Abrams, J. J.

How can you recognize the biggest geek in network television? J. J. Abrams is the guy with the horn-rimmed glasses whose Lost brought TV into the age of Internet obsessives: viral web sites stocked with red herrings and Easter eggs; a parallel online narrative involving a math equation; and bulletin boards, set up for fans and monitored by writers, that helped develop plotlines. Lost’s dense story was designed for the era of Web-enabled fanboyism. And Abrams knows his consumer tech; viewers may have thought that the sight of a KRZR – a Motorola phone marketed two years after the story was supposed to have taken place – constituted a continuity error. Nope. It was a tip-off to season three’s time bending finale. Now Abrams has turned his talents to Hollywood, cutting his teeth on Mission Impossible III before turning to Star Trek, due in 2009. Already the movie is drawing the same kind of online chatter as Lost, with fans dishing about everything from casting to costumes. Will the film satisfy hardcore Trekkies, as Abrams vows? It’s the only mystery that may be more tantalizing than the one behind that damn island.