10 TV Shows That Ruined Other TV Shows
When shows make it tough to watch other shows.
It's often said that comparison is the thief of joy, and believe it or not, that's also true where TV shows are concerned.
It simply isn't enough for some TV shows to just exist and be really bloody great - their mere presence in the pop-culture sphere then has an unavoidable knock-on effect on how similar series are regarded, typically for the worse.
Sometimes a TV show is just so brilliant, so iconic, or so genre-defining, that it makes it tough for those that follow to meet the same standard or avoid being compared to it until the heat death of the universe.
And so, inspired by this recent Reddit thread on the very subject, we come to 10 TV shows that just so happened to wreck and ruin other series beyond any and all credibility.
Even years from now, new entries into these genres will still find themselves being compared to these seminal TV shows, which remain high watermarks for the type of storytelling they were trying to achieve.
It may not always be this way, but these hit TV shows left some mighty corpses in their shadows...
10. Lost RUINED Most Mystery Shows
No matter your own feelings on Lost, it's tough to deny the influence it had on small-screen mystery dramas.
One of the quintessential "water cooler" TV shows of the last 20 years, Lost was on everybody's lips during its first few seasons, and though its ending remains hugely polarising to this day, it captured the public's imagination in ways that few shows ever have.
It also threw the gauntlet down and challenged every network to try and make "the new Lost," ensuring that just about every promising mystery show with a large ensemble cast from the last 15 years has had that crushing pressure placed upon it.
Lost also confirmed how difficult it is to conclude mystery shows in a manner that satisfies most, and so, with Lost's divisive ending being so firmly rooted in the public consciousness, any time a new mystery series shows potential, it's tough not to pessimistically consider how clunky its ending will be.
As such, there's an honest argument to be made that you just shouldn't ever watch Lost because it'll forever taint your perception of serialised mystery TV.
Even with shows like Severance and From ranking among the most tantalising mystery series of recent years, it's hard to take them entirely on their own terms and not within the shadow of J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof's iconic sci-fi drama show.