"The new obsession is basically, 'how many questions are you guys going to answer?'"

Damon Lindelof did get that right, all right. He, along with fellow Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse, talked to TVGuide.com and dropped some hints as to what directions we should be taking when we begin watching the show's final season, which premieres tomorrow.

"To us, the most important thing is, what are these character's destinies? What are their fates? What's going to happen to them?" Cuse said. "Those are the questions we're really interested in answering. Along the way, we're going to tackle some of the mythological biggies, like what's the smoke monster? You'll learn more about the nature of the island. You'll learn more about Jacob and the Man in Black. Those are the things we feel are important as opposed to what kind of research was the Dharma Initiative doing on polar bears."

Yeah, turns out the polar bears aren't really that significant.

"The mantra of the final season in a certain way is, 'Anything can happen, be prepared,'" Cuse continued. "We are nearing the end, so if there are any constraints that govern a series, they really go away in the final season. We always felt like Lost was at its best when it was really surprising ... We do have a few surprises up our sleeves for this season, which we think are really exciting."

And the dead people? Setting aside the time-reset idea, which easily brings Charlie and Boone, among others, back into the fold, they clarify that those who died are actually dead. "Of course, dead characters show up in other incarnations," Cuse said. We have a narrative structure of our show which allows us to have our cake and eat it too. Just because you're dead doesn't mean we don't see you on the show." So that means Ben really killed Jacob at the end of the last season--and, despite Harold Perrineau's recently confirmed return to the show, "he did die on the freighter."

But despite Jacob's death, there's still the showdown between Jacob and--it's official--the Man in Black. "People are going to take sides, but that doesn't mean they're not going to switch sides later on," Cuse said. "I think one thing to keep in mind though is that just because one guy wears white and the other guy wears black, don't make immediate judgments over who's good and who's evil," Lindelof added. "Jacob has kind of put our guys through the wringer in a lot of ways, so it might be interesting to see what the Man in Black has to say for himself."

The bottom line: "By the end of the premiere, you'll have a sense of what we're doing," Cuse said. "We're still doing the same thing we've always done on the show ... It just now starts to take on a different form in the final season. Like every season, each season is a distinct entity, so by the end of the premiere, you should have a sense of what Season 6 is shaping up to be like."

And, since details from the first half of tomorrow's season premiere have crept out (thanks to the Hawaii screening over the weekend), we can all safely say that we don't know anything yet. Frustrating? Not really. It's tomorrow already.






(Image courtesy of ABC)