9 Worst Times TV Shows Went Meta
2. Lost Kills Nikki And Paulo
Lost was always destined to go meta. The show married a rich mythology with a sense of mystery that the creators could never hope to pay-off, spawning an army of online theorists and sleuths. The island’s inhabitants, scrambling hopelessly for a sense of meaning amidst chaos, soon became audience-surrogates, and, like a snake eating its own tail, Lost became consumed with its own mysteries, rather than solving them.
When the writers of Lost introduced Nikki and Paulo in the show’s third season, they set the internet ablaze. Their characters' conception was prompted by a very meta question, asked on every message board: what do the background survivors do all day? Unfortunately, the pair were universally loathed, and the episode 'Expose' was written to kill them off.
It’s not a terrible episode, and watching creator murder creation to appease the audience is oddly satisfying. But it does mark a point in the show’s history when the creators paid more attention to fan theories and postmodern hijinks than to the characters themselves. “Who the hell is Nikki?" Sawyer asks, "Who the hell is Paulo?" Good question.