The New People was a short-lived (17 episodes) Aaron Spelling drama that aired on ABC in late 1969/early 1970. It didn't have any name stars, but guest stars included Richard Dreyfus, Richard Kiley, and Tyne Daly. It was about a group of 40 college students involved in a plane crash and find themselves trapped on an island named Bomano. The island is deserted, but has buildings, supplies, and roads.
Some people wonder if Lost owes a little bit to this show. The setup is the same (a plane crash on an island where people start a new society), and weren't there originally 40 survivors of the Lost plane crash? The phrase "the new people" sounds a lot like "the Others." And Rod Serling created the show and wrote the first ep under a pseudonym, and J.J. Abrams has said many times that he's a huge Rod Serling/Twilight Zone fan. Alas, there is no connection. They didn't even know about the show before, and producer Damon Lindelof wishes he had known about it before so he could have named Charlie's band The New People instead of Drive Shaft. Heh.
After the jump, a video from the pilot episode. It's very 60s. Bonus: old commericals and the theme song, sung by The First Edition, with Kenny Rogers! Groovy.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-26-2006 @ 10:34AM
Guido said...
Well this shows not everything Aaron Spelling did, turned to gold.
I doubt there is any connection, considering JJ Abrams wasn't even born when this series was on TV.
The concept of being "Lost" on a desert island isn't exactly a new concept. Maybe Gilligan and the Skipper deserve more credit.
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10-26-2006 @ 11:10AM
D A MCCAULEY said...
DO YOU SUPPOSE ANY OF THE AUTHORS EVER READ ROBINSON CRUSOE BY DANIEL DEFOE? NOT MUCH OF A JUMP TO "LOST" OR ANY OTHER "STUCK ON A DESERTED ISLAND" STORY.
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10-26-2006 @ 11:48AM
Eleventeen said...
When they crashed, there were 48 people, not to mention the tailies.
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10-26-2006 @ 12:35PM
mikes said...
Any chance of this being on DVD or bittorrent>?
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10-26-2006 @ 12:55PM
anna said...
From a Mediaweek interview w/ McPherson:
The original prototype for Lost came from Jeff Lieber, who wrote a script for Spelling Productions, tentatively titled Nowhere. ABC bought the script in December 2003 and passed it over to Touchstone to develop it with Spelling. Braun decided not to go forward with it, a decision McPherson says he concurred with. Abrams was then brought in at Braun's request to see if he could come up with an alternative script. "I gave Lloyd some ideas, which he liked, and Damon Lindelof [co-creator of Lost] met with him and we wrote an outline," Abrams says. When their script was greenlit by ABC and ultimately became Lost, Lieber was given a co-creator title on the series, although Lindelof and Abrams wrote the pilot without reading Lieber's original script.
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10-26-2006 @ 1:40PM
Batton L. said...
I always thought LOST owed a bit to Jules Verne's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, especially in light of the recent LOST episode that mentioned The Others's "sub". Check out the book or rent the 1961 movie and see if you agree.
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10-28-2006 @ 9:12AM
Joe said...
I'd be surprised if there was NOT a connection - the show was actually created by Rod Serling and Abrams has been absolutely gushing in his praise for Serling in almost every interview I've read - he has also been a huge fan of the late 60s show The Prisoner - combine the two shows in a blender you get LOST. Seriously.
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11-08-2006 @ 5:52AM
MG said...
Lost=The New People=Lord of the Flies with a hint of Mysterious Island and the Island of Dr Moreau thrown in for good measure.
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1-05-2007 @ 9:10PM
Tom said...
I was only eleven years old when The New People aired, but remember it well. I have the pilot episode on DVD and would really like to see the rest of the series. I'm surprised with the success of Lost that this series was never released.
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