M: We have come to the end of Lost. Before we get into the details and the breakdown, I want to take a moment to take a step back and take in the true impact of the show. Lost has been the first true TV phenomenon of the internet era. The first show that captivated audiences in a way that went beyond what they watched on TV, and what they talked about the day after the show. Lost became the thing that people, myself included as Mrs M can attest, obsessed over. The thing that we yearned for more information on, but the thing that more information was available for. We scoured the internet for other people’s theories, or to share our own. We looked for images of things we may have missed, for the Lost Experience, and for any little scrap we could find. We looked for a better screen cap of the blast door map, or a translation of the latin written on it. We looked for someone who knew how to translate hieroglyphics to find out what was in the smoke monster chamber underneath the temple’s outer wall. We yearned for answers to questions, both large and small, and we yearned to find out what happened to the characters that we came to care about. In doing so, we helped Lost to change the face of TV. The bar has been set to a new height. The level has been raised. The smoke monster is out of the bottle, and there’s no putting it back. Every network will be looking for the show that connects with audiences, makes them as rabid as the Lost fan base, and gives them the kind of mysteries to keep them interested throughout the week, the characters to keep them wanting to learn more and more, and the writing to enjoy even the bad episodes. And every network will flush perfectly good (but not great) shows like FlashForward down the drain before they can take off because they don’t live up to Lost. It’s a new world. Continue reading →
