Today, Star Trek is most likely the most famous of all cult television series, but it was far from the first. 1950s series Quatermass and 1960s series Dr. Who and The Avengers were among the first to achive this status. The original series of Star Trek was cancelled due to low ratings after just three seasons. But the series still continued to generate revenue as local tv stations showed the 79 episodes over and over again while fans increased in size. In 1979 the first of to date 11 Star Trek movies was released - and in 1987 the tv series Star Trek: The Next Generation was born.
Later, three more series were added to the franchise. Star Trek once and for all helped to open the eyes of tv executives towards the vast cult television audience potential - and many tv networks have since begun to create tv shows with the full intention of branding them as ”cult tv” even before they are first aired. This was the case with Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Red Dwarf and even The Simpsons, just to name a few. And it is the case with Lost, a television series which will be be further presented and explored in this essay.
The days when cult tv was an odd phenomena shared only by a small group of initiated are over.
ABC's Lost is one of many new tv series that operates within the borders of cult and mainstream. An interesting thought, given that it is Lost creator JJ Abrams who directed the latest Star Trek movie!
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