"Lost" Tops Summer Critics Poll

The strategy of having an end date for our magical show of awesomeness is garnering some serious critical praise. TelevisionWeekly's Summer Critics Poll voters have spoken: They, like us, love Lost. And probably most important, they love knowing that the craziness has a direction. And it will end. Spectacularly. And it's worth hanging on for the ride.

In the wake of producers’ decision to set a 2010 end date for “Lost,” participants in TelevisionWeek’s Summer Critics Poll had nothing but praise for the refocused fourth season of ABC’s mystery-drama.
Coming in at No. 1 in the semiannual poll by a wide margin, “Lost” cracked the top five on nearly every critic’s submission.

“They said the show was probably past salvaging. ‘They,’ meaning critics (and I include myself), were wrong. What a comeback,” Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune wrote.

In truth, despite some grumblings, critics never completely gave up on “Lost.” In the summer 2007 Critics Poll, “Lost” placed second to “The Sopranos,” which ended its six-season run on HBO that year. “Lost” was on hiatus during the eligibility period for the winter 2008 poll.

“The most creatively recharged show of the season, ‘Lost’ thrillingly reclaimed its position this year as TV’s most adventurous and emotionally compelling action drama,” TV Guide’s Matt Roush wrote. “Playing with time and with our expectations, the show raised the bar in its fourth season by teasing us with glimpses of the Oceanic Six in their tortured post-island life while continuing to play out gripping intrigues on the island and with flashbacks.”

Critics cited the finalized end date for “Lost”—the 2009-10 season—as a big help to the show’s story. Many complaints about seasons two and three focused on the meandering story and filler episodes.

“The fixed end date and the new flash-forward structure gave new life to what used to be—and became again—one of the most thrilling, surprising, purely entertaining shows on television,” wrote Alan Sepinwall, critic at New Jersey’s Star-Ledger.

Check out the rest of the poll's results here.

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TAGS: Awards, Poll
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