Lindelof explained how the writers' room can act as a petrie dish for their audience:

We're writing a television show that's supposed to be consumed by the masses. In the same way that a gladiator in the Roman arena lived or died based on whether or not he was entertaining, we feel like an instantaneous thumbs up, thumbs down response is huge for us. More importantly, the majority of the writers on Lost are fanboys. There's a ripple effect that occurs where we say, "Nikki and Paolo are not working. We don't like them, the audience isn't going to like them." By the time the audience starts complaining about Nikki and Paolo, we've already written a script where they get buried alive.

Not that this means that the fans will always get their way, he warned. After all, there is a plan at work: "The uber-mythology has to stay the same because there's stuff we've set up that has to pay off," he explains... although even that plan can change:

In our minds, Mr. Eko was going to be a character who made it to close to the end of the show, but because Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was so unhappy being on the show, we had to say, "Alright, life intervenes. Who else can we tell the story with? Can we re-jigger Locke to have it be him, or can we make Benjamin Linus a little bit more of a man of faith?" You adapt the characters as you go.

Also, when someone gets a DUI, their character has to die as punishment. It's the law in Hawaii, apparently.

Star Trek and Lost Producer Damon Lindelof on Entertaining the Masses [AMCtv]

According to the website Solar Flare, there's no such thing as SF fandom anymore:

I think there’s a strong case to be made that historically there used to be one. The one that formed around the pulp magazines, that essentially created WorldCon and the Hugos. Members of that fandom were at one time a pretty good example of the average science fiction fan. But just like everything else in life, fandom has changed. For a star science fiction is a much broader umbrella than it ever used to be. Prose, graphic novels, movies, television all offer their own forms of science fiction with its own culture and following.

But there are far more fan groups than just that. You have Star Wars fans, Star Trek fans, Hard SF fans, Soft SF fans, Harry Potter fans and on and on and on. With every year we get new fan groups that focus on their particular interests, splintering up fandom even further. And the ever advancing technology of the internet allows us to find people with exactly the same interests we have more easily than ever before... And there’s another way that different fandoms have sprung up. Are you a convention goer? Do you interact almost exclusively on the internet? Or perhaps you’re a member of a longer sci-fi group?

All of these are forms of fandom, but they are significantly different forms that engage in different conversations and may get different enjoyment out of their fandom.

I'm not convinced that this is actually anything new; as soon as any kind of movement grows, it tends to splinter, even if it's a movement centered around one particular artist or whatever ("Their new stuff isn't as good as their old stuff!" "Yes, it is!" etc.). But I don't get why that means that there can't be - or isn't - such an overlap between each fanbase that creates some basic, "generic," SF fandom, or even that all these sub-sections can't be placed within the bigger genre picture. I mean, am I not a sci-fi fan because I didn't like The Dark Knight that much?

...Wait, I remember the comments after my review. Maybe it's better if you don't answer that.

There’s No Such Thing as Science Fiction Fandom [Solar Flare]

Besides starring Adam Baldwin of Firefly and Serenity fame, the show features mostly new faces. Here's a crash course that will wrap your brain around Chuck.

• Chuck Bartowski: Chuck is the titular character of the show, and he works at Buy More, a sort of take on Best Buy, or your electronics store of choice. He's a member of the "Nerd Herd," which is a take on Best Buy's own "Geek Squad," where he provides tech support to customers. However, his life takes a turn for the bizarre (and the episodic) when someone he knew in college (now turned superspy) emails him a file containing all of the government's secrets (in a series of images), before succumbing to a bullet wound. Chuck opens the email, and zip zap zoom, everything gets imprinted on his brain. His computer is later taken out in a firefight when intelligence agents try to get the information back, meaning that his brain is now the only thing holding all the secrets of the U.S.
• Sarah Walker: Sarah is the CIA's top field agent who happens to also be smoking hot. Of course. Are there any ugly top CIA agents out there? Maybe they stick them all in the accounting department, who knows. Sarah is one half of the government vying for the secrets locked in Chuck's brain, and is also the one who inadvertently destroyed his hard drive. She's had to enter into an uneasy alliance with her counterpart at the NSA, John Casey, in an effort to keep a lid on the secrets in Chuck's noggin. She also had to start posing as Chuck's girlfriend in order to thwart any plots or foes he happens to see in his memories, which get triggered when he sees certain subliminal images.
• John Casey: John is your typical shoot first, ask questions never kind of agent. Where Sarah is all about cloak and daggers and superspy tech, John is more apt to pop you in the face and shove a gun down your throat. Since the NSA doesn't want the CIA to get an upper hand on state secrets, he has to camp out near Chuck 24/7 in an effort to counter the same things that Sarah does. So, he gets an undercover job working at the Buy More in order to be near his boy. That's right, a head full of state secrets and intrigue, and Chuck decides to keep things on the downlow from his family and work at his same plain jane job. Go figure.
• Morgan Grimes: Chuck's best friend and geek role model. While Chuck has been billed as a show featuring nerds as the main characters, it's really Morgan who fills the shoes of geeky fanboy. He plays video games and shoots off references to obscure science fiction films, and looks the part as well. While Chuck could be considered boyishly handsome, Morgan looks like a nebbish with his George Lucas beard and tucked in shirts. He's the comic relief, the best friend, and the hero to nerds, all rolled into one.

So, what does it all boil down to? It's your basic "threat of the week" storyline, which is based on the flimsy concept of this one guy having all these secrets buried in his brain, subliminally. He'll see a packet of sugar, then a volcano on TV, and suddenly he'll remember that there is an assassination attempt on the English Prime Minister set to go off in moments, at which point John and Sarah kick it into high gear in an attempt to foil the plan. It's not really clear why John doesn't just shoot Sarah and bring Chuck in so he could be hooked up to every machine known to man as a bizarre Clockwork Orange kind of lab rat, but that would probably make for some not so family-friendly television on Monday evenings.

Why should you care? As a science fiction fan, there are marginal references (at best) to science fiction mainstays like Star Wars and Firefly (yes, Adam Baldwin has a self-referential line or two), but this show doesn't fit well as part of the science fiction triumvirate of shows that Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman were supposed to make up on Monday nights for NBC. It's a little too much Alias meets The Man With One Red Shoe, and we're wishing it had something more science-based to it. Plus, it sounds similar to the plot of the upcoming National Treasure: Book Of Secrets flick that'll be out this holiday season.

Just tell is that Chuck has a top secret bionic implant, that he's part android, or that the email he received was actually an alien transmission and we're in. But this whole "Oops I saw the secret and now I'm the only one who might remember them" spy routine just isn't for us.