RANKING LOST

LOST still has some lasting impression in the Hollywood writing community. In a poll of television and film writers, the WGA announced the best television shows of all time, with LOST being ranked at No. 27.

The Top 50 TV shows were led by The Sopranos, Seinfeld, The Twilight Zone, All in the Family, MASH, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mad Men, Cheers, The Wire and the West Wing.

The second ten were The Simpsons, I Love Lucy, Breaking Bad, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hill Street Blues, Arrested Development, The Daily Show, Six Feet Under, Taxi and The Larry Sanders Show.

Shows 21-30 were 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, Frasier, Friends, Saturday Night Live, The X-Files, Lost, ER, The Cosby Show, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Other science fiction/supernatural shows in the Top 50 were Star Trek (33), Twin Peaks (35), Battlestar Galactica (38) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (49).

Television has always been considered a commodity geared toward the lowest common denominator. Networks, in order to generate ratings and ad revenue, had to tailor their weekly shows to draw in the most diverse segments of the viewing public. So base line humor and gags would water down what writers could actually get away with in their scripts. Unless one had an aggressive star-producer, it would seem that most shows are interchangeable formatted bland fare.

Many of the shows listed were considered "ground breaking" because they changed the standard one camera sit com format, or allowed their characters do say and do things that would have been considered inappropriate or outrageous. The writers job was to put the show's characters into places and story lines which were new and exciting - - - with a grand pay-off in a laugh (in comedy) or a cry of shock (in drama). LOST certainly had a lot of characters and (almost too) many story lines which hooked viewers in for six seasons.