Summary

The thrilling pilot episode and complex characters kept audiences hooked on
Lost’s
mystery and drama for six seasons.
Matthew Fox’s portrayal of Jack as a relatable hero was a major reason for the show’s monumental success.

Lost’s
personal touches, timely release, and unique storytelling captured viewers in a pre-streaming era of television.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, the writer and producer behind one of the biggest TV shows of all time, Lost, has explained why the science fiction adventure show was so popular at the time and why it’s still so popular 20 years later. In a new piece for Vanity Fair, Grillo-Marxuach, who penned several episodes throughout the first two seasons, puts a lot of Lost’s success on the pilot episode, which introduced audiences to the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 and the mysterious tropical island they crash-land on.

“Lost attracted an audience because it had a thrilling, high-budget, high-concept pilot that described an irresistible mystery. That audience came back and stayed because even if the series that followed didn’t always offer satisfying solutions to those mysteries, it most certainly delivered on the promise of a cast of fleshed-out characters whose lives were shot through with compelling incidents, difficult situations, tear-jerking agonies, and shocking destinies.”

As well as the gripping first episode, Grillo-Marxuach highlights Matthew Fox’s main character Jack as another major reason why Lost took off like it did. The writer reveals that he showed the pilot to one of his friends before it was released, who proclaimed “What a guy!” after seeing the character for the first time.

“He had instantly fallen in love with Jack, and would follow him through this story for the balance of the decade.”

Lost 4/5 Lost is a mystery drama series created for TV that follows a group of survivors of a plane crash and tells its story between the past, present, and future via flashbacks. When Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashes and lands on a mysterious island in the pacific ocean, the castaways discover their new temporary home may have a mind of its own, as strange supernatural events keep them locked to the island. From an unknown black smoke creature to dangerous islanders, the passengers must work together to survive the island’s seemingly deadly intentions.Release Date September 22, 2004 Seasons 6 Studio ABC Network ABC Expand

Revealing that even the network and studio executives would gather in the writer’s room to find out what happens next, Grillo-Marxuach says that another reason for the monumental success of Lost was due to the personal touches made by those making the series, himself included. Using “a painful memory” from his own past and his experiences surrounding being “fresh off the boat from Puerto Rico,” he says he was able to successfully craft Korean characters Sun and Jin as ostracized outsiders and thus give the series some authenticity.

“All of my pain about being an outsider, being an other and being othered—not to mention struggling to master a language in order to change my life, as well as the perceptions of others—went into that script…
I bring this up not to sell you on my individual genius, but rather to illustrate why Lost, especially in that first season, found and kept an audience. Yeah, all the sci-fi stuff was fun to figure out, but those characters were our everything.”

Lost Found Success Before Netflix & Streaming Changed Television

For Grillo-Marxuach, the timing of Lost is also a major factor in its success, with the series coming before the likes of Netflix and other streaming platforms changed the way audiences watch TV.

“There’s also the truth that Lost came at a time when the very universe that allowed for its existence was about to collapse—even if none of us knew it at the time.
There were still only a few major broadcast networks, making it possible for a single show to capture a humongous chunk of audience and hold it for a protracted period of time. It was a time when a single network president could insist that the world needed “Cast Away meets Survivor” and make it happen through sheer tyranny of will, a willingness to both write huge checks and buck the traditional timeline for developing and filming pilots, and no algorithm to bow down to.”

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Admitting there are a “million reasons” why Lost became such a pop culture behemoth, such as the “tantalizing mysteries,” the clever “flashback structure,” and “large and diverse cast,” the “beauty” of Hawaii, and the captivating cliffhangers, Grillo-Marxuach knows the recipe for the show’s “secret sauce.”

“However, the secret sauce of our success was that every one of those aspects came together to support characters whose struggles were relatable, who kept the audience coming back week after week, season after season, even after it became abundantly clear that the island would not give up its secrets easily…if at all.”

All six seasons of
Lost
are now available to stream on
Netflix
.