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Why Lost Ended With Season 6 (Was It Cancelled?)
Despite six years of huge success, ABC’s hit drama Lost was cancelled and ended with just six seasons. Lost was inspired by the 2000 movie Castaway and centered around a science fiction story following the survivors of a plane crash somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean. The show heavily featured flashbacks and glimpses into the future that added depth to the wide range of characters on the show.
Lost was popular right from the beginning and maintained its popularity until the end, averaging over 11 million US viewers per episode during its final season. In the series’ two-and-a-half-hour finale, it was revealed that rather than being stranded on an island throughout the series, the characters had actually been in a purgatory-like “flash-sideways,” a version of the afterlife. The final scene of the series depicted the Lost characters reuniting in a church before moving onto the afterlife together.
The series finale was controversial, as many felt it negated the entire show’s premise of how the characters would get off the island, as well as the trials and tribulations they faced in attempting to do so. The rest of the series, however, was a massive hit that viewers couldn’t get enough of. When Lost was cancelled, it came as a huge surprise and many wondered why the show wouldn’t see a seventh season.
Why Lost Didn't Return For Season 7
Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse explained in an interview with The Independent there were two major issues behind the decision to cancel the show (via Digital Spy). First, they didn’t know how long the mythology had to last, making it difficult to write storylines incorporating intriguing sci-fi elements, such as some characters like Walt and Hurley having powers, as well as an eventual time travel twist. Cuse also shared the writers were “running out of flashbacks for the characters,” which were pivotal in carrying the story and its characters forward.
A flashback of Matthew Fox’s Jack Shephard in Thailand from one of the series most criticized episodes, season 3’s “Stranger in a Strange Land,” is cited as the moment that prompted the decision to cancel the series. Another showrunner Damon Lindelof shared that he and Cuse had to fight to get ABC to agree on an end-date so they could begin working towards the end of the show (via Vox). Eventually both sides came to an agreement that the show would end after three more seasons, finally bringing viewers some answers in Lost’s controversial ending.
Choosing to cancel the show was a source of pride for the Lost showrunners, as they were the first show in that era of network television to end a show on their terms, with what they say was an intentional ending. While Lost was cancelled after six seasons, it remains amongst the best shows of all time for many viewers and critics to this day. The show has even garnered a new wave of fans via streaming, who are able to discover and enjoy the thrilling events that took place after Oceanic Airlines Flight 815’s crash for the first time.
