TV CRITICS TOUR
'Lost,' 'Housewives' release season details
By Hal Boedeker | Sentinel Television Critic
Posted July 25, 2005, 9:50 AM EDT
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Viewer alert: Major revelations are coming soon. Television's two most-talked-about series, ABC's Lost and Desperate Housewives, quickly plan to answer questions raised by their cliffhangers last season.
On Desperate Housewives, the first episode will open by showing what happens when plumber Mike (James Denton) goes into the house where agitated teen Zach (Cody Kasch) is holding Susan (Teri Hatcher) hostage, series creator Marc Cherry says.
Lost will plunge into the mysterious hatch in its first episode, series co-creator Damon Lindelof says.
"You will see everything that's in there. What is in there will change everything about how they live on the island," Lindelof says. "We are erring on the side of giving away too much as opposed to being too vague."
The producers are meeting the nation's TV critics to collect awards. The Television Critics Association honors Desperate Housewives as program of the year. Lost earns prizes as best new program and top drama. Both series are likely to start their second seasons in mid-September.
The hatch looms as the main topic on Lost, and producers plan a bold revelation.
"I can guarantee you there will be people [viewers] who do not like what they find in the hatch," Lindelof says. "We found this door in the 10th episode of the show, and 13 episodes later they finally open it up. So what's inside has to be something big."
Although the contents can be construed as science fiction, Lindelof rules out a few possibilities.
"There aren't aliens in there," he says. "There isn't a time-travel portal. They aren't going to find a ship they blast off into space." The ill-fated voyage of the raft forms another major plot. A band of vicious strangers set the craft afire and seized the boy Walt (Malcolm David Kelley). Three other castaways -- Michael (Harold Perrineau), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) -- were left struggling for survival in the ocean.
"If they will reconvene with the main group becomes the story fodder of the first seven or eight episodes," Lindelof says.
The show will continue to examine characters' lives through flashbacks before the plane crash put them on a remote island. Those plots will include more on the marriage of Jack (Matthew Fox); the injury that put Locke (Terry O'Quinn) in a wheelchair; the rock-star existence of Charlie (Dominic Monaghan); the fugitive past of Kate (Evangeline Lilly); and the lottery lifestyle of Hurley (Jorge Garcia).
Michelle Rodriguez joins the cast as a passenger who was in the tail section and who survived elsewhere on the island. The recurring numbers -- on the flight, hatch and lottery ticket -- will become "the driving and fundamental plot point of the second season," Lindelof says. Viewers will know how the plane crashed by season two's end, he promises.
But Lindelof stresses the people are the main element. "The island just serves as a conduit to tell character stories," he says. "No one is really watching the show for the answers to those mysteries. They're watching to see: Will Kate and Jack hook up?"
Desperate Housewives creator Cherry clears up a lingering mystery: Rex (Steven Culp), husband of Bree (Marcia Cross), is definitely dead.
"There was a scene in the finale which made it really, really clear," he says. "Because we were long, I cut it. I thought the phone call [from the doctor to Bree] did it. I did not mean to confuse the fans in any way."
Alfre Woodard, who's a new regular, plays a housewife with a dark secret. "Her character was a concert pianist," Cherry says. "She's going to be involved in something pretty gothic on the show -- pretty dark and spooky."
# Cherry previews what's ahead for the other wives: Susan finds out the truth about Mike's relationship to Zach.
# Lynette (Felicity Huffman) joins the work force in a surprising way. Joely Fisher will play one of her bosses.
# Pregnant Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) has to convince Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) that the baby is his, and finds a way to do it.
# Bree has a battle royale with her mother-in-law (Shirley Knight) over Rex's funeral.
# Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) will begin a romantic relationship in the second episode that frustrates Susan greatly.
Cherry dismissed speculation, fueled by a Vanity Fair article, that the actresses are not getting along. He notes that Huffman attends the critics' party, although she wasn't a nominee for comedy achievement. Hatcher and Cross, who were nominees, do not show up. They lose to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show.
"Everyone's really lovely," Cherry says. "We're people going, 'Glad we have a job.' With the exception of Eva, most of us kind of had passed our prime a little bit, in terms of how the industry can look at you. So I think we're all grateful we caught the second wave. If you're a comedy writer or an actress, when you hit 40, you start to get nervous. We have a lot in common, those two professions."
Hal Boedeker can be reached at hboedeker@orlandosentinel.com.
'Lost,' 'Housewives' release season details
By Hal Boedeker | Sentinel Television Critic
Posted July 25, 2005, 9:50 AM EDT
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Viewer alert: Major revelations are coming soon. Television's two most-talked-about series, ABC's Lost and Desperate Housewives, quickly plan to answer questions raised by their cliffhangers last season.
On Desperate Housewives, the first episode will open by showing what happens when plumber Mike (James Denton) goes into the house where agitated teen Zach (Cody Kasch) is holding Susan (Teri Hatcher) hostage, series creator Marc Cherry says.
Lost will plunge into the mysterious hatch in its first episode, series co-creator Damon Lindelof says.
"You will see everything that's in there. What is in there will change everything about how they live on the island," Lindelof says. "We are erring on the side of giving away too much as opposed to being too vague."
The producers are meeting the nation's TV critics to collect awards. The Television Critics Association honors Desperate Housewives as program of the year. Lost earns prizes as best new program and top drama. Both series are likely to start their second seasons in mid-September.
The hatch looms as the main topic on Lost, and producers plan a bold revelation.
"I can guarantee you there will be people [viewers] who do not like what they find in the hatch," Lindelof says. "We found this door in the 10th episode of the show, and 13 episodes later they finally open it up. So what's inside has to be something big."
Although the contents can be construed as science fiction, Lindelof rules out a few possibilities.
"There aren't aliens in there," he says. "There isn't a time-travel portal. They aren't going to find a ship they blast off into space." The ill-fated voyage of the raft forms another major plot. A band of vicious strangers set the craft afire and seized the boy Walt (Malcolm David Kelley). Three other castaways -- Michael (Harold Perrineau), Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) -- were left struggling for survival in the ocean.
"If they will reconvene with the main group becomes the story fodder of the first seven or eight episodes," Lindelof says.
The show will continue to examine characters' lives through flashbacks before the plane crash put them on a remote island. Those plots will include more on the marriage of Jack (Matthew Fox); the injury that put Locke (Terry O'Quinn) in a wheelchair; the rock-star existence of Charlie (Dominic Monaghan); the fugitive past of Kate (Evangeline Lilly); and the lottery lifestyle of Hurley (Jorge Garcia).
Michelle Rodriguez joins the cast as a passenger who was in the tail section and who survived elsewhere on the island. The recurring numbers -- on the flight, hatch and lottery ticket -- will become "the driving and fundamental plot point of the second season," Lindelof says. Viewers will know how the plane crashed by season two's end, he promises.
But Lindelof stresses the people are the main element. "The island just serves as a conduit to tell character stories," he says. "No one is really watching the show for the answers to those mysteries. They're watching to see: Will Kate and Jack hook up?"
Desperate Housewives creator Cherry clears up a lingering mystery: Rex (Steven Culp), husband of Bree (Marcia Cross), is definitely dead.
"There was a scene in the finale which made it really, really clear," he says. "Because we were long, I cut it. I thought the phone call [from the doctor to Bree] did it. I did not mean to confuse the fans in any way."
Alfre Woodard, who's a new regular, plays a housewife with a dark secret. "Her character was a concert pianist," Cherry says. "She's going to be involved in something pretty gothic on the show -- pretty dark and spooky."
# Cherry previews what's ahead for the other wives: Susan finds out the truth about Mike's relationship to Zach.
# Lynette (Felicity Huffman) joins the work force in a surprising way. Joely Fisher will play one of her bosses.
# Pregnant Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) has to convince Carlos (Ricardo Antonio Chavira) that the baby is his, and finds a way to do it.
# Bree has a battle royale with her mother-in-law (Shirley Knight) over Rex's funeral.
# Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) will begin a romantic relationship in the second episode that frustrates Susan greatly.
Cherry dismissed speculation, fueled by a Vanity Fair article, that the actresses are not getting along. He notes that Huffman attends the critics' party, although she wasn't a nominee for comedy achievement. Hatcher and Cross, who were nominees, do not show up. They lose to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show.
"Everyone's really lovely," Cherry says. "We're people going, 'Glad we have a job.' With the exception of Eva, most of us kind of had passed our prime a little bit, in terms of how the industry can look at you. So I think we're all grateful we caught the second wave. If you're a comedy writer or an actress, when you hit 40, you start to get nervous. We have a lot in common, those two professions."
Hal Boedeker can be reached at hboedeker@orlandosentinel.com.
