It takes a lot to stand out in the era of Peak TV, and no one series can resist the siren song of shocking twists. Some lay groundwork more carefully than others, so which major swerves were audiences miles ahead of? From LOST to Star Trek: Discovery, we’ve sleuthed out seventeen that savvy viewers put together long before showrunners intended.
Given today’s endless TV revivals, it’s hard to overlook former cultural phenomena with unsatisfying ends. ABC’s LOST would seem like a prime target, but network heads aren’t admitting to any official revival talks just yet, despite one of the creators returning to ABC in recent months.
LOST co-creator Damon Lindelof famously departed Twitter amid a never-ending stream of criticism for the ABC mystery’s finale (and perhaps not coincidentally, ahead of HBO’s The Leftovers premiere). The impending third and final run of the HBO rapture drama will inevitably draw comparison, though Lindelof breaks his usual silence to explain a purposefully-vague Leftovers ending, differentiating it from LOST.
ABC’s LOST may not have answered every mystery set up over the course of five seasons, but did you know that J.J. Abrams first pitched the island drama to ABC as having no serialized mystery whatsoever? Or that the costly pilot got ABC’s then-president fired for his trouble? We don’t have to go back, the 21st episode of ‘You Think You Know TV?’ is right here, smoking out all the island secrets of LOST!