The showrunner, Damon Lindelof behind Lost reveals the insecurities and stress of creating Lost was the “lowest point” in his life.
Many argue that Lost is one of the best shows in television history. But, in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Damon Lindelof, one of the show runners for Lost, was asked about the highest point and lowest point of his career. It is interesting to point out that both points in his life centered around Lost.
When speaking about his highest point, Lindelof pointed to the time between the first and second seasons of Lost.
“The show was in the zeitgeist,” he told EW, “and there was that strange feeling of being in a restaurant and people at the next table are talking about what they thought was in The Hatch, and then it culminated in us winning the drama series Emmy.”
Many people believe that the writers simply made up the storyline of the show as they went along, caring nothing for plot holes, character development or answering any of the many mysteries created in the seires. While Lindelof didn’t discuss these topics, he did assert that it was a very difficult task to write for the series and it would be almost too much to handle for the writer and executive producer.
I had an idea in my head that we were going to make 13 episodes of a cult show. I was going to try to make the episodes as good as possible and then we would be canceled. Suddenly it became a phenomenon, and that did not feel good. The ratings were massive and the critical response to the show and the audience response was overwhelmingly positive, and those things made me feel more and more upset and isolated and stressed out.
Lindelof explained even further how hard it was to work on the show:
[ABC] was just like: ‘You have 12 weeks to generate two hours of material — Go.’ Not 12 weeks to write it, but 12 weeks to write it and make it and edit it, all of it. So once it was done and it existed and it turned out well did I start to become victim to my own insecurities. So that was an incredibly dark time, and nothing that I’ve ever experienced emotionally has come close.
It is pretty easy to imagine how hard it must have been on Damon Lindelof when he was running a show as big as Lost especially when he never ran a show before. It is pretty interesting to think that the characters on the island where probably just as lost as Lindelof himself.
