Gregg,

Thanks for taking the time to post on this forum. The job of script coordinator sounds like an interesting challenge. The amount of work that goes into the 'bibles' you mention must be huge for a show like LOST. I wonder if there is a 'list of questions we have raised but never answered' similar to some of the fan postings. Assuming the show continues as successfully as it has begun, those bibles would be worth a fortune on EBAY 10 years from now, or better yet as published supplements.

But my real question is a small one, to do with the Season One DVD english subitltes for the hearing impaired. I turn them on sometimes when I have trouble hearing exactly what a character says, or wonder how a name said in the show is spelled. I notice that the subtitles are often approximations of what is said. I am just curous how this comes about? Is this related to the differences you mention that a script supervisor notes during filming? Or is there a separate later step of adding these subtitles that is somehow inexact? ... not that the hearing impaired are likely to notice...

Oh, one other question ... if there is a real 'goof' or 'continuity error' detected after an episode is released, is there any attempt to go back and alter the story to fix it? or would such goofs ever be admitted to be such? (an example that comes to mind that is probably not a goof is that the plane crashes in the daytime even though the timeline and route would put it late at night ... there are some big debates over what that means in terms of the location of the island, etc.) No spoiler info is requested, just generally, how does the team treat goofs if they occur? Might a timeline be adjusted for example?

The writer's do keep track of unanswered questions, and they do know when they want to answer or reveal certain things.

The subtitles you refer to, if in English, are actually closed captioning. The people who do closed captioning are in a different building/office/location. So when an episode is completed, the post production department sends them a script and a final cut of the episode. The closed captioning people then enter the dialogue from the script and sync it to the scene. Keep in mind that in editing a scene may be moved around, trimmed down for time, or cut entirely. Also, actors sometimes don't say the dialogue written word for word. Maybe they've forgotten the exact line but what they say is essentially the same thing, or maybe they speak with a lot of "uh... um..." that you don't really need in the closed captions. That's why sometimes the closed captioning isn't verbatim of what is being said on screen.

As far as subtitles go, I also send the script to the Disney International people, who then do something to it to get the subtitles (most likely giving it to someone they have on staff to translate into the various languages). I would think they go through a similar process as the closed captioning people do, but I've never dealt with that before.

Regarding continuity errors or goofs, we just live with them. Nothing really big has gotten through (it there were anything, it would be caught in the script stage). We try to minimize them as much as possible, but as with any TV show it's sometimes difficult to catch every little thing. Personally, I just hope fans can be forgiving and know we are doing our best. I know some people aren't going to be into certain characters or stories, but I hope it's the stories that people are focusing on.

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply and for the reminder that the stories are at the top of the list of what makes LOST so compelling. I cannot speak for any other fans, but I can happily forgive a slip here or there in continuity in exchange for great writing, acting, drama, and mystery. But in return, please forgive us if we get a little, um, obsessive about all the little details. It is another layer of fun and a bit of a pasttime - something quite new and interesting really in TV fandom with the advent of TIVO, DVD's, and this internet medium. I like it. So stay sharp, and we will keep our microscopes focused while we sit back and enjoy how these LOST lives unfold, crisscross, and make references to all those familiar pop-culture texts and subtexts.

How many shows have a booklist associated with them? How great is that?
http://lost-forum.com/showthread.php?t=16637

Heck, I even looked at a Bible today to see some LOST references in there. Gasp.