I feel like the end of “Lost” is really the end of television as we know it. When I first watched the pilot, I actually enjoyed it so much I watched it again with Gina to show her the awesomeness. Never before- and never since- have I done that with a show.
In a world (of television) where game shows and “reality” shows run wild, it Is very easy to say that a huge part of television is dying with “Lost”. Mtv hasn’t been “Music Television” for many years, but recently Cartoon Network started airing shows (and movies) that were, gasp, not cartoons. Also, with the switch from the Sci-Fi Network to “SyFy”, they have also lost a lot of their science fiction credibility, airing comedies that could be seen on CBS and shows about who is buying what piece of Hollywood memorabilia and for how much. Pretty soon, the Food Network will show people going to the bathroom as some sort of “post-eating” showcase and Lifetime: Television For Women will start appealing to someone.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of shows currently airing that I do enjoy. Most noted in the hour long block are Burn Notice, Sons of Anarchy, Bones, Chuck and Supernatural. But those shows (and others like them that I don’t watch) are all pretty cut and dry. They’re ex-CIA, biker gang, anthropologist, CIA and monster hunters that all face some sort of problem and usually solve within the allotted time or in a two part episode or by the end of the season if it’s a really big story arc.
No show has that big feel to it any more though, where you feel you need to watch episode to episode to see what’s going to happen. After watching an episode of “Lost”, I always felt like I had learned so much but really nothing at all and couldn’t wait for the next episode. With the shows I listed above, at the end of any given episode you’re either sent home happy or given a cliffhanger which most likely won’t be nearly as dramatic as you’d hoped.
That being said, there is something to still be said for the half hour comedy. “How I Met Your Mother”, “30 Rock” (And pretty much all those NBC Thursday night shows, though “The Office” is going away, right?) and some others make me laugh when I watch them. But that’s really all they do. They don’t really have a lot that carries over from episode to episode (Hence you can pluck out a single episode to watch at random and not need to know what is going on to find it funny), but they’re not really meant to either.
When you ask me what the greatest hour long shows on television are, I will be hard pressed to name shows currently airing over shows that have since ceased. I feel like “Lost” was really one of the last of those “must see” shows (Sorry, NBC) Now I feel like we’re just drifting further and further into some strange concept that will be on for three hours every night and will consist of Sarah Palin shooting people from her helicopter with the survivors getting to pick a briefcase and potentially win something. Of course, it will have to air on Fox.
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