Submitted by LakeMcKesson t3_123nrpr in television
BB and Sopranos are two examples of shows from back then that have remained in popular culture and memes.
Lost and Dexter, on the other hand, are two examples I had at the top of my head which have seemingly not. While I loved both those shows, even I have to admit they're not talked about much anymore. When's the last time you heard somebody quote Lost?
Dexter just had a reboot so not sure how that's stuck.
Lost is still talked about alot but the ending soured alot of people
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Exactly???
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This sounds like a personal opinion and not a fact.
Lost and Dexter ended up amounting to disappointment. It's hard to retain enthusiasm for a couple good seasons of a show that then drove itself into the ground. BB is still a big deal because it never wavered in quality and even though it was not written with a lot of plans in mind, it feels like it was, whereas lost and Dexter both feel like they were never supposed to last long enough to fail, yet both did.
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Those shows sucked why would they be legendary?
I would say lost in Dexter I talked about way more than sopranos.
I think the appeal of BB and Sopranos is the inherent humanity to all the characters. Yes they do unspeakably horrible things. But they’re real people. There’s a little bit of Tony and Walt in all of us. Yes Tony is a mob boss, but the writers wrote him in such a human way that you can empathize with him sometimes. I’ve watched the Sopranos so many times now that I’ve begun to hate Tony. Not for the crime and all that, but the bullshitter that he is. He’s such a narcissist. He constantly lies, he manipulates people, he’s an addict, he’s a horrible father, he’s someone that I know irl. Walt is us.
In the opposite direction comes Walt. He’s us, he represents our wants and desires to be something of substance and meaning. He doesn’t want to be ineffectual and forgotten. Even if that something is terrible. He’s cruel because he’s lives a mediocre life despite his intellect. He sees others around him like Gretchen, who were successful, and he resents them. He resents people at home too because he’s stuck with them and their mundanities. He also suffers from pride. He wants to be successful on his own terms. Whether it’s the way he pays for his cancer treatment or cooks meth. He’s been nothing but a cog to other people’s success and he can’t stand it. That’s why at the end he tells Skylar he did it for himself.
I’ve watched bits and pieces of Lost and Dexter. They’re not comparable shows. They’re too far out in fantasy. The characters are “perfect.” Their flaws are superficial or typical. Many people have suffered a mother and father like Tony’s, or lived with a wife like Skylar, or had lived lives like Walt prior to his explosion in living. Dexter plays on a fantasy. It’s goofy and unrealistic.he sleeps with his sister, he’s a forensic scientist who catches killers and kills them. Lost takes place in the afterlife. It’s all very whimsical, not grounded in reality at all.
At least, that’s why I think Sopranos and BB will always be relevant. While the other two, and many others, will fall into obscurity. It’s the same reason Seinfeld is still comedically relevant. It’s taking reality, adding a little extremism to it (observational comedy, a mob setting, a a man who cooks crystal meth) and it blows things out of proportion while still honing in on the human element.
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I mean, you're holding up two of the consensus best shows of all time vs. two that had a myriad of problems throughout their runs. BB & Sopranos were never bad. Dexter and LOST were probably in the same stratosphere at their best but Dexter has way more bad seasons than good and LOST probably as many not great as good (plus it aired on broadcast and suffered as a result of that as well). I don't even really agree that they're lost in the zeitgeist (Dexter just had a fairly successful revival and LOST never really left the conversation). Those other two definitely had more staying factor but, again, they're both top 5 consensus best of all time TV shows so, yeah, they're always going to be in the conversation.
Lost and Dexter ended poorly. Whereas BB and Sopranos had well-received endings. Game of Thrones will probably have the same fate as Lost and Dexter.
Because the last season of LOST was a kick to the groin of every person who stuck with them through the series run.
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Dexter also had an awful ending. These play a big role in relevance since people aren't as likely to rewatch a show that falls apart at the end.
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LOST included creative decisions that are now routinely incorporated into TV shows. It's hard to notice now, similar to how the first season of Seinfeld looks rough to anyone who didn't watch it when it actually first aired.
Because they were very good the whole way through. Both shows you listed had pretty famous fall-offs (people have a better respect for Lost now but the ending was really hated at the time, Dexter famously fell off after season 4, I liked the reboot though) quality tends to last longer
Lost is one of the 3 most influential TV shows along with The Sopranos and The Office so I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I don’t think The Sopranos has a much stronger foothold in actual pop culture than Lost, I don’t see significantly more Sopranos discussion than Lost, and depending on what you watch, I would say Lost is even MORE discussed. Does any reviewer talk about Yellowjackets without referencing Lost?
I recently watched Lost for the first time, and posted some questions here. About a million people weighed in. Lost was a phenomenon when it originally aired. People who watched it at that time carry deep nostalgia, and are more than happy to talk about it with someone who just caught up.
Lost was about being lost. The characters, writers and viewers were all lost most of the time. That was the charm. There were some quotes from Lost, but more come from comedies. Sopranos is mafia, and they always have some good lines.
Not anymore it doesnt.
The new ending is even worse than the original.
It is. You can't add an opinion flair on this subreddit for some reason.
Feel free to disagree
That's a fair point
I always viewed Dexter as 2 different shows. The first season which is dark and quirky. And all of the other seasons, which are very soap-opera like. I loved the first season. Was majorly disappointed by the 2nd season. Almost stopped watching the 3rd season. 4th season was better, but not even close to first. From there is just went farther and farther down in quality.
I think keeping Brian alive at the end of the first season, and saving the BHB manhunt storyline for a later season (like the last) would have solved a lot of problems. But they probably didn't expect the show to catch on like it did.
I think the shows that maintain their quality with a satisfying ending remain talked about and rewatched while others don’t. Dexter started strong but the last half of the show wasn’t very good and neither was the ending (in my opinion)
While lost was groundbreaking in the way it told its story I think that the show itself doesn’t have a lot of rewatchability for those who already saw it. I also think with people’s viewing habits today it’s a tough sell to get new people to watch over 100 episodes of an uneven show, especially since you have to pay attention while watching & can’t multitask (scroll on your phone) while watching it.
Dexter I think blew all its goodwill with a lousy ending, the new season was like trying to heal a shotgun blast with a band-aid.
Breaking Bad was one of the first show to hugely benefit from streaming & twitter. The ratings weren’t great at first despite it getting a lot of critical acclaim & Emmy wins. The buzz around it got people streaming the early seasons on Netflix & then stuck with it through the end on AMC. I think it was one of the early shows that had a lot of live-tweeting going on, which also led to some pretty classic memes & Gifs online.
Plus breaking bad a spinoff that only just finished and a movie. And sopranos had a movie too. It's not like any of them have been stagnant.
It’s poor but NOWHERE near as bad.
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BB and Sopranos are god tier TV shows that ended well, had fantastic writing and didn't overstay their welcome. I can count on one hand how many shows actually fit that description. Thats the difference.
Both Dexter and Lost ended badly, had shitty writing and didn't end well.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?
I just had a person with the last name Heisenberg call in and he said, not that one. LOL
For the Soprano's just about the whole series is quotable because it's just FU Italians. I'm an FU Italian and so are my friends. It is what it is.
idk, just because people don't talk about it on the internet doesn't mean people don't talk about the shows irl. it's funny some football and baseball teams will have a social media person interview the players for instagram and they'll ask random questions like "who do you want to see in concert?" or "what's your favorite tv show?" dexter is probably the most popular answer.
My username is because of two of these shows. So still relevant.
> Feel free to disagree
it's not about disagreeing or agreeing... it's just not true.
this is a great idea for a post though. but their are way better examples you could've used for shows that were pop culture sensations in the 2000s but aren't talked about at all today.
People need to get over that none of the showrunners thought Dexter deserved anything approaching an ending that didn't give him back his karma.
Yes. Finally someone with an intelligent opinion about Dexter. Season 2 was such a disappointment.
As a side note to this discussion, I wonder: if someone unfamiliar with Lost were to binge it now, would they enjoy it more than someone who watched it when it came out?
I ask because when watching a show over the years, there is a lot of down time to think (and overthink) your own theories, whereas if you binge it, you wouldn't do that as much.
Yes. I don't agree with that, but I can see the reasoning. Problem is the execution was awful. The pacing near the end. Angela solving the BHB case with Google.
The short answer is that Breaking Bad and The Sopranos are better shows.
The long answer is... many reasons. For example:
Because Breaking BAd and The Sopranos are the better character drama.
Honestly, I hoped LOST took the Twin Peaks: The Return road. My complaint is not that they didn't explain. My complaint is that they were obsessed with explaining things like the mythos and lore.
As soon as the show focused on the exact mechanisms and secrets of the island--the core of the last few seasons hinged on this spring of life garbage--while putting the characters in the back, I stopped caring. Then introducing concepts like time travel or characters having some kind of secret origin or someone is a destined hero or something...
The Abrams mystery box gets used as an example of lazy writing but there is a point behind it: some things are better off unexplained. Answers don't stick with people the same way questions do. Random bullshit with no feasible answers doesn't make an interesting story, but not everything has to be explained to death, especially when you are tackling supernatural speculative fiction.
There’s a difference between a mystery where answers were promised (Star Wars Sequels, Westworld) and one where it’s intended to remain a mystery (the unknowable horror of Lovecraft, G-Man). The island used to be an entity outside our understanding, but it connected and revealed about the characters to create a human drama like Solaris.
It is the same reason why Silent Hill 2 is considered the best installment because it doesn't really focus on the town. Then its sequels dissect evey single detail about Silent Hill. Origin had the player literally stood in the room as Allesa burned because people want every answer fed to them. Homecoming was no longer about a human story, but a freak show in a spooky town.
I still love the first three seasons of LOST. I love the characters. The character-centric episodes like the ones with Lorke are some of the best written TV. The mysteries it raised are on a more smaller scale. Then the show throws in batshit insane concepts and fantasy nonsense like gimmicks, and then answers every single one of them in the most boring way possible.
3 most influential???!!! Hahahaha no. It's was revolutionary but definitely not top 3. Same thing for the office! I would put GOT above both this shows in influential! Every tv studio have been trying to recreate that magic.
No one would touch a massive genre project like Game of Thrones if it wasn’t for Lost
Lol what! There are many shows that owe their existence to lost but GOT is not one of them. LOTR and Rome are probably more the reason a show like GOT was able to be made
I’m not saying Lost is the primary influence on the content of GoT, I’m saying Lost proved that it was feasible to make a big budget genre show on TV. Yes, Rome existed, but it also got cancelled for being way too expensive. Lost actually ran for multiple seasons and kept a pretty huge following. That’s the difference. LOTR isn’t a TV show so not sure what to say there
james_carr9876 t1_jdvddlp wrote
Lost and Dexter are still VERY talked about and relevant, especially Lost with the whole mystery box approach and mix of characters and plot twists. So like what?