tone down some parts of the castaway show.
   Series, which is generating plenty of buzz because of its often terrifying thrill-ride plotline, features 48 plane wreck survivors stranded on an island. Show comes from J.J. Abrams, creator of ABC's "Alias," and Damon Lindelof, creator of NBC's "Crossing Jordan."
   Speaking at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in L.A., Lindelof and Abrams said ABC hasn't asked them to make any edits. Pilot features frightening scenes of plane wreckage on the beach, along with a man-eating monster.
   "There are going to be certain things that my guess is we're going to have to adjust, not just for the timeslot, but to air at all," Abrams told critics.
   "I mean there are going to be things we're going to have to sort of adjust and imply more than depict. But what's been nice about what we're doing is that the show -- the scripts that have been written and the track we're on, they sort of knew what they were getting, and that's the slot that they gave us," Abrams said.
   While he said he's obsessed with the hit CBS reality series "Survivor," Lindelof said "Lost" isn't like "Survivor" at all.
   "I love the show. But this is a drama. You know, at the end of the day, what are our stories going to be? Jeff Probst isn't going to be walking out of the jungle and telling them what to do," Lindelof said.
   No external pressure
   With Washington in an uproar over indecency on the airwaves, the TV biz doesn't want to attract attention from parents' groups accusing the nets of airing unsuitable content in time periods when children may be watching. Still, nothing Abrams or Lindelof said suggested they are feeling any external pressure to make changes.
   "Lost," from ABC sister TV studio Touchstone Television, is being shot in Hawaii.
   SOURCE: Yahoo! News Permanent Link | 9:52 AM

   We've heard rumors here and there, but now it has been confirmed. Lost will be featured in this year's Comic-Con International! Here's the official description from Comic-Con:
   10:00-11:00 ABC’s New Fall Series Lost— Come to the screening of the new pilot by Alias creator JJ Abrams! Join the actors, producers & writers of this new ABC series debuting in the Fall. Starring actors Matthew Fox and Dominic Monahan who have established their fan following from appearing in TV’s Party of Five and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy respectively, and Evangeline Lilly, a radiant actress who is the female lead in Lost. Fans of Buffy and Angel will enjoy seeing what writer and producer David Fury is doing now on Lost and fans of comic books and the award winning Batman: The Animated Series will enjoy a discussion with Lost writer Paul Dini. Also, please join executive producers of Lost, Damon Lindeloff and Bryan Burk, for this sneak peek into the first hour of the pilot of Lost and a interview and Q&A session following! Room 6CDEF
   This will be done on Saturday, July 24. We hope to have representatives on-site to give a report on what went down that day. If you're going, please email us! Permanent Link | 5:54 AM

   Emilie de Ravin (" Roswell") has been added as a series regular for ABC's "Lost." New drama, from J.J. Abrams, is skedded to air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. starting Sept. 22. Aussie thesp recently wrapped feature "Brick" and Media 8's "Santa's Slay."
   SOURCE: Art of Being Permanent Link | 11:03 PM

   Television has entered Bizarro World -- and not because it will air a series about swapping wives in the fall.
   No, disparate events are combining to make the future a lot more murky than it already is. First, efforts to generate a year-round season -- headed by Fox and NBC -- have failed spectacularly and, second, that failure has, in turn, reinforced the decadeslong tradition of eagerly looking forward to the fall to see what's new (and better).
   But as old habits apparently die hard, their good friends are harder to break. Consider that as television critics from across the country and Canada are poring over fall's offering, something unique and, frankly, disconcerting, has happened: UPN and ABC are getting the best buzz.
   You read that right. The first is a network that, by rights -- and Nielsen numbers -- should have been shut down two seasons ago at a generous minimum. And the second recently fired its top two programmers and realized that fourth-place finishes are lousy but the shows that got it there are even worse....
   ...ABC, which has repelled buzz like mace to the face, is a lot harder to figure out. UPN just got better. It made better shows. But much of what ABC will present in the fall was given the green light from the outgoing network programmers who, conventional wisdom suggests, drove the network aimlessly until they were fired.
   But new entertainment president Steve McPherson used to head up Touchstone television, which had a hand in making a lot of the good new ABC shows. So perhaps his first critical role at ABC was making the decision to keep the series he knew were good -- because he made them -- and scrap the garbage. That latter attribute wasn't so keen among the outgoing executives.
   Of course, making a good show is only half the battle. A network has to believe in it and stick with it, even when the masses have not discovered it. This is why, despite the apparent creative flame-out at Fox, at least "Arrested Development" is coming back, and until that show's demise, Fox has the funniest sitcom on network television.
   What McPherson and ABC have, however, is far more shocking. They have good shows. They have fun shows. When your old slogan is, "We've got mostly lame shows, but they've got just enough viewers to keep them alive," well, consider this a revolution at Mickey's place.
   A new drama, "Desperate Housewives," is deliciously fun, potentially black humored and already laced with wicked satire. It's another high-buzz series that begs for more episodes.
   But it doesn't end there. J.J. Abrams, the man who brought "Alias" to ABC and made it OK to like an action series that doesn't make much sense, is back at it with "Lost," a drama about an airliner crash that leaves people cast away on an island, with possibly weird and dangerous animals milling about. It's one of those shows that has holes like Swiss cheese and yet you can't get enough of it, a la "Alias."
   SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle Permanent Link | 10:54 PM

   Next week in Los Angeles, several new network honchos will offer glowing presentations of their primetime wares for 2004-05 before a gathering of TV critics. Each network chief can be expected to explain - with help from charts, graphs, TelePrompTers and Hollywood star power - why his or her shows are superior.
   In their inaugural news conferences, the incoming network presidents will celebrate their new comedies and dramas as sales tools, if not as entertainment offerings. And they will praise their recently dumped predecessors.
   At ABC in particular, where the pilots look better than they have in years, the executives crowing about their lineups can't take credit for them. The current ABC bosses inherited the schedules they are now selling.
   If they do not improve the ratings, they too will be history by the time the 2005-06 season is unveiled.
   Here's a network-by-network look at the suit shuffle.
   ABC
   ABC's two top executives were booted by parent Disney this spring, sending a message of continued chaos at the lagging network. Chairman Lloyd Braun and president Susan Lyne were fired. His departure was expected, hers was not.
   Lyne's claim to fame was keeping "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" running after John Ritter's death. She acknowledged putting too many reality shows on the air, admitted she was embarrassed about "Are You Hot?" and left the network in a distant fourth place.
   ABC Cable Networks president Anne Sweeney steps in to lead the struggling ABC Television Network. Steve McPherson of Disney's Touchstone Television becomes president of ABC Primetime Entertainment.
   ABC has some of the most promising pilots this year, notably the clever soap "Desperate Housewives," from the writer of "Melrose Place"; a drama called "Lost," a sort of "Lord of the Flies" concept about the survivors of a plane crash, from J.J. Abrams ("Felicity," "Alias"); and "Blind Justice," from Steven Bochco ("NYPD Blue"). All were developed on the Lyne-Braun watch.
   Additionally, the reality series they launched, "Wife Swap," is touted as ABC's next possible franchise. "Husband Swap" and "Boss Swap" are already in development.
   Best pilot: "Lost."
   SOURCE: The Denver Post Permanent Link | 10:43 PM