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Once was lost, ‘Lost’ is found
Fans of “Lost” are likely to be lost when they tune into the delayed fourth season opener Thursday. So ABC has thoughtfully scheduled a repeat of the previous season’s mind-boggling two-hour cliffhanger from last May tonight at 8, followed tomorrow night at 7 by an hour-long re-cap leading into the opening hour-long installment at 8.
It’s been a long, long time since we heard from the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. Seems like an eternity ago when the island castaways were waiting to be rescued by a freighter some 80 miles offshore.
Poor English rocker-boy Charlie had drown valiantly trying to fix something in the underwater station. He wrote a clue on his hand before going glub-glub, indicating the freight folks Jack was talking to on the satellite phone might not be who they claimed to be. And even evil-eye Ben warned that the rescuers might actually be coming to kill them all.
Locke had risen from his grave after being shot and allegedly killed by Ben. Was he ever really dead? Unknown. Jack and Kate had escaped the island and had some sort of secret. What was it? Again, unknown.
The season opener has no major “reveals,” so don’t worry — you’ll find no spoilers here. The episode looks more like an effort to find the fans of “Lost” who’ve been lost for so long.
The new episode begins with one of those maddening time jumps, with Jack somewhere in the future, getting knee-walking drunk at the crack of dawn in Los Angeles. A former castaway is on the news after a horrendous freeway crash.
Meanwhile, back on the island (and back in time), we see that Hurley still hasn’t lost any weight, even though he’s allegedly been starving on this island for quite a while, and Locke is even more zen-like than before.
The new “Lost” season, truncated by the writers strike, will have only eight episodes, which could make hay of the producers’ plans to end the series in 2010. ABC insists 40 more episodes will be made, but if the strike continues, that could last well beyond 2010.
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By Lost Fan
February 4, 2008 12:46 PM | Link to this
to Jeff and austinights - no one is forcing you to watch the series ... if you don't like it, tune into something else.
Isn't it great that we live in a country which actually allows us choice in our viewing? We don’t all have to watch the same thing. If we don't like something, we can change the channel.
By Doug
February 1, 2008 3:18 PM | Link to this
Remember - although this is the fourth season of the series, the survivors of Oceanic 815 have only been on the island for 91 days.
I'm less amazed by Harley's lack of weight loss (they did have all that Dharma food in the hatch) than I am of Sawyer's hair growth in that 91-day period.
By John
February 1, 2008 2:31 PM | Link to this
It was so nice to have actual high-quality dramatic programming back on network TV last night, if only for an hour. (HBO at least has a few more episodes of The Wire, one of the greatest shows of all time.) Lost is one of those rare shows to have actually reverse-jumped the shark, rebounding wonderfully from a deadly dull start to season 3 once a gameplan was established with ABC allowing the writers to have an actual end date for the series to work towards. The use of flash forwards adds a terrific sense of urgency and suspense to the proceedings, and I'm sucked back in all over again.
By Ann
February 1, 2008 11:16 AM | Link to this
I thoroughly enjoyed the "pop-up" review of Lost on Wednesday night as well as the season opener last night. With the writer's strike in full swing, and the glut of reality TV crowding the networks, new episodes of Lost will be a welcome addition to Thursday nights. The writing is fresh and original and you can count on at least one "scream like a girl" moment in each episode. I will take eight new episodes of Lost over Celebrity Apprentice and Don't Forget the Lyrics any day of the week!
By Jeff
January 30, 2008 3:46 PM | Link to this
Why not just turn this into a reality series? Give them real guns, start shooting. HUGE ratings, no writers. The perfect Valentine's gift.
By austinights
January 30, 2008 12:14 PM | Link to this
I think you can download old episodes of Gilligan's Island and even some of their Reunion episodes. It was a lot funner series than Lost, which at this point - who cares. Watching Presidential debates is turning out to be more entertaining than keeping up with the tv season woes.