Wednesday, June 15, 2005 By Don Kaplan NEW YORK -- 'Lost' (search) fans are taking a page from the Trekkies and have held at least one convention to celebrate the show so far. Almost nobody wore any costumes, as is the custom at "Star Trek (search)" conventions, but nearly 800 devoted fans shelled out a whopping $189 a ticket to gather in Burbank last weekend and hobnob with about a dozen of the show's stars, writers and producers, reports the Los Angeles Times. "You learn to become artful about giving infuriatingly vague answers," said writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who along with the other "Lost" staffers, fielded questions from fans, dropping only tidbits and hints about what might happen next season. "I don't even show the scripts to my wife," he said. "Our fans are like Talmudic scholars -- they have created a body of scholarship about every episode." The event was organized by a company that also runs fan confabs for cult favorites like "Xena (search)" and "Star Trek." Only one woman was seen in a half-hearted costume: She wore a piece of fake, bloody flesh on her shoulder. "It's a piece of Arzt," she said, referring to the minor character who accidentally blew himself up in the season finale. "Lost" follows a group of plane crash survivors as they cope with life on a mysterious and dangerous island. Among the minor revelations unearthed for next season at the gathering: -- The rear section of the plane, along with additional survivors, will be found. -- The characters on the show will finally find out what's inside the mysterious hatch found on the island and blown open with dynamite in the season finale. -- The people in the finale who kidnapped young Walt, one of the crash survivors, were indeed the enigmatic "others" on the island. -- The doomed airliner that brought the main characters to the island did not crash by accident -- but it wasn't caused by any of the passengers. "Season 2 is gonna get weird," executive producer Damon Lindelof said. Other VIPs in attendence included Jorge Garcia, who plays fan favorite Hurley, and Emile de Raven, who plays Claire. Organizers also roped in a slew of lower-tier characters such as John Terry, who plays the father of Jack (Matthew Fox) in flashback scenes, and William Mapother (evil Ethan). But "Losties" -- who traveled from as far away as Alaska and Brooklyn to attend the gathering -- happily paid big bucks for "Lost" trinkets like hats ($25), canvas posters ($40), jackets ($130) and shot glasses ($8). Organizers said it was the first of six "Lost"-themed conventions planned for the next year.
Source:
http://www.foxnews.com
06-29-2005
