Image courtesy of the LA Times
As it turned out, I watched the next (and penultimate!) episode of LOST in its entirety last night. I’m not going to to write a single word about it. Before I recount the events of the evening, I just want to say that it was an unbelievable experience, and one of the highlights of 2010 so far for me. It began with a quick introduction of Damon and Carlton by Barry Jossen of ABC. Before they took the stage, a letter was read aloud (written to Damon and Carlton) that happened to be written by LOST fan George Lucas. It was a nice, touching way to open what was really a celebration of television’s greatest modern program.
Image courtesy of USA Today
Damon and Carlton spoke about their experiences working on LOST, the music of Michael Giacchino, and introduced some “special guests” for the evening, cast members who were in attendance for the event: Little Ben, Cassidy (Sawyer’s fling? Mother to his child?), Doctor Leslie Arzt, Pierre Chang, Ethan, Rousseau, Boone, Rose, Charlotte, Farraday, Richard Alpert, WALT!, Michael (who looked dapper in an all-white suit), Man In Black, Penny, Desmond, Ben, Jin, Hurley, Sawyer. Nate and I were betting who would get the loudest ovation. I suggested Jorge Garcia, but to my ears it sounded like Josh Holloway was clearly the favorite. Lots of women in the audience even stood to cheer and holler for him.
From there, Michael Giacchino conducted 7 arrangements from the show. Before he began, Damon and Carlton mentioned how during the first season the characters all wrote messages they were going to put in a bottle and send off into the ocean. The writing staff actually wrote letters for all the background characters (aka the “red shirts”) as a way to further comprehend character motivations across the board, not just in the minds of the people we were introduced as main characters at the beginning of the show. Between each piece Giacchino conducted, a different cast members came out and read — I believe they said only for the second time ever — those messages from the bottle. Jin read one, Ben read one, Penny read one, Hurley read one, and Richard Alpert read two. The arrangement for the evening’s program was: “Lost Main Title Theme” (which sounded stunning), “Hollywood and Vines”, “Oceanic Six”, “Temple Of Doom”, “Life And Death”, “The Tangled Web”, “Parting Words”. They showed a pretty distracting montage of images from the show behind the orchestra, which Tom and I felt took away from the performance. When they played “Parting Words,” they showed a video of the raft launch at the end of season one. I thought that worked much better than still images, but it still wasn’t optimal for an orchestral concert. Oh yeah, and as an encore Giacchino conducted his Oscar/Grammy winning theme from Up while wearing a personalized DHARMA jumpsuit.
As the musical portion of the night ended, Damon and Carlton came back out and introduced a handful of writers and producers integral to the success of LOST. They spoke briefly about each person, Elizabeth Sarnoff, Jean Higgins, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and director Jack Bender. Jack Bender said a few words about directing the finale and how emotional the experience turned out to be. Kitsis and Horowitz spoke about writing the penultimate episode. Then they all left the stage and “What They Died For” was screened.
It was a surreal, unexpectedly awesome experience watching with a concert hall filled with fans, cast and crew. I’m a stickler for silence when I’m watching LOST, but I was happy that everyone was quiet throughout the show, laughing and cheering at all the right moments. It must have felt amazing to have worked on that episode and heard the response from the crowd as it aired for the first time. You guys are going to be super-impressed with this episode. I think we decided that it’s far-and-away the best of Season 6, and probably a top-10 all-time episode. Nate said top-5 but I think that’s a stretch. We’ll debate it in a few days…
And a bonus awesome celebrity sighting afterwards as we snuck out of the hall quickly and joined the line to buy merchandise: Aaron Paul from “Breaking Bad” walked right by us. I called out to him and said hi, and that I liked the show. Nate asked if he was holding any meth, to witch Aaron responded “Always.” Then, rather than simply walking away he took a moment to ask what we thought of the evening. He agreed with us that it was awesome or amazing or one of those adjectives I’ve already used four of five times to describe the experience.
Until Tuesday night…may the anticipation kill you all!
