LOST

[Thrik]

Good article, enjoyed that. I maintain that Lost was a splendid show, but sadly one that would have been impossible to end satisfactorily. I just don't think that you can build up that much madness without the conclusion seeming like a fairly paltry bang. Still, I can't say that I particularly objected to the ending.

 

I too didn't experience much if any of the marketing, so I just took the story as it came with little hype or expectation. I was definitely totally into the online speculation though, poring over episodes' details. It's weird how much I got into that, especially considering that no other show has done that for me — although Fringe had a lot of similar attributes that I enjoyed speculating about once the story really opened up during the second season and beyond, but that was mostly in my own head.

 

I remember being so excited when I predicted at the end of the second season of Lost that the third season would feature a nearby small island, because for literally a split second during the sequence when Michael drives the boat away with Walt you see a glimpse of it. That was probably just a production blip in reality, but it felt stupidly exciting when it actually was how season three went.

[Ben X]

I never saw previews or trailers, I just mainlined the first series on DVD, and found it intensely annoying just for being what it was: writer's room improv.

 

 

Well, I don't think mainlining it really helps either - it works much better watching an episode a week (or a day if you're really impatient). And while they were making shit up without answers for the pilot, they also already had a few things in mind such as the hatch. And by a few episodes in they had planned a lot of broad strokes for the plot and mythology - you can see them setting stuff up for season 3 and beyond.