Damon Lindelof Basically Lied To ABC So They Would Pick Up LOST

Love it or hate it, LOST was a game-changer in the world of television. Expensive to shoot, filmed in Hawaii, incredibly serialized, and often completely nonsensical, it’s amazing that in the current TV landscape, a network looked at the premise for the show and said, “That’s a great idea! Let’s do it!”

Well, as it turns out: that never happened.

A LOST series bible, created four months before the pilot aired, was recently leaked – and bears almost no resemblance to the actual show we know and (maybe) love. You can click here to read the whole 20-page document, but the folks over at SlashFilm have compiled a helpful list of all the insane lies contained within:

• The document claims the show will be self-contained and not have a serialized structure. “We promise.”
• It says the show won’t fit into one specific “franchise,” but instead can be many genres, such as a doctor show, lawyer show, cop show or character drama.
• Everything in Lost was supposed to have a scientific explanation.
• Claims the show will have no “ultimate mystery.”
• The mystery of “the monster” would be solved in “the first few episodes.”
• Most of the plane’s passengers were never supposed to show up again.
• The characters would live in a “primitive Melrose Place” that could be built on a soundstage.
• Guest stars would be a part of the show.

Obviously if you’ve ever watched LOST, or heard anything about it, or just exist on this planet, really, you’ll know the actual show ended up nothing like this. Speaking with SlashFilm, LOST creator Damon Lindelof explained that ABC was “very concerned” with the total craziness of the series, and that this document was created to appease the network, convincing them of the show’s viability.

It worked; ABC greenlit the show, and within moments, the Lindelof and the other writers chucked the bible in the garbage and promptly began to shape one of the most confusing, intriguing and polarizing shows of all time. Nice job stickin’ it to the man, guys.

But seriously though, I still wish that the smoke monster had been mechanical.

(via SlashFilm, photo via Ewen Roberts)

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