Paleyfest will feature a special 10 year anniversary of Lost next month but the only problem is about half of the stars are missing…
Reunion panels of shows long gone are really an awesome concept.
Earlier today I was reading a column on Vulture about how TV reunions are done, how they should be done, and which ones are done the right and wrong way. For the most part, I agreed with every point made (although I don’t tend to believe spin-offs are always a good idea) with my favorite type of reunion being the panel idea.
A cast and crew from a TV show all gather at something like San Diego Comic Con or Paleyfest, and answer fan questions while reminiscing about their show for an hour or so and at the end everyone feels sad and weepy that it’s over, but oh so good that they were there to experience it.
At San Diego Comic Con two years ago, I can speak personally to the excitement that went along with the panel putting together the ‘Firefly‘ cast along with creator Joss Whedon. People were lined up a full day in advance to go see the reunion and while the lineup was missing a couple of members of the cast, all of the major stars were there (and Morena Baccarin even filmed a message since she couldn’t be there because of filming commitments with ‘Homeland’). When it was over, Whedon had tears in his eyes as a room full of fans cheered and applauded the cult science fiction show.
So it was with great anticipation that I saw the show ‘Lost‘ would be gathering for a 10 year reunion show at this year’s Paleyfest in March. The ending of ‘Lost’ may have been a little confusing and maybe we didn’t get the answers as promised, but it doesn’t take away from how amazing and complex this show was while still on the air.
This week, Paleyfest announced the lineups for their panels, which includes a slew of big shows from Mad Men to Sleepy Hollow to American Horror Story, a ton of big hits will be in attendance. Then I spotted the lineup for the ‘Lost’ reunion. The list is impressive but see if you notice anything missing.
Scheduled to appear:
Josh Holloway, “James ‘Sawyer’ Ford”
Daniel Dae Kim, “Jin Kwon”
Yunjin Kim, “Sun Kwon”
Jorge Garcia, “Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes”
Emilie de Ravin, “Claire Littleton”
Ian Somerhalder, “Boone Carlyle”
Nestor Carbonell, “Richard Alpert”
Henry Ian Cusick, “Desmond Hume”
Malcolm David Kelley, “Walt Lloyd”
Damon Lindelof, Executive Producer
Carlton Cuse, Executive Producer
Now disclaimer — the event posting did say additional panelists to be announced although in fairness it says that for every panel appearing at Paleyfest.
Listen as excited as any fan of ‘Lost‘ would be to see the stars back together, it’s kind of hard to call it a reunion when the people with the biggest parts on the show aren’t appearing. Matthew Fox, who played lead character Jack, is nowhere to be found. Neither are Evangeline Lilly who played Kate, Dominick Monaghan who played Charlie, Terry O’Quinn who played John Locke, Naveen Andrews who played Sayid, or Michael Emerson who played Ben Linus.
Now it’s not to say that the list of actors and actresses appearing don’t count, plus let’s not forget Lost had a cast big enough to rival Game of Thrones (they have 29 cast members as regulars, the largest of any TV show on network right now) so it’s going to be hard to put all of them in the same room at the same time. But if you’re going to announce a 10 year reunion, shouldn’t you at least preface that by saying the stars of the show won’t actually be there?
Imagine a Firefly reunion without Nathan Fillion or Joss Whedon?
Or a Star Trek reunion without William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy?
The tickets for the event range between $45 and $75 for the Q&A session. Surprises do exits so maybe Matthew Fox will jump out of whatever the latest Tyler Perry movie he’s starring in to make a brief appearance at the panel.
Of course we also all believed we’d find out why in the hell Walt was so special but if you held your breath on that one, you’re dead already.
