Leaked Lost pitch packet outlines the version of the show ABC greenlit before it all went crazy
In the years since Lost’s final season, amid all the dangling plot threads and unanswered questions, there’s still the lingering assertion that creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof knew where they were going all along. That despite filler episodes like “Exposé” or “Stranger In A Strange Land” there was always an intentional framework to the show building to a predetermined endpoint. Now, a leaked document from J.J. Abrams and other staff writers to ABC network brass during the pitch process has shed light on just how much thought went into the show beforehand. The 27-page outline emerged from nine weeks of work, and is packed with character sketches for the main cast introduced in the first season, as well as 30 episode ideas. But laughably, there are also pages insisting that Lost would be a medical show, cop show, lawyer show, and character drama (a la The O.C.) wrapped into one. And the even bigger bluff, that Lost would be “self-contained,” with an “easy to follow” overarching mythology: “Viewers will be able to drop in at any time and be able to follow exactly what’s going on in a story context.”