LOST was probably the 1st serialized drama to take advantage of the DVR/internet era. It made TV execs realize they could produce series which had to be followed on a weekly basis which led to higher quality shows like breaking bad and others.

With a few exceptions, most TV dramas had a "story of the week" with some minor character development thrown in along the way(Law & Order formula). Now most dramas have a season-long arc. Modern dramas are 1 story told in 8-13 parts, whereas older network shows were 22 short stories loosely related to each other.

Dallas and other primetime soaps were definitely shows "which had to be followed on a weekly basis".

That was a successful formula for decades prior to LOST.

That's why I said "with few exceptions."

Like every soap opera.

even ignoring all the primetime soap operas, serial dramas have been a standard style of tv for decades.... west wing, sopranos, the wire, etc. twin peaks if you want the mystery element

Yeah it's totally delusional to think that Lost was a frontrunner in serialization, it was riding the wave of popular serialized TV shows. 24, West Wing, Sopranos, The Shield, Buffy, DS9, Alias, Six Feet Under and I'm sure others all preceded Lost.

give people a decent teaser opening 30 minutes of crap and a cliffhanger and they'll believe they loved it

I think one of the reasons I enjoy marathoning stuff so much is because of my absolute hatred of cliffhangers. I am currently storing up the new seasons of Better Call Saul and Fargo on my DvR so I don't get annoyed. If there is any sort of cliffhanger nonsense I just want to be able to pop on the next episode

Yea cliffhangers are the nut low. I remember I didn't watch Lord of the Rings until the 3rd one came out. So when I watched the first one, I immediately watched the other 2 the same weekend. I would have been so f'ing pissed off if I saw the first one in the movies and had to wait like 2 years for the 2nd one to come out. You had the same problem w/ the 2nd Matrix movie.

SUHWEEET!!-------->

Was season 1 that good? I think I only watched an episode or 2 and quit.

Somehow I managed to never watch Orange is the new black. I tried a couple times and never continued but since the new season was about to start, I tried again and binged seasons 1 thru 4 in a week or so.

It's pretty good and I am glad I won't have to wait a year for the cliff hanger at the end of season 4.

I love cliffhangers.

I really liked it but I have odd taste (Example: I liked Lost for a season or so and then got disgusted by the never-ending cliff hangers and quit watching with extreme prejudice. Hated the Leftovers as well. I also love Master of None, Silicone Valley, Unbreakable Kimmy, Better Call Saul, Love, Mr Robot, TWD).

I loved the setting in Venice Beach which is a part of LA I really like and just found the show enjoyable and kind of addicting

Although story arcs have existed for a long time, many consider the TV show Wiseguy from 1987 with coining the phrase "story arc." I sure was hooked from week to week watching Ken Wahl as Vinny Terranova try and take down the bad guys over a cycle of about 6 to 12 episodes.

Both Ray Sharkey (Sonny Steelgrave) and Kevin Spacey (Mel Profitt) did awesome jobs as the bad guys of their respective story arcs.

I remember Wiseguy lol.
Jonathan Banks in it too!

I will probably give it another shot, its binge time, in between TV seasons.

I like SV, BCS, Mr Robot and TWD.

Master of None got sort of boring when he started dating the chick and I never finished season 1.

Tried Kimmy a few times and couldn't really get into it.

Looking forward to Bloodline tomorrow. I am rewatching the last 2 of last season and getting pumped for it.

flaked is boring but in an offbeat on purpose way. i gave it a

Loving Arnett. Couldn't watch more than a few episodes whiles still liking it. At least I ll enjoy a good binge watch at some point.

No show stirred up more discussion than lost. It changed tv... For better or worse.

I'll be a lost fan/apologist for life... But i haven't watched it again and probably never will. It was an "in the moment" event every week. Lost hate is classic revisionist history.

The Jacob origin episode is the worst episode of tv ever though.

Lost was dead as soon as they introduces the smoke
Monster and polar bears

nope. Lost as the last show I can recall that no matter how many stupid twists they wrote in the later seasons, i still expected them to write their way out of it, and that kept me intrigued. We pretty much learned that wasn't the case, but the ride was still fun.

it changed TV. The second an episode of Lost ended, people flocked online to discuss it. it was the biggest instance of that to date, whether you want to pretend it was or wasn't. There weren't a bunch of Soprano's fan boards discussing whether or not Paulie would turn on Tony every sunday night.

Even to this day I think the only 2 shows that have come close to those Lost levels of fanaticism are Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.

Not to mention, Lost is probably the last great network drama that engulfed people's lives like this. Go ahead and counter that, b/c I'm not gonna believe your choice.

No matter what you think about it today - you can even call it terrible writing, gimmicky, disappointing, brainwashing, etc - it changed the fabric of tv. it just did. I like it a lot more than this, but it's similar to how Avatar changed the movie going process. No one seems to like that movie now, but it's the higest grossing movie of all time (inflated 3d prices help) b/c it was an EVENT at the time. No one had seen anything like it.

"But what about the 3d movies that came before it" that's like saying Buffy was similar to Lost. Buffy was never in the zeitgeist. Lost was the biggest thing on tv.

and again, I'm probably never watching LOST again, just like I'm never watching Avatar again. I enjoyed the experience of both at the time, and would rather just remember it that way. I also really have zero intent to ever marathon another drama I watched. Comedies are much easier to digest on repeat viewings.

There was a polar bear in the first episode I tuned it out seriously when all of the time jumps/travel started. It was an intriguing yet frustrating show on many levels.

Damn, forgot all about Bloodline, I loved season one and forgot to watch S2.
There are so many great shows now I can't keep up. I haven't even watched the last season of GOT yet