"Lost" at NAB

Some highlights from this morning's Q&A at the National Assn. of Broadcasters confab with "Lost" stewards Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.

We will find out more back story as to why the late Libby was in the same mental hospital with Hurley, prior to the plane crash, and presumably after she gave her boat to Desmond for the race.

Will we at some point catch up with Emma and Zack, the two kids from the tail section group of survivors who were kidnapped by the Others in season 2's "The Other 48 Days."

To the question of whether we'll ever see Katey Sagal's Helen character (Locke's former flame) again, Darlton indicated that they hoped so.

To the question of whether the DeGroots, the hirsute couple who founded the Dharma Initiative, are still alive, Cuse and Lindelof paused a bit and then pressed for more specificity on the time frame of the question. As of where the time line of "Lost" will be when the series returns on April 24, Darlton would only say: "One of them is."

Lindelof let it be known that in a recent episode when one of the castaways (Locke? Hurley? Sawyer? I can't remember offhand) asked Ben if he knew what the island's smoke monster really was and Ben responded that he didn't know -- big lie. "Ben was lying about the smoke monster," Lindelof said.

And once again, Darlton made it clear that they do in fact have a blueprint for the series, stem to stern, and that "the last scene has been in our heads for a long period of time."

More to come from the sesh, which mostly focused on big-picture business issues and production processes, once I transcribe the tape.

In the meantime, above and below are some pics from the upcoming April 24 seg "The Shape of Things to Come."