Tonight we celebrate the ten-year anniversary of one of the most iconic and ground-breaking shows in TV history.
And no, I’m not talking about LAX.
ABC’s Lost has had an impact on the television landscape larger than even other decade-long shows. Whatever thoughts about its declining quality, it is impossible to neglect how much influence it has had on the industry. Not only a production level, or even visual, but also in terms of storytelling.
For all its flaws, Lost was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and experiment.
Personally, there’s no doubt Lost was one of the most influential shows in my life (regardless of its last two seasons). Not only was I involved with the fan community since literally day one (yay The Fuselage), it was also the purveyor of lessons in bending writing conventions.
I may go into greater details as to why Lost was so important to me (you can see a glimpse of it through the long-standing site tag).
But in the meantime, let’s celebrate the show that was.
In honor of the anniversary, I am pinning the great articles we posted during “Lost Week” (almost five years ago, around the series finale).
Check them out:
How Lost revolutionized storytelling
Before telegraphed flashsideways and magical caves, there was a time when Lost told its complex and often surprising story through other means. The mythological show brought to television seldom used attributes to entertain and mystify its audience. Here’s how the groundbreaking series revolutionized television storytelling.
Hindsight: Quotes from Lost’s Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof
Many, and I mean many, mysteries have been left unsolved on Lost. Even worse, there has been over the years a lot of double-talk from the series’ showrunners, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Let’s take a look at six seasons of misguided attempts at trying to convince the fans that, don’t worry, answers are coming.
A letter from a Lost writer
(who was apparently just an intern from Bad Robot)
It was real. Everything that happened on the island that we saw throughout the 6 seasons was real. Forget the final image of the plane crash, it was put in purposely to f*&k with people’s heads and show how far the show had come. They really crashed. They really survived. They really discovered Dharma and the Others. The Island keeps the balance of good and evil in the world. It always has and always will perform that role.
Lost Finale Thoughts: Artificiality at its best (and worst)
written by guest-poster Lordy
One word can describe the Lost series finale: Artificiality. Don’t get me wrong, it was not easy to be Darlton while writing the series finale of, arguably, the most-talked about TV series since the creation of the Internet. But summarizing that the show would be satisfying only for “believers”, a.k.a. viewers that wouldn’t obsess over mythological answers given in the finale, is ultimately a very cynical way of saying “if you don’t like that your version of the show living in your head is not the story we want to tell, that’s YOUR problem”.
Lost Finale Thoughts: From The End to the beginning
Once upon a time, author Stephen King issued a challenge to the Lost writers: “Minus the continuing presence of David Duchovny, X-Files blundered off into a swamp of black oil, and in that swamp it died. If J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and their band of co-conspirators allow something similar to happen with Lost, I’m going to be even more pissed, because this show is better. Memo to Abrams and staff writers: Your responsibilities include knowing when to write The End.” Flash-forward to five years later: the 100-minute long Lost series finale, abstemiously entitled The End, airs on ABC.
