‘Talking with Chris Hardwick’ Preview: Damon Lindelof Talks Mr. Eko and the Mistakes of ‘Lost’
Yes, there are viewers who still refuse to let go of their grievances with Lost, but perhaps Chris Hardwick’s upcoming sitdown with the series’ co-creator and showrunner, Damon Lindelof, will offer some satisfaction, comfort, or at the least more grist for the Lost gripes mill.
On Sunday’s new installment of AMC’s Talking with Chris Hardwick, Lindelof touches on the death of fan favorite Mr. Eko, whose run on the ABC drama was cut shorter than had been planned when actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje asked producers to write him off the show.
But Lindelof, at Hardwick’s urging, goes on to explain that there are often many more factors than fans might consider in the decisions TV producers have to make. Showrunners have to be more flexible than the producers of some other mediums, especially when they film on location in Hawaii and a severe rainstorm forces them to revamp production on the fly and shoot an entire episode indoors, set inside your series’ hatch — just one example Lindelof cites.
Not that he thinks that means fans should just assume there’s some beyond-producers’-control explanation for every unpopular storyline.
“We would come in on a Monday, looking at a big white board, and the following Wednesday, we’d have 55 pages of material we’d start shooting. But while we were doing that, we were brainstorming the episode that would follow, and shooting the episode that preceded, and editing the one that was two before that — and we would do that 25 times a year,” Lindelof says.
“And you’re going to make mistakes. That’s just going to happen.”
Talking with Chris Hardwick airs July 23 at 11 p.m. on AMC.
