The show was described as "a sea change" on how viewers would watch television and how
stories are told through the medium, using similarly complex and enigmatic plots aiming to inspire its
viewers to watch religiously and engage in endless Internet debate.
As a result, the show's legacy would bring both promising and potentially negative implications for the future of network television. On the positive side, television content across the board has become remarkably complex and even cinematic (with enigma-free but similarly engrossing shows like Mad Men) in the last half-decade or so, and the increased complexity of plot has brought with it a more attentive and discerning viewer. Television can no longer be background noise, but a full and enveloping sensorial and narrative experience. The rise of the attentive, immersive viewer creates the internet forum of show discourse. With the more discerning viewer met with the more complex forms of storytelling, there are greater requirements and a higher bar raised for similar subsequent dramas, so this trend potentially forces writers to move against repetitive structures of storytelling that have defined most of television history. This requires creative teams to possess definite talent and originality.
As a result, the show's legacy would bring both promising and potentially negative implications for the future of network television. On the positive side, television content across the board has become remarkably complex and even cinematic (with enigma-free but similarly engrossing shows like Mad Men) in the last half-decade or so, and the increased complexity of plot has brought with it a more attentive and discerning viewer. Television can no longer be background noise, but a full and enveloping sensorial and narrative experience. The rise of the attentive, immersive viewer creates the internet forum of show discourse. With the more discerning viewer met with the more complex forms of storytelling, there are greater requirements and a higher bar raised for similar subsequent dramas, so this trend potentially forces writers to move against repetitive structures of storytelling that have defined most of television history. This requires creative teams to possess definite talent and originality.
Since LOST was not self-contained episode viewing, like past series, it has the problem of becoming too detail oriented in order to keep the viewer engaged in a long, plot throughway that lasts through multiple episodes and seasons. Since viewers of LOST rewatched, reworked and theorized on the plot points, creators need to acknowledge and understand the new requirements to strict attention to detail which requires extraneous work outside each individual episode (more effort than afforded a normal TV shoot).
On the negative side shows like LOST these require a network commitment to finality. Ratings and scare advertising dollars do not tend to give new shows long commitments. Asa result, long drawn out complex plot twists can lead to critical dead ends if the show is terminated prematurely by the network. Nothing ticks off fans more than when their show is canceled before all its questions can be answered or its mysterious solved. Twin Peaks, a notable pre-Internet forum example of enabling the discerning network viewer, wasn’t able to play out as planned, and HBO cancelled the 6-season trajectory of Carnivale after its second season. Heroes is another show that will face interruption before its revelations are exhausted, so the enigmas introduced and the audience’s commitment can become wasted on questions never answered and closure never achieved. On the other hand, shows like LOST force networks to constantly be in search for new content, for these sprawling narratives have to have a limited endpoint from the outset lest they descend into the ridiculous (each subsequent season of 24, Prison Break after characters have successfully broken out of prison, or Twin Peaks trying to figure out its destination after revealing its McGuffin). A show with a sprawling mystery like LOST are clearly much higher than with the self-contained episodic mysteries of Law and Order. The latter show may have had a longer stamp in network television history, but nobody is expecting it to deliver the earth-shattering revelations that were anticipated season-to-season in LOST.
The success of LOST was eventually the cause of its down fall. Expectations for the show skyrocketed quickly among ardent fans. LOST became a victim of its own success since the audience it enabled – the monster - - -ultimately attacked its creators. To the emotional satisfaction of some fans and infuriation of others, LOST'S fan base reacted to the finale either by sharing a love for the characters that the producers and writers so obviously possess or pounding their fists against the wall for not having spent the past six years watching some different show. Immediately after the show's finale, the fan response showed a vast disparity of critical responses to the episode, a response distinctly different from past debate on the show's details and plot points, as little of it has to do with competing interpretations of its mysteries and centers more on competing definitions of what the show is (character study or sci-fi mystery mosaic, supposing the two are mutually exclusive in this case).
And it is this conversation itself that reveals where the strength and weakness of shows like this lies: its relationship with its audience. Even the final episode’s biggest detractors would be hesitant to call LOST a poorly-written or ill-conceived show: if nothing else, it is the unprecedented quality of its network television writing (or, at least, plotting and editing techniques) into a remarkable event in television history. But it constructing a show that works only in tandem with escalating expectations and mystery while inspiring fan discourse, the following that LOST needed in order to survive was also the one it cannot fully satisfy. An increasingly discerning viewership whose opinions are readily available (and studied) by the show’s producers in order to mine, subvert, and challenge expectations inevitably also provides a barrier from ever satisfying those expectations driven by a fan base inspired to deconstruct, question, and debate over the show’s every moment – if a satisfactory response is ultimately even possible in this case.
There is a point to make about the show's ending going to be a dead cat bounce no matter what the writers were going to make. If the mysteries were the hook to engage fans, it was the fans engagement in trying to find the answers on their own that made it difficult for the show to find the right ones. The possible answers to its introductory mysteries seemed endless, and only the show’s initial surprises could really feel surprising. Fans believed they wanted to know the answers but really it was more fun to debate over the show's details, predictions, theories, and own conclusions, so real answers are always a little sad not because of what the answer is, but because an answer exists in the first place. The LOST producers gambled that the mysteries would hold interest, but the intense interest in the subject matter would doom the producers to failure because the expectations of a remarkable ending would be impossible to meet.
That is televisions's classic Catch-22 : most popular show finales are always disappointing when given a realm of debated alternative answers and endless possibilities. From the Smoke Monster to the hatch to the Dharma Initiative to the glowing cave, LOST was a series that could only function through answering an enigma by revealing another enigma, a new question to answer an old one, and so on down the dark rabbit hole.
A lasting effect is the idea that network television can be serious, authoritative, and deserving of deep fan loyalty and attention to detail. Even if LOST ultimately did not meet the expectations of its fans who were searching for in answers to its infinite questions, the contemporary landscape of network television is better off because series like LOST challenge the notion of television viewing as not just sitting couch potatoes, but engaged viewers.
There have been many critically acclaimed and popular shows in the past four years with strong fan bases like Breaking Bad. The difference today is that while LOST was destination viewing, new shows are not tied to a day and night - - - with internet streaming and DVD binge viewing, the community of newer television shows is not as strongly bonded together as before. In fact, some viewers now prefer to wait a year and binge view a season, especially if the show contains LOST-like complexity and mysteries. One can pause and review past episodes on the fly in order to see if the writers "got it right." With the broadband technology at your tablet finger tips, a viewer does not need a community to help look for answers and insight - - Yahoo or Google search can do it for them. So new popular shows can be just as entertaining as LOST's twists and turns, but the viewing experience is different.
On the negative side shows like LOST these require a network commitment to finality. Ratings and scare advertising dollars do not tend to give new shows long commitments. Asa result, long drawn out complex plot twists can lead to critical dead ends if the show is terminated prematurely by the network. Nothing ticks off fans more than when their show is canceled before all its questions can be answered or its mysterious solved. Twin Peaks, a notable pre-Internet forum example of enabling the discerning network viewer, wasn’t able to play out as planned, and HBO cancelled the 6-season trajectory of Carnivale after its second season. Heroes is another show that will face interruption before its revelations are exhausted, so the enigmas introduced and the audience’s commitment can become wasted on questions never answered and closure never achieved. On the other hand, shows like LOST force networks to constantly be in search for new content, for these sprawling narratives have to have a limited endpoint from the outset lest they descend into the ridiculous (each subsequent season of 24, Prison Break after characters have successfully broken out of prison, or Twin Peaks trying to figure out its destination after revealing its McGuffin). A show with a sprawling mystery like LOST are clearly much higher than with the self-contained episodic mysteries of Law and Order. The latter show may have had a longer stamp in network television history, but nobody is expecting it to deliver the earth-shattering revelations that were anticipated season-to-season in LOST.
The success of LOST was eventually the cause of its down fall. Expectations for the show skyrocketed quickly among ardent fans. LOST became a victim of its own success since the audience it enabled – the monster - - -ultimately attacked its creators. To the emotional satisfaction of some fans and infuriation of others, LOST'S fan base reacted to the finale either by sharing a love for the characters that the producers and writers so obviously possess or pounding their fists against the wall for not having spent the past six years watching some different show. Immediately after the show's finale, the fan response showed a vast disparity of critical responses to the episode, a response distinctly different from past debate on the show's details and plot points, as little of it has to do with competing interpretations of its mysteries and centers more on competing definitions of what the show is (character study or sci-fi mystery mosaic, supposing the two are mutually exclusive in this case).
And it is this conversation itself that reveals where the strength and weakness of shows like this lies: its relationship with its audience. Even the final episode’s biggest detractors would be hesitant to call LOST a poorly-written or ill-conceived show: if nothing else, it is the unprecedented quality of its network television writing (or, at least, plotting and editing techniques) into a remarkable event in television history. But it constructing a show that works only in tandem with escalating expectations and mystery while inspiring fan discourse, the following that LOST needed in order to survive was also the one it cannot fully satisfy. An increasingly discerning viewership whose opinions are readily available (and studied) by the show’s producers in order to mine, subvert, and challenge expectations inevitably also provides a barrier from ever satisfying those expectations driven by a fan base inspired to deconstruct, question, and debate over the show’s every moment – if a satisfactory response is ultimately even possible in this case.
There is a point to make about the show's ending going to be a dead cat bounce no matter what the writers were going to make. If the mysteries were the hook to engage fans, it was the fans engagement in trying to find the answers on their own that made it difficult for the show to find the right ones. The possible answers to its introductory mysteries seemed endless, and only the show’s initial surprises could really feel surprising. Fans believed they wanted to know the answers but really it was more fun to debate over the show's details, predictions, theories, and own conclusions, so real answers are always a little sad not because of what the answer is, but because an answer exists in the first place. The LOST producers gambled that the mysteries would hold interest, but the intense interest in the subject matter would doom the producers to failure because the expectations of a remarkable ending would be impossible to meet.
That is televisions's classic Catch-22 : most popular show finales are always disappointing when given a realm of debated alternative answers and endless possibilities. From the Smoke Monster to the hatch to the Dharma Initiative to the glowing cave, LOST was a series that could only function through answering an enigma by revealing another enigma, a new question to answer an old one, and so on down the dark rabbit hole.
A lasting effect is the idea that network television can be serious, authoritative, and deserving of deep fan loyalty and attention to detail. Even if LOST ultimately did not meet the expectations of its fans who were searching for in answers to its infinite questions, the contemporary landscape of network television is better off because series like LOST challenge the notion of television viewing as not just sitting couch potatoes, but engaged viewers.
There have been many critically acclaimed and popular shows in the past four years with strong fan bases like Breaking Bad. The difference today is that while LOST was destination viewing, new shows are not tied to a day and night - - - with internet streaming and DVD binge viewing, the community of newer television shows is not as strongly bonded together as before. In fact, some viewers now prefer to wait a year and binge view a season, especially if the show contains LOST-like complexity and mysteries. One can pause and review past episodes on the fly in order to see if the writers "got it right." With the broadband technology at your tablet finger tips, a viewer does not need a community to help look for answers and insight - - Yahoo or Google search can do it for them. So new popular shows can be just as entertaining as LOST's twists and turns, but the viewing experience is different.
