So, the finale aired 5 years ago today. Yup.
It's just crazy, because it feels like yesterday. It also really does feel like the pinnacle moment for a lot of things. I was interested in how the television landscape would develop post-Lost, but it actually still feels like everything is an "epilogue" in comparison.
Fringe was great, and since it began airing in 2008 held its own ground and voice. When it finished in 2013, that felt like the legitimate end to the voice of Lost on television. All of those little "Lost-ish" series (Flashforward, The Event) never took off. Community, which I know has no connection to Lost (other than their terrific allusion to it in the 2nd season christmas special) has a similar fanbase and cult following, and I really see the conclusion of Community as the conclusion of that era of television (essentially 2004 - 2015 I suppose).
Now it seems the landscape is in an entirely other sphere, with reboot culture taking over and superheroes just about everywhere. Most sitcoms revolve around the notion of liberalism and social progression (which is fine, but possibly over saturated) like Modern Family, Glee, etc. Netflix and Web 3.0 has opened up new possibilites for entertainment to flourish, as it seems that just about every web entertainment company with a cash on hand has their own original series.
I wonder what kind of show Lost would be if it had gone on longer, or at least partly existed in this different landscape of television. HBO is still doing their own thing, away from the networks, just as AMC has done as well. The programs on those cable channels are vastly superior to networked programs, so it is interesting to look back on Lost in the context of it being a serialized networked show, an almost impossible feat now (Fringe still managed it, but barely).
I can honestly say that I think my favourite TV era was 2003-2013. That gave us great sci-fi fantasy (Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, Lost, Fringe) and modern comedy that was refreshing and not single-cam (Arrested Development, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, the first season of Glee).
These were some of the first shows to be exposed to social media and the online fan community, but they were also still old enough that you couldn't instantaneously wire up about it all the time. I mean, the iPhone came out in 2007 just as S3 of Lost was ending, and the whole smartphone/ultra portable laptop/tablet world didn't really explode until the iPad/iPhone 4 in 2010, just as S6 of Lost was closing up. So, in that way, these shows were still traditional but imbued with a greater sense of community than ever before.
Now, new shows are almost obliged to acknowledge social media as a tool for renewal, and the idea of recording, binge watching, or illegally downloading is so mainstream we don't even blink to the idea that 10 years ago none of that was commonplace. At least, not commonplace in HD.
Basically, I guess I mean that Lost sort of signalled the end to a very certain phase of television, bowing out just as social media was about to truly explode and revolutionize how we consume content and media. If it existed today, I don't know if Cuse and Lindelof could remain sane, being berated from literally ever digital corner.
I'm happy it aired when it did, and concluded when it did. But boy do I miss it, and that period of television, very much.
How do you guys think Lost stacks up 5 years later?