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'Lost' and Found

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CHASING ANSWERS O'Quinn and Naveen Andrews

Mario Perez

To be clear, the creators of Lost don't have their heads buried in the sand. They hear the grumbling. They recognize that Lost's future is dependent upon making viewers happy. And guess what? Lindelof even considers some of their complaints to be ''legitimate...but that doesn't make them any easier to hear.''

So what happened? The producers believe the primary cause of discontent stems from the way they made use of season 3's weird if well-intentioned scheduling. Their plan was to utilize the fall ''miniseason'' to set up an array of story lines and tell one complete arc: Ben's scheme to manipulate Jack into operating on his tumor-choked spine. But with too much plot to deploy, the scribes opted to craft narrowly focused episodes that left no room for other characters, much less the show's myriad of ongoing subplots. Lost's pilots concede that season 3 should have emulated 24's model of consecutive installments. Next year, it likely will, says ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson: ''The show is best when [episodes air] in big chunks, if not all together.''

There are other regrets, too, none bigger than the clumsy killing of Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The producers wish they could have sicced Smokey on the warlord-turned-holy man later in the season, but the death was moved up to accommodate the actor's wish to exit the show. Not that anyone sounds terribly bothered by the accelerated execution. ''I don't miss him at all,'' says Terry O'Quinn, whose Locke matched wits and sticks with Eko. ''They cast people so perfectly that you confuse the actors and the characters. You feel an affinity for the ones you're supposed to, and friction with the ones you're supposed to. That was a very friction-filled relationship.'' (Akinnuoye-Agbaje declined to comment.)

However you viewed those half-dozen hours, the producers hope that you'll look at the big picture, three-quarters of which has yet to be unveiled. And they believe that you won't be disappointed by the masterstrokes yet to come. ''If the viewers don't like season 3 as a whole,'' says Cuse, ''then I'll be upset.''

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