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LOST will forever be the show that keeps its fans divided. There are the ones that feel like the ending sucked vs ones that loved it. There are the ones who think they were dead the whole time vs ones who know they weren’t. Some think it struck gold and should be left untouched vs the ones who would love to see a reboot. Team Jack vs Team Locke. Team Sawyer vs Team Jack. Showrunners such as Damon Lidleoff and Carton Cuse who say their story is done vs Drew Goddard who exclaimed “Never say never” via Variety.
But what would a LOST reboot look like anyway?
As it stands, the show had a pretty cut-and-dry ending. While fans still argue what the point of it all was, there was a once common theme that played out through the show’s six-season run. Science vs Religion echoed through the entire series with even episodes being titled Man of Science, Man of Faith all the way back as far as the season 2 premiere. Depending on who you ask, that story was wrapped up nicely with limited questions left. Really, no one cared what happened to Nikki and Paulo, right? Even as that part of the story came to a conclusion, that doesn’t mean the show didn’t leave enough on the bone to pick at for a spinoff. If you take into consideration the main island inhabitants from the beginning, Jacob and the Man in Black. The two of these characters while used as a device to further the science/religion aspect of the show, they also represented a good vs evil story arc too.
And there’s your jumping-off point.
While LOST had a handful of confusing mysteries it planted the seed for, in the grand scheme of things those stories rarely panned out as the main narrative. What about all the people with crimes to answer for that could easily play into the good vs evil narrative. In a show that leans heavily into sci-fi and time travel, is there not a way to start from scratch and bring some old characters back as well as new characters in?
Take, for instance, every single person who did wrong throughout the show, and there were a lot of them. What if in a rebooted version, the “new Jacob”, Hurley or someone else, has to bring people to the island to answer for their choices on or off the island. As we see in the original show, the cast of characters are somehow all connected. Half the appeal of the show was seeing every survivor ended up on the plane and eventually the island as some sort of karmic destiny, but what about the ones who didn’t make it? What about the ones who died on the island?
Remember in season 3 when Juliet’s husband was hit by a bus? That was put in motion by someone and there was a driver involved in that incident. If either of them were brought to the island as a way to earn retribution for these events, would that be so bad? What about Charles Whidmore, aka Penny’s dad, who was exiled from the island only to force Desmond’s way to the island, and eventually find his way to get back then eventually killed? What if he was stuck in a time loop every time the island moves and finds its way through time? How would it play out if he had to relive these events over and over until he finally redeemed himself and earned his freedom from the island?
There could be new cast members brought on to start the show, who we later learn are tied into the original cast’s storyline. If we see these characters time-hopping with the island, it wouldn’t be hard to write them in the bushes off-camera to scenes we saw in the original show, after all, there were plenty of whispers in the jungle, right? Yes, some of that was later to be revealed to be those same characters, but it’s not too far off to write it for different characters as well. On top of that, bringing in the original cast wouldn’t be too hard either. They may all be dead by the end of the original show, but anyone who was willing to return could easily be explained by that same time travel element.
LOST was too good of a show to fade off into obscurity. Where there’s a will there’s a way when it comes to creative writing. If we’re riding the nostalgia train until the wheels come off, then bring back LOST and write it well. Don’t recreate it 5 to 7 years down the road with a new cast, but give us a continuation of a whole new set of stories.
