An Open Letter to J.J. Abrams

Dear Mr. Abrams,

I watched the premiere of Fringe the other night on Fox, and I’ll admit I enjoyed it.  I’m excited to see where you take the show, and I hope the show evolves and improves as it continues so I can continue enjoying.

I have to admit I haven’t always been a huge fan of yours.  I’ve never watched an episode of Felicity.  I’ve heard some good things about Alias, and I’ve seen the first few episodes and I watched the last season online (I know that’s a terrible way to do it, but I had to sit in front of computer all night long for that job and I needed something to do.  I’d love to watch the whole series sometime, but I just haven’t gotten my hands on the DVDs.

When it comes to Lost, I’m an addict.  My wife and I watch the show almost religiously, and I’m happy to see you left the show in great hands with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.  The hype for Cloverfield was amazing, but I haven’t seen that either due to a cashflow issue at my home (the cash flows from bank account out to pay my bills) though I hear it wasn’t too bad.  I’m excited for the new Star Trek film you’re working on, and as I said, I enjoyed Fringe and actually watched the pilot because I saw your name attached the program.  And that’s why I’m writing.  I’m concerned.

Let’s be honest: as one of my friends put it, everything you touch turns to gold.  This could be a problem.  Look at your track record.  Alias started out genius, but most people would agree it wasn’t as great at the end.  Cloverfield had a lot of hype, but from what I understand didn’t do as awesome as the studio would have liked.  But then you’ve got Star Trek coming up, which I hope will be incredible, Fringe starting now which looks promising, and of course the legacy of Lost, which I blame and thank profusely for the return of good serialized programs.

I want to like what you make, but I’m just not sure if you can keep it up.  You’ve got a lot of pressure riding on your shoulders.  I don’t want to see you crushed under it.  None of your fans want to look at you as a tattered man saying “O how the mighty have fallen” as a promising project blows up in your face.  It’s possible the hype has become bigger than the man.  I think it’s time to step away.

I didn’t want to say that, but I think it’s true.  Before the J.J. hype becomes so huge you can do nothing but disappoint, you should take a break.  Maybe develop ideas under a pseudonym for a while, lie low, and then recatapult your career by returning from seclusion and claiming credit for all those projects.  Your fans will eat it up as just another great conspiracy from the mind of J.J. Abrams.  Some might even blame your disappearance on the Dharma Foundation or perhaps Whidmore.  I would probably blame it on Lance Reddick.

Any way it goes you can’t lose.  Sure, you might continue to make awesome projects that allow people like Kristin Dos Santos at E! Entertainment to continue to worship the ground you walk on.  But you also might slip up, and suddenly everything you touch won’t be gold.  And rather than remember your Lost’s, people will just talk about how horrible the end of your Alias’s were.

Or you could take a break after you’ve wrapped up your current projects (please see Star Trek and Fringe through first) and come back to create the television series that unites America and the world to the point where we all turn on our televisions and laugh, cry, scream, and lean forward on our seats at the exact same time.  We won’t know, unless you take the risk.  Don’t worry about us.  We’ll be ok.  I’ll put on all 6 seasons of Lost on loop until you get back.

Mike