ORIGINAL LOST

An article in the August, 2007 issue of Chicago Magazine had an interesting background on the ABC show we call LOST. When Tom Hanks' successful movie, Cast Away, ended its run, ABC executives thought it would be a good idea for a television drama. They contacted a production company who put a writer, Jeffrey Leiber, to work on a pilot script. The original script concept by Leiber was apparently to combine elements of Cast Away, Survivor and Lord of the Flies. The project was green lighted and he wrote the pilot for NOWHERE.

The premise was that a plane crashes on a remote Pacific Island. There are survivors who have to cope with this tragic situation, then later forge a new island society when rescue never arrives to save them. The focal point was to be a conflict between two half brothers, raised differently by their father: Truman, a rumpled Harry Potter looking 28 year old, and the other, Ross, a 30 year old successful businessman. The brothers would fight for control on who would lead this new island society.

After the pilot was written, ABC reversed course on the project. They decided to ask the hot, young director, JJ Abrams, to look it over. He thought the story line was unsustainable, but maybe it could go somewhere if you threw in supernatural elements. ABC then gave the project over to Abrams, who was too busy to handle it, so he dished it off to D&C to shoot the pilot episode on a re-write fly.

Leiber was axed out of the project, but an arbitration ruling gave him 60 percent creator credit for the pilot (the similarities of the characters, traits, descriptions), even though he stated that the show itself had changed dramatically from what he had in mind.

So the origins of LOST was a story of survivors cut off from society, and the struggles between two brothers for leadership of a new island society - - - with supernatural mysteries.

How does this foundation equate after five seasons? The recent introduction of Jacob and MIB as antagonists over the control of the island would fit into the foundational structure of the original pilot. Both would appear to have supernatural powers or be supernatural beings. The facet that is lost is the struggle to rebuild an island society since the constant idea of rescue or leaving the island was paramount to the survivors. However, in light of the Jacob-MIB conflict, it would be disappointing to find that the survivors were merely interchangeable pawns in that conflict.