MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Over LOST’S six-season tenure on ABC, the 48 characters that survived the Oceanic 815 crash were not in for an easy ride. In the show’s first season, the survivors first encountered the mysterious “smoke monster,” saw visions of abusive dead relatives, and struggled to build a society that would keep them safe until rescue came (remember: they still believed they would be rescued in the first season). As the island storyline unfolded in LOST, each episode was structured around flashbacks to events in one Oceanic 815 survivor’s personal history before the plane crashed, introducing that character and their perspective to the audience.

But as the plane crash survivors explored the LOST island, discovering its fantastical and supernatural secrets, fans would learn more about each survivor’s complicated past (and the character would learn more about themselves). And in the end, the stories audiences see in the flashbacks have the greatest influence on Oceanic 815 survivors’ future.

The combination of island mystery and juicy character drama was irresistible to audiences and critics, and LOST was the recipient of hundreds of industry awards, including Werewolf by Night director Michael Giacchino’s Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore). The series arrived at a time when television discourse reached a critical mass. “The serialized narrative structure, cliffhanger episode endings, and mysterious subject matter sent viewers scurrying online to message boards in the wake of each episode, sharing clues and theories in an attempt to parse an ever-growing stack of questions about the strange and fantastic island,” wrote Avery Kaplan on Comics Beat.

LOST’s Legacy: Yellowjackets, WandaVision, Cloverfield, and More

     Marvel Studios

LOST’s cultural impact has been huge. The cover of Weezer’s album Hurley is a photograph Jorge Garcia, who played the eponymous character in the series, and the Dharma Initiative logo appeared in the opening scenes of the J.J. Abrams-directed Cloverfield. Just recently, actor Christina Ricci commented on the parallels between her Showtime series Yellowjackets and LOST, saying, “I mean the only thing it reminds me of as a viewer is LOST, really.”

When Marvel Studios’ WandaVision premiered in 2021, some culture critics noted the influence of LOST on how the Disney+ series was trying to manage fan reaction. “But another important legacy carried on by LOST and continued by WandaVision is the tradition of ‘water cooler television.’ Following in the footsteps of fans of the Star Trek shows and The X-Files, LOST fans shared their fan theories, book club research, and general enthusiasm over the show via the internet,” Kaplan argues. “Naturally, anyone who has been on social media in the past few weeks has been subjected to their fair share of WandaVision. In addition to plenty of discussions that attempt to sift through the clues dispensed by the show, WandaVision has also followed in the footsteps of the other big Disney+ hit, The Mandalorian.”

LOST seasons one through six are currently available for streaming on Hulu.