I’m glad someone else mentioned I Love Lucy. The also used a three camera setup to film the show which went on to become the standard for sitcoms with live audiences. They also used film instead of kinescope which resulted in a higher quality image compared to most other contemporary programs. And of course the rerun. To accommodate for Lucy’s pregnancy, they started airing episodes from previous seasons and it turned out they got great ratings. And Lucy and Desi retained ownership of the show which meant they were able to make money off it for years and years.
CSI did that a couple years later too, to great effect. Actress Chandra West appeared in the opening credits of the pilot episode along with the rest of the cast, and was introduced as the stock Rookie character - then got killed at the end. It was a shock to me, at least, and as I recall it set up much of William Peterson’s character arc for the first season.
I didn’t realize Buffy had pulled a similar trick earlier.
Maybe the first couple seasons of Lost, before it became painfully clear that the writers had no frickin’ idea where they were going with it. But it started out as a fun combo of Survivor, sci-fi mystery, action and soap opera. Who are the others? What’s the Dharma Initiative? Why ya gotta keep pushing that damn button? How many guys is Evangeline Lilly’s character going to sleep with?
Miami Vice did something similar. They killed off Gregory Sierra’s character in the fourth episode, which is arguably more unexpected - in the first episode you’re just being introduced to the characters and the show but by the fourth episode, you feel that the characters you’re seeing are an ongoing part of the show.
The British Office was an early example of the single camera/mockumentary/no laugh track sitcom style that has become popular in the last 20 years.
I think LOST qualifies in the ‘revolutionary’ sense that it, more than any popular show before or since, integrated the internet into the overall experience, what with the fake websites, the various clues, etc.
I also think it was the last show which was not just ‘must-see TV’ but appointment TV, where you had to watch it at a specific time or (because of the above paragraph) you missed out on a bunch of the fun. It really wasn’t worth it coming to the SDMB and posting a review on a 3-day old LOST thread as your review would be wildly out of date and just be ignored as the 176th of, eventually, 391 posts.
Lastly, the meddling showed the networks weren’t ready for the Golden Age of TV and, seeing what happened to LOST, many show creators decided ‘eh, why not this Netflix thing?’
Lost was certainly one of the last “water cooler shows”.
I’ve got to see if that show is available. I loved it, especially Cleo.
When the Jackie Cooper character got married, Cleo said
“Here comes the bride,
Now I sleep outside.”
I rewatched LOST recently with a woman who has never seen it, and let me just say that if we put the following two characters in a cage match, it may never end as they both would do their damndest to never win a fight.
So… who wins?
VS
