In its second season, Lost aired a chapter entitled Living together, dying alone. In it, the series reiterated one of its central themes: the idea of community as opposed to the loneliness to which some of its characters seemed doomed. Beyond the borders of its narrative, the success of Lost It was due to the community of communities that was created around it. There is no religion without community and Lost It became a secular cult made up of faithful devotees, exegetes, prophets and even integrated critics. We lived together and did not watch TV alone.
Of course, we had always watched Spanish general television in company and commented on it with others, but this one, which most of us did not watch through traditional (and legal) channels, was something else. Joining together made us more restless, enthusiastic and demanding viewers. So much so that 400,000 of us sat down in front of the television at an ungodly hour on May 24, 2010 to watch the finale on Cuatro. I remember, as if I had lived it yesterday, the atmosphere in the Globomedia cafeteria at breakfast time that morning. Interns — today responsible for some of the series we watch — and veteran workers — today established names — commented on the game with mixed passions, all out loud. The atmosphere was such that the few who had not gotten up early to watch it asked others for their coffee to avoid the spoilers.
Critics have been constantly pointing to HBO as the great architect of the series revolution, but this is only half true. The Sopranos and his disciples were the touchstone for the approach of a certain cultural elite to television, a medium once disdained. But it was American general television from 2004 onwards that achieved the popular revolution. They came Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, The office and they stayed. And Grey still has some rope left in the air.
Today, as platforms have sought to create these communities around their brand rather than around their series, with fewer and fewer episodes and seasons, the data continues to support long-term general television. Suits was the most watched series on streaming last year in the United States. In the last month it has been Prison Break. We continue to be captured by stories, as they always have been—“book religions” are book religions for a reason—and no brand can fix that. As Jack said to Kate: we have to go back.
