Lost

Tonight the fifth series finale of Lost airs on Sky. As most readers know, I am a big fan of Lost, and whilst waiting for it to come on, I thought I would try and explain why it falls into the category of can't miss TV.

It wasn't always can't miss. The first couple of seasons and a large chunk of the third meandered along, setting up vast numbers (no pun intended) of sub-plots and characters, and for every answer given, about 10 questions were raised. It was too ambitious and too complicated. In fact, at one point in the second season, I struggled to keep going. These episodes are still worth watching, but waiting a week or so for each episode which was punctuated by waaaay too many adverts was not the best telly.

Four things happened however which combined to turn everything that had gone before into the backdrop for compulsive telly viewing. Firstly, abc studio execs finally turned round mid-way through the third season and (it seems) collectively said "what the HELL is going on?" to the writers. Secondly, the 2008 writers strike gave the production team time to pause and reflect on where this was all going, and thirdly, the production team agreed on the series ending after 6 seasons.

The main thing which saved the series however was some remarkably good casting decisions. The series started with a firm lead character (Jack) who led the survivors of a plane crash around an island. As time has gone by though, other supporting characters have come to the fore purely off the back of the actors' efforts to bring them to life. Frankly, they made Jack look a bit dull, and to their credit, everyone involved seems to have let the show develop to take this into account. For example, Ben Linus, Desmond, Sayid and Hurley are four characters without whom you can't imagine this show being as successful as it is.

All these things turned the series into a real must-watch thrill-ride from about the middle of season four onwards, but one with a fantastically complex back-drop to work from. 'The Constant' in series four drew on material from around a dozen previous episodes, resolved one major question and sets up most of the fifth series. MeWife won't remember any of that until we rewatch the entire series after the end of series 6, mind.

There are so few telly programmes these days which you can call 'must-see' AND which you'd want to watch again, and maybe that is also a reason I bang on about Lost. 24, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, Boston Legal, Doctor Who - they're all good, but not much in any of them lives on from series to series. This show on the other hand is building towards an almighty finale in about a year's time. And you don't get many of those in your telly-viewing lifetimes.