JJ Abrams' spy thriller combines many of the genre's hallmarks with a fantastic mythology to incredibly entertaining effect. It somewhat threatens to lose its way a little towards the end (its fifth and final season bears all the hallmarks at times of being affected by production issues) but the good far outweighs the bad. It may never have reached the commercial heights of Lost, but this is still a mightily ambitous piece of work. The production values are lushly cinematic, the performances from everyone are superb and it deservedly made Jennifer Garner a star, while its sustained serialised narrative twists and turns to incredible effect. It deserves to be better remembered.