This (sadly, LOST-less Tuesday - nooo!) we've put our 16 questions to Peter Wilson, a 21-year-old student and LOST fan from Montreal, Canada, who on May 18th will begin what might very well be the world's first timed LOST marathon. Under the banner 'One geek. One week. One epic series' (which I LOVE, by the way!), Peter will attempt to watch every episode of LOST up until and including the series finale - about 5,500 minutes of LOST or the equivalent of about four days - in the shortest possible time, and live stream the entire event online. This is all for a very good cause: not only is Peter doing this to register a world record and honor what he calls 'an epic achievement' in television, but you can sponsor Peter and in doing so, help the Child's Play Charity who try to supply toys for sick children in hospitals worldwide. While he prepared to fit five day's worth of sleeping, eating and everything else a person does besides watch LOST into just one, we asked him about his LOST love, his marathon motivation and
Q: How long have you been watching Lost?
I started watching Lost in the summer of 2007 when a friend lent me season one pretty much on a lark.
Q: How did Lost get its polar bear claws into you? What about it got you hooked?
My initial reaction to the first season was good, but I wasn’t as enthralled with it as most are. In fact, my friend offered to lend me the second season, but I gave it a pass for a while. A couple of months later my friend lent me the second season and I became enthralled with the concept of the button. Then Henry Gale got introduced. Then the blast door map was introduced. All that crazy stuff really tickled the geek in me and I was hooked.
Q: Favorite character?
The fact that he is so new and interesting makes me want to say the Smoke Monster, but I have to say Jack has really won me over. If you told me that a few years ago I’d have said you were crazy, but I really like Jack. He’s a bit of a skeptic and likes drinking, which I can identify with. Throughout the series he is probably the person who has both gained and lost the most and that has put him in some interesting situations. I’m really as surprised as anyone that I’m not picking Locke, Ben or Faraday. I guess the writers did a really good job selling him in the last season.
Q: Least favorite character?
Probably Kate. I don’t hate her that much, but I always found her story arc kind of strange. She’s the main heroine and she was a murderer, but I’ve never felt like she’s attempted to be redeemed. Characters like Sawyer and Ana Lucia have both expressed regret about what they did and tried to make amends. I never felt that Kate ever tried to do anything like that and has tended to act kinda selfish, making it hard for me to root for her. Of course, if they connect these complaints with her not being a candidate I will have to reevaluate my opinion.
Q: Favorite episode or season?
Through the Looking Glass has pretty much always been my favourite episode. It really is the episode that bridges the gap between what Lost was pre-end date and what it is post-end date. The contrast between heroic island Jack and broken bearded mess Jack was delightful. I don’t think there’s one scene in that episode that I don’t like. It’s the kind of episode that you can enjoy on so many levels.
Q: Least favorite episode or season?
Another reason I might like Through the Looking Glass so much is because the previous Jack episode, Stranger in a Strange Land, was such a mess. Both the on island and off island stories were less than inspired and fairly irrelevent. It really deserves its place at the bottom of DarkUFO’s Episode League Table and that’s not even mentioning Bai Ling. Just terrible...
Q: If you had to be one of the following, which would it be and why: an 815 survivor, an Other or a member of the Dharma Initiative?
Probably a member of the Dharma Initiative. Get drunk, hang out with a bunch of hippy chicks and throw dynamite at trees. Sounds good to me. To be fair the competition isn’t too steep though. The Others don’t have much free will and all but a handful of the 815 survivors are dead. So is the DI, but at least they were on the island 20 years before they got purged, not 3 months.
Q: Which character’s demise were you most upset to see happening?
Probably Charlie, but with the caveat that I was most upset about him dying in Greatest Hits and he didn’t even kick it in that episode. The scene where Charlie passes his greatest hits list to Desmond gets me every time.
Q: Tell us a bit about your blog and the LOST marathon.
I'm running the Lost marathon blog, a site that will be detailing my experiences watching every episode of Lost (as well as the mobisodes and other bonus content) within a 5 day period. I'm going to start watching on May 18th (the air date of episode 6x16) and finish on May 23rd (the air date of the series finale.) I'll be streaming my whole experience live on uStream so that people can interact with each other as well as myself in chat. During that time I’m going to be collecting money for the Child’s Play Charity (www.childsplaycharity.org), which gives toys to children’s hospitals worldwide. It’s a very worthy cause that I think everybody can get behind. So if you have any loose change, please consider giving a few dollars to help children get through some tough times.
After the finale airs on ay 23rd I’ll be wrapping things up by playing through Lost: Via Domus in its entirety while discussing the finale with some guests from the Lost community. I hope that this will be an event that everybody will find fun to participate in. I know I’m looking forward to it.
Q: What are you favorite online Lost communities, blogs, podcasts, etc.?
It’s almost unfair to just pick favourites but if I had to nail down one favourite community, blog and podcast I would have to say Lostpedia, DarkUFO and the Lost Lowdown respectively. Lostpedia and DarkUFO are fairly obvious choices and are pretty universally lauded, but the Lost Lowdown is something I don’t see enough praise for. For those that don’t know Lost Lowdown’s podcasts are typically 6 hour+ scene by scene discussions of each episode. Although I understand that some people might have a problem with the length, it suits me just fine. They really capture what it feels like to have an extended discussion with your friends about Lost. They’re the perfect thing to listen to while doing spreadsheets at work.
Q: Tell us something interesting/scary/amusing/downright weird about how your time in the Lost fan-verse has changed your life.
I immediately think of when I went to Comic Con in 2008. Waiting in line for the Lost panel was a really special experience. I waited with a whole bunch of people from the ODI blog and talked about Lost. It was really awesome meeting Lost fans from all over face to face. The line was thousands of people long and it was really crazy just turning around and accidentally bumping into somebody whose podcast you listen to regularly. It was awesome.
Q: You’re in an elevator with someone who has never seen as much as a second of Lost. You got on in the lobby and you’re both headed to the fifteeth floor. How do you convince them to buy and watch all the DVDs before the elevator gets there?
Well if that person is a geek I’d try to pitch the fact that it is perhaps the best time travel show I’ve ever seen. If that person wasn’t a geek I’d try to say something about it being a very compelling character drama about people that crash on an island. I’d also tell them that the writers weren’t just making it up as they went along, which I’ve found is kind of a big deal for a lot of people who don’t want to watch it.
Q: Has watching Lost sparked any creative inspiration in your life, i.e. writing, media, art, etc.?
Not in any special way I don’t think. It has in the sense that I’ve seen Lost and liked it, so I’ll obviously be a bit influenced by it whenever I write something. I don’t feel that it will affect me any more than any other show I’ve really loved though.
Q: What were your hopes for Season 6 and based on what you’ve seen, how likely do you think it is they’ll be met by The End?
To be honest, I found the pacing a bit slow this year. Darlton seem to be moving the characters around to different places and just keeping them there for a while and it feels like they aren’t doing anything. But fortunately it feels like that is over with and things have changed. That being said I have actually really liked season 6. I’ll reserve whether I think it’s the best season until after the finale, but it is shaping up to be. The flash-sideways are very satisfying to me and have just reinforced in my mind that this is a show about characters and not necessarily the mythology. I trust Darlton and think they’ll wrap everything up quite nicely.
Q: How do you plan on combatting PLDS (Post Lost Distress Syndrome) or do you think we’re all destined to end up continuously re-watching our Lost: The Complete Series Ultimate Box Set for the rest of our lives?
Although I have Lost: The Complete series already pre-ordered I have a feeling that after the marathon I’m going to go on a bit of a Lost watching break for a while. Frankly it will be kind of nice to get so much free time back, time that I will no longer devote to 30 hours a week doing Lost related stuff. I will most likely use that time to do something creative myself. So it is kind of a win/lose situation.
Q: What do you think will be Lost’s legacy?
I think that Lost’s legacy will be that it brought back serialized television in a pretty big way. For every few flops that came in Lost’s wake there is a gem that may never have seen the light of day otherwise. Furthermore, the fact that Lost was on network television and achieved such widespread popularity is also pretty stunning. Despite how crazy Lost got, it was never some cult hit. I think people will look back on it and will be impressed for decades to come.
Thanks Peter from everyone at the LOST Blog and best of luck!
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