Having just finished listening to this week’s official Lostpodcast with executive producers Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse (yeah, I’m that person), I have to share a pet peeve:

Actors doing anything other than acting.

On the podcast, Damon and Carlton answered a fan question about something that seems to have caused a bit of a stir with Lost’s fanatical fan base. Apparently, when young Charlotte appeared in the year 1974 it confused fans who had been told in an earlier episode that Charlotte wasn’t born until 1979. Now, normally a small continuity error like this wouldn’t bother me, writers can make mistakes after all, inconsistencies are to be expected. Except that Damon and Carlton don’t make those kinds of mistakes. They have every detail of their show planned out in immaculate detail, they would never flip flop on a character’s age.

It turns out that the source of the inconsistency is the annoying actress who played Charlotte, Rebecca Mader. It seems that little miss Mader decided that 1970 (as it said in the script) was too early a birth date for her, she wanted to be younger, so she changed it. Of course, a year later, her prima donna act of vanity has poked a sizable hole in Lost’s generally flawless mythology.

So, I’ve just got to say this: YOU JOB IS TO READ THE LINES AS THEY ARE AND STAY IN CHARACTER. THAT’S WHAT BEING A PROFESSIONAL IS. And by the way, Ms. Mader was nowhere near an important enough part of the show to start making demands and changes on a whim. Who does she think she is?