Spinning Plates

EVERY DISCUSSION of "Hey, um, you think they know what they're doing on LOST?" seems to get queasier and queasier as the eps tick down. The NYTimes tackles the subject again, with Lindelof offering answers that might evince a few nods from anybody who's ever been in a writer's room, and puzzled head scratches from everybody else:

There’s so much organizational power, especially now. The less episodes there are, the more you have to go, like, “Oh my God, we have to do this. When are we going to do that?” We always get asked iterations of the same question which is, “Are you making it up as you go along?” It’s a very complicated question to answer, but ultimately, we have all the story but we don’t know what order we’re going to tell it in. So it’s like “Pulp Fiction.”

There was always an option in past seasons which was, “Let’s hold it for next year. I don’t think they’re ready for that,” or “That’ll have more emotional impact later.” And then there are also actor deals to contend with – what’s the stable of regulars you can maintain at any one time? Next year, I feel like for the first time we’ll have the entire box of crayons to color with, without having to worry about the mechanics. All our ducks are in a row.

I think one of our biggest concerns is reaching the climax of the story too soon – you have to time it right, you have to walk that line between giving a steady supply of story and character pathos and mysteries being answered along the way, so that the audience doesn’t feel like it all comes in one big chunk. But then if you do it too soon, they kind of feel like, “I got everything that I cared about halfway through the season, so why am I still watching?” And it’s terrifying. Finally, we’re going to do it. There’s no excuses, we don’t get to say, “We didn’t get to end the show on our own terms. They kept us on the air three years longer than we wanted to be. Blah blah blah.” It’s like “Galactica,” you have to say, “Here it is, do you like it? I hope you like it.” There’s a lot of second-guessing going on. I think the show will end exactly as it began. There’ll be people who love it, there’ll be people who hate it. There’ll be people who’ll be confused by it, there’ll be people who love being confused. It’ll end on its own terms.