"There's no formula to success, so let's just develop a wide variety of shows," one exec says.

And yet this same guy would probably go out and order another Law & Order spinoff, or the next (insert interesting original show). I used to think these guys were clueless, now I'm begining to think they just don't care. I can imagine what next season is going to look like. Atleast I can look forward to the continuing downward spiral of sitcoms.

sTalking_Goat | October 19, 02:11 CET

Anything that replaces reality shows in my book is okay for now.
If you think about it, Lost is a copycat of several concepts in itself.

Did you know they already have a Desperate Housewives clone ready? I think it's called "5 Houses" or something similar. So I guess original thinking is passe for a few years 'till it all burns out.

TaraLivesOn | October 19, 05:14 CET

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.

ascii_102_117 | October 19, 06:14 CET

I'm still waiting for a modern re-approach to The Prisoner. There's at least a half dozen ways to recycle that concept.

Another idea would be to take The Cube and flesh it out a little bit. Talk about a bottle ship series. It should be relatively inexpensive to produce. The trick would be to make the writing good enough to keep people's interests, and you couldn't have any regulars that weren't expendable. I mean you'd be killing off characters A LOT while introducing new ones.

I never understood why they never made a tv series based on an amusement park. You could make it a sort of a cross between Fantasy Island and Something Wicked This Way Comes. You could use any abandoned amusement park as your on location set (or film on days when the park is closed) and make it some mystic kinda 'you can enter but you never leave' sorta Twilight Zoney thing. The possibilities are endless. Of course when the audience realizes these are just variants on "Lost" which is a variant on *INSERT A SCORE OF OTHER TV SHOWS PAST AND PRESENT HERE* they'll scream bloody murder and go back to According To Jim.

But then, I actually enjoyed Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital, and that crashed and burned in the ratings. So what the hell do I know?

ZachsMind | October 19, 08:34 CET

TaraLivesOn - Sometimes these things are deceptive. 5 Houses was around before Desperate Housewives. I believe it is Todd Holland's baby, and he pitched the idea some years back. One couple in one of the houses is gay, and at that time, it was before Ellen came out on TV, and before Will and Grace. The network thought it was too much at the time.

Now, following the success of Desperate Housewives, they are interested in the project again. It's a which came first scenario.

I would provide a link but I cannot remember why I know all that, or where I read it. Helpful aren't I?

Angela | October 19, 08:55 CET

TaraLivesOn--Five Houses is addressed in this article. It says the pitch is 7 years old. Also, you may have been led astray by Ubqtos' summary; they don't mention any shows similar in concept to Lost, just in marketability. I completely agree about seeing reality TV out the door. And if the replacements are as badass as Lost, more power to them.

PwincessCupcake | October 19, 10:54 CET