'Lost' Writers Wrap Their Heads Around Space-Time Continuum

May 29, 2008 — -- On "Lost," time is always of the essence -- for the show's characters, its writers and its viewers.

After dazzling viewers with its character flashbacks and flash-forwards, the ABC mystery drama (season finale, tonight, 9 ET/PT) has shaken the space-time continuum this season by exploring the temporal variance between the island and the outside world and the possibility of traveling vast distances rapidly, or traveling through time.

Viewers able to maintain their equilibrium will be rewarded with tonight's finale, in which Locke (Terry O'Quinn) seeks to "move the island" to save it. "When you see it, you will be able to see much more clearly what the possibilities are when it comes to space-time on the show," says executive producer Carlton Cuse.

Time is central both to Lost's story and in how the show is presented to the audience. "The Constant," arguably the most highly praised episode of a well-received fourth season, saw island castaway Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) connect via his consciousness to a younger version of himself in England.

It took five weeks, rather than the usual two, for the writers to put that story together, because they needed to determine its ramifications on future stories. Executive producer Damon Lindelof says "The Constant" may be the most important episode of the series in laying out Lost's rules for time travel.

"I remember in the writers room saying, 'I wish we could travel into the future, read the script and then come back and just go: This is what it's going to be,' " he says.

Space-time questions have popped up in recent episodes, as when the body of the doctor from the offshore freighter washes up on the island apparently before he was killed, and when a parka-clad Ben (Michael Emerson) appears in the Tunisian desert seemingly out of nowhere.

Andrew Morrison, a "Lost" viewer who teaches physics at Illinois Wesleyan University, says the producers have so far avoided the physically impossible.

They "have seemingly not (yet) violated any laws of physics, although the technology for how the effects would be accomplished are way beyond present-day engineering capabilities."