Here’s How Much the Internet Doesn’t Want a ‘Lost’ Reboot

Dan Clarendon February 7, 2019, 4:00 pm

ABC is feeling like Jack Shepard at the end of Lost Season 3: dying to go back to the island.

“Yes, I would like [a Lost reboot] very much,” ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke said at the Television Critics Association winter press tour on Tuesday, February 5. “That is a reboot I would be interested in seeing.”

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Burke doubled down on the idea in a subsequent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s literally at this point just what I dream about when I go to bed at night,” she explained. “I have not spoken to [executive producers] Carlton [Cuse] or J.J. [Abrams] or ABC Studios about it. But I do often get asked the question what show would I reboot and often my answer is Lost — sometimes Alias. Nothing to report yet. Maybe ever. But it would be a fun thing to have a conversation about.”

But if ABC is like Jack, Lost fans are more like Kate at the end of Season 3. “Do NOT do a #Lost reboot,” tweeted @TheLOSTFans, an account with more than 16,000 Twitter followers.

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“Please let it stay as a complete story and a TV classic,” wrote @derbykid, who added, “I’m a huge fan of the series, by the way.”

@Marsinez_8 tweeted, “Please no. It’s one of a kind show. Let it remain as it is. Don’t ruin it.” @CandidCreative1 wrote, “One of my favorite series EVER. But please just let the sleeping polar bear lie!” And @markgnzls simply said, “Don’t you dare.”

Matthew Fox on Lost (Mario Perez/ABC via Getty Images)

The Mary Sue’s Kate Gardner, who confessed she “wrote a three-page defense of the final two seasons for a professor who most certainly did not assign it” described the Emmy-winning series as “lightning in a bottle” in an argument against a reboot.

“You can’t recreate the hype around Lost, at least not around a reboot of the series,” she contended. “That phenomenon usually occurs around a new show that captures the zeitgeist in a fresh, unique way.”

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For the record, the prospect of a Lost reboot has Cuse’s conditional support. “[Co-creator] Damon [Lindelof] and I have always been adamant that we told the story that we wanted to tell,” he told THR in August. “I would be fine if ABC hired somebody who  had a good idea [to reboot it] involving other characters that go to the island at some other point  in time. I would be less excited if they wanted to use the characters that we had in our show.”

But perhaps Cuse and Lindelof would allow just one character to be reused — because @joejoehasfun might have the best idea yet: “If they reboot Lost it should just be 40 episodes of Vincent the dog on the island having a good time.”