As it happens, that series bible cooked up by creator Damon Lindeolf and writers Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Paul Dini, Jennifer Johnson and Christian Taylor was full of promises that Lost absolutely did not keep. Such as the suggestion that the show would be a blend of a handful of familiar TV formats that audiences were used to, and it would rotate through them regularly. That pitch admits that the franchise doesn't fit easily into an existing mould but that it is, in fact, simply a Frankenstein's monster stitched together from a bunch of existing formats: it's a medical show (like an episode of ER)! It's a cop show! It's a lawyer show! It's a character drama (all the stories that populate an episode of The OC play out here on our island)! It's clear that they were reaching to try and sell the show to the network, but also that they didn't really know what the show was at that point. If they'd made good on all those promises Lost would have been an unwieldy mess. And apparently much more formulaic, procedural and soap opera-like.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
