The return of Lost on Wednesday marks the latest chapter in a continuing drama filled with outrage, double-crosses, subterfuge, betrayal and shocking reversals of fortune. We're not talking about the show itself. We're talking about the War of the Spoilers.
On one side, an army of ardent amateurs ferret out story line secrets and share their findings online with like-minded fans. On the other side, Hollywood storytellers go to great lengths to protect surprises they've painstakingly crafted for their scripts, shredding scripts, forcing cast and crew to sign nondisclosure agreements and even leaking bogus information about key plot points to misdirect those who would spoil their shows.
Caught in the crossfire: legions of anxious fans, who find themselves torn between the itch to know what happens next and the desire to experience Lost's mind-bending plot twists and shocking revelations naturally, as the show unfolds.
Australian Lost fan John Klyza says he likes to keep up with news about the show but has no patience for what he describes as full-blown "ruiners."
"I draw the line at full descriptions of episodes and game-changers because they handicap my enjoyment of the show," says Klyza.
"These ruiners end up in forums and comment pages without warning and in front of the eyes of fans that didn't want to see them," he argues. "It's completely reckless to reveal the complete contents of an episode knowing full well you can't control what is done with that information after you reveal it."
The internet is largely responsible for the surge in spoilers, with websites capitalizing on viewers' seemingly insatiable desire for forbidden knowledge about shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica and other fan favorites. As each new season approaches, TV execs are only too happy to build buzz online by releasing a carefully controlled barrage of cast interviews, teaser trailers and glimpses behind the scenes.
But the hype machine they seek to harness has a mind of its own. In an age of ubiquitous digital cameras and instant web publishing, keeping a lid on any type of information has become an uphill battle. From closely guarded Apple product info to Abu Ghraib's darkest secrets, unauthorized data keeps finding its way online.
ABC's Lost is no exception. Sites like Dark UFO and TheTailSection teem with rumors, half-truths, speculation and spot-on facts gleaned from a traitorous insider, dredged up by a resourceful blogger or leaked by an untrustworthy reviewer with an advance copy of a show, give fans an opportunity to share their own ideas while reading up on the latest leaked episodes and crackpot theories emerging from the hive mind. Amid the message boards, trivia questions and other fan staples, solid information crops up with surprising frequency, oftentimes posted by individuals who remain shrouded in mystery.
For example, a persistent spy who goes by the name lostfan108 got hold of the synopsis for Lost's season 3 finale, "Through the Looking Glass," two weeks before the episode aired and revealed that the weird sequences featuring Matthew Fox's Jack character were taking place in the future. Lostfan108 struck again by leaking the synopsis of the season's fourth episode, "Eggtown," on Dark UFO.
Andy Page, Dark UFO's British proprietor, acknowledges that pageviews increase when the site posts a juicy spoiler, but disputes the notion put forward by content creators that insider Lost info translates into a lucrative business.
"Ha, I wish! I spend around 16 hours per day on the site during the 'on' season and the money we make just about covers the costs," he says. "The forum server alone costs me $250 per month. We also use some of the profits to put towards DVD box sets as prizes for the various competitions we run during the year. I suspect if I worked out the money made versus the hours devoted to the site that I'd probably be hitting minimum wage levels."
Page, who makes his living as a professional poker player, counts himself as a serious Lost fan, likening the series to The X-Files and Twin Peaks. He justifies the posting of unauthorized material by pointing out that visitors to the site receive ample warning.
"We also feel that people should have the choice about whether or not they want to read spoilers," he says. "We are very careful when posting big spoilers in that we give ample warning and hide the spoilers behind big 'ARE YOU SURE?' buttons."
To the true believer, spoilers are the sincerest form of flattery.
Withholding secret information from the fan community is considered bad form in some circles, says Jon Lachonis, who built a reputation for accuracy blogging under the pseudonym DocArtz. Lachonis has monitored Lost spoilage flow for years and co-wrote Lost Ate My Life, a book that dissects the show's fan culture.
He found himself on the receiving end of a disinformation ploy when two fake endings for the show's Season 4 finale leaked. An insider had been giving Lachonis access to episodes all season long. Weeks before the season finale, he got a screener that showed Henry Ian Cusick, who plays the character Desmond, in a casket during a pivotal scene, says Lachonis.
"I was convinced, 'Oh, this is the way it ends,'" says Lachonis, who went public with the reveal, then caught flak from the spoiler community when the actual ending revealed Terry O'Quinn's character,
John Locke (pictured, right) in the casket instead.
Such are the perils of back-channel data-farming. As the brains behind prime time's most intricately plotted thrill ride, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and co-producer Carlton Cuse articulate a battle cry shared by other content creators fighting to control information about their TV and movie projects.
"We try to fill each episode with a lot of unexpected incidents,"
said Cuse (pictured, right) to TV critics Friday in Los Angeles. "Certain sites out there are completely mercenary. They're just trying to use *Lost *spoilers to make money for themselves. It's hard to have any respect for that.
We know some people want to get that information but we honestly believe most people don't."
There's no question about where Lindelof stands on the subject. "A few words on spoilers.... They suck," he wrote in 2005 on The Fuselage, a website that tracks Lost and has become an official conduit between the show's creators and its fans.
Lost isn't the only show engaged in the War of the Spoilers. With its ongoing mysteries and shocking twists, Sci Fi Channel's Battlestar Galactica has earned a dedicated fan base that's extremely active online. To combat potential spoilage of its shocking Season 4.5 premiere last Friday, Sci Fi sent reviewers screener DVDs that did not include the revelation of the final Cylon.
Tricia Helfer, who plays Cylon Number Six on the show, says she empathizes with fans' need-to-know mentality -- up to a point.
"People love to gossip and want to know something before somebody else does," said Helfer (pictured, right). "That's human nature. But it goes to extremes when I have to worry about, 'Oh, I've got to find someplace to shred this script because somebody's going to go through the garbage trying to find a spoiler.'"
For mythology-rich shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica and Fox's Fringe, on-set paranoia evidently comes with the territory. Helfer says "the biggest stab in the back" occurs when crew members who've signed nondisclosure agreements sneak advance plot info to outside sources:
"We've had that once or twice and I'm like: 'How could you do that?
We're all in this as a team!'"
Movie directors also take extensive measures to prevent story leaks. While filming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,
Steven Spielberg milked maximum impact from Karen Allen's surprise appearance midway through the 2009 sequel by shuttling the co-star of the original Indiana Jones movie on and off the set hidden behind capes and umbrellas.
Writer-director Chris Carter went even further for The X-Files: I Want to Believe, insisting that actress Gillian Anderson read his script with a courier on hand to retrieve the document as soon as the actress was finished.
Once filming began, Carter aimed surveillance cameras at crew members who might otherwise consider smuggling call sheets or script pages off the set.
"We were determined to spoil the spoilers," Carter says. "It's a business now not unlike the paparazzi. Websites actually sell advertising. They exploit the element of surprise, which has great value to me. Every step of the way, I take much pleasure in trying to foil the spoilers."
McG, the director of Terminator Salvation, intends to keep his movie's ending a secret prior its May 23 opening.
"Only four people in the world know Terminator Salvation's ending," he says.
McG hsa been actively seeding misinformation about the movie -- to the chagrin of the studio execs. "We've launched a disinformation campaign and I've been yelled at by both Warner Bros. and Sony -- 'You can't do this, you can't do that,'" he says. "But I'll deliberately release things to get people off the scent of what we're actually doing. Those who are most clever will indeed be able to deduce the truth."
Marissa Gluck, managing partner of web-tracking firm Radar Research, says producers and directors shouldn't be so hard on spoilers. The phenomenon simply proves that fans are passionate.
"It's inevitable, no matter how many nondisclosure agreements you get people to sign, no matter how many alternative endings you film, inevitably bits and pieces get out," she says. "I understand why a producer or actor would be frustrated, but I think in the long run, spoilers are helpful in developing an engaged fan base. It's how you create a cult."
Still, there's something to be said for blissful ignorance. Even Lost spoilerholic Lachonis has come to appreciate the pleasures of a pure viewing experience. After visiting the *Lost *set in Hawaii last October, he returned to his Maine home and sat down to watch the new season's first six episodes.
"When I got my first batch of network cuts from my friend in the business, I went into it not knowing a single thing," Lachonis says.
"There were no previews, no promo pics, no episode descriptions."
The unspoiled shows gave Lachonis a renewed respect for the art of storytelling.
"Seeing this block of episodes without any prior knowledge was the best time I've had watching Lost,"
Lachonis says. "It reminded me of the sense of wonder I hadn't experienced since the series began. I was like, 'Wow, this is the way fans should watch the show.'"
*The season premiere of Lost airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. **on ABC. *(An hour-long recap of previous seasons starts at 8 p.m.). Top three photos of Lost cast members courtesy ABC. Photos courtesy ABC, Sci Fi Channel, Warner Bros.
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