Rebel Alliance

Lost's backstory is also being filled in across platforms. An online alternate-reality game called "The Lost Experience," for example, sent surfers on an online scavenger hunt that ultimately revealed the story behind the show's enigmatic Dharma Initiative. But Lost also illuminates the risk of going overboard: The show's TV ratings dipped an average of 21% in its third season, due partly, according to some critics, to the number of plotlines becoming so dizzying that only the most rabid transmedia fans could follow them all. Still, says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst for Jupiter Research, TV shows are no longer once-a-week events. They're "one big circle."

Dessert and coffee arrive at the Sunset Boulevard restaurant, and the Geek Elite's conversation turns to a suddenly urgent matter: how to score a copy of "The Star Wars Holiday Special" of 1978. "I tell you what," Lindelof says, "I challenge everyone to go home tonight and try to find the Boba Fett cartoon."

"When we go home?" says Alexander, and whips out his iPhone. "It's 2008, man!" With a few pecks, he boots up the Boba Fett clip on YouTube as the guys gather around to watch.

"Don't fight the Internet, man," Wolf says. "It will beat you every time."

"You cannot fight it," Alexander says.

"Wow," says Lindelof. "There's Chewie!"

While many dismiss the 1978 holiday special as an insufferably cheesy variety show -- featuring the movie's cast along with special guests Bea Arthur and Jefferson Starship -- these guys say it also holds the key to the business model of tomorrow. "The special was, like, the worst thing ever," says Lindelof, as he dips a doughnut into a dish of melted chocolate, "but there was this Boba Fett cartoon. He wasn't a character in Star Wars. He was just an action figure, and it was like, 'Send in a proof-of-purchase, and you get this Boba Fett.' And we were like, 'Who the fuck is Boba Fett?' "

For kids who obsessed over every bit of the Star Wars universe, this mysterious character was electrifying. They had to buy it. "It was the coolest toy to have," Letterman recalls. Two years later, when Boba Fett walked onto the screen of The Empire Strikes Back, the action-figure buyers got the ultimate payoff: So this is who Boba Fett was all along.

Alexander cited the Boba Fett paradigm when he was invited to speak recently at the transmedia mother ship, George Lucas's company LucasArts. "If you're a producer now and you're a savvy person who views your show as a product, you're as much a brand manager as you are running the show," says Grillo-Marxauch. "If you ask Tim Kring, he'll say, 'That's how I run Heroes.' How your brand is exploited is now a reflection of the creator's relationship with technology." The bigger the geek, in other words, the wider the reach. And the higher the potential revenues.

As network television migrates increasingly to the Internet, transmedia interaction is likely to grow only more important. "You'll see more shows trying to capture this same viewing experience," says Forrester's McQuivey. "It'll be interesting to see if every new season, there will be two new Lost and Heroes replacements."

The Geek Elite are well aware that they're creating a future that may ultimately pass them by. "There's someone out there who will figure out how to relate the Internet and narrative beyond my old-fashioned notions," Whedon says. "But I think whoever cracks that is not going to be someone who's made it huge in television. It's going to be some guy we just don't know about yet."

But odds are, he'll be a fan of theirs.

David Kushner is a freelance writer who also contributes to Rolling Stone and Wired. This is his first Fast Company feature.