I'm a big fan of the ABC show 'LOST'. It had me at hello. But now I'm waning on being there Wednesday nights to see the next episode. Why? Has the plot become too far fetched? The characters become too boring? No. It's the network that's losing me, not the show.
LOST came out of the woodwork, surprising everybody, including the network. The first series built up on the fans interest in repeating the episodes the following Saturday. Great for picking up on those hidden clues and share them in the burgeoning forums and fan-sites that were springing up. But then ABC started showing the repeats instead of the new episodes. Mistake one in my book.
But one week I missed an episode (the first Hurly-centric one). No worries I thought, I'll catch it in re-runs. Nope. The reruns continued but started jumping around in order and then new episodes were slotted in-between.
Now the second season has started and the buzz is back. Someone is going to be killed off - IN THREE WEEKS TIME! I've had to wait for three weeks of repeats to see a new episode just because what? I don't know. No big sports events, no presidential addresses, but it is coming up to sweeps week. This is when networks trot out shows with movie-star cameos or exotic locales to draw in the viewers. So again three weeks of the episodes I just watched for what! LOST isn't based on "star-power" and it's based on a tropical island so you don't get more exotic than that!
Add to this that you can now download the LOST episodes the next day from iTunes or just get it TiVo'd by a friend and watch it commercial free, or if you have the where-with-all I'm sure it's out on the net in a torrent file somewhere.
I just think ABC is rapidly losing the power it could have had with this show. Fans will drift or get it by other means and then it's draw will be seen to have dropped and it'll be cancelled. This show has already got other "spooky" shows the green-light on other networks and they don't seem to be mis-handling them as badly.
Love the show - just wish I could lose the network.
