I’ve Seen Every Episode Of Lost. Every Lousy Imitator Failed For This Key Reason – SlashFilm

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but I’d much rather have a series as innovative as “Lost” was in its heyday. As one of the most successful water-cooler shows during the “Golden Age” of television, I’m hardly exaggerating when I say the ABC series unquestionably changed the medium forever and rewrote all the rules — which, inevitably, led to all sorts of “Lost”-alikes in the years that followed. It’s one thing to try and recreate the surface-level appeal behind a show that threw more plot twists, cliffhangers, and mind-melting concepts at us than “Game of Thrones” ever did at its peak. It’s quite another to actually dig deep and tap into the real reasons why “Lost” became the phenomenon that it was … and, by the same token, why countless pretenders utterly failed.

You know the ones I’m talking about. For every great show that learned all the right lessons from “Lost,” there are dozens more that famously fell flat on their face. Remember the painfully short-lived “FlashForward,” which centered on some inexplicably supernatural event and (hilariously enough) also aired on ABC? How about “The Event” or “V,” both of which took a familiar mystery-box approach to the idea of aliens living among us? (“Falling Skies” also falls under that umbrella, starring a pre-“The Pitt” Noah Wyle, to boot!) Even more recent successors like “Fringe” or “Westworld” may have achieved a similar level of pop culture hype, but they never fully recreated what worked so well the first time around.

I know, because I’ve watched them all. Not only did that experience do untold amounts of damage to my psyche, but it also gave me remarkable clarity into what “Lost” did so well — and what every wannabe failed to deliver. The answer (probably) won’t surprise you.

I’m not reinventing the wheel here, folks, but audiences tend to watch TV shows — and, more importantly, continue watching TV shows — because of the characters. “Lost” was no exception, and it wasn’t even really subtle about it, either. That’s why the flashback structure proved to be such a boon for the series; not because it gave showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse an excuse to weave together shocking backstory connections between otherwise unrelated strangers (though that certainly helped), but because it provided the time and space to properly build out each and every one of these castaway archetypes into full-fledged people.

Look at it this way: If you asked me for a ranking of my all-time favorite “Lost” episodes or moments, you can expect all the most oft-discussed classics. Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) asking “Guys, where are we?” in the two-part series premiere, the camera ominously descending down that mysterious hatch in the middle of the jungle in the Season 1 finale, the time-jumping romance at the heart of “The Constant,” and “Not Penny’s Boat,” just to name a few. But as much as these individual scenes stick out, that’s not why they’re so beloved. It’s the effect these situations had on our fan-favorite heroes that matters most.

Any hack (if I may be so bold) can zig instead of zag, subverting expectations just for the heck of it and keeping viewers off-balance enough to manufacture some momentary thrills. But it takes real talent to do so in a way that’s actually consequential to the characters involved. It’s why an episode all about a cathartic joyride in a beat-up Volkswagen van remains an all-timer. And that’s what every imitator failed to understand.

I’ll be the first to admit that “Lost” had one heck of a pitch up its sleeve — it’s hard to beat “Magic island in the middle of nowhere that causes plane crashes, smoke monsters, and maybe the end of the world” — but that’s hardly the only reason why it went on to become such an unqualified sensation. (Yes, even if you’re one of the many people who had issues with the controversial series finale.) Selling ABC on such an ambitious and expensive show was only half the battle. Keeping viewers hooked and coming back for more on a weekly basis is what puts “Lost” in a league of its own.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed to tell that to most of the shows that followed in its wake. I was among the many fans who attempted to chase that “Lost” high through its many knockoffs, but there’s no denying how almost every one of them became a victim of their own misguided priorities. Shows like “The 4400,” “Heroes,” and even the relatively recent “Manifest” (prematurely canceled before Netflix resurrected it for one final season) all had similarly killer hooks. But beyond that? They made the fatal mistake of conflating a compelling premise with a worthy story. I’d even argue that the writers behind many of these efforts were well aware of their barebones narratives and tried to bury that fact under a ton of convoluted world-building, lore galore, and unsatisfying mystery-box storytelling. But if there’s one lesson I’ve learned from decades of TV-watching, it’s that no amount of distractions can substitute for the real thing.

“Lost” was the real deal and, while shows like “Severance” or “Yellowjackets” have come close, we may never see its likes again.