This fall will mark the 10th anniversary of the premiere of Lost on ABC. The show holds some sort of iconic status, which is mostly deserved—particularly for whetting people’s appetite for long-form serial TV shows and stringing a mystery along for years. Shows like Game of Thrones owe a certain debt to Lost. (Spoilerish stuff ahead.)

All of that said, I don’t know of anyone who didn’t feel, at minimum, disappointed by Lost‘s conclusion. As series finales go, it was pretty low on the hierarchy of awesomeness. (Compare, for example, the moral closure of Breaking Bad or the world-changing subversion of destiny of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

The show also created some interesting and memorable characters, but only a few of them really got a good character arc. Sawyer in particular comes to mind. Most of the time, the characters existed solely in service of the plot, which is not a bad thing when the plot knows where it is going. John Locke, as portrayed by Terry O’Quinn, could have been a legendary television character, but wasn’t. To be fair, Lost was an ensemble show, rather than a character-driven show like Breaking Bad, which created numerous memorable characters in the service of telling one person’s story. Ensemble shows are capable of creating incredibly powerful character arcs, though, as evidenced by The Walking Dead‘s Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride). Continue reading →