Panel Participants: Josh Schwartz of Chuck, Gossip Girl, and The OC; Josh Friedman of The Sarah Connor Chronicles; Bryan Fuller of Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, and Wonderfalls; Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse of Lost. Read about the first part of the panel here.
The first person up to the mic said that the fourth season Lost episode “The Constant” was one of his favorite episodes ever and wanted to know how they plotted it out. This episode, for those of you out there who don’t remember, is where Desmond becomes “unstuck in time” a la Slaughterhouse-Five and has to seek out Faraday in the past to help him out.
“It’s usually two weeks to break [the story for] a Lost episode,” said Cuse, “and that one took us five weeks.”
Lindelof said that they found the episode almost impossible to explain, but they always ended their explanations by saying “he gets to make out with Penny.” The key was getting people to understand that it wasn’t about the time travel or the mythology, but that it built to something emotional.
“I love that episode,” added Fuller. “It was the best episode of TV last year.” The room agreed, erupting in thunderous applause.
The next questioner asked the Lost guys if there were any actors they wish would have stayed around longer because they had more story to tell.
“Mr. Eko,” answered Cuse. He went on to explain that, while most of their actors fall in love with Hawaii while shooting the show, Adewale just didn’t want to be there, and they were forced to end the arc of that character sooner than they would have liked.
“What about Shannon?” asked Fuller to laughs.
For the first non-Lost question, a person asked if the panel thought the Emmy voters were biased against genre shows.
“I was thrilled with the twelve nominations that our show got,” responded Fuller. But he added that he thought Battlestar should have received more nominations, and admitted to wondering if voters thought genre was easy or if they just didn’t get it.
“They don’t get it,” mumbled the person next to me in the audience.
After apologizing for yet another Lost-centric question, the next fan defied himself by not asking a question at all, but simply imploring Lindelof to finish the comic series he’s writing for Marvel.
Lindelof promised that he would be at the Marvel panel later in the Con to discuss this… and have people throw fruit at him.
Next up to the mic was “Tap Dog,” who amused the panel even more by telling them that he’d gotten his nickname because he used to tapdance as a kid before launching into his question about the new Lost ARG.
Cuse answered that he and Lindelof are working on it with a company out of Australia named Hoodlum, and they’re really excited about it.
As the next person approached the mic, Friedman joked that he felt “like one of the Pips,” and Jensen implored that the next question be directed at Friedman…but it was not to be: “Two questions. One, what’s your opinion on [the philosopher] Jeremy Bentham? And B, was he chosen because of… the Panopticon prison, where an entire society is being watched, but they don’t know it?”
Following her question, Lindelof suggested letting the other panelists answer the Lost questions, then proceeded to answer. He and Cuse have a list of philosophers they might want to use at the ready, and they had chosen the name Jeremy Bentham more than a year ago for the reasons the fan listed in her question, among other things. “But what I really want to know,” he continued with a smile, “is about some of these other shows.”
His wish was sort of granted with a question for everyone about how they interact with their respective networks in regards to the creative process.
“It’s a collaboration at its most politick,” said Fuller, adding that for something like Pushing Daisies, it’s always a negotiation — sometimes a really tense negotiation and sometimes an easy one. It was tough to get to the point where they could make a show that they were proud of and still get the backing of the network.
Friedman started by acknowledging that Fox has been a dirty word for creators of genre television in recent years. But he added that the network has been really good to them. “We tried to push the envelope with a few things, and we get very little pushback.” Most of his notes, he continued, are less about Fox trying to censor what they do and more about clarity for the audience. “I like to try to write kind of right below the comprehension line and hope that production pushes us over that line.”
“I want to hear the next Lost question,” quipped Schwartz.
Unfortunately, he would be disappointed, as the next question was about how they found the casts for their shows and if they thought it was easier now as opposed to years ago.
“The thing about casting,” answered Fuller, “is that most actors really want to work.” He then told a story about how they had already offered the role of Lily to Swoosie Kurtz, but when she came in to meet them, she still tried to convince them why she was perfect for the role…even bringing in props.
Schwartz said that they were waiting for Yvonne Strahovski at the airport so that the people from Bionic Woman couldn’t steal her away from them.
Friedman was then asked to relay his story about casting Brian Austin Greene for the role of Kyle Reese’s brother. “I always think of casting as like when you can’t find your car keys. It’s panic, panic, panic, panic — Oh, there it is.” They spent a lot of time looking at people for the role with no luck, but Friedman’s casting director kept telling him she had an ace up her sleeve. At about six ‘o’ clock on the night before the role needed to be cast, she told him that the last person they were seeing was Brian Austin Greene. “That’s your big save?” Friedman replied. But then Greene walked in and did a really intense scene, and Friedman knew that he had found his Derek Reese. Greene was cast on the spot.
Then Friedman had to go tell the writers. He went into the room and they swarmed him, begging to know if the role had been cast:
FRIEDMAN: Yes.
WRITERS: Who, though?
FRIEDMAN: It’s Brian Austin Greene!
Silence, then…
WRITERS: You’ve gotta be kidding.
FRIEDMAN: Just watch.
The next day Greene walked on set and performed his scenes, and the other writers were blown away just as Friedman had been. “We thought you were nuts,” they said. Lesson: great casting can make you look like a genius.
Next up was an Australian guy who asked the Lost guys how they were going to reconcile some of the paradoxes in the show, specifically related to Claire and Aaron.
“We are very aware of the apparent paradoxes,” responded Lindelof. “We can also say that we’re not ever going to do a paradox on the show.”
Cuse continued. “Everything’s explainable.”
Fuller got the next question: how did he make the transition from the somewhat darker tone of Dead Like Me to the lighter tone of Pushing Daisies?
He explained that it was “a general life attitude,” revealing that he went to a lot of funerals as a kid, and everyone always tried to make him feel good while he was there, so he never thought of funerals as bad things. “It’s not so much an obsession with death as it is an obsession with life, because death is just the punctuation to everything that comes before.”
Jensen followed up by asking Fuller to explain how Daisies had originally been conceived as part of the world of Dead Like Me.
Fuller said that since the main character of Dead was a girl who died and became a grim reaper, taking people’s lives away, he thought an interesting romantic foil would be a guy who could give people their lives back. Not only would he prevent her from doing her job, but he could potentially give her her life back.
Ethan from Brooklyn then asked the panel if they think time travel is overused right now.
“We’ll tell you yesterday,” responded Cuse, getting groans from the audience. But he continued, saying that he hopes they’re putting their own spin on time travel and making it unique. “If you’ve seen a flash forward, that event is immutable. It’s not changeable.”
Lindelof added, “The greatest thing that could ever be uttered in the halls of the networks is, ‘We have too many shows about time travel.’ I think that would be a huge achievement.”
For the next question, a woman asked Fuller why the world of Daisies is so bright and shiny and happy.
“We were very excited about creating a fairytale aesthetic on primetime television,” he replied, adding that in large part the choice was made to reflect the show’s tone.
The next guy asked if the wide variety of mediums in how people view their content has affected the way they shoot it.
Friedman said that they feel a great responsibility to be as cinematic as possible, and that definitely affects both production and what kinds of stories they try to tell in the scripts.
“It’s gonna live on DVD in 16×9,” added Fuller, “so we always try to shoot it 16×9 and protect for 4×3.”
Cuse mentioned some Lost webisodes they created for Verizon and how many of their discussions involved tailoring the stories so that they “fit” the tiny screen. “Usually two-character pieces or sometimes three-character pieces.” And ultimately, he said, they too are always thinking about the DVD and the legacy of the show living on in that format.
For the last question…Lost. Again. “Once I started watching it in March, I couldn’t watch anything else,” effused the guy.
“Thank you very much, sir,” interrupted Friedman sarcastically, earning a big laugh from the audience.
The questioner then asked how much the Lost writers plan in advance and how much of the story is spur-of-the-moment.
Lindelof said that they’ve gotten this question many times before, and acknowledged the debate between fans who think he and Cuse are just making things up as they go along and those who are sure that every little detail is completely planned out. “To tell you the truth, up until the end of the third season it was a little bit of both.” Not knowing when the show would end made planning out the entire arc of the show in meticulous detail seem pointless, because they might have been required to stretch it out longer or squeeze things together to fit the number of episodes they had to tell the story. But now that they know exactly how many episodes are left, everything really is completely planned out.
However, adds Cuse, “We still come into the writer’s room every episode and break the story, and there’s an organic process that goes along.” He likened it to driving to New York with a road map and knowing which cities you want to see along the way, but every day when you get up, you can still decide if you want to take the highway or one of the back roads.
Lindelof gives an example, saying that they knew the hatch was going to get blown up at the end of season two, and that Desmond would be the one to blow it up, but everything about the specifics of the kill switch and how it would happen was figured out during the writing.
Jensen then snuck in his own “last” question: “What is your favorite show that you’re not making?”
SCHWARTZ: Lost.
CUSE: Gossip Girl.
LINDELOF: Pushing Daisies and the Terminator.
FULLER: I really like Project Runway.
FRIEDMAN: I don’t watch network television.
“Oddly, it’s not just stage talk,” continued Lindelof. “We’re all fans of each other’s shows.”
Cuse ended the panel by quoting his son, who was incredibly excited when he learned his dad was going to be on the showrunners panel: “He said, ‘You know, season one of The O.C. is, like, the best season of television ever. No offense.”
Read the Showrunner Q&A by Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly.
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Read Comic-Con coverage for Friday here and for Saturday here.
View some photos from the panels here.
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Read Josh’s blog Boring Future Generations here.
Read the TV spec scripts he wrote with writing partner Juliana Weiss here.
Related Stuff:
Juliana Weiss-Roessler is a writer living in Los Angeles. To read more of her writing, visit WeissRoessler.com. You can also follow her on Twitter: @jul_weiss. 
