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Interview With David Fury

Starbreaker

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Cool interview, writer of 'Walkabout' , 'Solitary' and 'Numbers

Lostpedia: Speaking of the Numbers, who came up with them? What is their origin, and why those numbers rather than others? Whose decision was it to drop in references to these numbers in subsequent episodes as easter eggs for the fans?
J.J., Damon and I met at some restaurant on our day off to break that episode. Hurley winning the lottery was Damon’s idea. But I believe the “Numbers” and their importance was J.J.’s. When I started writing the episode, I already figured to use numbers that had been heard on the show… 4 (number of years Locke was in wheelchair); 8, 15 (Flight 815), etc. When I confirmed my number choices with Damon, I was still missing the last number. I had thought to make it “42” (an homage to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Answer to the Ultimate Question). When Damon had the same idea, that clinched it. It was my idea to have the numbers engraved on the hatch at the end of the episode. After that, I can only assume Damon is the easter egg dropper.

Lostpedia: Was time-travel ever mentioned while you worked on “Lost”? Do you know how long the idea has existed?
There was an exchange (pitched by J.J. when he and I broke the story) in an early draft of “Solitary” when Rousseau tells Sayid she had been part of a research team. Sayid asks her what they were researching. She replies: “Time.” The network saw that draft and asked us to remove the line. They were very timid about anything that smacked of Sci-Fi during the first season. I can only assume they’ve come around.



Lostpedia: The Whispers featured right at the end of “Solitary”. Do you know what they are?
I can’t tell you what they are now, but I can tell you what they WERE. They were supposed to be the Others, lurking in the jungle. At that time, we hadn’t yet settled on what the Others would be. Since they were undefined, I had imagined they were going to be more feral, gone native… One might say “Reaver-ish.” (I wouldn’t, but one might.) I just didn’t imagine they were going to be spirit-gum, fake beard wearing, boat driving, faux hillbillies... as done in the season finale. My bad.
 
Interesting. So Danielle's team originally was stated to have researched time. I can only imagine that's still the intention, but the reference merely not present in "Solitary."
 
I remember hearing this about 'Solitary' before now way back when it aired, but interesting to see it brought up again nevertheless, especially now that time travel seems to have become a massive part of the ongoing mystery. Nice to see they had a lot of this stuff planned early on, even if it seems that The Others weren't originally has well defined in the grand scheme of things. Or weren't they? The whispers are definitely connected to them somehow, so I guess time will tell.
 
I've always thought the 'others' seemed too contrived - hated the entire season 3. Now I know why.
 
Even if he seems to have begun to doubt that the Others are the whispers, I think they still are (you heard them whispering before they fought the mercenaries, for example). It could be intentional, though (a way to cause panic among the people they're trying to fight).
 
The entire interview is pretty interesting, indicating, yes, in the 1st season they were indeed just making it up as they go along.

Also, I thought The Others were incredibly weak and uninteresting in Season 3 as well, almost torpedoed the season with their boring nonsense. Sounds like the writers were trying too hard to "reverse expectations"... ha you expect them to be savages? Well they are civilized and BORING!

Sounds like they basically made up everything as they went along in S1, and then at some point in S2 began planning up a story, using their S1 bits as starting points.
 
Sayid asks her what they were researching. She replies: “Time.”

Ironically, it wouldn't have been as cool that way. Kept us in the dark longer and why not have Danielle et al be mere marine biologists who stumbled across the island like the Losties. They still are marine biologists, aren't they? The "cover story" has never been blown on the show that I recall.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have much but the broadest strokes planned in S1. Just by watching S1 you can tell there's a lot of tap dancing going on. There's very few revelations about the Island, you don't see any evidence of Dharma aside from one hatch, the Others barely appear, etc. They basically only had the character stories worked out.

However in the DVD commentaries they did say that they knew Des was down in the hatch at the end of the first season, so that's something, anyway.
 
I get the impression that they don't plan a detail without at least a couple of possible ideas for what that detail could mean (meaning they won't stick a four-toed statue and think of what it is later). But they do plan out things in broad strokes and change the details later.
 
I think from the third season on they knew the exact details of where they were going. It was the first year that things were extremely hazy; on the one hand they set up Adam and Eve for time travel, on the other hand they didn't know what the Others or the Whispers were.

Also in season two, Ben was only supposed to be around for a couple episodes. So I guess in S3 they would have introduced a new Others leader character.
 
Or all the writers didn't know what the others were, etc. for fear of them leaving the show and blabbing. I'm guessing the staff they have now will be there to the end for sure and would likely face hefty fines if they were to quit and talk.
 
Or all the writers didn't know what the others were, etc. for fear of them leaving the show and blabbing. I'm guessing the staff they have now will be there to the end for sure and would likely face hefty fines if they were to quit and talk.
Yeah, that's how I read the interview, too. The producers have demonstrating in interviews that they have had a general outline worked out since the beginning but have been working and reworking the details throughout the series. And it's possible a regular writer on the show isn't privy to the full outline.

As for Ben, it's possible that Michael Emerson's character evolved into the already established (in the producers' mind and outline) leader and they shifted things so they could keep Emerson.
 
Some time last week the LA Times had an article about the fourth season finale and in the interview Cuse and Lindelof said they starting picking who would be members of the Oceanic Six in season 2. They picked Jack, Kate and Aaron back then and picked the other three after they negotiated the end point of the series with ABC. So they do plan ahead. I wonder if they kept that idea away from the other writers until it was time to put the plan into motion.
 
Hmmm...if that's true, then they've been planning on separating Claire and Aaron for sometime now. I wonder how that'll play out, especially in regards to the "raise by another" theme.
 
Funny. I never thought of The Others as being either feral or boring and normal. I figured they were somehow supernatural to the point where a normal person couldn't really understand them - which is why they went after the "special" members of the crash survivors - like Walt.

I guess I was wrong.
 
Hmmm...if that's true, then they've been planning on separating Claire and Aaron for sometime now. I wonder how that'll play out, especially in regards to the "raise by another" theme.

Another or an other?
 
The fact that she couldn't have given the baby away for adoption to the people in Australia who wanted him indicates that it is "another." Also, Hurly's line to Jack ("You're not supposed to raise him") suggests that it can't be another person (at least not Aaron's uncle). Besides, just because Rousseau and the Losties call them others doesn't technically make it their name (a minor point, but still, they've been called Natives and Hostiles as well).
 
Yeah, the only reason why anyone calls them the Others is because of Danielle. And we all know how loony she is. ;)
 
If Claire's future self thinks of that group as 'the others', the psychic would (presumably) have picked up on that and thus, also referred to one of them as 'an other'
 
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