It doesn’t seem like it however exactly 10 years ago today Lost premiered on American TV. I think Lost changed how a lot of people consumed media, ill explain. Lost premiered almost a year later in the UK, in August 2005. This was when I first heard of it, as once a week everyone I worked with would start talking about Lost. I honestly had no idea what Lost was, I had never heard of it until then as I never really watched much TV back then. Lost did sound really good from what I had been told about it, however I had no way of watching the previous episodes I had missed. Just by chance I thought I wonder if you can download it, I remember typing “Lost” in to ISOHunt and been amazed that I could download all of series 1 and a couple of episodes of series 2. I had never downloaded a TV show before, I release a lot of people would probably not approve of that, however back then we had no TV catch up services, no iTunes to purchase episodes from or anything else like that. If you had missed a few episodes of something you pretty much had no way of legally watching that episode again anytime soon. After downloading all of series 1 which took a good day, I then FTP’ed the episodes across to my Xbox which was modded and had XBMC on it, then started watching Lost. I was hooked, I used to watch an episode a night after work and within a month had watched all of series 1 and had caught up with where series 2 was in America. After that I downloaded the episode each week the day after it had aired in America. I remember telling a couple of friends about this and they ended up doing the same. The added benefit of this was I was able to read Lost fan sides on the internet knowing I had seen the same episode as everyone in America so I wouldn’t read any spoilers. In the UK after series 2 Sky purchased the rights to Lost, so it was not shown on free to air TV anymore, then later on Virgin Media lost the rights to show Sky channels, meaning even fewer people could watch Lost here in the UK. I believe a lot of the Lost following in the UK started downloading it after that from what i read on the internet at the time. I remember been on a bus and hearing a old woman who must have been in her 60’s talking saying she was not impressed she couldn’t watch Lost anymore, then I remember her friend saying her grandson had set her up with something called Bittorrent and she downloads the new episodes each week. I remember been quite surprised hearing that at the time. After I caught up on Lost I then remember reading about Prison Break and got in to that also, again thanks to torrents as the show had never been shown in the UK when I started watching it. So thanks to Lost and Torrents I basically got in to TV shows, even though I never really watch much “Live TV”. Even today i would argue downloading TV though non legal methods give you a far better experience than anything legal out there, however a least legal services such as Netflix are finally offering a good viable alternative for older content, and now new original content. Since then I have enjoyed a fair few more TV series, I still think Lost is honestly the best TV show I have seen, (Prison Break, 24 and House are close seconds!) Tonight I’ve just watched the first two episodes of Lost again after 9 years and I’m instantly hooked. This time having Lost on Blu-ray it looks absolutely stunning in 1080p! I really don’t think TV shows like Lost are made these days sadly. Few shows have ever hooked me as much. Has anyone since re-watched Lost, or is planning to if you haven’t seen the first series for 9-10 years? I’m thinking it will all make much more sense this time not having to wait weeks / months for a new episode. Here are some interesting Lost articles I’ve read today, as the internet seems to have a bit of a buzz with Lost at the moment: How “Lost” changed the way the world watches TV Lost - 10 years on: all the mysteries explained Ten Years Later, 'Lost' Shows Us Why We Need New Pilot Mandates 10 Years After Lost Premiered, Damon Lindelof Reveals Why He "Broke Down Sobbing" and Opens Up About Show's Legacy In Celebration of Lost's 10-Year Anniversary, Let's Grade the Cast's Post-Island Careers! TLDR version: Anyone else re-watching Lost again from series one?
I would love to watch Lost all over again but Destiny's been calling me these past few weeks and all my other favourite US TV shows are having their premiers this week or next. I agree with you about how Lost changed the way I watched television shows. Before I'd just hope to luck out on finding an episode of a show I'd missed out on or I'd tend to just give up on watching the show altogether! FYI Prison Break actually came to channel 5 but they kept changing it's air date and times! God knows what TV execs were thinking back then with regards to their viewer-ships! Thankfully they're now companies such a Netflix and Amazon Prime showing how things should be done for TV consumers. Took them long enough
My list of currently airing TV shows has got rather small these last few years, at the moment things i will be watching in the next two weeks or so are: Homeland Person of Interest Transporter Doctor Who Big Bang Theory Then the usual short cartoon stuff: South Park Family Guy The Simpsons American Dad Homeland, Doctor Who, South Park and The Transporter are usually quite short series, so with that in mind i figured it was a good time to gradually re watch an old favorite I must admit i really am hooked on Lost quite badly already!
I agree that Lost definitely was the turning point for 'mass-market' piracy of TV shows. What an utter load of old rubbish it was though, after Series 1!