Photo: Courtesy of ABC.It's been four years since the final episode of Lost aired on ABC, but viewers of the cult show still have very strong opinions about the series. People either love Lost or despise it, something that showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are very aware of. Now, in honor the of show's 10th anniversary, the creators sat down with Esquire to address some of the backlash.
Ever the good sports, they talked openly about some of their least favorite parts of the series. One of their biggest regrets as writers was introducing the story line of Nikki and Paolo, the diamond-stealing couple who were accidentally buried alive by other crash survivors. Clearly, Lindelof and Cuse quickly realized their mistake with those characters — they were only mentioned in a single episode.
But, when they get down to it, there's one episode that stands out as their least favorite: "I think the episode where Jack gets his tattoos in Thailand," said Cuse. "I think it's cringe-worthy, where he's flying the kite on the beach. It was not our finest hour. We used Matthew Fox's real tattoos. That's how desperate we were for flashback stories." The episode was even used as fodder to help convince network execs at ABC that an end date needed to be negotiated — Cuse and Lindelof wanted to be able to flesh out the rest of the series without resorting to further filler episodes.
Of course, their memories of the show aren't all bad — in fact, they remain extremely proud of Lost to this day (as do the loyal fans — including this writer). "We did 121 hours of Lost," said Lindelof. "Arguably only 15 to 20 of them were subpar, bordering on turds. It would be great to pretend those episodes never happened, but I love the fact that we're still talking about Nikki and Paulo. Sometimes the mistake, the thing that wasn't good, is the thing that's really part of the legacy of a show like ours."
(Esquire)