Shows to Watch If You Love Lost

Credit: Lost, Bad Robot

Lost featured complex, intertwined narratives; more characters than one can reasonably be expected to keep up with; and boxes full of secrets. The show, which kicked off with flashbacks that peeled back the layers of the various crash survivors before diving headfirst into surrealism, was an uncommonly smart network offering that rewarded careful viewing. Whether it all wound up being deeply profound or a load of nonsense was always in the eye of the beholder—but it remains one of the most discussed and debated shows in modern TV history.

Fringe (2008–2013)

We don’t talk nearly enough about Fringe, a smart sci-fi/crime procedural that served as a true successor to the X-Files (and that wrapped more satisfyingly than that show ever did, even given multiple tries), as well as to the weirder aspects of Lost, all while anticipating multiversal storytelling before it got annoying. Starting out as a kind of weird-mystery-of-the-week thing, it soon becomes clear that the odd occurrences the characters have been investigating are all linked to potentially universe-ending incursions across time and space. Stream Fringe on Hulu.

The Leftovers (2014–2017)

The premise of The Leftovers is brilliantly subdued: around two percent of the world’s population disappears without explanation, and it’s enough to upend just about everything. Politics have adapted to the new normal, religions have collapsed and reformed, and families have had to make peace with the inexplicable loss of loved ones. The first season revolves around the Garvey family, led by Kevin (Justin Theroux), a sheriff whose wife (Amy Brenneman) left him to join a cult, while subsequent seasons broaden the scope to bring in other characters in other locations. Showrunner Damon Lindelof also co-created Lost, and the two series share some similarities (including a relatively grim tone), but where Lost (arguably) spun out of control, The Leftovers recognized that complex plotting and the search for answers is the point. Stream The Leftovers on HBO Max.

Yellowjackets (2021–)

This time-hopping survival drama is about a group of teenage girls who are stranded in the wilderness in 1996 and do terrible things to survive—the extent of which we only learn about via flashbacks from the present day, where the events of 19 months spent in the wild continue to resonate. There are ambiguous teases of the supernatural here, but there’s plenty of human-level horror as well. The show plays in some of the same territory as Lost in its explorations of the morally ambiguous choices we make when in survival mode, while also cynically (but accurately) positing that there’s a huge difference between the version of the past we talk about and the one that really happened. Stream Yellowjackets on Paramount+.