In a mystery befitting a strange island full of mysteries, some Lost fans recently noticed that the version of the show’s series finale that’s streaming on Netflix is 18 minutes shorter than the full, 104-minute behemoth that originally aired on ABC in 2010. Entertainment Weekly asked Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof about this in hopes of getting some answers, but apparently Entertainment Weekly never actually watched Lost. Otherwise, it would’ve known that all of the character development that happened over the course of this Netflix story was more important than finding out what happened to those missing 18 minutes.
Either way, Lindelof had no idea that Netflix was streaming the wrong version, but as far as he can guess, the one that it’s showing is an edited version that ABC made for rerun airings. Lindelof also made sure to clarify that he has no intention of “Special Editioning” the Lost finale and that he still stands by it. However, he says a fix from Netflix “needs to happen, so at least people can love or hate it in its entirety.”
Netflix says that it’s looking into this and some kind of fix is in the works, but on the off-chance that this is really a tyrannical attempt from someone within Netflix to alter controversial TV finales, we’d like to suggest taking on How I Met Your Mother next. That one could stand to lose a few minutes.