When did the writers figure stuff out?

[D Man]

I don't think they ever quite figured out what they were doing with Walt, except that the actor playing him had suddenly grown too big and they had to write him out.

Heh, it sure looks that way, doesn't it? Barring Walt's miraculous return, or somehow shoehorning in someone saying "So this was the deal with the kid" I'm not optimistic anything will be happening on that front. As mysteries go it's minor, but when you look back and see huge swaths of the first several seasons driven by WAAAAAAAALT it's kind of jarring when re-watching to hear about him being special and appearing in places he's not supposed to be and so on, then completely dropped.

Of course, then again, Jack and Ana-Lucia were gonna build an army.

 

[Hober Mallow]

There is, of course, Walt's final prophecy from last season, where he saw Locke surrounded by people who wanted to hurt him. Is that something specific that has yet to happen? Or was it more of a general thing that we can say has already happened, i.e. Ilana's group and now Jack and the others on the island wanting to stop Flocke?

 

[chrisspringob]

Here's a recent interview with Damon and Carlton in which they admit they had no idea what the story was on such fundamental aspects of the mythology as Jacob, the Smoke Monster, and the Others back in Season 1:

http://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2010/05/yet-another-damon-and-carlton-interview.html#axzz0neeqk26G

Tonight's episode, "Across the Sea," focuses on Jacob and the Man In Black. When were these guys first conceived?

Lindelof: We had to start talking about the overall mythology of the island in greater detail in the cracks between the first and second seasons, before our characters went down into the hatch. That conversation basically kicked out into the other major arc of the second season. Which was: Who are the Others? Who are these other people on the island, and who was their leader? And who was he receiving his instructions from? By the time the show got into its third season, we started to hear references to this character, Jacob. And I think it's safe to say that those conversations started then.

 

[Hunter X]

This part is pretty important too:

We have a few questions from Vulture readers. TheCheese wants to know if there are any questions you hear a lot from fans that you wish they would stop asking?
Lindelof: Well, you know, they're entitled to ask any question they want. But ... it is hard to answer the 50th iteration of "When did you know this? When did you figure this part out?" The idea of having to explain our creative process as this sort of time-scale thing, so that people could look at it and say, "Oh, ah-ha, this is what they knew when they were making the pilot. This is what they didn't know," sort of takes the magic out of it and the fun out of it for us in the creative process. It makes us feel more like we're in a senate hearing as opposed to, "Hey, we were doing our best to make the best show that we possibly could," in a very short period of time, at first, and this is it. And no matter how many times we answer that question, it feels like there's just a cynicism that emerges in terms of, you know, I feel like you guys are trying to put one over on us.

There are a lot of ways to write a serial show, but even in the situation where a showrunner had the entire thing plotted out from beginning to end, five years long, it never quite turns out the way the conceived of at first. Yes, I'm looking at you, Babylon 5.

And that is really the most extreme case I've ever heard of for such planning. Pretty much every other serial show I've heard of has consisted of the writers having an overall general idea of where the show may go, some specific things they want to throw in there, and a whole lot of improvisation along the way. Yeah, sometimes it results in plot holes and inconsistencies, but the nature of telling a story over several years is that you're going to have to deal with outside factors changing your story. Some elements you like and you decide to focus more on, some don't work out like you thought (Mr. Eko, Nikki and Paulo) for whatever reason and you're forced to drop them.

It's much like how many people would write a novel--working from a loose outline, discovering new things about the story you like and things you should drop as you go--only when the first draft of a novel is done, the author gets to revise it and tighten it up, several times, before the final product is released. In serial TV, we're seeing the first draft of the overall story as it happens because there's no way to go back over the show and trim out the stuff you didn't need after all and clean up some of those plot holes.

In short, I do agree with Lindeloft here when he feels that when fans ask them this question, it's not because they really want to know, but it's because they want to say "aha! You didn't know this all along!" and outsmart the writers in some way. The creative process is way more complicated than that, and we've seen examples of this over and over.


​

 

[sidious618]

They knew from the beginning that the smoke monster was a person. Lindelof said that he and Abrams talked about how they wanted the question to be "Who is the smoke monster?" instead of "What is the smoke monster?" Whether or not they knew it'd look like smoke is anyone's guess.

You heard the sounds of the monster when Christian appeared in "White Rabbit" so they clearly had a clue then.

The black and white motif was there, too, and Lindelof said they always knew those two colors would be personified by two people.

Then they started building as season one went along. Between one and two they hashed out the overall arc. During three they figured out plot wise how they'd reveal everything.

 

[chrisspringob]

This part is pretty important too:

We have a few questions from Vulture readers. TheCheese wants to know if there are any questions you hear a lot from fans that you wish they would stop asking?
Lindelof: Well, you know, they're entitled to ask any question they want. But ... it is hard to answer the 50th iteration of "When did you know this? When did you figure this part out?" The idea of having to explain our creative process as this sort of time-scale thing, so that people could look at it and say, "Oh, ah-ha, this is what they knew when they were making the pilot. This is what they didn't know," sort of takes the magic out of it and the fun out of it for us in the creative process. It makes us feel more like we're in a senate hearing as opposed to, "Hey, we were doing our best to make the best show that we possibly could," in a very short period of time, at first, and this is it. And no matter how many times we answer that question, it feels like there's just a cynicism that emerges in terms of, you know, I feel like you guys are trying to put one over on us.

There are a lot of ways to write a serial show, but even in the situation where a showrunner had the entire thing plotted out from beginning to end, five years long, it never quite turns out the way the conceived of at first. Yes, I'm looking at you, Babylon 5.

And that is really the most extreme case I've ever heard of for such planning. Pretty much every other serial show I've heard of has consisted of the writers having an overall general idea of where the show may go, some specific things they want to throw in there, and a whole lot of improvisation along the way. Yeah, sometimes it results in plot holes and inconsistencies, but the nature of telling a story over several years is that you're going to have to deal with outside factors changing your story. Some elements you like and you decide to focus more on, some don't work out like you thought (Mr. Eko, Nikki and Paulo) for whatever reason and you're forced to drop them.
​

I get all that. As I mentioned upthread, my problem isn't with changing particular character arcs. It's not with them not knowing what the Others are going to do in Season 5 back when they're writing Season 1. It's with them not knowing what the Others *are* in Season 1. Just having them doing a bunch of random things like kidnapping children and figuring "Well, we'll figure out why they're doing this later."

I don't think it's too much to ask for writers to have a firm grasp on the background and motivations of the characters they're *currently* writing. Not what they're going to do years from now, but what they're currently doing. I realize that that doesn't happen on virtually any other TV show with long term story arcs either, but that's why most shows with story arcs end up as a jumbled mess.​

 

[gh4chiefs]

Stumbled accross this story which pretty much confirms what I've figured all along.

http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/2009/...ld-have-progressed-straight-from-the-creator/

“I love the show [Lost], and Damon [Lindelof] and Carlton [Cuse]. I did a lot with Grey’s Anatomy during the first couple of years of Grey’s, and that first year of Grey’s was the first year of Lost, and I did a lot of dinners with ABC buyers with those two guys and Shonda Rhimes from Grey’s. Carlton is a really bright and funny guy, and he gets up, and the first question out of the foreign buyers’ mouths is ‘where’s it going to go? Do you know where it’s going to go?’, and he said ‘I haven’t a clue.’ And then he sits down across from me at the dinner table, and I remember saying ‘Damon, come on, that’s bullshit, right? I mean, you know where it’s going to go.’ And he says, ‘Jim, I haven’t a clue. I’m four episodes out; that’s all I know.’

 

[Hober Mallow]

Stumbled accross this story which pretty much confirms what I've figured all along.

http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/2009/...ld-have-progressed-straight-from-the-creator/

“I love the show [Lost], and Damon [Lindelof] and Carlton [Cuse]. I did a lot with Grey’s Anatomy during the first couple of years of Grey’s, and that first year of Grey’s was the first year of Lost, and I did a lot of dinners with ABC buyers with those two guys and Shonda Rhimes from Grey’s. Carlton is a really bright and funny guy, and he gets up, and the first question out of the foreign buyers’ mouths is ‘where’s it going to go? Do you know where it’s going to go?’, and he said ‘I haven’t a clue.’ And then he sits down across from me at the dinner table, and I remember saying ‘Damon, come on, that’s bullshit, right? I mean, you know where it’s going to go.’ And he says, ‘Jim, I haven’t a clue. I’m four episodes out; that’s all I know.’

I don't see how this confirms anything. To this day they joke that they have no clue where the story is going. They say stuff like this during podcasts all the time.

Here's a recent interview with Damon and Carlton in which they admit they had no idea what the story was on such fundamental aspects of the mythology as Jacob, the Smoke Monster, and the Others back in Season 1:

http://spoilerslost.blogspot.com/2010/05/yet-another-damon-and-carlton-interview.html#axzz0neeqk26G

Tonight's episode, "Across the Sea," focuses on Jacob and the Man In Black. When were these guys first conceived?

Lindelof: We had to start talking about the overall mythology of the island in greater detail in the cracks between the first and second seasons, before our characters went down into the hatch. That conversation basically kicked out into the other major arc of the second season. Which was: Who are the Others? Who are these other people on the island, and who was their leader? And who was he receiving his instructions from? By the time the show got into its third season, we started to hear references to this character, Jacob. And I think it's safe to say that those conversations started then.

This was pretty much my guess, that during season three they hashed out an outline of the rest of the series. Which is more planning than most shows get. I mean, Michael Piller used to boast like it was a good thing that he and the writing staff never had a clue about how the season-ending Trek cliffhangers were going to be resolved.

 

[gh4chiefs]

I don't see how this confirms anything. To this day they joke that they have no clue where the story is going. They say stuff like this during podcasts all the time.

Well I take them at their word and if that's not enough, the mess that this show is, is confirmation enough for me. They've been good with INDIVIDUAL episodes, and they've gotten some amazing performances from their cast, but putting together an overall story that makes sense? Not so much.

But hey if you want to believe they had it all figured out all along as opposed to winging it, knock yourself out.

 

[Hober Mallow]

But hey if you want to believe they had it all figured out all along as opposed to winging it, knock yourself out.

Those aren't the only two possiblities.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

Carlton Cuse said in a recent interview that it was the haitus between Season 1 and 2 that they sat down and came up with the backstory and it was the "end date" agreement when they actually plotted out the final seasons.

 

[Aeon]

That would be the podcast with Bill Simmons, right?

 

[LitmusDragon]

I do remember the producers saying back in season one that a) they knew what the island "was" b) they knew what the final shot would be of. I wonder if that's still true?

Somehow I doubt it but, I guess we can't rule it out!

 

[Aeon]

Those are fairly "independent" areas in the story so it is possible. What is the island? A place where a mysterious and very powerful energy source resides. That's pretty simple. Now what about the final shot? Hard to say until we see it.