How Walking Dead took notes about Lost

So Walking Dead is absolutely dominating the ratings, and dominating cable television. AMC’s reputation and image increased dramatically after this showed debuted back in 2010. It is an intense blend of action, drama, and mystery that has been intriguing viewers from the very beginning. Now, my personal opinion is that it stands as arguably the best drama in all of television, network, cable, satellite, you name it.

That being said, it is going down an eerily similar path to that of another show that had stolen the hearts of viewers everywhere back in the day.





Lost.





Calm down, let me explain.



Just like in Lost, the Walking Dead features a great cast of memorable characters ranging from heroes to villains to mysterious figures to the everyday secondary characters that are easy to root for.



Just like in Lost, the Walking Dead has not one but several intriguing storylines that interweave with each other every episode—with the latter seasons expanding much further since the cast of characters have also expanded.



Just like in Lost, Walking Dead features multitudes of mysteries that range throughout the season, and they usually enjoy ending episodes in cliffhangers. Oh the good ol' cliffhangers.


Just like in Lost, nobody, repeat, nobody is safe in Walking Dead.


Just like in Lost, the channel enjoys splitting entire seasons to stretch them out as far as possible…while frustrating fans as long as possible.


Just like in Lost, Walking Dead also had a subpar Season 2 that resulted in plenty of backlash, which resulted in an ever-improving Season 3. Not sure if you remember, but Season 3 of Lost in the latter half featured some of the greatest moments and biggest surprises in the history of television.



So, what makes Walking Dead more of a continuous success than Lost? What has allowed for Walking Dead to maintain its audience despite few stretches of frustration and weaker episodes? Lost had great ratings throughout its run despite the circumstances (ABC being run by idiots at the time, Writer’s Strike, shifting time slots, horrid time slots) but severely lost (pun not intended) viewers starting with Season 3. But Walking Dead is just as strong as ever 2 ½ years since its original debut.


The answer is very simple: AMC not only caters the show, but caters the fandom and caters the hype.


There’s the highly-acclaimed video game. There’s the television show that merely focuses on discussion of the show. There are the crazy online connections with the television show. There are the contests. There’s the brilliant marketing and abundance of commercials. Walking Dead is a phenomenon, AMC knows it, but ultimately likes to remind you of what it is. Walking Dead isn’t a show, it is THE show.


And this is where ABC dropped the ball with Lost. Lost was treated like just any old television show in the primetime lineup, when Lost was honestly one of the most unique, most intriguing, and most complex television shows ever concocted. ABC never catered to the complexity and the sheer depth of the program, which resulted in ABC having no problems giving it extended breaks mid-and-early season (which was stupid considering all the details one would forget) and never creating a way to allow for viewers to digest and analyze the events that had just taken place---alienating the crowd when the show timeline-wise started going out of control. I shift you not when I tell you we had a season that featured three different storylines in three different points of time. I would have LOVED for a Talking Lost program after each mindwarp episode took place.

Talking Dead is one of the major reasons for the success of Walking Dead---The Lost Experience debuted a full two years after the debut of Lost. It appears that AMC has learned from ABC’s shortcomings with Lost. A unique show should be advertised uniquely, it’s as simple as that. And while it isn’t the first show to have different advertising when compared to its sister and brother programs (Cartoon Network’s Toonami back in the day had a furiously different approach because of the cartoons involved) it is definitely the show getting the most success thanks to the marketing surrounding it.

Walking Dead is a rounding success not just because it’s a great show, but because the network treats it as such. Special attention, special marketing, consistent timeslot and consistent catering to the audience will continue enhancing the ratings for the Walking Dead for the entirety of its run.

Lost back in the day was THE show on television, it’s just that most of us didn’t know it.

Walking Dead is THE show, and the entire country knows this.