These days, I only really watch three shows on TV: Heroes, Eli Stone, and Lost. Each, in its own way, is genre, and as such, each has an underlying speculative conceit, or as I'll refer to it, a "mythology." (During the run of FOX's The X-Files, the show's alien conspiracy backstory became known as its "mythology," and I use the term here in a similar vein.)
The oldest of the three, Lost also takes the most conservative approach to its mythology. As far back as the pilot episode, the creators have injected elements of science fiction and supernatural horror into what otherwise would have been a fictionalized season of Survivor. But they've been sparing with their revelations. On Lost, the mythology is like a prize to be hoarded, or more accurately, it's a scarce resource to be rationed.
This was especially obvious during the course of season 3, before ABC agreed to a definite end date for the series. Showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse knew that the story of Lost was nearing its middle, but without a clear end in sight, they couldn't push forward too quickly. On the other hand, the story couldn't be stretched indefinitely without straining or even breaking their credibility as storytellers. So season 3 just kind of meandered, skirting close to interesting mythological territory without the freedom to dive right in. At least until ABC gave their endgame the thumbs up. Then we got the season-ending "Through the Looking Glass," and the entire show turned on its head.
On the other side of the coin is Heroes. From the beginning, NBC's superhero drama has purposefully avoided the mythology hoarding of other serialized programs like Lost. Certainly, Heroes has a mythology, and questions were raised about backstory and how this fantastic works from the pilot episode on, but these questions were rather quickly answered, only to be replaced by more questions. So it's gone on Heroes for two and a half seasons, and I'm beginning to fear that the show's writers simply can't maintain the pace. In the current season, the tension of impending apocalypses has been replaced by a seemingly endless string of betrayals and characters flip-flopping from "hero" to "villain" and back again. The show is still entertaining; it just doesn't feel like it's going anywhere.
Finally, there's Eli Stone. It's safe to say fewer people know what this one's about. Short answer: hotshot young lawyer starts getting visions from God and turns his life around, helping the legally inconvenienced along the way. Whereas Heroes and Lost are built firmly on their mythologies, Eli Stone has an attitude of, "yeah, we know there's hocus pocus going on, but let's just try to get past that, shall we?"
Sure, the main character has visions of the future (and occasionally, the past -- and even more rarely, the present, but from somebody else's point of view). And sure, Eli's father had the same visions 20 years before. And yes, he wrote them down in a notebook that seemingly tells the course of the future for years to come. And, finally, yes, an angel and possibly God himself have appeared on screen and interacted with our quirky prophet. But, come on! The visions come complete with full-sensory musical numbers. Sigourney Weaver was the angel, who masqueraded as a psychiatrist. God looks like George Michael, for crying out loud! And it all serves solely as a catalyst for some of the best character drama on television.
So, three different takes on genre mythology. It's interesting to note that in its fourth season (its most recent), Lost was averaging 14.5 million viewers. Heroes, as of season 3, is currently averaging 8.6 million. And Eli Stone, as of its second season, is averaging 7.4 million.
