MANIFEST DESTINY?

From the Hollywood Reporter and the web, there is news that NBC has ordered a pilot for a series which contains some initial traits of LOST. The synopsis is as follows:

A plane mysteriously goes missing mid-flight. Later, it reappears. For the passengers on board, it’s like it never happened. For everyone else, years have passed with the assumption that everyone on board was dead.

That’s the plot of Manifest, a new TV pilot ordered by NBC that’ll be produced by Robert Zemeckis. Jeff Rake (executive producer of The Mysteries of Laura) wrote the show, which will focus on how that passage of time changes the lives of the people on board as well as why it happened in the first place.

The show's premise is set up as a plane disaster to spawn dramatic mysteries which harks to LOST and the genre of castaways like Robinson Caruso. But this series seems to have no beaches, no smoke monsters—just one massive, unfathomable event, a long passage of time, and the fallout from it.

Zemeckis was the director and co-creator of Back to the Future.  He won an Oscar for directing Forrest Gump. He’s produced a few TV series over the years, but nothing in several decades.

This show will investigate maybe not the reason why the plane disappeared (any science fiction reason would probably suffice) but what happens to the characters who suddenly land 5, 10, 15 years later?  Of course their normal lives would have changed. Characters who were married probably no longer have spouses (since one can be declared dead after 7 years). Spouses who have remarried with children would want little to so with the returning spouse (or maybe not - - - that could be a point of conflict.) Characters would be coming home to find they have no job, no home, or lost family members who may have died without knowing their lost family member was still alive.

We could see the use of "flashbacks" to narrate the back stories of the airplane passengers as they try to navigate through a new world which forgot about them.

The pilot episode needs to hit hard and grasp the viewers immediately to avoid the curse of LOST strong start and weak finish.

REBOOT

Television is a sausage content factory that continues to re-boot old product.

One reason is that it is cheaper to produce if your company already owns the original content.
Second, if the original was popular, the theory is that you have a built in audience.
Third, executives love the concept of "evergreen" shows that continue to sprout spin-offs (like Star Trek).

Damon Lindelof was asked about the possibility that ABC would in the future re-boot LOST.

He understood the concept of the reboot, but he would not want to be part of it. He said his team tried their best to give closure to their characters. Any reboot of the series, he said, should not include the original characters for that reason. He said it would be interesting if another show runner took the mythology of the island and did something with it.

To be honest, a LOST re-boot would be a terrible idea.

For the two ends of the Ending spectrum, those who loved the character finale to those who hated it, those fan bases would have no compelling interest to watch a new LOST with their lasting strong feelings remain from the old LOST.

And if someone really wanted to do something different with the LOST castaway shell, well TBS tried and failed with the comedy, Wrecked.

ABC would like to try to re-mine the series "brand" for some profits. LOST was never a series that lent itself to syndication. As an hour long drama with twisting maze of plot lines, people cannot get into the series if they miss an episode or two. Half hour sitcoms like Seinfeld or MASH are syndication gold because each episode is a self-contained story.

Part of the problem with re-doing LOST is that much of the big premise foundation items are subject to open debate. A new LOST would probably have to answer those basic story elements which in some way would undermine the original series.  For example, if the reboot is about the Island, the new show runners will have to state what exactly is the Island: a UFO, a dimensional riff in time-space, a magical place, purgatory, the afterlife, hell, a military base like Area 51, virtual reality grid, the imagination of a comatose patient, the madness of a mental patient, or something else.

For example, if the new LOST states that the Island is actually an alien base used for centuries  to experiment on human beings (with the guardians as the immortal beings whose technology equates to "magic" to humans), then the themes of free will, self-determination and redemption of the original LOST characters are diminished since they were basically lab rats for superior beings. The "happy" ending may just as well have been a mental image implanted prior to extermination and autopsy.

If the new LOST was to follow the blueprint of the old series, would anyone really watch it? If another plane load of characters crash lands on the Island, what would be different? And the new show would challenge the alleged canon that the Island "was closed down" by Hurley and Ben.

It would be hard to take the DVD extra to create an entire series about Hurley and Ben closing down the island. Where is the drama in that?

Lindelof was clear he did not want his old characters or even any of the actors return to a reboot. He said the writers tried hard to complete each character's journey. Sending them back for another try on the island would lead to confusion between the stories. (In Star Trek universe, different spin offs kept their story lines apart but through the science-fiction manual of the Federation principles and technology. In LOST, there was not a deep set of iron clad rules and sci-fi principles to build a new tangent series.) So a hard reboot with the old characters would not work. And a series that focused in on the early days of the island would be fraught with open questions that were not answered in the original series, like who were Crazy Mother, Jacob and MIB?

Nostalgia for the series is fine. Continuing debates on show theories is fine. But to recast the show into something else seems to be a terrible idea.

ANOTHER LOST SHOW

Another plane crash survival television series is about to hit the airwaves. But this time, it is in South Korea.

The Korean web entertainment site, dramabeans, reports that network MBC’s new mystery drama Missing 9,is about to take off by introducing audiences to the nine plane crash survivors who must fend for themselves on a remote island.

Sound familiar?

The teaser opens with a plane suddenly plunging into its descent. Inside the luxurious private plane, oxygen masks dangle from the ceiling and passengers hang on for dear life as water surges into the cabin. Viewers will then meet the first passenger, “leader" Jung Kyung-ho (One More Happy Ending), who plays a has-been pop star who used to lead an idol band, but is now barely hanging onto his celebrity status. Though he’s hit rock bottom in his career, he finds the strength and determination to lead the other stranded victims in their fight for survival.

Sounds like the Jack character in LOST.


Next,  Kim Sang-ho (Bring It On, Ghost) plays the President of talent agency Legend Entertainment, and Oh Jung-se (Beautiful Mind) as the loyal Manager to Jung Kyung-ho.  

Sounds like one of the LOST couples, maybe Sun and Jin.

Chanyeol (To the Beautiful You) plays the handsome “superstar,” a renowned artist/composer who used to be in the same band as Jung Kyung-ho, but found greater success as a solo musician.

Sounds like the jealousy character, like the anti-Charlie.

Choi Tae-joon (Flower in Prison) assumes the mantle of the Troublemaker and plays the former bandmate of Jung Kyung-ho and Chanyeol, who ventured into acting following the band’s fallout and was enjoying his second career boom.

Sounds like the Sawyer character.

Lee Sun-bin (Police Unit 38) plays the top celebrity of Legend Entertainment. She’s the "Princess" character, who doesn’t mince words, but hides a dark secret.

Sounds like Shannon.

Tae Hang-ho (Moonlight Drawn By Clouds) plays the Head Secretary of Legend Entertainment, and Ryu Won (Uncontrollably Fond) is the mature and accountable billboard model and Hallyu star, and also the group’s “Outsider.”

There were plenty of outsider characters in LOST, but mature and accountable fits LOST's Rose.

Lastly, Baek Jin-hee (My Daughter Geum Sa-wol) taking on the role of Jung Kyung-ho’s rookie stylist and eventual love interest who becomes the sole remaining survivor of the nine, ergo the only “Eyewitness” to the devastating plane crash and its aftermath. The country will turn to her for answers, but how much of the harrowing truth she’ll reveal is uncertain because there’s something holding her back.

Sounds like the Kate character.

The show's teaser copy reads, “Top Star x Private Plane x Emergency Landing,” ending with “9 survivors, a mysterious corpse, and just one eyewitness.”

Local critics don't think the series will get much attention when it airs. There were alleged casting and script problems prior to launch.  Korean dramas often use large casts to push several different story lines forward. So it not unusual to cast 9 main actors.

But the premise is very similar to LOST with the exception that the Missing 9 characters actually know each other prior to the plane crash. That may be the only real story twist as the celebrity back stabbing and secrets get unraveled on the island.

NOT LOST ON LOST

More than a decade after its debut, LOST still has not been successfully copied into a new series.

It had a large ensemble cast. It has a deep, twisted and confusing story lines. It was filmed mostly on location in Hawaii. It was expensive to produce.

There are critical favorite shows with large casts like the Walking Dead, but part of the show premise is to have enough "red shirts" to keep the killing drama moving forward. A game of zombie brain musical chairs can only last so long. There are newer shows like Westworld which attempt to sprinkle mysteries and fan theories in the first season, then hurry to try to answer all of them in the finale. It seemed rushed and pushed to hold fan interest.

One of LOST's own rewards was that the viewer had to figure out what the writers refused to answer in their stories. For example, why would the U.S. Military or Dharma "give up" the island with infinite power to the Others, the natives? But we learned that there are no "native" people on the island. Everyone was brought to it by the island guardian, Jacob. And was Jacob a god, an alien, or a monster? Like an abandoned child, a viewer had to come to their own terms on why the show forced a "happy ending" for the characters in lieu of solving the deepest mysteries of the island, like why some much time and attention was placed on ancient Egyptian mythology.

In one respect, the characters personalities and back stories were fully developed by the use of the flash back story technique. However, the back stories were created to be "filler" to slow down the original island story which was a very simple premise of the plane crash survivors creating a new Robinson Crusoe (ironically rhymes with Rousseau) community on a dangerous island. But once the producers ran out of back filler, it jumped its own production shark with the "flash forward" idea and then to the fantasy aspects of illogical time travel and an alternative character universe.

If you have a deck of a dozen main characters, a dozen secondary characters and a hand full of evil characters, you can deal many different conflicts with ease. So the producers rolled the dice with the idea that you build up conflict through mysteries then quickly shift gears without resolution to the next mystery or conflict. The treadmill story telling became is own genre.

One of the reasons LOST has not been copied is that viewers today have shorter attention spans. There are more competitive forms of entertainment literally at people's finger tips: social media, YouTube, Netflix, etc. Network television's "must see" nightly viewing is a fossilized media dinosaur. The burn rate for new shows is high because advertisers only want to support hit shows. So complex dramas with large casts are not in favor because it is felt such a show is too much of a burden on the viewer to digest and cling to for more than a season. Just look at Vine, the six-second video site that drew millions of pre-teen followers, recently bit the dust.

And consumption of television has changed. A segment of the population enjoys "binge" viewing shows. LOST is not the type of show that lends itself to binge viewing. During its original run, the week between shows was a welcome time to try to figure out what the hell was going on between the characters. The search for easter eggs, arguments for/against fan theories, and the interaction in chat rooms is what made LOST special. To try to binge view LOST today for a first time viewer would be cruel and most likely turn into a train wreck. Most would bail on the program before Ben arrives on the scene.

It is really hard to write something "new."  Many people are looking to find different shows to break the entertainment rut. With the internet and U.S. cable operators expanding to international shows from Mexico, Korea and Europe, viewers can get something different in the dramas that are based on unknown cultures or unknown foreign folktales. For example, a very popular Korean drama series, The Gentlemen of Wolgyesu Tailor Shop, airs on KBC World in the U.S. It is a light K-drama that has a large cast of characters but it focuses in on the dynamics of seven different relationships and how they interact between traditional and modern Korean values. For American viewers unfamiliar with traditional Korean culture, it is something beyond the traditional American drama formula. To get something different in your entertainment palette, you have to expand your notion of what you should view (and get over the possibility of watching a program while reading English subtitles).

There were times that subtitles would have been beneficial in LOST. There was a marginal attempt to annotate episodes in an attempt to draw in new viewers when the show began to wobble, but it was mostly an annoying attempt to generically back fill answers to unimportant questions. LOST will continue to fade into history because it is not suitable for syndication or reruns. It will probably go down in television history as one of those "one hit wonders" like in the music industry.

HOW THINGS CONTINUE TO CHANGE

One aspect of LOST that has had a lasting effect is the digital component to viewing a show. The early internet fan communities that raged, raved, dissected and postulated about their favorite show has spawned the nexus between network broadcasting and digital consumption of entertainment.

When LOST first aired on ABC, it was still "appointment" television. You had to be in front of your television set to see that week's show. There was no on-demand or web streaming the telecast. You could time shift it with your DVR.

Today, unless it is a live event like a sports contest, people are consuming their television programs in various forms, including on demand, streaming or box binge viewing.

And many non-network players are getting into the serial show act.

For example, Amazon has a new digital show called BOSCH. Based on Michael Connelly's best-selling novels, Harry Bosch (LOST's Titus Welliver), an LAPD homicide detective, stands trial for the fatal shooting of a serial murder suspect. A cold case involving the remains of a missing boy forces Bosch to confront his past. As daring recruit Julia Brasher (Annie Wersching) catches his eye, and departmental politics heat up, Bosch will pursue justice at all costs. 

The Amazon series is a digital download. This one features a LOST alum, MIB. Whether his role on LOST will help snag a few of the fractured viewing public is probably unknown.

Keifer Sutherland made an interesting observation while on the British television show. He said when he started, there were 15 studios making 50 movies a year, including small budget ($5-10 million) dramas. But today, there are basically 3 studios making 15 movies a year, all in the big budget, action hero mode. As an actor, he knew the writing was on the wall. So he went into television (which was unusual for film actors to do) in order to play Jack Bauer on Fox's 24. Since then, many film actors have gravitated toward cable channels like HBO and Showtime which began producing their own award winning television series. It would seem with the rise of independent YouTube programs and streaming services looking for new content, event the current cable distribution model will probably be outdated in a decade.

With the fractured audience and more distribution channels, it is more unlikely that any series will last six seasons in production.

LEADERSHIP IN A SERIES

Fox posted part of a GQ interview with television icon Tom Selleck.

Selleck, 70, is a recognizable actor with a string of popular series.

Selleck said he had his struggles early on, and credits working with James Garner for showing him how to be a TV star the right way.

The then 34-year-old Selleck "had done the leads in several pilots, but nobody saw them because they didn't sell, and I did this thing on 'Rockford,' and I watched Garner, because I'd been on a lot of shows where everybody was walking on eggshells and there were battles about who was coming out of their dressing room first,” he told GQ. “[Rockford] understood that leads in a show like a television series involved leadership, probably: When you're not feeling so good, put on a happy face, it's infectious—these things sound kind of corny and stupid, but this is our life.”

Selleck took his experience on "The Rockford Files" and put it to use the very next year on "Magnum PI," the show that made him a star, and again on "Blue Bloods."

“We all like each other, and we don't have anybody stir the pot on 'Blue Bloods,'” he explained. “I like to think I've set some of that example. I'm older than most of the actors. I play the patriarch, and it's a rare opportunity to show a positive example.”

Most television series has a central lead actor who is the focal point of the show. As such, it is this lead actor who has considerable clout in how his or her show is run. But in LOST's ensemble cast, there were no major stars in leading roles. 

Now, the show producers may have decided early on that secondary actors would give the show more "reality" and connection to the viewers. The writers probably preferred to have 10 main characters to 1 in order to flesh out more back stories. The actors may have had some subconscious relief that they did not have to carry a big budget television series on their own shoulders.

 But in all the articles about the show, I don't recall one mentioning that the actors took a leading role in the direction and creation of the series. Michael Emerson clearly stated that he had no idea where the show was going from episode to episode. He merely got his script, memorized it and worked through the shoots.

Which may be the reason why LOST seemed to take sudden right turns without much explanation. The actors had no idea what was going on except that more mysteries and plot twists were being written for them. But if the show did have one strong lead character, such as a Garner or Selleck, he or she would have asked questions like "why are we doing this," or "what does this mean in the overall structure of the plot?"  Like the show's own filmed serial, there appears to be more fractions than actual leaders.

Fans will think that Jack was the lead character in the show, but in reality he was supposed to die after the pilot episode. Kate was originally thought as going to be the lead, and perhaps counterbalanced by Locke's character. So early on in the process, the producers had little idea who would become fan favorites or leading characters.  As such, the producers and writers held all the control in the series' direction.

SCOPE OF SHOW

In 2010, a writer for the web site Culture Warrior, wrote that the lasting impact of LOST would be on television itself, and not the lasting effects of the show's own story. We review the article's comments with how television has changed in the last four years.

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.

  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.

WHERE TODAY?

It is highly unlikely that a series like LOST would today be made on a traditional network.

It seems all the unconventional shows are being made on HBO, Showtime, SyFy or BBC America.

The fracturing of the Nielsen rating viewer is also a factor in why large ensemble cast shows with long serial plot lines have fallen out of favor. They are just too hard for casual viewers to follow.If you can't follow, they will not watch.

Cable television could get away with running a full episodic season for a television show because there was not the advertising fever in the executive suites.  Cable networks made their initial money from just being on cable operators menus with carriage fees. But as the cable network has matured and the viewership fractured from the Big Four over-the-air networks, advertising has become more of an issue for every type of broadcaster.

In addition, new forms of distribution have started to make a run even at cable broadcasters. Netflix and Amazon are using streaming technology to run their own new programming to viewers. YouTube had been running advertising on its "channels" for years under a model of mostly free, user created content.

The new streaming shows fit into old network shoes like one camera situational comedies rather than grand, on location ensemble dramas like LOST. And the new medium has not been able to have the support to keep a show running for six years.

In all broadcast entertainment, shows are hits and misses. Every year the networks have a "pilot" season where hundreds of test shows are reviewed to determine whether they will be picked up. Out of that production company pitches, only a hand full will get the green light. It is a long shot to get anything substantial made today, even though there are more outlets of show distribution.

The economics of the entertainment industry is growing, but at the same time narrowing because viewers can cut the cable cord and be entertained in various alternative ways. The newer game consoles have tried to recapture some of those lost demographics by integrating TV and streaming multitasking to create a "new" TV experience.

If the show runners came to a network today to pitch LOST as a Survivor meets Agatha Christie meets Star Trek, a network executive would reply that they already have those shows; do you something else to pitch?

OF THE CENTURY

Media editors like to reconstitute old stories on their anniversary dates, and throw the banner "something of the century" in order to get views.

We have passed the anniversary of the alleged "Trial of the Century," the O.J. Simpson murder case.

It is only mildly debatable of what the facts of the case disclosed to the public; but there are still a divide on whether O.J. was the killer of his estranged wife. He was found innocent by a criminal jury but found guilty in a civil wrongful death suit (in which the burden of proof was less).

Simpson sits today in a Nevada prison on an unrelated conviction.

The Simpson case does show America at its best and its worst. And television was the center piece of this cultural roller coaster ride.

Simpson was a star football player. He was a powerful running back who set records in the NFL when pro football was just starting to make its inroads onto American television viewing habits on Sunday afternoons. Sundays were the traditional day of rest; family time not television viewing time. Simpson's mad dashes for touchdowns helped solidify football as the new American pastime.

Simpson was a celebrity. He got national commercials. He was cast in movie roles. He was living the American dream. He was rich, successful, and had the perks of stardom even after his football career was over.

Just as the media likes to build up celebrity stories, it likes to tear them down.

When the slow speed Bronco chase was shown live on national TV, where a fleeing O.J. was attempting to avoid an arrest warrant, the birth of the new celebrity trial had began. This domino led to the LA trial being televised nationally. It led to attorneys playing to the camera and not to the court. It led to an extremely drawn out soap opera that in any other non-televised courtroom would have been slapped down to a one week trial at best. But the weeks droned on because it was "free" programming for the cable network "news" channels who were in the infancy of building audiences. It spawned a cottage industry of legal "analysts" doing play by play and color commentary like the trial was a football game. This led to the current malaise of over analysis and tabloid coverage of any legal case on television.

In some respects, the "reality" of a real man on trial for "real" murders was something that TV executives found "compelling" television. The concept of "reality" television was born in the midst of the muddy gray areas of the situation. Witnesses became quasi-celebrities which birthed the cable culture of the D-list celebrity who is famous for doing next to nothing. In certain respects, this was also the dawn of being rewarded for bad behavior - - - a reality show staple.

So with this backdrop, LOST hit the airwaves approximately 10 years after the Simpson circus. As such, some viewers may have found it a breath of fresh air - - - an intelligently written show with a large ensemble cast of relative unknown actors in a situation familiar to anyone with a basic education in literature: the castaway story.

Some critics immediately called LOST the show of the decade; a must-view show. Appointment television when you needed to actually plan to sit in front of the TV on an appointed day and hour in order to watch the program.  The hype of the show did run up the flagpole some thoughts that LOST could be a show of this generation, but never got to the point of being accepted as the greatest show ever (because that opinion is too personal).

Just as people got caught up in the Simpson trial, LOST had the same elements: relationships, failed love connections, anger, murder, mysteries, misdirection, sleazy characters, bad blunders and an ambiguous moral compass. And just as with the Simpson trial, the conclusion of LOST still stirs some debates years afterward.

WOULD IT WORK TODAY?

Could LOST be sold to network television today?

Maybe. JJ Abrams still gets his shows picked up off the pilot heap each year.

Science Fiction TV-shows airing in 2013 as well as those in pre-production:

Warehouse 13.
This show starring Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelley is well into its fourth season but critics find the plots and characters muddled and uninspired so the series limps along.

Person of Interest.
Critics have found some upside to the stories of Mr. Reese (James Caviezel) and Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson) when they contrast the realism and action sequences to that of other sci-fi efforts such as Alphas or Revolution. However, the science fiction elements are thin and inconsistent to be a solid sci-fi show.

Continuum.
Some critics believe the only current  hard-core Science Fiction series airing at the moment is Continuum. It’s relatively short first season was tightly written though it had a hard time deciding whether it would be procedural in nature akin to Person of Interest or more of a serial drama such as Revolution as a mixture of  Sliders and Total Recall.

Revolution.
Expectations for this series was high, but  it's plot has been weak, its mythology underdeveloped and its characters bland. Former LOST cast member Elizabeth Mitchell plays Rachel Matheson whose character has changed from damsel in distress to a harder, action figure.  Abrams is the producer of the series, but  it has no resemblance to Lost when it comes to the quality of narrative or driving story lines.

Tron: Uprising.
This anime show on Disney XD  has good overall quality  but the ratings have been quite abysmal. The criticism is that episodes tend to  jump the shark to keep the action going.

Haven.
Haven is more of a ‘supernatural’ show than science fiction, an issue that most networks consider to be the same type show/audience. BBC America has its own show called  ‘Supernatural.’  Haven has a lot of mystery and mythology building behind which was thematic of LOST. But again, the series fails to connect any dots or explain itself in a coherent fashion.

Dr Who.
Dr. Who is the longest running science fiction series in television history. This season marks the 50th Anniversary. As a British show, it's American revival on BBC America has drawn in the Comic-con crowd into the stable mythology of the show about the last Time Lord saving planets and species from disasters and monsters. For fans of the series, it is the British cousin to Star Trek series.

There are other shows on the fringe of pure sci-fi, including Fringe, Arrow, Orphan Black, Being Human and other Abrams projects such as Defiance and Human.

The problem with selling a long serial science fiction series is that viewers are less and less engaged in viewing series as a collective fan base. They have shorter attention spans. The internet, tablet games, web surfing, on-line gaming and texting divert attention required to really watch and digest complex shows (with highly theoretical elements such as quantum physics, time travel, etc) such as LOST. In this weakened attention span of viewers, many networks (including SyFy) have defaulted to the reality show format. One, it is cheaper to produce. Two, people seem to like one shot episodes that have resolution at the end so they don't have to be lost if they miss an episode or two in a season.

The other alternative/fad in the entertainment industry is the franchise brand. Networks are more comfortable throwing out a series based on something well known like a famous comic character or old movie (such as Tron or Star Wars) because their is an audience that may gravitate toward it based upon past experience. Most of these reboots are weaker, diluted creative projects but that is the standard for most television series.

Further, the changing dynamic of how people consume their entertainment (video streaming, binge viewing, time shifting DVR) makes it difficult for a network to commitment a series for several seasons. Network executives are shuffled in and out of power more quickly these days. Project loyalty is tenuous at times.

So if LOST was pitched as a Survivor Meets Science Fiction Mystery series today, I don't know if it would get green lighted since so many current science fiction programs fail to deliver the basic solid sci-fi story telling that most fans of Twilight Zone, Star Trek, etc. are used to and expect. Sci-fi shows historically have a lower viewer base than a regular sit-com. It is a tougher sell even if the market is trending toward fantasy super hero franchises. And even if the first season was made today, I don't know if new fans would have the time and energy to make it into a cultural icon.