The Lost Initiative: Paul Terry's Blog: Report from L.A.When Paul Met Charlotte...Lost Live - The Final Celebration, PT on a completely different LA-based Lost debate show,  plus, the final ever Lost Weekend Fan Party - this was an island-themed week to remember!

I love my TLI boys, and yes, of course, I missed not being with them to chat about the revelations from 'Across The Sea'. However, I wasn't bunking off duty to play a new video game, nor was I in prison for crimes against fandom – nope, I was quite literally across the sea, over in the startlingly bright and sunny Los Angeles for a week of hectic Lost-ness…

As regularly lovely readers of this Blog know, aside from the Lost Magazine, I'm currently writing the official Lost Encyclopedia with my wonderful co-author, Tara Bennett. So this LA trip was a mish-mash of some press for the book, lots of meetings, but fear not, definitely a world of Lost fun too. But I could hear the “ticka-ticka-ticka” looming before I even took off from London: yep, good ol' Smokey in the form of that volcanic ash cloud was causing some serious tail-backs in the sky, and my flight landed 2 hours late in LAX. But fortunately, this wasn't set to be a case of 'LA X', and even though I felt like a jet-lagged alternate version of myself on landing, I wasn't strolling through a flash-sideways…

Straight from the airport, I met Tara, and we raced to the ace AOL building. There, we met with online presenter, editor, and all-round superstar Maggie Furlong, to watch 'Across The Sea' with her and discuss the episode on her 'Lost: Instant Dharma' show for AOL Television. It was surreal being on a Lost debate show in the States, but was a fantastic evening. But don't worry Iain, even though Maggie's prettier than you, I haven't defected to another show. If you wanna check out what the three of us made of 'Across The Sea', go here: http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/05/12/instant-dharma-lost-season-6-episode-15-across-the-sea/

After that, the next day was a bit less manic, and we hooked up with some wonderful friends from ABC for lunch and dinner, all in preparation for a very busy Thursday. If you've not read on the previous Blog, technical gaffs prevented my Skyp-ing in to Iain and GT to chat about 'Across The Sea', so I slumped back into an early AM slumber after staying awake through the night with coffee and weird, scary cookery programs: 'Breakfast Paradise' is one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen…

So, Thursday kicked off with me and Tara chatting live on air with the fantastic Sohaib Awan and his brilliant radio show Fictional Frontiers. We talked in-depth about how the creation of the Lost Encyclopedia is going, the producers' extensive involvement with it, plus, the lively reactions to 'Across The Sea'. We had a great time with Sohaib, and you can check out the whole interview in full here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/show.aspx?userurl=fictionalfrontiers&year=2010&month=05&day=13&url=fictional-frontiers-with-sohaib

With a quick sprint to grab some hot and carb-fuelled lunch to keep us going for the rest of the day, we then had to get all posh for the main event: Thursday night meant it was time for Lost Live: The Final Celebration. Held at UCLA, this was a truly special evening that I'm so glad I got to attend. On the red carpet, we chatted to several members of the Lost family including Carlton Cuse who reflected beautifully on watching the scoring of the raft launch scene from season one; the hilarious Harold Perrineau who had some great anecdotes about the show; and Rebecca Mader who talked about being sassy with Sawyer in the flash-sideways, and how her mum loves her articles in the Lost Mag, which I was particularly chuffed to hear. Bex, I promise we'll make your Encyclopedia entry look especially fantastic...Make sure you check out Harold's very cool tunes here: http://www.harold-perrineau.com and Ms. Mader's musings are here: http://twitter.com/bexmader

Inside the stunning UCLA hall, we watched Damon & Carlton introduce cast and crew to the stage, complete with hilarious and touching stories; Michael Giacchino (http://www.michaelgiacchinomusic.com) and his orchestra perform some stunning themes from all six seasons, including his Oscar-winning theme for 'Up'; and then – you'll hate me for this – we got to see an early, exclusive, pre-airdate screening of the whole of 'What They Died For'. I can't wait to chat about it with Iain and Tom this week...After the evening's entertainment, we strolled to the after-show party and enjoyed the company of the cast and crew, and talked about the bittersweet feeling of the impending ending of the show, with the presence of some delicious Hawaiian food, drinks and DJ grooves.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? Full disclosure in the next Blog later this week, with news of the Lost Weekend Fan Party, another Lost actor's musical talents, and Smokey Strikes Back...

Check out PT and Tara's Lost adventures here too: http://www.facebook.com/TaraBennettPaulTerryProjects