Lost and (hopefully) found

And then...

Silence.

White light.

Nothing.

Everything.

The unknown.

And then...

Well, hopefully, that's what Tuesday night will tell us, when TV's most confoundingly addictive series, Lost, begins its sixth and final season.

"The season premiere picks up right after the (fifth-season) finale," executive producer Carleton Cuse told a roomful of wide-eyed TV critics during ABC's portion of the U.S. networks' winter press tour in Los Angeles. "And we really don't want to say too much about it.

"We've obviously been very circumspect about the sixth season, because there was this big cliffhanger. Juliet hits the bomb. There's a white flash. What happened?"

For a show that has played so fast and loose with its storylines, its characters, its sense of time/space reality and its underlying mythology during a handful of alternatingly fascinating and frustrating seasons, it would appear anything is possible.

The show's producers, led by Cuse and series co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, have insisted for years that they know exactly how Lost is going to end, right down to its final on-screen image.

But they're willing to admit that the overall identity of the series has changed significantly as its storylines and characters have evolved, from the original crash of Oceanic Flight 815 to those rogue jungle polar bears to the mysterious and deadly black smoke, to the emergence of The Others and the rise of Benjamin Linus, to the shift from flashbacks to flash-forwards and, finally, to having the characters actually travel through time.

"There isn't really a completely definitive answer," Cuse explained. "I mean, we came up with the final image of the show a long time ago, back when we were first plotting out the mythology of the first season, and then we started adding elements to that as we went along... And obviously, the end is not yet written, and there are certain sort of mythological, architectural elements that are intact for that ending, but a lot of character stuff will get worked out as we go along. That's part of the discovery process of writing."

Take, for instance, the emergence of Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) as one of the Lost narrative's most powerful and important players. Originally added as a bit player to advance The Others' storyline, Emerson's enigmatic performance as Ben quickly persuaded the show's producers that he had to be given more to do.

"It's a fun process," said Cuse, "because we sort of have a concept of where we're going to end the show, but there is still the process of executing it and there is still the process of discovery, particularly on a character level, that will come into play as we finish the show."

This much is known. Lost will return this Tuesday (8 p.m., ABC and CTV) with a two-hour season premiere and will conclude on May 18 with a two-hour series finale; in between, 14 hour-long episodes will air without reruns or pre-emption.

And if the reactions of cast members are any indication, Tuesday's opener will do a lot -- or not -- to get the show's fans back up to speed.

"The premiere is definitely, like, 'What? Wait! Let me read that part again,'" said Jorge Garcia, who plays Lost's star-crossed lottery winner, Hurley. "'What?'"

"I think I read it about three times before it actually made sense," said Emilie de Ravin, who portrays Australian castaway mom Claire Littleton. "It totally does, but (it was) just getting my mind wrapped back into it.

"I think it does it in such a great, thought-provoking way that it really draws you in more for the episodes after that -- it's as confusing as it always has been, but not in a way that you're sort of torn away from it. It brings you in more. And I think it finishes up, in a good way, where it ended last season, too. And it's hard to bring people back after such a long hiatus, with a show that you really need to watch every episode."

When they met with the press during this whirlwind mini-vacation from their intense final-season shooting schedule in the jungles of Hawaii, Lost's cast members admitted that their work these days is as much an exercise in nostalgia as it is a search for series-ending closure.

"There's a lot of camaraderie on set now," said Josh Holloway, whose bad-boy character, James (Sawyer) Ford has enjoyed one of the series' most complex evolutions. "It feels a lot like the magic of the first season. That was an incredibly magical year; the whole experience, of course, has been incredible, but this year everyone's really getting that sense of camaraderie and nostalgia. It's just been fabulous."

While the show's actors, producers and crew may find happiness and closure and open skies toward the future in Lost's final few weeks of production, it's unlikely that viewers will finish their Lost journey with all the answers found.

"All we can do is put our best foot forward," said Lindelof. "We do feel like the worst ending we could possibly provide everyone who has invested this amount of time and energy into watching the show is the safe ending -- you know, the ending that is sort of like, 'What's going to be the most appealing to the most people?'

"There is certainly a hope on all our parts that everybody will universally love the ending that we put forward, but I don't think it would be Lost if there wasn't an ongoing and active debate amongst the people who watch the show as to whether or not it was a good ending."

Added Cuse: "Obviously, not every question is going to be answered, so obviously, some people are going to be upset that those particular questions don't get resolved. We felt that if we tried to just answer questions, it would be very pedantic. And apart from that, we also embrace this notion that there's a fundamental sense of mystery that we all have in our lives.

"And certainly, that is a huge part of the lives of these characters, and to sort of demystify everything down to the last little midi-chlorian (a Star Wars term for microscopic life forms) of it all would be a mistake. So I think there will be, hopefully, a healthy cocktail of answers, mystery, good character resolutions and some surprises."

Well, then.

Lost enough for you?

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

LOST LINES

Random final-season thoughts from the cast of ABC's Lost:

"As I was walking out onto this stage... I was whispering to my cast members, 'I am going to cry like a baby when this show ends.' It's become so nostalgic for us to look back over six years, and to have grown up together and grown up in front of (the public) together. It's been so intense that for it to come to an end is going to be life-changing."

-- Evangeline Lilly (Kate Austen), on meeting with the press to discuss Lost's last season.

"Working on Lost has upset most of my previous ideas about actor preparation. It's actually better, working on this show, to be in the dark, just groping around a bit, and it's nice not to be burdened with the secrets."

-- Michael Emerson (Ben Linus), on the producers' habit of offering storyline details to cast members on an "as-needed" basis.

"Certain places that we shoot, it's like, 'Wow, I haven't been here since Season 3.' Right now, I'm very appreciative and it's very precious."

-- Jorge Garcia (Hurley), on shooting the final season in Hawaii.

"It's been enlightening, it's been an honour and it's been scary. All of that. The growth of Sawyer, and the things he was asked to do, especially with the Juliet thing. I really thought the audience might reject that softer side of Sawyer, so... my work as an actor was to walk that line, discovering his humanity but being kind of salty about it. That's been an amazing journey.

"Personally, what can I say? My God, I've had so many life-changing experiences since the show began -- I've gotten married, I've got my first home, validation as an actor, a baby. So I can't say enough about that. It's just been quite a phenomenal journey, and an honour."

-- Josh Holloway (Sawyer), on living with Lost.

"We're going to be unemployed actors... I think, 'OK, this was a great job (but) I'll be an unemployed actor.' I'll be looking for a job, as far as the future goes. It's a consistent state of being for a professional actor, in my experience."

-- Terry O'Quinn (John Locke), on Lost's legacy and life beyond the island.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 30, 2010 C1