Lost: Missing Pieces

In November 2005, while the early second season of Lost was airing, The Hollywood Reporter reported that twenty-two mobisodes—each spanning several minutes—were expected to be produced in December for a January 2006 release.[6] Zap2it reported that they would later be present on the second season's DVD set and that six would be exclusive to the DVD.[7] Unlike the television series, it would not be produced by ABC Studios (known then as "Touchstone Television") and would star non-Screen Actors Guild members; however it would be produced under the oversight of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, like the television series.[8] In response to fan inquiries about Lost's approximately thirty background characters, the Lost Video Diaries would focus on a self-contained story about two survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 who had not previously been introduced.[9] The Los Angeles Times confirmed in January 2006–the month scheduled to launch the series[10]–that the mobisodes would be broadcast on V CAST from Verizon Wireless and that each mobisode would span only two minutes.[11] Verizon would ultimately pay ABC $400,000 for the mobisodes.[12]

Production was delayed when the actors, directors and writers guilds refused to support the spin-off. A deal previously unheard of was negotiated in April,[13] which allowed guild members involved to collect residuals.[14] This agreement prompted Lindelof and Cuse to develop a storyline for the Video Diaries that would include Lost's regular characters, although not all of Lost's regular cast signed contracts. According to Touchstone's executive vice president for production Barry Jossen, who would eventually serve as an executive producer on the mobisodes, "They seem to be under the impression that we'll make millions of dollars and they won't".[12] Variety reported that the mobisodes would be produced and aired alongside the third season of Lost.[15] At Comic-Con International in July, Lindelof and Cuse announced that only thirteen mobisodes would be produced. They would run during the third season's winter hiatus, with none saved exclusively for the third season's DVD set.[16] A sneak peek of the Video Diaries was also shown at Comic-Con. The new premise featured Hurley Reyes (played by Jorge Garcia) finding a functional Dharma Initiative video camcorder[17] that had Dharma orientation films on it.[18] In the clip, he films Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) and James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway).[19] During the hiatus, no mobisodes were to be found and clips from upcoming episodes called Lost Moments aired instead, on television and then ABC.com.[20] In January 2007, Wizard discovered that ABC was still negotiating the actors' contracts; thus, no mobisodes had been produced, aside from the Comic-Con teaser.[21] In February, Lost's script coordinator, responding to a fan question, suspected the mobisodes had seemingly been put on hold indefinitely due to an inability to reach a contract agreement.[22]

Show runners Lindelof and Cuse unveiled the first footage shot for the mobisodes at Comic-Con in 2006; this footage (along with its storyline) was eventually scrapped and never made viewable to the general public.

In June, Lindelof and Cuse were interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter and they revealed the ultimate plan for the mobisodes. The mobisodes would air during the hiatus between the third and fourth seasons and would give viewers interesting information that would probably not be found in the show; the average mobisode would only be one and a half minutes long.[23] In the third season, the writers tried to integrate two previously unseen crash survivors named Nikki Fernandez (Kiele Sanchez) and Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro) into the story, but the pair was negatively received for their abrupt appearance and the writers killed them off after seven appearances.[24] Lindelof and Cuse learned from their mistake and decided that the mobisodes would focus on the regular Lost cast.[25] The writers were paid $800 per mobisode, whereas the actors received $425 per mobisode. Actors were contracted to receive more money if the mobisode were reused in another medium.[12]

In regard to writing, co-executive producer Edward Kitsis said that "sometimes it was a scene we always wanted to do, a scene that never got shot, sometimes it was just something interesting".[26] "Buried Secrets" revisits the first season storylines of sexual tension between Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) and Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) and the mutual detestation between Sun's husband Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Michael.[27] These conflicts were going to be further explored in the first season; however, positive fan reaction to Sun and Jin as a couple and good chemistry between the actors playing Michael and Jin led to the abandonment of the love triangle.[28] Reuters announced in November that the mobisodes would premiere that month.[29] This proved to be true, with "The Watch" appearing suddenly to Verizon customers as the first of the Lost: Missing Pieces. A new mobisode would generally become available each Monday and would be released a week later as a free webisode on ABC's website. The Writers Guild of America strike occurred as the mobisodes were released, due to television writers wanting a deal similar to that achieved for Missing Pieces.[30] Filming was completed in late November.[31] The mobisodes were later released as special features on the DVD and Blu-ray sets of Lost: The Complete Fourth Season – The Expanded Experience in the second half of 2008.

Although it had not always been the plan,[32] the Missing Pieces were produced by ABC Studios. Executive producer Jack Bender directed each mobisode, with writing duties divided between executive producers Lindelof and Cuse,[33][34] supervising producer Elizabeth Sarnoff,[35] co-producer Brian K. Vaughan,[36] executive story editor Christina M. Kim,[37] and co-executive producers Drew Goddard, Edward Kitsis, and Adam Horowitz.[38][39] Other crew members included executive producer Bryan Burk of post-production and co-executive producer Jean Higgins of physical production. "The Envelope"—a deleted scene from the third-season premiere; the only mobisode not to be originally filmed and written for Lost: Missing Pieces[40]—contained additional credits: Jeff Pinkner is an executive producer and executive producer J. J. Abrams is a co-writer.[41]

The Missing Pieces retains many of the cast members from the television series. Perrineau plays Michael,[42] who had not been seen since the second season finale.[43] Matthew Fox plays Jack Shephard,[44] the leader of the castaways and Elizabeth Mitchell portrays his love interest, Juliet Burke.[42] Garcia reprises his role as crash survivor Hurley.[45] Kim and Kim play married couple Jin and Sun.[37] Michael Emerson acts as Ben Linus, the leader of the island residents known as the "Others".[44] Guest stars John Terry,[46] Daniel Roebuck,[47] William Mapother[48] and Julie Adams[41] reprise their roles of Christian Shephard, Leslie Arzt, Ethan Rom, and Amelia, respectively. Emilie de Ravin, who plays Claire Littleton, appears solely in archived footage from the television show.[33] Vincent, a dog who survived the plane crash, is played by the dog Pono.[49] Guest star Sean Whalen makes his first appearance as the crash survivor Neil "Frogurt".[39] While the second season was airing, the writer-producers confirmed in the April 3, 2006, edition of the Official Lost Podcast that Frogurt would appear in the late second season,[50] however, he was merely mentioned once.[51] Frogurt also did not appear in the third season and he became a running gag in the podcast,[52] with Lindelof and Cuse repeatedly claiming that Frogurt would appear in the show.[53][54] However, Frogurt did appear in the fifth season briefly, but was shot through with flaming arrows shortly after being introduced.[55]

"Prod. no." is short for "production code number", which signifies the order that the mobisodes were produced in and appear on DVD and Blu-ray, which is different from the order that they aired in. "Original air date" refers to the original V CAST airdate. Days are in relation to the day of the crash, which is day 1 and September 22, 2004. All mobisodes are newly written and shot,[3] with the exception of "The Envelope", which is a deleted scene from "A Tale of Two Cities" that was shot on August 9 and 11, 2006,[56] a year before the other mobisodes.[57]