[KAPital PHINUst]

(slightly off topic, but IMO definately worthy of mention)

The TV show Lost (or its basic premise thereof) was actually supposed to have aired on TV circa 1970, as the continuing story which originated from a made for TV movie that aired on TV in 1969 called (get this)

LOST FLIGHT

The movie starred Lloyd Bridges as the airplane captain, and also featured (among others) a young Billy Dee Williams. The plane was flying from Hawaii from Australia and the captain was forced to fly into a typhoon for an emergency landing because a young boy had developed acute appendicitis and had to be taken to a hospital. The plane lost part of a wing due to lightning from the storm and hand to land on a remote desert island as a last resort in a very "Castaway-ish" plane crash sequence. The boy did get his appendix removed successfully with the help of some handy booze, but then the inter-personal conflicts began setting in, ala Lord of the Flies. I won't reveal the ending, but it is ironic in its own little way.

Anyway, the idea for the TV series was canned before the movie aired, and the movie itself, while replayed on TV in 1970, was relegated to local affiliates' Saturday Afternoon Movie schedules throughout the 1970s.

CBS tried to revive the movie plot in 1976 with a second movie pilot called Stranded, which took the plot several months to a year after the crash, but contained some plot elements that were incredibly similar to Lost.

When Lost finally aired, it actually incorporated (independently, of course) a lot of elements of the previous two pilots with its own plot twists thrown in for heightened drama and tension factor.

So Lost, while a great show, had a great template to work from.

IMO, ABC should find the Lost Flight tape and air it prior to airing the Lost series finale. (ie air Lost Flight at 8 p.m., air the Lost series finale at 10 p.m.). I think people will be very surprised at its similarities, and the fact that the previous Lost pilots were actually very good in its own right.

ETA: Found a clip of Lost Flight on Youtube - unfortunately the dialogue is dubbed in German:

Lost Flight clip