J.J. Abrams, Lost, Fringe
1. J.J. Abrams. I must confess, I only watched Lost's first season. But that is by no means my only exposure to the prolific shows created by the man who tops the list.
He started with college angst, where one girl was torn between two fellow collegians - one she wanted and one she needed. And what I remember most about "Felicity" was the uproar when the star cut her hair.
Then he went slightly A.U. deciding to tell the story of what would have happened if Felicity became a spy and "Alias" was born. For seven years, super-spy Sidney Bristol tried to take down a council of bad guys by being a double-agent for the C.I.A. Sorry, but yet another show of his I didn't watch.
He crashed but didn't burn when "Lost" hit the small screen. The first season was rather straightforward, telling the tale of the survivors of a flight which crashed into a small island in the Pacific. Then things started to get weird, with secret laboratories and games of "should we stay or should we go" and dead-no-wait-not-dead characters. The cult following for this show is enormous. Personally, I got confused and found my way to other shows.
Like "Fringe", which is one of my favourites (recaps available here). A mad scientist, his son and the FBI agent running the show struggle through various cases of pseudo-science gone bad as they try to discover the plans of the Other Side, an alternate Earth whose citizens what to take over our side after destroying their own. One of the things I like about Fringe is that there are fewer characters than many of Abrams's other offerings so we can get more attached to them, although he generally offers a full back-story to all of his imaginary friends.
Abrams has a tendency to come up with very interesting, original ideas with a deep and complex mythology behind each one. And then he gets bored, moves on, and they fall off the rails. Sometimes he takes a year to produce something for the big screen. Other times, his shows overlap by at least a season or two. Either way, it's obvious when his attention drifts. The "big brother" show loses focus and is in for a really bad season. But the sixth and final season of "Lost" begins in January, and "Fringe" is slowly gaining ground in its sophomore year despite its horrible time slot. Hopefully next year, Abrams will concentrate on "Fringe" and develop the stories he's been hinting at for so long once the survivors of Oceanic 815 finally end their flights of fancy.
So, who'd I miss?
I must tell you that JJ has had little to nothing to do with LOST since its 1st season – although mapped out mythology was also dealt between him, co-creator Damon Lindelof and co-showrunner Carlton Cuse, before Abrams departed. Apart from that, you've got everything else down to a tee (Y)