Development
In the initial plans for the series, Jack was going to die midway through the first episode, and then Kate would emerge as the leader of the survivors. Kate's backstory was that her husband went to the bathroom shortly before the plane split in mid-air, and on the Island she would remain adamant that he was alive. However the producers quickly changed their minds about Jack's death, making him the leader and creating a new backstory for Kate. They liked Kate's original backstory though, so they used it for Rose, and created Bernard as her husband. L. Scott Caldwell's husband was going through health problems during the shooting of the first season, which was the inspiration for the flashbacks in "S.O.S.".
The couple's backstory was originally planned to be told during season three; however during season two, the Lost writers wanted to tell the story of one of the background characters of the show. As Rose and Bernard are the most prominent of these characters, and fans were keen to learn their backstory, they decided to do an episode focussing on the couple. Following this episode, Caldwell did not think Rose's healing had anything to do with the Island and stated "If she is cured, it's because she's willed it herself". After "S.O.S.", Rose does not appear again until twenty-five episodes later, in the third season's "Greatest Hits". The writers cited Caldwell and Sam Anderson's other projects as a reason for their absence.
Read more about this topic: S.O.S. (Lost)
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“If you complain of people being shot down in the streets, of the absence of communication or social responsibility, of the rise of everyday violence which people have become accustomed to, and the dehumanization of feelings, then the ultimate development on an organized social level is the concentration camp.... The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“I’ve always been impressed by the different paths babies take in their physical development on the way to walking. It’s rare to see a behavior that starts out with such wide natural variation, yet becomes so uniform after only a few months.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)