LOST - Thoughts from Comic Con

As many of you know (at least those of my LOST audience that are still around), the San Diego Comic Con was last week. This used to be exactly what it sounds like...a convention for the comic book industry. It has now grown into a huge gathering of pretty much all things sci-fi (TV, movies, and books, as well as the comic book industry) and is lovingly referred to as Geek Prom.

Comic Con has become the focal point for LOST when it comes to recapping the previous season and previewing what's to come. Damon and Carlton go into radio silence starting the week before the season finale, and Comic Con is the first public appearance they do in order to break that silence.

This year was the last one that they will be appearing...after the series finale next year, they won't be going back because they have no new season to preview (::sob::).

Since most of you, like me, were not able to get out to San Diego, here are video clips that I have gathered showing highlights of the LOST panel. If you watch all of these, I think you will have seen everything that the actual attendees got to see.

THE ACTUAL PANEL:
This is part one...there is a link in the info section that will send you to parts 2-4. {**UPDATE*** I have now included all 4 parts}

The panel is long, about 40 minutes in total, but it's a must-watch for LOST fans, for Jorge Garcia's appearance if nothing else.

Parental guidance - some brief "adult" language









FAN GENERATED VIDEO:
The theme for this year, according to Damon, was Fan Appreciation. So they showed some clips of the many fan-created videos that are out there, most of which can be found on YouTube.



MICHAEL EMERSON'S "HURLEY AUDITION":
Michael Emerson (Ben) and Jorge Garcia (Hurley) steal the show on the panel, as usual, including a staged argument that leads to Jorge accusing Emerson of being jealous because he tried out for the part of Hurley and was turned down. Emerson denies it, until Darlton produces the "proof":



JOSH HOLLOWAY'S ENTRANCE:
Not sure why this wasn't included on the panel video while Nestor Carbonell's (Richard Alpert) was, but here is the video they played before Josh Holloway (Sawyer) came out on stage:



DEAD CHARACTER MONTAGE:
Here is a montage they did of most of the main characters' deaths from over the years. I had kind of forgotten how many people they have actually killed off...

And yes, I can admit getting a little teary eyed at some of these.


Cool moment was as soon as this was over, the lights came back up and Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) was on the stage...place went nuts. He was at Comic Con to promote another show he is doing for ABC, but there are rumors that he and a lot of other people in this clip will be on LOST in some capacity next season.

A WORD FROM OUR "SPONSORS":
This was maybe the most important part of the panel, and it's the part I'm going to spend the most time discussing...







Discussion:
The panel itself was pretty boring, actually...no real news coming out of it other than that both Faraday and Juliet WILL be on the show in some capacity next season. As will a whole bunch of other people, if this poster is any indication (thanks, Amanda, for finding this!!).

And, of course, it was interesting that in their "death" montage they did not show Juliet, Claire, or Locke...not sure if that is a clue, or if they are just trying not to give anything away regarding their status.

The key point, to me, was what was being shown in the "commercials"...Oceanic 6 has a perfect safety record? Hurley won the lottery, but instead of it ruining his life he is now the owner of Mr. Cluck's and apparently very happy? Kate's plan to murder her stepfather failed and she accidentally murdered someone else? WHAT IN SAM HILL IS GOING ON?!?

I think we can gather from this that Juliet's detonation of Jughead in the finale did SOMETHING besides just blow her off the show and onto "V". Looks like we are now going to be dealing somehow with alternate timelines/realities, and Carlton did say at the Con that they have already had the "time travel" season and the "flash forward" season, and that this one is going to be something completely different.

The Comic Con videos are not necessarily gospel, as we found out last year, but they are meant to give an indication of what the "theme" of the next season will be. Damon said we should "Trust them," and in my opinion they have certainly earned that trust. But something about this just seems...dangerous, I guess is the word I am looking for.

I do NOT want to see the first 5 seasons rendered virtually useless due to Jughead being a gigantic reset button. But since Jorge asked that exact question at Comic Con, I can only hope that means that is not the direction they are going to go.

So what ARE they doing? Darlton has said in the past that they do NOT want to venture into paradoxes, alternate realities, etc., so I think there is probably more (or less) to this than it appears on the surface. They have said multiple times that what we have seen in the flash forwards IS what happens...they don't want to go down the "Heroes" route (and thank God for that...what a disaster that show has turned out to be). So maybe there is SOMETHING that has changed in the timeline, perhaps even pre-crash, but then something else occurs that brings them to the Island anyway, leading to everything we have seen? Another quote that came out of the panel was that Season 6 is going to be very reminiscent of Season 1, with a feeling of a "loop closing." So maybe we will see some of the same scenes from the first season, only now with something slightly changed due to whatever has happened in the new timeline?

For those of you who have read The Dark Tower series by Stephen King (hi again, Amanda!)...maybe it's like what happened with Roland and Jake. Something has happened that has created two timelines, and now we have to get the two timelines back together again, and from there it will just go on to what we have already seen in the future.

Fellow LOST fans, what do you think? Do you trust the writers? Am I way off base? Are you even still reading, or did I lose you three paragraphs ago?

Namaste.