Interviews with the Lost masterminds are popping up everywhere now that the show is finally returning tonight. The Onion AV Club recently spoke to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse about the season finale, the importance of fan feedback, and how far they really plan things in advance. Read some highlights below, or check out the entire interview here.

AVC:  You mentioned the road map you generally have for each season. How detailed is the map for the rest of the series?

CC:  The most liberating and significant event that's happened for us was getting an end date for the show, negotiated with the studio and the network. Before that, Damon and I didn't know if the mythology we'd created was supposed to sustain us over two seasons or six seasons, so it was very hard for us to do any sort of planning. But once we agreed upon a number of episodes before we were going to end the show, then we were able to start a situation where we could sketch out the rest. Once we finish writing the finale, we'll have a mini-camp on season five. We have a mini-camp every year, but because we're getting close enough to the end, the mini-camp on season five will also involve a lot of discussion about what's going to go on in season six.

AVC:  Going back to your comment about "market fluctuations" and how they affect character arcs, are Fisher Stevens and Zoe Bell going to be returning?

CC:  You know, I think we'll duck that question.

AVC:  How about this: Were the "tailies," particularly Eko, Libby, and Ana-Lucia, always going to be funeral-home fodder, or did you have other plans when you first introduced them?

DL:  Our deal with Michele Rodriguez was always for a season-long arc. And then when we came to the moment when Michael was going to kill her, we also thought that if we killed Libby, it would be a one-two punch. Because Ana-Lucia is a character that a lot of the audience had mixed feelings about, but Libby is a character that nearly everybody loved. So to make Michael's act as heinous as possible, Libby ended up dead. Eko… there were deal complications with the actor going into that season, and though we did have plans for that character that would have extended well beyond season three of the show, as a result of the practical considerations of producing a show, it just didn't pan out.

AVC:  Do you pay a significant amount of attention to fan response and critical response? Does it affect how you proceed?

CC:  Well, you know, we do, but in sort of a filtered manner. We don't really get on the boards and read all those comments. It just feels like people who are writing on the boards tend to be more focused on the mythology, and for us, we're making a character show. The thing that we spend the most time on are the character dynamics of a given episode, and what we're learning about these people. The mythology is sort of the frosting on the cake. But that's what everybody talks about, and what we're asked most about.

DL:  And we find that the boards can be really toxic. Nobody goes on the boards to say: "Wow! That was awesome!" Traditionally, they go on the boards to nitpick and say, "Oh, I don't understand how Michael could have gotten off the island, gotten back to New York, parked Walt, then got indoctrinated by Friendly all in a month." Well, I don't understand how [on 24] there was a coup in the Oval Office, Jack's daughter got abducted, and there was a nuclear attack in Van Nuys, and it's not even lunchtime yet. But it's television. The reality of it is, if you go on the boards and people are saying, "I saw that coming," or "This is lame," or "I can't believe they're doing this again…" Having been one of those people myself, I know better, and try to avoid it. [Laughs.]

But there is a groundswell of what we hear about the show. When we were in season three after the break last year, it was a much different vibe than it is right now, in terms of how the audience responded to those episodes. If people are loving the show, Carlton and I will be walking around on the Disney lot, and some guy will literally pull over in his little fire-marshal truck and go, "I'm loving the show this year! What's the monster?" That won't happen if people aren't digging the show. So we do get a sense of what the fans are thinking and feeling. And what the critics are saying, because it's in the paper. The day after a really good episode airs, we'll get a lot of e-mails from people we know. After the "The Constant" aired, I don't think Carlton and I had ever gotten more e-mails. You just get a sense of, "Wow, that episode really landed with the fans."

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