Damon Lindelof remembers the day clearly. Not long after turning into ABC a 23-page outline for a show that would be called Lost, his phone rang, on a Sunday. It was Lloyd Braun, who at the time was the president of ABC Entertainment. "I'm going to greenlight this show," Braun said. Lindelof's immediate thought? "Oh, s--t!"
That story and many more reflections on the serialized phenomenon concerning castaways, Others and others are shared in Lost: A G4 Special, premiering Friday, July 25, at 10 pm/ET on the G4 cable network.
Among the Losties sharing their views on the series' secrets and theories are Matt Mitovich (that's me), Entertainment Weekly's Jeff "Doc" Jensen and MediaWeek's Marc Berman. If you get a chance, tune in and check it out. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun!
Video Q&A: Would Baby Borrower Mom Have Lent Kids to Britney?
Baby lender Natalie and Borrower Kelsey dropped by TVGuide.com the other day to discuss why they participated in NBC's controversial new show, open up about their respective experiences as an actual teen mom and a wannabe, and tackle the hot topics of teen pregnancy pacts and, yes, Britney Spears' mothering skillz. Check it out.
All the sex, that is? Clad in my '70s-feel Adidas track jacket and ringer tee, I asked Grant Show and Molly Parker about their saucy new series, and whether the rumor is true that CBS is toning down Swingtown's tawdrier content.
TBS' The Bill Engvall Show premieres its second season this Thursday at 9 pm/ET, and Bill himself — joined by on-screen sidekick Tim Meadows — dropped by TVGuide.com to share a preview. (Perhaps fittingly, given the proximity of this blog posting to another, one of the first episodes is a riff on How I Met Your Mother. Ha!) Give a watch....
Nearly the entire How I Met Your Mother gang (minus Jason Segel, who is busy shooting a movie) congregated at McGee's in NYC — aka the inspiration for the sitcom's McClaren's. Cozying up with each in a booth (and maybe the occasional adult beverage...), I sought out scoop on all things Mother.
Here, I will embed the video of Neil Patrick Harris, who ponders the Barney-Robin hookup and their possible future, the Britney aftermath and more. Links to my sit-downs with Josh, Cobie, Alyson and a pair of producers will follow. I hope you enjoy, because it was one of my most fun outings here ever!
More from the Mother gang: • Josh Radnor on Sarah Chalke, fans getting Lost-like crazy and more. • Alyson Hannigan on dissing me for three years straight(!), Lily and Marshall's next hurdles (a baby, maybe?) and more. • Cobie Smulders on dressing to kill, getting "tipsy" to play Robin Sparkles and more. • Exec producers Carter Bays and Pamela Fryman on... well, everything!
Video Q&A: Will Rachel Bilson Hook Back Up with Chuck?
The O.C. alumna Rachel Bilson was making the rounds last week to promote the DVD release of Jumper, directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) and starring Hayden Christensen. I grabbed the opportunity to ask if she might resurface as Chuck's sandwich shop sweetheart. Plus: Was there an O.C. story she would have liked to see happen for Summer?
Ack. Things aren't looking good for Bailey's marriage on Grey's. Cress Williams, who plays the chief resident's increasingly fed-up hubby (and prior to that enjoyed gigs on a variety of series including Close to Home and ER), has landed a role on Fox's Prison Break.
Williams will play Wyatt, the latest assassin employed by The Company to brings brothers Michael and Lincoln's seemingly endless run to an... end. Prison Break returns for Season 4 on Monday, Aug. 25, with a two-hour episode.
Any other Cress fans out there? I've been familiar with his work since ER's early days, yes, and will always remember him giving Mr. Mars a scare on Veronica Mars.
"But what of PB's other Williams?" you may ask. Check back Wednesday for an update on poor, sad Bellick's fate.
Back then, CC's ZBZ rep launched an investigation into the scandal surrounding the resident brothers and sisters. In her encore, slated for this fall's season premiere, she helps Casey deal with a pledge who is causing trouble for the sorority.
Lost's Michael Emerson, Part 2: More Burning Questions
Michael Emerson by Mario Perez/ABC
Lost's Season 4 finale is being presented in two parts, and thus is my season-ending Q&A with Michael Emerson, who plays Ben. Among the topics this time around: Who exactly is the "her" referred to in the episode "The Other Woman"? And who has Ben never shared a scene with, though that seems destined to change? Read on, and then kick back and enjoy the two-hour conclusion to "There's No Place Like Home," starting Thursday at 9 pm/ET.
TVGuide.com: When the Others' shrink said to Juliet, "Of course Ben has a crush on you. You look just like her," who is "her"? Ben's mother, or the little girl he befriended on the island...? Michael Emerson: It could be either... or a third choice. That’s a really tantalizing question. I still think we're going to revisit that little girlfriend of his that made him the carved image.
TVGuide.com: The moment where Alex was killed, coming on the heels of Rousseau's death. Was it hard to lose your 'family" there? Or did you suspect it would put this new fire in Ben's belly? That is the way it's to function in the show – Ben now has the great motivation. He was cheated, and the game was upset. Now we see him prone to a feeling of grief and vengeance that is perfectly human. That will fuel his mission for the rest of the series.
TVGuide.com: When do you like playing Ben the most? There are a couple of ways I like playing Ben. I like it when he's in a jolly mood. Like when he had his little dinner party for Juliet. He's bustling around the kitchen, fixing food.... There's something surreal to see him do that. That’s a fun antic Ben. Ben's stock-and-trade is those tense scenes in confined spaces, where a lot hangs on a high-pressure conversation.
TVGuide.com: At the end of the day, what do you think will be harder to explain: Who or what is Jacob, or who or what is the Smoke Monster? The explanation of who or what is Jacob is going to be richer and more satisfying than who or what is the Smoke Monster. I have my own ideas about what the Smoke Monster is, and it's purely scientific. The explanation of Jacob, I think, may be more.
TVGuide.com: When that series finale airs, do you think it will be indisputable that Ben is "the good guy" here? I would be surprised if we walked away from Ben feeling anything but... ambiguous. I don’t think they'd let that go.
TVGuide.com: Because in the future he seems to be doing the right thing. Certainly his mission is going to be recontextualized — maybe many times — before the end of [the series]. Short of some amazing transformation – his becoming a monk or an alien or something like that – Ben seems a man fated to go on with this battle. And I wonder if the battle ever ends....
TVGuide.com: You seem to give your character a lot of thought. I think about him because I sometimes have to explain things to myself in my own head. I don’t really have interaction with writers, so I just try to impose meanings and contexts on it, partly for my own amusement but partly so I know what to play. It helps me make an unpredictable choice in a scene if I have a new idea about what's going on.
TVGuide.com: Do you feel as if you stumbled upon something special here at Lost? Oh, yes. It's a wonderful role. The ambiguity of it lets me paint it the way I please, episode after episode.
TVGuide.com: Is there anybody you wish you had more scenes with? There are characters that I've never had scenes with, it's so crazy. I've never had a scene with Sun or Jin; Michael only briefly; Desmond.... Now that could be interesting. What could bring Desmond and Ben Linus together? Something in the future, I am thinking. Since Ben seems to have Penny in his sites now, that's going to bring him into a collision with Desmond at some point, I assume.
TVGuide.com: What are you doing with your hiatus? We have three months off. I don’t really have any work to do. My wife (actress Carrie Preston) is working on a series in L.A. that films until the middle of July.
TVGuide.com: She's working on True Blood (based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire novels), right? Yes, and that could be really interesting. It's so tantalizing, this idea of [Six Feet Under creator] Alan Ball tackling vampire material.
TVGuide.com: And he has a colorful cast there, not the usual suspects. Right, fresh faces – and from what my wife tells me, some astonishing performances are being given. It's very exciting.
CSI's Warrick and NCIS' Jenny have nothing on this shocking exit. After eight years of breaking some of television's biggest news, Michael Ausiello is bidding TV Guide adieu.
Now, I don't know how many of you (outside of my proud momma and sisters!) pay attention to magazine mastheads, but Mike and I actually first started working together back in 1998, when I trolled the sets of As the World Turns and One Life to Live for "scoop" at Soaps in Depth. (Rule No. 1: No news tidbit about Roger Howarth is too trivial!)
I'm excited for Mike and his new opportunity. I hate him for leaving, oh yes I do, but I am also excited for him. And if you wonder why my eyes are red in the video I'm shooting later with David Cook (plug, plug, Ausiello-style), it's because of this news.
But I guess if you are going to gain a "frenemy," why not have it be one of your best friends, right?
Lost's Michael Emerson Teases a "Dark, Violent" Finale
Michael Emerson by Art Streiber/ABC
Say what you will about wily Ben Linus, but Michael Emerson is one of Lost's most interesting cast member interviews. Maybe it's the way he searches for just the right words — always cryptic, yet sometimes telling. On the eve of the conclusion of the ABC serial's season finale, I decided to kick off a two-parter of my own. Here, Emerson talks of Ben's fractured bond with the island, names the other (Other?) character that makes his "mouth water," and chimes in on a tale of two Emilys.
TVGuide.com: Give me three words to describe the season finale. Michael Emerson: [Thinks] Dark. Violent. Casualties.
TVGuide.com: About a year ago, you and I spoke about how Ben was loath to ever leave the island. And yet we've now seen that it is something that does happen. What do you think changed there? Ben's attachment to the island was... provisional. He's always been able to leave it. But now there's some question of him maybe having to abandon it – and that's as a result of developments in this last season.
TVGuide.com: So it's always been there as an option, but it's only recently that he has chosen to avail himself of it. I think so, yes. Things have gone so... wrong. Events have forced his hand in a number of ways. And John Locke appears to have been "anointed" somehow.
TVGuide.com: Ben appears to be making some sort of peace with that shift. Yes. His gut reaction is that of a teenage boy, which is to be vengeful and full of rage and bitterness. But eventually, he will always play the board as it is in front of him. He will accept the terms.
TVGuide.com: "Whatever makes Jacob happy." Exactly.
TVGuide.com: When you first were pitched this role, did they give you any hint as to the scope of Ben's involvement in the mythology? No. I doubt if they even knew it at that time! As far as I knew, it was to be three episodes. I think it was an experiment, one that worked out happily.
TVGuide.com: They’ve told me that the same thing happened with Nestor Carbonell. They didn’t have any "grand plan" for Richard Alpert, but once he became available, they said, "We could do something here." Yeah... And he's a great character. It makes my mouth water to think what they could do with Richard Alpert.
TVGuide.com: The guy is just flitting around time no worse for the wear, no nose bleeds.... Right, and he's just one of the eeriest characters.
TVGuide.com: You received an Emmy nod last year for Lost. Does an actor ever settle into a part and think, "You know what? This could be an award-winning role, if I do the right things with it"? I tend to just show up and do the work. I don’t think too much about those more popular issues — partly because I'm a creature of the theater and am therefore more superstitious. Some things are not to be said or thought, if you can avoid it. It begs for the gods to punish you for your hubris. It is flattering when it comes, though. Last year, I thought, "Oh my god, I am having more impact that I thought."
TVGuide.com: And with a dark role that doesn’t always connect with Emmy panels. And we work in such isolation, too. That’s a contributing factor. We're out there in Hawaii, there are no paparazzi, there are no fancy parties.... We get up before the sun, drive to some remote location, and punish ourselves all day long. You don’t get a strong grasp as to how it's received on the rest of the globe.
TVGuide.com: Are we to make anything of the fact that both Ben's mother and Locke's mother were named Emily? Well, that very idea occurred to me last week — and I'm usually the slowest on the uptake with those kinds of clues. I thought, "Hmm, let's hold onto that." They don’t make those kinds of accidents. The guys who write Lost are very careful about names. [Laughs]
Coming Thursday, in Part 2 of this Q&A: Who is "her"? What could bring Ben and Desmond together for the very first time? And more!
