LOST Star Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Thankful Series Found New Audience on Netflix, "It's Wonderful"

The series, which turns 20 this year, has found a new generation of fans on streaming.

By Russ Burlingame

LOST was one of the most popular and influential TV shows of its time, but after ratings attrition and a controversial finale, fell out of favor with mainstream audiences for a few years. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, the long-running ABC series has been rediscovered by a new audience on Netflix, giving it a new lease on life and sometimes catching the creatives behind it by surprise. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who starred in the series as the enigmatic Mr. Eko, recently spoke with ComicBook on the red carpet for Netflix's The Union, and shared his enthusiasm for that dynamic.

"It's been introduced to a new audience, a new generation, which is great, because [often I have] totally forgot all about it," Akkinuoye-Agbaje told ComicBook. "It's like, 'oh my God, that scene with Mr. Eko...,' I'm like, 'Oh, I'm forgetting a new audience are now re-watching it.' It also happens when you go to other countries, because they're getting introduced to it. It's wonderful. That's why you do the work -- you want people to see it. And Netflix, you know, thank you for putting it back out there."

LOST has been enjoying a broader pop culture resurgence in recent years, with critics on YouTube doing in-depth analyses of the show, which was one of the first times a genre story with an elaborate mystery became super mainstream, water cooler-type conversation fodder. It also helped shape the next two decades of television by proving to TV executives that audiences were willing to engage with a complex -- often confusing! -- ongoing narrative on a broadcast TV series.

Getting LOST, a documentary about the LOST series and pop culture phenomenon from the director of The Last Blockbuster, is set to debut in Beverly Hills next month. The documentary features interviews with Evangeline Lilly, Daniel Dae Kim, Henry Ian Cusick, Emilie De Ravin, Nestor Carbonell, Josh Holloway, Terry O'Quinn, Maggie Grace, Jorge Garcia, Michael Emerson, Malcolm David Kelley, Elizabeth Mitchell, Sonya Walger, Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Jack Bender, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Michael Giacchino, and Larry Fong.

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In Netflix's The Union, Mike (Mark Wahlberg), a down-to-earth construction worker from Jersey, is quickly thrust into the world of super spies and secret agents when his high school sweetheart Roxanne (Halle Berry) recruits him on a high-stakes US intelligence mission.

The Union will be available to stream on Netflix beginning on Friday.

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