"Lost" began life as ABC's attempt to capture some of the magic of Mark Burnett's Darwinistic reality phenom "Survivor." It's ending its run as something far grander.
Put plainly, "Lost" will go down as one of the most important scripted shows to emerge from the millennium's first decade -- and a template for what broadcast networks need to do to survive the new world order of unlimited viewing options and decreased ad revenue.
With the final season of "Lost" kicking off Tuesday, TheWrap tallies up five ways "Lost" changed the game:
-- IT MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR A TV SHOW TO DIE WITH DIGNITY
Letting showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (left) put an expiration date on the series back in 2007 was brash, ballsy -- and a complete paradigm shift for network TV.
Pre-"Lost," programmers in the network world operated under the Supreme Directive that longevity was the end all, be all. Change the cast, shift showrunners -- but damn it, once a show clicked with viewers, keep it on the air by any means necessary.
Lindelof and Cuse (known by Internet groupies simply as Darlton) knew that rule was a recipe for the creative implosion of "Lost." The storytelling had become too complicated, the entire premise of the series too narrow to support an open-ended run.
If "Lost" were to be a show for the ages, a series that lived on in other ways 20 years from now in the same way "Star Trek" has survived, it simply couldn't be allowed to linger on indefinitely, all of its mysteries hastily wrapped up six months after some future ABC suit declared it was time to move on.
And so producers began lobbying ABC to declare a certain date for the end of "Lost." The network agreed, wisely realizing that less of a great thing was better than more of an OK thing.
By limiting "Lost's" lifespan, Darlton gave fans a reason to stick by a show that was getting increasingly complex and in danger of losing all but its die-hard core. Ratings still fell, but like the Obama stimulus package, it's likely the decline would have been far worse had viewers not been given a reason to stay invested.
-- IT PROVED THAT SERIALIZED STORYTELLING CAN BE GOOD BUSINESS
TV cynics will insist that procedurals such as "CSI" and "Law & Order" should always be the goal for broadcasters, since they repeat better and generally make more money in syndication.
That's true -- but "Lost" has shown that there's also a very healthy 21st-century business in high-quality dramas that require viewers to pay attention. Buzzworthy series such as "Lost" or "Heroes" or "Glee" help a network stand out amid the thousands of programming options out there for viewers, sparking online and mainstream media attention in a way the average procedural just can't.
What's more, syndication is no longer the slam-dunk payday it once was.
