Missing Lost? Read a book!
ABC wants Lost fans to spend the show’s long hiatus curled up with a good book. The network has created the Lost Book Club, a resource for viewers who want to know more about the drama’s numerous literary references. The book club website contains a list of the books seen or referred to on Lost. You can peruse the list according to season or based on a number of categories (background, dialogue, and show theme).
In a brief letter to fans, executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse mentioned that the club is informal and that the books should be used to enhance the Lost experience, not provide answers to the show’s mysteries.
Each book description includes a reminder of where and when the book appeared on Lost and provides a short synopsis of the work. Another fun feature of the book club site is a message board that fans can use to discuss the relevance of books like Through the Looking Glass and A Brief History of Time. With over fifty books listed, the club should keep any die-hard fan busy for quite a while.
I’m not sure if I’ll get around to reading Bonjour, Babar, but some of the most frequently mentioned books are worth a closer look.
[via Pop Candy]
It’s official: Lost and Grey’s finales get an extra hour
The rumored fourteenth hour of Lost is happening! E!’s Kristin Dos Santos confirmed that there will be an extended Lost finale this season. The two-hour finale has become a whopping three-hour episode. Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse felt that an extra hour was crucial to wrapping up the season four storylines, and ABC agreed. According to Kristin, the script for part two of the finale was 80 pages long. Imagine cramming all of that into one hour!
As I mentioned in my earlier post, the return of Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty to the Thursday night lineup does make scheduling this additional hour a bit tricky. The original plan was for the two-part Lost finale to air over two nights, and have all three shows end on May 22. TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello is reporting that the Lost finale has been rescheduled, making room for a two-hour Grey’s Anatomy season finale.
ABC has made some changes to the final weeks of its Thursday lineup:
- On May 15, Part One of the Lost finale will follow new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty; nothing new there.
- There will be no Lost episode on May 22. The Ugly Betty finale and the new, two-hour Grey’s finale will air instead.
- On May 29, ABC has scheduled an encore of Part One, followed by the two-hour, second installment of the Lost finale.
This is fantastic news for Lost and Grey’s fans alike. I’m particularly pleased that I’ll be able to view the entire three-hour Lost finale in one sitting. I’ll still watch Part One on May 15, but it will be nice to see the finale as a complete episode. When I first heard that the finale was getting broken up over two nights, I was a little bummed out. Now the last episode of Lost Season Four will be a huge, three-hour event.
Who’s happier–Grey’s fans or Lost fans? Sound off in the comments section below!
Lost: The video game on shelves by the end of the month
As first reported in May 2006, Lost is getting the video game treatment. The game, titled “Lost: Via Domus” and produced by Montreal-based Ubisoft, will not be a reproduction of the survivors’ adventures. Instead, the game will add a new chapter to the series.
Nicolas Eypert, who was part of the creation team of the game, revealed in interview with a French-Canadian newspaper that the game will be a complementary experience that adds to the episodes, blogs, forums, and magazines about the series. The storyline crosses paths with the action that occurred during the first two seasons of the series.
While at the San Diego Comic-Con International last summer, Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said that “The sense of adventure and suspense that we strive for in the show is also captured in the Lost video game.”
In a press release sent last July, Ubisoft revealed that players will play a never-seen-on-the-show passenger of Oceanic Flight 815 who survived the crash. Players will have to face the same demons that hit the characters on the show (a dark past, redemption, being stuck on an island, etc.) while trying to solve puzzles, face the smoke monster, fight enemies, make alliances, and much more in order to stay alive. The game features the main characters and locations.
The game will be available on the following platforms: Xbox 360™, PLAYSTATION®3 and PC-CD Rom. The content will be the same for all three platforms but will feature different exclusive content as the player progresses in the game.
According to Eypert, the game will hit stores around the world on February 28; however, the game’s official pre-order pages say it will be available on the 26th. You can learn more about the game by visiting the game’s ABC website or the official website.
Lost video podcast recap: February 1, 2008
The first Lost video podcast of season four was just posted on ABC’s Lost website. With a running time of three minutes, it’s really more of a mini-podcast. Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse do not make an appearance, sadly. ABC did, however, provide fans with a nice little Easter egg from one of the scenes in “The Beginning of the End.” Here’s a brief synopsis:
- Co-Executive Producer Jean Higgins showed us the making of the scene where Hurley has a vision of Charlie swimming underwater.
- The scene was filmed in the old Looking Glass station set.
- When Charlie pressed his hand up to the glass, there was a message written on his hand: THEY NEED YOU. This was the same thing that he told Hurley later at Santa Rosa.
Another podcast is set for next week after “Confirmed Dead” airs, but it’s also a “making of” style podcast. We’ll get some behind-the-scenes information from the show’s costume designer. Check back after the episode for a mini-recap!