It was with a strained sense of anticipation and doubt that I, along with 6500 fans, entered Hall H for the LOST panel at San Diego Comic Con this past Saturday.  Devout followers of the enigmatic TV show know that for the past couple of years, the LOST presence at SDCC has been.. well, uninspiring.  Showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have a history of filling these Q&A sessions with more Q and less A.  While this elusive banter (and the amusing nature in which it had been presented) has fed into the show’s overall mystique, fans have walked away from previous LOST panels at Comic Con sometimes more confused than when they went in.  So, as I sat awaiting the beginning of what I was certain to be another hour cloaked in as much mystery and deception as the show itself, I talked myself into believing that year’s LOST panel would ultimately be as unfulfilling as the last two annual installments at San Diego Comic Con.

Man… was I wrong.

I will say this much about the LOST panel at this year’s San Diego Comic Con: it was perhaps the most entertaining hour I spent in Hall H.  For a venue that hosted exclusive footage of The Watchmen, Terminator: Salvation and a surprise sneak preview of Tron 2, that’s saying something.  Of course, being a fan of the show didn’t hurt either.  The tone of the panel was set with a short video clip featuring Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse lampooning each other while ‘spoiling’ all the secrets of LOST (which were of course, bleeped out).

Once the lights in the hall came up, the duo walked on stage and announced that they had a special guest for the panel.  They introduced the Dharma Initiative as a sponsor of the LOST panel at this year’s SDCC and brought the company’s Head of Recruiting, Hans Van Eeghen, on stage.  Van Eeghen appeared before the masses and spoke a few terse words for the attendees who visited Dharma’s booth on the Con floor (click here to see photos of the booth) and took an aptitude test judging their ability to be a part of the Initiative.  In his words, the test results were “abysmal”.  He proceeded to announce the names of four people who qualified to take the “second phase of the test” and once these people joined him on stage, they were led back to the company’s booth by Dharma staff members.

Once the unexpected Dharma theatrics were over, Lindelof and Cuse jumped right into answering questions from a long line of fans.  I’ve done my best to summarize the highlights of this Q&A (yes, there really was A this time) below…

Beware of a few mild spoilers from the upcoming LOST Season 5!

• The island did not travel when Desmond hit the button in the hatch and the sky turned purple.
• Jin and Locke will return in Season 5.  Cuse said of this “Dead is a relative term.”
• When asked which episode and season was their personal favorite, Cuse proclaimed that he loved ‘The Constant’ and Season 1 while Lindelof chose the Season 1 finale episode and Season 4.
• Both revealed that Rousseau will most definitely return for Season 5, though not necessarily in the form of a flashback.  Cuse did confirm that Rousseau’s definitive story would be told in some fashion.
• Damon Lindelof expressed that it is the hope of everyone involved with the show that all episodes for Season 5 will be shown back-to-back with no interruptions.
• When a fan asked what happened to Vincent the dog, both Cuse and Lindelof jokingly replied that Vincent was alive and would likely be the only one who makes it to the end.

At this point in the Q&A session, Matthew Fox (Jack Shephard) appeared on stage to sit in on the remainder of the panel (to the deafening screams/applause of all 6500 attendees).

• Lindelof and Cuse confirmed that Kate will see Sawyer again before the show ends.
• When asked about the importance of the unnamed background characters on the show, Fox emphatically said that they are the unsung heroes of the show and that the actors who play them “bring it every day”.
• Lindelof confirmed that the location and time period in which the Season 5 premiere takes place will not be immediately obvious.  “When Season 5 starts, you will not know where you are and when you are.”
• Lindelof briefly mentioned the importance that Daniel’s notebook has in the upcoming season.  He referred to the notebook as having details about things that either haven’t happened or are about to happen.  The details of the notebook’s contents will be featured prominently in Season 5.
• Both Lindelof and Cuse chuckled when the inevitable “How old is Richard Alpert’s character?” question was asked.  They said that Nestor Carbonell (Alpert) is quite old and has been seen in a number of time periods through out the series.  They also noted that there would be more of Nestor’s history in Season 5.

At the end of the Q&A session, one of the fans taken away by the Dharma reps at the beginning of the panel appeared on stage with a video camera, exclaiming that he had footage that would “explain everything”.  The footage was shown in the hall and featured the well-known Dharma scientist (Francois Chau) who had previously given a number of aliases for himself, revealing that his true name was Dr. Pierre Chang.  Chang claimed that he was speaking to the audience from 30 years in the past (proving this by naming George W. Bush as our current president) and stating that it was vital that the Dharma Initiative be resurrected so that their “important work could be completed”.  He went onto say that he, along with everyone associated with the Dharma Initiative on the island would be killed in a “purge” which they were powerless to stop.  The video was clearly meant to be aged and included a large amount of static and skips in audio.

With that, the LOST panel came to a close and fans shuffled out of Hall H with both a sense of fulfillment and awe, knowing that the next season of the series may be the best one yet.

Click here to see our complete photo gallery of the SDCC 08 LOST panel!

Click here to see our complete photo gallery of the Dharma Initiative booth at SDCC 08!