It takes a lot to stand out in the era of Peak TV, and no one series can resist the siren song of shocking twists. Some lay groundwork more carefully than others, so which major swerves were audiences miles ahead of? From LOST to Star Trek: Discovery, we’ve sleuthed out seventeen that savvy viewers put together long before showrunners intended.
Given today’s endless TV revivals, it’s hard to overlook former cultural phenomena with unsatisfying ends. ABC’s LOST would seem like a prime target, but network heads aren’t admitting to any official revival talks just yet, despite one of the creators returning to ABC in recent months.
Love or hate the final seasons of LOST, there’s little denying the mythology got a bit … abstract toward the end, between light-filled island corks and temples. That said, producers now reveal that the final episodes were meant to introduce an island volcano that tied things together, but got too costly to depict onscreen.
It’s been some time since ABC’s LOST was a matter of regular discussion, but one of the more famous points of trivia saw Michael Keaton earmarked for the role of Jack Shephard, with a caveat that his character be killed off as a pilot twist. That obviously never came to pass, though Keaton finally explains why the change came about, as well as his decision to decline the role.
LOST co-creator Damon Lindelof famously departed Twitter amid a never-ending stream of criticism for the ABC mystery’s finale (and perhaps not coincidentally, ahead of HBO’s The Leftovers premiere). The impending third and final run of the HBO rapture drama will inevitably draw comparison, though Lindelof breaks his usual silence to explain a purposefully-vague Leftovers ending, differentiating it from LOST.
News of NBC’s proposed Xena reboot was quickly distanced from iconic series star Lucy Lawless, who thought of the prospect as a rumor, despite husband Rob Tapert’s attachment behind the scenes. The idea for a modern warrior princess doesn’t appear to have gotten very far, but NBC has at least made things more official, hiring LOST alum Javier Grillo-Marxuach to pen the pilot episode.