I see. Regardless of whatever was actually said and confirmed by those that actually work on the show, you're going to say just the opposite just to suit you whether it really holds water or not. Got it.
They had a very basic outline form season to season but recent interviews suggest much of it was written season to season, episode by episode.(Example:They had no Idea John Locke would be dead by season 5 or that the MIB was smokie and took lokces form etc.)These guys have been very contradicting in interviews over the years.
You got a link to where they say they had no idea about Locke being dead, and so on?
As far as I've seen, they've stayed consistent on a few things:
Season one they made up until Sayid's episode. When the back half of the season was picked up, they figured out the rest of the year, which is when you see elements like the Hatch and the Others being introduced.
Between seasons one and two they figured out somewhat what the Smoke Monster was, evidenced by them hinting throughout the show that we saw the Smoke Monster in non-Smoke show at different points. I don't think they figured out that he was Jacob's brother until Jacob came into the picture, though. Clearly by season three they knew it was an entity that could take the form of dead people (Yemi). Here they also figured out the basic idea of the Dharma Initiaitve, Jacob, the way the Others operated (looking like hillbillies using disguises), that they may start playing with time travel, who the real Sawyer was, what Kate did, how Locke got in his wheel chair, all of that.
During season three they negotiated an end date for the show. At this point they outlined seasons four, five and six. They knew how many episodes they had left to the exact number, so I fully believe that they figured out Jacob, MIB, the candidates, the Oceanic Six, the time traveling, all of that at this point. That's why we started seeing these elements being setup, with a physicist character being introduced to eventually explain the rules of time travel, a call back to the Island for Jack and the others, Locke being the one in the coffin, and so on.
They also made some stuff up as they went along. Nikki and Paulo were supposed to play a bigger role, as were Eko and Libby. Henry Gale was supposed to die after three episodes, with Ben being introduced at the end of season two, probably. Juliet and Sawyer weren't originally going to get together. I doubt all of the deaths were figured out until they outlined the individual seasons. Some mysteries were introduced, like the outrigger shoot-out in season 5, that were supposed to be closed but never were. This resulted in inconsistencies, of course.
As for why season six was weaker than three to five--and I do think the Island story especially was weaker this last season--I think it's just a case of last-act-itis. It's the same in movies, especially a lot of action movies, that are innovative, new and exciting all the way through until the end, where we get a same old, same old bad guy kidnaps the girl and the hero has to do some heroics to free her final act. See
Collateral,
Iron Man and
Minority Report for some examples. Movies aren't made up on the fly, of course, but they often suffer from the same problem Lost did: good first act, awesome second act, let-down of a third act.
That's why I don't think they completely made it up as they went, and that's why people are disappointed.
I should probably add that I did like this last season fine, and I enjoyed the finale. It just didn't quite reach the heights previous years did for me.
And just cause I asked for a link above...
Interviewer: Tonight's episode, "Across the Sea," focuses on Jacob and the Man In Black. When were these guys first conceived?
Lindelof: We had to start talking about the overall mythology of the island in greater detail in the cracks between the first and second seasons, before our characters went down into the hatch. That conversation basically kicked out into the other major arc of the second season. Which was: Who are the Others? Who are these other people on the island, and who was their leader? And who was he receiving his instructions from? By the time the show got into its third season, we started to hear references to this character, Jacob. And I think it's safe to say that those conversations started then.
Here
