The 25 Best Mystery-Box Shows

Mysteries can generate theories that enrich the viewing experience. Lost was the show that launched a thousand theories. At its best, Lost was magical like nothing before or since, a magic elevated by an incomparably moving score by Michael Giacchino. With its own rules outside the realm of science, the show became a philosophical fantasy open to interpretation, leaving much to our imagination. Boxes within boxes of mysteries, many full of ambiguity, many unopened, invited us to dream between the lines.

Lost showed that love is the biggest mystery of all, an act in which we create together. And all we need in order to create is imagination, beginning with the infinite unpredictability of inspiration and ending with a heartfelt choice between futures unforeseen until imagined. Elements of mystery are often symbolic, and Lost's island may symbolize redemption. With a beginning hinting that all that happens means something, a middle asking if meaning is an illusion, the end tells us that love is our constant whose meaning we can't fathom.

The mysteries of mystery-box shows are sometimes too complex to be solved in just one way. Leftovers, for instance, "let the mystery be," offering more than one possibility. In other shows, like Tales from the Loop, characters may find they're happier not knowing or that the answer is unknowable. A third approach is to provide an answer but leave it ambiguous, welcoming discussion. Undone is an engrossing show that fits this approach, as it sparks and stimulates our imagination by giving us only the hints we need to fill in the missing pieces.

Honorable mentions: Alphas, Ascension, Colony, Dark Angel, Dark Matter, Dollhouse, Earth 2, Emergence, Extant, FlashForward, Fringe, Hanna, Homecoming, Invasion, Killjoys, Kyle XY, Manifest, The Prisoner, Raised by Wolves, Revolution, The Society, Soulmates, Snowpiercer, The Stranger, Surface, Terra Nova, This Is Us, Twin Peaks, Utopia, Wild Palms, Zoo, The 100.