[Thanks to Sonia for the heads up.]

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Here’s a first look at some of the new TV shows and movies starring LOST stars and/or produced by LOST writers:

Alcatraz

LOST link: Produced by LOST’s Elizabeth Sarnoff and JJ Abrams. Jorge Garcia (Hurley) co-stars.

Official synopsis: From executive producer J.J. Abrams and writer and executive producer Elizabeth Sarnoff comes ALCATRAZ, the chilling new thriller centered on America’s most infamous prison and one-time home to the nation’s most notorious murderers, rapists, kidnappers, thieves and arsonists.

When San Francisco Police Department DET. REBECCA MADSEN (Sarah Jones, “Sons of Anarchy”) is assigned to a grisly homicide case, a fingerprint leads her to a shocking suspect: JACK SYLVANE (guest star Jeffrey Pierce, “The Nine”), a former Alcatraz inmate who died decades ago. Given her family history – both her grandfather and surrogate uncle, RAY ARCHER (Robert Forster, “Jackie Brown”), were guards at the prison – Madsen’s interest is immediately piqued, and once the enigmatic, knows-everything-but-tells-nothing government agent EMERSON HAUSER (Sam Neill, “Jurassic Park”) tries to impede her investigation, she’s doggedly committed. Madsen turns to Alcatraz expert and comic book enthusiast, DR. DIEGO “DOC” SOTO (Jorge Garcia, “Lost”), to piece together the inexplicable sequence of events. The twosome discovers that Sylvane is not only alive, but he’s loose on the streets of San Francisco, leaving bodies in his wake. And strangely, he hasn’t aged a day since he was in Alcatraz, when the prison was ruled by the iron-fisted WARDEN EDWIN JAMES (Jonny Coyne, “Undercovers”) and the merciless ASSOCIATE WARDEN E.B. TILLER (Jason Butler Harner, “The Changeling”). Madsen and Soto reluctantly team with Agent Hauser and his technician, LUCY BANERJEE (Parminder Nagra, “ER”), to stop Sylvane’s vengeful killing spree.

By delving into Alcatraz history, government cover-ups and Rebecca’s own heritage, the team will ultimately discover that Sylvane is only a small part of a much larger, more sinister present-day threat. For while he may be the first, it quickly becomes clear that Sylvane won’t be the last prisoner to reappear from Alcatraz. Through the course of the investigation, Madsen and Soto will learn that Agent Hauser has known about the prison’s secret history and has been awaiting the prisoners’ return. Soto will witness his life’s work – the history of Alcatraz – come alive. Madsen will be forced to keep her supportive San Francisco cop fiancé, JIMMY DICKENS (Santiago Cabrera, “Heroes”), at arm’s length from the highly classified assignment as she sees everything she thought she knew about her family’s past shattered, all while fighting to keep the country safe from history’s most dangerous criminals

Premiere Date: January 2012. It will air on Mondays at 9pm EST on FOX.

Once Upon A Time

LOST link: LOST writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are the showrunners. LOST co-creator Damon Lindelof is also involved in this project.

Official Synopsis: From the inventive minds of “Lost” executive producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis comes a bold new imagining of the world, where fairy tales and the modern-day are about to collide.

And they all lived happily ever after – or so everyone was led to believe. Emma Swan knows how to take care of herself. She’s a 28-year-old bail bonds collector who’s been on her own ever since she was abandoned as a baby. But when the son she gave up years ago finds her, everything starts to change. Henry is now 10 years old and in desperate need of Emma’s help. He believes that Emma actually comes from an alternate world and is Snow White and Prince Charming’s missing daughter. According to his book of fairytales, they sent her away to protect her from the Evil Queen’s curse, which trapped the fairytale world forever, frozen in time, and brought them into our modern world. Of course Emma doesn’t believe a word, but when she brings Henry back to Storybrooke, she finds herself drawn to this unusual boy and his strange New England town. Concerned for Henry, she decides to stay for a while, but she soon suspects that Storybrooke is more than it seems. It’s a place where magic has been forgotten, but is still powerfully close… where fairytale characters are alive, even though they don’t remember who they once were. The epic battle for the future of all worlds is beginning, but for good to win, Emma will have to accept her destiny and fight like hell.

Premiere Date: TBD. The show will air on Sundays at 8 PM on ABC this fall.

Person of Interest

LOST link: Produced by LOST’s JJ Abrams and Bryan Burke. Michael Emerson (Benjamin Linus) co-stars.

Official Synopsis: PERSON OF INTEREST stars Jim Caviezel, Emmy Award winner Michael Emerson and Academy Award nominee Taraji P. Henson in a crime thriller about a presumed dead former-CIA agent who teams up with a mysterious billionaire to prevent violent crimes by using their own brand of vigilante justice. Reese’s (Caviezel) special training in covert operations appeals to Finch (Emerson), a software genius who invented a program that uses pattern recognition to identify people about to be involved in violent crimes. Using state-of-the-art surveillance technology, the two work outside of the law using Reese’s adept skills and Finch’s unlimited wealth to unravel the mystery of the person of interest and stop the crime before it happens. Reese’s actions catch the attention of the NYPD, including homicide detective Carter (Henson), and Fusco (Kevin Chapman), a cop who Reese uses to his advantage. With infinite crimes to investigate, Reese and Finch find that the right person, with the right information, at the right time, can change everything. Emmy Award winners J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk (“Lost”), Academy Award nominee Jonathan Nolan (“Memento”), David Semel (“Heroes”) and Greg Plageman (“Cold Case”) are the executive producers for Warner Bros. Television.

Premiere Date: TBD. The show will air on Thursdays at 9 PM on CBS this Fall.

Real Steel

LOST link: Evangeline Lilly (Kate) co-stars.

Official Synopsis: A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near future [the year 2020], where the sport of boxing has gone hi-tech, “Real Steel” stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring.  Now nothing but a small-time promoter, Charlie earns just enough money piecing together low-end bots from scrap metal to get from one underground boxing venue to the next.  When Charlie hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Goyo) to build and train a championship contender.  As the stakes in the brutal, no-holds-barred arena are raised, Charlie and Max, against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.

Premiere Date: Real Steel arrives in theaters in the US on November 18th.

Ringer

LOST link: Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert) co-stars as Agent Victor Machado.

Official Synopsis: Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as a woman who, after witnessing a murder, goes on the run, hiding out by assuming the life of her wealthy identical twin sister – only to learn that her sister’s seemingly idyllic life is just as complicated and dangerous as the one she’s trying to leave behind. Bridget is six months sober and starting to turn her life around when she is the sole witness to a professional hit. Despite the assurances of her FBI protector, Agent Victor Machado, Bridget knows her life is on the line. She flees to New York, telling no one, not even her Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, Malcolm. In New York, Bridget reunites with her estranged twin, Siobhan. Wealthy, pampered and married to the strikingly handsome Andrew Martin, Siobhan lives what appears to be a fairy tale life – a life where no one knows that Bridget exists. The sisters seem to be mending their frayed relationship, until Siobhan disappears overboard during a boat trip, and Bridget makes the split decision to take on her sister’s identity. She discovers shocking secrets, not only about her sister and her marriage, but also about Siobhan’s best friend, Gemma, and Gemma’s husband, Henry. And when someone tries to kill Bridget in her sister’s penthouse, she realizes she is no safer as Siobhan than she is as herself.

Premiere Date: Ringer will air on Tuesdays (9-10 p.m.) on The CW starting this Fall.

Scandal

LOST link: Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond) co-stars.

Official Synopsis: From the creator and executive producers of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” comes a drama revolving around the life and work of a professional crisis manager and her dysfunctional staff. A former media relations consultant to the President, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) dedicates her life to protecting and defending the public images of our nation’s elite. After leaving the White House, the power consultant opened her own firm, hoping to start a new chapter—both professionally and personally—but she can’t seem to completely cut ties with her past. Slowly it becomes apparent that her staff, who specialize in fixing the lives of other people, can’t quite fix the ones closest at hand—their own.

Premiere Date: TBD (ABC, Midseason).

Bonus: ‘Awake’

LOST link: Dylan Minnette (Jack’s imaginary son on LOST) plays the alive-in-one-reality-but-dead-in-the-other son of the protagonist.

Official Synopsis: Lots of people find themselves leading some kind of double life… but none quite like this.

After Detective Michael Britten wakes up from a car accident with his wife and teenage son, he learns the devastating news that his wife died in the crash. Trying to put the pieces of his life back together, he wakes up a few days later to realize that his wife is very much alive and his son died in the accident! Did he lose his wife or his son? Or neither of them??

What if your life split in two in the face of a situation like this, and you could actually have everything you wanted, just not all at the same time? Michael goes back to work solving crimes while trying to put things back on a “normal” track, but alternating between realities provides some challenges – one moment he and his wife are grappling with having another child to replace their loss, and the next moment he’s finding himself attracted to his son’s tennis coach to fill the void from the loss of his wife. At the same time, he is solving crimes in each world which sometimes overlap in fascinating and inexplicable ways. Is he dreaming or going mad? Michael begins seeing two different therapists to help him sort things out, but then again why would he want either “reality” to go away when the totality of both means having his family complete?

From groundbreaking writer Kyle Killen (Lone Star) and starring Jason Isaacs (Brotherhood, Harry Potter) comes a drama about the power of the mind, where the inception of life is a mystery and reality might just be overrated.

Premiere Date: Early 2012 on NBC.

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Via TVLine.com:

Lost alum Michael Emerson is set as a lead in Jonah Nolan’s CBS pilot Person Of Interest, which is being executive-produced by Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams.

The project, directed by Heroes‘ David Semel, is a crime drama centered on an ex-CIA agent, presumed dead, who teams up with a mysterious billionaire (Emerson) to prevent violent crimes in New York City.

An Emmy winner during his run on Lost, Emerson originally reunited with Abrams for a different project this development season: the action drama Odd Jobs, which was to star Emerson and fellow Lost alum Terry O’Quinn, with Abrams producing and Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec writing. That project landed at NBC in September, but was recently pushed to a later development timetable.

Emerson guest-starred on NBC’s Parenthood earlier this week.

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Via IGN:

The J.J. Abrams produced Odd Jobs is being put on the backburner and will be looked at as a potential project for the next pilot season. Odd Jobs would re-team Lost stars Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson, in the story of two retired black-ops agents. Deadline notes that the script to that project, by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (whose collaborations with Abrams include Alias and the upcoming Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) came in very late this pilot season.

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Via Deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Big news for Lost fans: series co-star Jorge Garcia has joined another J.J. Abrams drama about an island. Garcia is set to play a lead on the Fox pilot Alcatraz, which is executive produced by Lost co-creator/executive producer Abrams. The project, described to be “about secrets and the most infamous prison of all time,” centers on a group of missing Alcatraz prisoners and guards who reappear in the present day. It chronicles the efforts of a team of FBI agents to track them down and unravel the mystery behind their disappearance thirty years prior. Garcia will play the hippy geek Dr. Diego Soto, the world’s foremost expert on Alcatraz. Actor-comedian Garcia, who landed his first TV series role on the CBS comedy Becker, rose to fame as one of the key cast members on ABC’s hit drama Lost. He was the first actor cast in the Lost pilot, just like he is now on Alcatraz. The role of Hugo “Hurley” Reyes on Lost was tailor-made for him. Similarly, he was the first and only actor the producers of Alcatraz approached for the role of Dr. Soto. Garcia, repped by APA and KLWG Entertainment, guest stars on the Thanksgiving episode of CBS’ comedy How I Met Your Mother tomorrow night. He will also appear in an episode of ABC’s midseason comedy Mr. Sunshine. Garcia is the third Lost cast member eyeing return to primetime this season in a new drama series executive produced by Abrams. Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn star as former special ops agents in the project Odd Jobs, which landed at NBC with a put pilot commitment.

Alcatraz was written on spec by Elizabeth Sarnoff, who penned the final version, and Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, who wrote earlier incarnations. The project, from Abrams’ Bad Robot Prods. and Warner Bros. TV, was bought by Fox with a pilot commitment in mid-September, and greenlighted to pilot a week later. Sarnoff serves as showrunner and executive produces with Abrams and Bryan Burk. Lilien and Wynbrandt will co-executive produce and Danny Cannon will direct the pilot, which is slated to begin in January in San Francisco and Vancouver.

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UPDATE: EW’s Jeff Jensen caught up with Michael Emerson via email and asked him for his reaction to the NBC pick-up:

I really am AMAZED that what started out as some kidding-around on the set of LOST has turned into a network TV reality! I’m still reeling from this sudden turn of events. I’m an actor who has never even succeeded in testing for a pilot and here I find myself involved in a project custom-built for Terry and me! Can’t tell you how thrilling it is to be part of the Bad Robot family and enter into this exciting collaboration with Warner Brothers and NBC! Have we ARRIVED or what?! But best of all will be that day when Terry and I show up on the set of a brand new show, look around, shrug our shoulders and say “Let’s get started!” My fingers are crossed! (Did I use enough exclamation points? ha!)”

Great news via Vulture:

J.J. Abrams’ new NBC drama Undercovers premieres in just an hour on the east coast, but the Peacock has already decided: It wants more J.J.! The network has landed the rights to the new Michael Emerson-Terry O’Quinn show from Abrams’ Bad Robot that Vulture told you about Monday. NBC got the project despite strong interest from ABC and Fox, both of which were intrigued by the idea of Ben Linus and John Locke’s alter-egos teaming up again. NBC has made a pilot commitment to the show, which had been known as Odd Jobs but is now technically untitled. The fine print: Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (Alias) are writers/exec producers, while Abrams and Bryan Burk are also exec producers. With Fox and CBS already developing new Abrams shows, we’re hoping the Bad Robot has one more series up its sleeve so that the folks at ABC aren’t left feeling lonely.

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Exciting news via Vulture:

Forget Rizzoli & Isles: Are you ready for Linus & Locke? In news that could cause the Lost fan base to have a synchronized aneurysm, Vulture hears that last week, J.J. Abrams and frequent collaborators Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (Alias, Mission: Impossible 4) began pitching a comedic drama to the networks that would have Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn — a.k.a. Benjamin Linus and John Locke/Smokey — playing former black-ops agents.

The idea of Emerson and O’Quinn reuniting isn’t completely new: In February, the duo told TV Guide that they were looking to put together a post-Lost TV project for themselves; the rumors were revived again last month when Emerson repeated his hopes for a new show while doing publicity for the Lost full-series DVD collection. Still, all the talk seemed to be in the realm of “maybe one day.” Turns out plans for a show are very real and very active — and the involvement of Abrams and other Bad Robot types means there’s a really good chance the project will soon find a home.

As always with all things Abrams, details are sketchy, but insiders said the potential show — which we’ve heard carries the working title Odd Jobs — would have a dose of humor. It’s not clear whether Appelbaum and Nemec will include any elements of an idea floated by O’Quinn last winter that had the two former Lost-mates serving as suburban hit men.

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Via The Live Feed:

J.J. Abrams’ top-secret Alcatraz project has found a home at Fox.

The network has given a pilot commitment to Abrams’ latest mysterious TV endeavor, whose official logline is as cryptic as one might expect: “A show about mysteries, secrets and the most infamous prison of all time: Alcatraz.”

Abrams is re-teaming with fellows veteran from his other island-based show, “Lost” — Elizabeth Sarnoff is the lead writer and joins Abrams as an executive producer, and Bryan Burk is an executive producer. Co-executive producers and writers include Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt.

If greenlighted, the project will join Abrams’ “Fringe” on the network. Abrams is also shopping a crime thriller with Jonathan Nolan.

Abrams’ Bad Robot produces the show in association with Warner Bros.

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Via Heatvision.hollywoodreporter.com:

J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot shingle are developing a thriller based on the teenage makeout game of snogging in the closet.

Called “7 Minutes in Heaven,” the original idea comes from Jack Bender, who most recently directed the final episode of ABC’s “Lost.” A longtime Bad Robot cohort, Bender signed a feature deal with the company in early June, and the “Heaven” project is his to helm. “Heaven” is being developed internally, but it likely will be set up at Paramount, the studio home of Bad Robot.

While plot details are being suppressed, it is known to focus on two teens who go into a closet as part of the titular game and find all their friends dead when they come back out.

Bad Robot is looking for a writer to tackle the idea.

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[audio:http://www.sl-lost.com/audiointerviews/900545.mp3]

Terry also appeared live on WGN Morning News to talk about LOST, promote his brother’s film, answer fans’ questions and even play some guitar!

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[Via @MariahajilE]

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Via Scifinow.co.uk:

Is the end of Lost everything you thought it would be, from the very beginning?
Oh, no way! No. There are little threads and elements, here and there, but truthfully, when we started it, we didn’t know exactly what was in the hatch. We had ideas, but we didn’t know to what extent it would be. The notion of The Others was there, but we didn’t know exactly what that would mean. Damon hadn’t come up with the idea of flash forwards yet. To see where we are and what they’ve created is insanely gratifying and it’s something that no one could have predicted at the beginning of it. The evolution of it is really part of their glorious experiment of taking a show that we were all, at the beginning, saying, “How do you make this a series?,” and to see what Damon and Carlton have done is amazing to me.

You had the idea for the basis of it though, right?
There were a lot of ideas, but the specificity with which the thing played out was part of that leap of faith that it was going to work. That doesn’t mean that you plan everything out. You have big ideas, but when the better bigger ideas show up, you go with them.

What have you learned from Lost that you can take to other genre shows?
Lost is a special example. It’s hard to know. You could say that you shouldn’t get too intricately serialised because, at a certain point, it’s difficult. But, the truth is, I don’t know if Lost would have worked if it had been anything else, and I don’t know how you would apply that to another show.

If the minutiae and mythology hadn’t worked with the viewers, would you have tried to change Lost, or would you have just walked away?
It’s hard to imagine the alternate universe version of Lost where you think, “Oh, that’s the version that is the other way to tell the story.” It really does feel like the trajectory that was started had no obvious place to go. Over time, they created this amazing narrative that is really just a result of that leap of faith and trusting that the characters will tell us what the show is, as much as anything. Damon and Carlton really did an amazing job.

With the network announcing an end-date for the show so far in advance, did that help immeasurably, in terms of the storytelling?
That’s something that Damon and Carlton insisted upon. They said, “Tell us how fast we’re running, so that we know what the end-game is and where the finish line is.” If you don’t know whether it’s ten seasons or six seasons, you’re spinning your wheels. I’m thrilled to see billboards that say, “The Final Season.” You don’t see that very often. To know that it’s a show that’s going to end on its terms means that there will be a sense of inevitability to it, and not a sense of a series reacting to a marketplace or a viewership. It’s really cool.

You put so much heart and soul into television and now you also have movies. How are you going to balance the two?
Part of it is working with people who are awesome and whose work blows your mind, whether it’s with Jeff and Joel on Fringe, or Damon and Carlton on Lost. There are some producers who find material, help get it on the air and then oversee and have a team that works with them. That’s what I do, but I also sometimes write and direct as well. It might seem like I’m abandoning the thing, but what I’m trying to do is get it on its feet. While I may not have the patience of people like Joss [Whedon], David Kelley, Damon or Chris Carter, who are there from the beginning, for however many seasons, because I am a little more ADD than that, I would never leave a show, not knowing that it’s in worthy, brilliant hands that I honestly think could do a far better job, in the long term, than I could. I never know exactly how things are going to play out, but that’s how it’s been so far.

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Via MichaelGiacchinoMusic.com

It seems Michael has cut his post-Lost break short and is back writing already. Recently he scored the pilot episode to J.J. Abrams’ new sexy-spy-espionage show, Undercovers, and he’s also on musical duties for Matt (Cloverfield) Reeves’ new vampire/horror/romance movie Let Me In.

Undercovers will air in autumn (it’s unknown yet if Michael will continue to be involved past the pilot), and Let Me In is due out on 1st October.

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Via /Film:

The above tweet was filed by Damon Lindelof on Tuesday. Returning from his well deserved post-Lost vacation, Lindelof is ready to get to work full time on scripting the Star Trek sequel with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. We are now exactly two years away from the announced release date of June 29th, 2012.

The screenwriting team told TrekMovie last week at the Saturn Awards that they have a story and that “the next phase is to get together and try to destroy it.” Looks like that can now happen. Orci/Kurtzman claim to have a “front runner” for the sequel’s villain, and while the bad guy will likely be a bigger part of the sequel, the second movie is really “about how does the team now that they are on their journey, live together as a family, so that is still a big engine of the narrative.” They also have no idea what the title or the movie will be, and seem to have dismissed the idea of “Star Trek 2″ or “Star Trek XII”, suggesting that ut will likely have “Star Trek:” followed by a sub title.

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So much for any mystery surrounding Jack Bender’s future after “Lost.”

First, the director/executive producer, who helmed the “Lost” finale, signed on to perform the same duties on Syfy’s new “Alphas” pilot. And now a TV deal with “Lost” production mastermind Bad Robot is in the offing.

The one-year first-look development deal would have Bender developing projects and helming a pilot for Warner Bros. Television next spring. While several ideas are being discussed, none has yet been locked down.

Bad Robot’s production deals are with Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. TV, which is producing the forthcoming NBC series “Undercovers” and Bad Robot’s Fox creeper “Fringe,” both co-created by BR’s J.J. Abrams. The benefit of locking Bender into the WBTV deal is that it frees him to work on a potential Paramount feature, as well. Insiders say that is a likely scenario.

[Via The Hollywood Reporter]

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[Via IO9]

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Via EW.com:

[...]Another key member of Abrams’ Trek team was Damon Lindelof, who co-created Lost with him. The basic premise for the show — castaways marooned on an island; a dramatic gloss on Gilligan’s Island that melded both Survivor and Castaway — originated with ABC. Abrams and Lindelof met when then-ABC president Lloyd Braun paired them up to take a crack fleshing out the idea. “I met Damon on a Monday,” recalls Abrams, “and over the next five days, we worked on an outline for the show with two other writers, Jesse Alexander [also an Alias vet; he’s now the creator/exec producer of NBC’s upcoming sci-fi drama Day One] and Jeff Pinkner [yet another Alias vet; he’s now the exec producer of Fringe]. By Saturday, we were working on the pilot.”

Although Abrams is so identified with Lost, he takes pains to credit the show’s success to its chief storytellers, Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse, who joined the series right at the start of season one — right after Abrams decided to basically leave his just-launched enterprise to direct Mission. “Frankly, where Damon and Carlton and Jack Bender [the show’s lead director and Hawaii major domo] have taken the show could only have been hoped for back when we were first brainstorming the world and tone and characters. Whenever anyone says ’I love Lost,’ I always emphatically say that it’s all Damon and Carlton and the work their team has been doing.”

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Via Movieweb:

Jeff, when you look at Alias and you look at Lost and you look at Fringe, in my mind these are three really, really brilliant shows, but they’ve all had sort of rating issues. Is it the time slot, is it the complexity, what do you think people are looking for, and why do you think people are not tuning in, in larger numbers?

Jeff Pinkner: I think that, it’s funny, JJ Abrams and I have had this conversation on more than one occasion, and I think that Fringe, Lost, Alias, absolutely there’s a time slot issue, but at the end of the day, it’s more important to us that people fall in love with the shows. I’ve said before that these shows to me are like licorice, not everybody likes licorice, but the people that like licorice, love it. And I think it’s always been more important to us that we create shows that people can get passionate about. And the truth is, there’s only so much time in the day to get passionate about something, and there’s a lot of really great shows on. We never take it as a indication of the quality of our shows, how many people watch. It’s more important to us that the people that watch, really care about it deeply.

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3. New TV Promos Of J.J. Abrams’ FRINGE

Via Jennifer Goodwin:

So What Is Lost‘s One True Pairing? We find that a lot of good literature follows the same tropes and arcs, so in hopes of getting a teeny-tiny bit of clarity on the final-season direction of some of Lost‘s major romantic storylines, we asked Lost boss Lindelof to compare Sawyer’s love life on Lost to the love story in any other fictional work. “Wow,” said Lindelof, “Sawyer’s love life compared to any…” (He looked a little dazed at all the possible options, so we threw The Notebook, Jane Eyre and Gilligan’s Island at him as totally random starting points for thinking about the question.) “All way off so far!” Lindelof said, “Perhaps the relationship between Gilligan and the Skipper, because there’s a lot of hitting on the head with hats…OK. Serious…I think Wuthering Heights is probably a good one then. We’ve got a little Heathcliff action going on.”

Putting aside our memories of the wacky cartoon alley cat, we find Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights an incredibly intriguing answer to this question. Literary scholars: Compare the stories of Emily Brontë‘s Heathcliff and and Lost‘s Sawyer so far. Senior shipper analysts, please convene a white-paper committee in the comments section to debate and report on these and other questions: In a metaphor where Heathcliff is equivalent to Sawyer, which Lost character is Catherine Earnshaw? Who stands for Edgar and Isabella? Is there a young Cathy or a Hareton figure in Lost? Can Heathcliff/Sawyer ever overcome his basic wildness? And does this presage a tragic and perhaps lonely end for James Ford? (So much to discuss!)

These and Other Answers, To Come: So what can we expect to learn from the sixth and final season of Lost? Lindelof shared a sneak preview: “The questions that count will be answered, and the questions that the fans don’t want answered won’t be answered, but I think what they’re looking for is a real sense of resolution, particularly on a character level. Who’s going to live, who’s going to die, who’s going to hook up with who, why were they all brought here in the first place, was it arbitrary, is there meaning behind it? That’s the kind of stuff [we] have to answer, or [we] should be prepared to get rocks thrown at [us].”

This Is the End, My Friend? When we get to the end of the series, is that the last and final word we’ll ever hear about the Island and its denizens from Team Bad Robot? Says Lindelof, “We’re going to be out there doing other stuff. Just like right now I’m talking to you about LostStar Trek DVD rollout, we have to be held accountable for our actions. We’re not going to go into hiding. I do, however, employ doubles, like Saddam did, so you can never trust that you’re talking to the actual Damon Lindelof. That being said, what we don’t want to do—and [fellow executive producer] Carlton [Cuse] and I talk about this all the time—is explain what our intention was. At a certain point, it doesn’t matter what our intention was, and we want the fans to vigorously debate certain aspects of the show. Some things will be very conclusive, other things people will think are more conclusive than we meant them, and some will be more ambiguous than we meant them, but it wouldn’t be Lost if five years from now people weren’t still arguing over what they wanted it to be.”

Please Don’t Shake the Gaily Wrapped Packages Too Hard Please: So how does it feel to be a Lost show runner on the eve of the sixth and final season? Lindelof says it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, telling us, “It’s very exciting to us basically. It feels like we’ve been Christmas shopping for five years, and we’ve been accruing all these presents, and we’ve been locking them up in closets and not letting people look at them. And now there’s sort of this, ‘Oh my god, do they have one of these already? Did I get the right sizes? What was I thinking when I bought this? Are they even going to like it?’ So there’s a terror there, but at the same time, Christmas is here and it’s time to open up the closet and start unwrapping and we’ll see what happens.”

J.J. Abrams Isn’t Particularly Busy or Anything, Is He? Will Star Trek director and content producer extraordinaire J.J. Abrams be involved in writing or directing any of Lost season six? “I will not,” says Abrams, “but I will be watching in amazement of what Damon and Carlton do.” (Note: The Lost finale should rightfully be directed by producing Lost director Jack Bender, aka the man who has put in six years with the show in Hawaii and totally deserves the honor of directing the finale. That said, if for some reason Bender’s not in the mood or is busy that week, wouldn’t it be perfect if Abrams directed the Lost series finale, as he directed the series pilot? Is anyone else hearing “The Circle of Life” from The Lion King in their heads right now?)

Multimedia Damon Lindelof: As for Star Trek Dos, as we’ve dorkily taken to calling the expected sequel to this summer’s hit movie, Damon Lindelof says, “Alex [Kurtzman], Bob [Orci] and I are writing it together, and I will be producing it in my similar capacity to the first one. I’m looking forward to it, because this time I won’t have to run between my Lost duties and my Trek duties.”

Related posts:

1. Damon Lindelof Talks Season 6 at ‘Golden Apple Comics’
2. Damon Lindelof Teases Season 6
3. New Q&A with Damon Lindelof

Via Cinema Blend:

Adapting a novel is a touchy task. One wrong move and you’ll spoil a beloved book or run the risk of a film adaption with limited appeal. Back in February 2007, J.J. Abrams was gung-ho about bringing Stephen King’s seven-book series Dark Tower to life. As of today, his apprehension about not doing the series justice, makes the plan just a thing of the past.

It seems as though the pressure of bringing such extensive source material to the big screen, forced Abrams and his Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof to push the plan aside, if not hand it off to someone else completely. In October, Lindelof told USA Today, “You’ll be hard-pressed to find a huger fan of The Dark Tower than me, but that’s probably the reason that I shouldn’t be the one to adapt it. After working six years on Lost, the last thing I want to do is spend the next seven years adapting one of my favorite books of all time. I’m such a massive Stephen King fan that I’m terrified of screwing it up. I’d do anything to see those movies written by someone else. My guess is they will get made because they’re so incredible. But not by me.”

Now, we hear a similar sentiment from Abrams. He explained to MTV, “The Dark Tower thing is tricky. It’s such an important piece of writing. The truth is that Damon and I are not looking at that right now.”

In May, Lindelof showed signs of uneasiness when expressing concerns about the scrutiny endured by Zack Snyder over his adaption of Watchmen. “Having seen Zack go through what he went through on Watchmen in terms of saying of where can I digress from the material I just get headaches thinking about changing anything.” Lindelof seems adamantly opposed to tackling the project, but I wouldn’t say the same for Abrams. Perhaps I’m just holding onto the words “right now” as a glimmer of hope, but I don’t see this as Abrams completely removing himself from the project. Regardless, don’t expect to see Roland’s journey through an alternate world to find ‘The Dark Tower’ on the big screen anytime soon.

Related posts:

1. Damon Lindelof To Co-Write J.J. Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’ Sequel
2. Damon Lindelof Talks about J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” Film
3. Secrets of LOST #11 Featuring Damon, Carlton & J.J. Abrams