Number 2800: LOST's Sixth Season Brings the Series to a Compelling Conclusion

This year marked the end of an era for me. In the past decade, I have had the pleasure of getting swept away in three epics: the Harry Potter book series, the Lord of the Rings movie series and the television series LOST. Thanks to Dominic Monaghan, who played the hobbit Merry Brandybuck in LotR and the rocker Charlie Pace in LOST, I segued quite naturally into the television show, whose plane-crashing-on-an-island premise also intrigued me greatly. Now that it’s over, I’m feeling adrift indeed, left without a suitable replacement. But boy, what a ride it’s been!

LOST is a series that inspired an almost unprecedented amount of fan speculation and interaction. Its extremely serial nature helped usher in the phenomenon of putting television shows online so that people could get caught up if they missed an episode on the night it aired. It incorporated Alternate Reality Games (some, annoyingly, only accessible to owners of Blu-Ray players) and mini-episodes intended to be watched on one’s phone. Hundreds of bloggers and television columnists, most notably Doc Jensen of Entertainment Weekly, pored over every detail in the series, formulating complex theories, while many others expressed their love for LOST via artwork, desktop backgrounds, custom t-shirts, music videos and other fan projects.

I hashed each episode out with friends; basked in the brilliance of the Injustice League’s I’ll Never Be LOST Again; bought goodies from my favorite LOST graphic designer at gritfx.com/lost; and poured out my own reactions to the show by writing lyrics to 235 filksongs (lostwithoutcharlie.blogspot.com). I got in pretty deep, and in the waning hours before the finale, I experienced a spectacular crash that made even my post-Harry Potter malaise pale in comparison as I discovered the dangers of following Doc Jensen too far down the rabbit hole, especially after two weeks in which I was generally too hyped up to sleep. LOST is a show that can mess with your mind. But I’d gladly do it all over again, so it seems only fitting to mark my 2800th post here on Epinions with my review of the sixth season.

Back in its third season, which happened to be the season when I began watching “live”, there were rumblings of complaints that the show was beginning to stall. This led to a most unusual decision: to negotiate and announce an end date for the series. LOST would end in 2010, and head writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, along with the rest of their talented team, would have three years to bring the show to exactly the conclusion they wanted. Knowing this, expectations for the last half of the series, and especially the final season, were astronomically high. Hence, while the show lost more fans earlier in the series once it started veering toward science fiction, the sixth season invited the most heated debates because there were very few casual fans left. Most of the season six crowd was heavily invested in the mysteries or the characters or both, so the potential for disappointment was high.

The season began with LA X, and it seems that most fans reserved judgment after this mind-bender of an opener until it was clearer just where the show was going. The most controversial element of the season was the introduction of the “Flash Sideways,” which showed familiar characters in a world in which Oceanic 815 had never crashed. The assumption was that the creation of this alternate timeline was somehow connected with the detonation of the hydrogen bomb Jughead in the season five finale, though how the two stories would interconnect was anyone’s guess. Initially, it seemed very peculiar to me that we were seeing two sets of the same people, but given the fact that every previous season incorporated action both on the Island and off, it would have seemed a little strange to root this season solely in the immediate conflict on the Island. But there seemed to be so much ground to cover on the Island and so many questions not adequately answered that discontent with the Sideways was apparent in many fan reactions from the second episode on.

For my part, although I was itching to know what was happening on the Island, I generally found the Sideways stories both enlightening and something of a relief. For one thing, the Sideways incorporated many characters from seasons past, from major players like Charlie and Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) to minor characters like Frogurt (Sean Whalen) and Dr. Leslie Arzt (Daniel Roebuck). With the Island cast dwindling, it was increasingly heartening to see so many old faces popping up in this strange alternate reality, often in very unexpected ways. What’s more, most of the Sideways storylines had a welcome element of light-heartedness about them, and the majority of the characters we found there were happier and more well-adjusted than they had been at the time of the initial plane crash. Clearly, there were many differences in these characters’ lives, some subtle and some glaring, and it was fun to draw comparisons to earlier episodes as the season progressed.

Meanwhile, the season premiere brought the time-traveling castaways from the 1970s into the contemporary timeline, where Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) had just murdered Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), the elusive Island entity whose existence had been hinted at from the second season, at the request of Jacob’s ancient nemesis, now assuming the form of John Locke (Terry O’Quinn). As the season begins, Ben realizes just a little too late that he has been taking orders not from the resurrected John but from an evil entity known throughout most of the series as the Smoke Monster. Hence, with Jacob out of the way, the stage is set for Smokey, alternatively known as the Man in Black, to execute a plan that has been in the works for ages. But first, he needs to do something about the remaining castaways, most of whom are soon revealed to be Candidates for Jacob’s position.

Throughout the series, Jack Shephard has been the closest thing that this ensemble drama has had to a main character. While he is a heroic, fundamentally decent person, he’s not one of the characters I’ve connected to very much, but in season six, I found myself entirely drawn in by his vulnerability, his burgeoning faith and his humility. This was a Jack who had to broken down before he could be built up again, and Matthew Fox truly stepped up to the challenge, earning an Emmy nomination for his efforts and finally making Jack a character who was truly appealing to me. I was especially interested in how he related to Hurley in this season, as the latter, bolstered by the confidence that came with his special connection to Jacob, often found himself leading Jack instead of the other way around. Their camaraderie in Lighthouse, one of the season’s funniest and most illuminating episodes, is a precursor to some of Jack’s most moving scenes in the series. Additionally, the only major new character introduced in Sideways world has a connection with Jack that ultimately renders him one of the most intriguing aspects of that timeline.

Jorge Garcia’s Hurley, more often referred to as Hugo in season six, has always been the heart of the series, but in the first season or two, it might have been easy to overlook him as mostly comic relief. While few characters on the show can be counted upon so consistently for lightening up an episode, Hurley’s altruism has had a profound impact throughout the series, and in season six it becomes clear just how important his contributions have been as he continues to find ways of nurturing those around him, even in the midst of his own confusion. Meanwhile, in Sideways world, he conducts himself with a suave cool that the rather bumbling Island Hurley rarely achieves. Describing himself as “the luckiest guy alive,” he uses his good fortune to benefit others while building a fried chicken empire. One unanswered question that remains at the end of the series is how he got his nickname, but given its absence in the Sideways, it seems that he’s better off without it.

After the fifth season allowed him to finally make the transition from anti-hero to hero, Sawyer finds himself in a very dark place this season, and Josh Holloway’s angsty, anguished performance as a man whose grief has stripped his life of meaning is as riveting as it is painful. Striking off on his own early on, he is the first of the Candidates to ally himself to Smokey, though there is reason to hope that in this instance, he is simply putting his conman skills to good use. In the Sideways, he too goes by his birth name, and he pursues a surprising line of work, joined by a character who becomes one of his closest friends on the Island. While a rather lame romantic subplot detracted from Recon, his centric episode, as did the on-Island introduction of Zoe (Sheila Kelley), the sneering, bespectacled geophysicist who became the show’s most derided character since season three’s Nikki and Paolo, a pointed reference to Little House on the Prairie helped assure me that this was still the Sawyer I knew and loved.

Although What Kate Does was widely criticized for wasting time on Kate’s Sideways shenanigans, I liked the way the episode set up the importance of the bond between Kate and Claire (Emilie de Ravin) in the sixth season. We see a change in Kate as her primary preoccupation involves finding Claire on the Island and convincing her to return to Los Angeles and raise her son. I found her selflessness touching, and I liked the big sisterly rapport that she shared with Sideways Claire after their admittedly bizarre introduction to each other. One might argue that Evangeline Lilly is somewhat underused in the sixth season, but the ending makes up for that. Meanwhile, De Ravin, absent from the show since the fourth season, portrays a jittery Claire Gone Wild who displays many of the same characteristics as “crazy French chick” Danielle Rousseau. It’s clear that she has had a traumatic three years, much of it spent in the company of the manipulative Smokey, making it difficult for her old friends to balance their desire to help her with their fear that she might attack them. Her reunion with Jack, who now knows that she is his sister, is especially disappointing, though the Sideways storyline explores their relationship in a more satisfying way.

While Claire seems unhinged, former torturer Sayid (Naveen Andrews) spends most of the season in a dazed, soul-deadened state after a trip to the Temple brings him back from the edge of death. A tragic character who just can’t seem to rise above his violent tendencies, he backslides horribly in this season after Smokey offers to restore the woman he loves. It’s disturbing to see a character who has had so many noble moments once again carrying out the murderous demands of a master manipulator, and Sundown, in which he makes his fateful choice, is the most depressing episode since season four’s The Shape of Things to Come. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that both episodes feature psychotic mercenary Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand), easily my least favorite character in the series.

Keamy also turns up in The Package, the one episode in the season that engaged me the least, partly because the Sideways story is both a downer and a bit of a retread, partly because it revolves around a subplot involving Sun (Yun-jin Kim) that ultimately seems pretty pointless. She and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) get entirely too little time in the sixth season, though they are at the heart of a couple of the season’s most powerful moments. One of my hopes for the season was that there would be another appearance by Jin’s father (John Shin), who, in brief appearances in just two episodes, became my favorite of all the parents on the show, but there’s little opportunity to delve into their extended family.

Jin is one of the first castaways this season to interact with Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), who finally finds a way back to the Island in the sixth season. It seems Jin is being set up for a central role in the final conflict in which the allegiances of this arrogant Island leader deposed by Ben are unclear. However, the history and motivations of Charles remain murky. How did he amass such a fortune when he spent most of his life on the Island? Who is the mother of his daughter Penny? No other family tree is quite as messy as Charles’, though there are several instances throughout the series in which we learn characters are parents and children who have different names. Methinks they got a bit carried away with the name-dropping at times and abandoned practical considerations like how a young man whose mother is a Hawking and whose father is a Widmore ends up with the name Faraday.

That would be Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), a character I had hoped to see more of in this sixth season. While his role is ultimately a small one, he makes an impact in his scenes, particularly with Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), the time-traveling Scotsman whose unconventional episode finds him crossing paths with oodles of Island folks in the Sideways. We’re able to see the gentle physicist embracing a different sort of destiny, but his connection to Desmond remains as strong as ever, making him an important catalyst in Desmond’s journey. In both timelines, Desmond is defined by a calm sense of purpose, which is a nice change for this character who has spent so much of the series tortured and despondent. His unflappable manner leads to some of the funniest moments in the season, and his sagacity allows for my favorite scene in The Last Recruit, an episode that brings most of the Candidates in close proximity to each other.

Ever since his first appearance on the show, Michael Emerson has made Ben Linus one of the most intriguing characters ever to grace a television screen. His exceptional acting ability puts him in a class nearly by himself among an already very talented cast, and it’s impossible for me to look away whenever Ben is speaking. This incredibly nuanced character is brilliantly written as well, making him probably the biggest wild card of the series. Going into the sixth season, I knew that my enjoyment of the show’s conclusion would hinge partly on the direction he took. In season six, we see a Ben who is rarely in control of his own circumstances. Instead of leading, he spends most of the season following, though always carefully considering his next move. Although he takes a bit of a backseat in many of the episodes, he is front and center in Dr. Linus, a remarkable episode that was easily the most cathartic of the season, and probably the entire series, for me. His Sideways self is radically different from his normal self, yet one can imagine how, under different circumstances, the erudite Ben could have taken this path. The drama that unfolds there is made all the more powerful by a supporting cast of characters long gone on the Island. Meanwhile, in the main timeline, the truth comes out about his role in Jacob’s death, leading to my favorite Ben moment since the wordless scene in season four’s Cabin Fever when he and Hurley share a candy bar. For this episode alone, Emerson deserves the Emmy nomination once again lavished upon him.

Part of the credit to that exceptional scene must also go to Zuleikha Robinson, who portrays Ilana, the enigmatic woman who comes to the Island at the special request of Jacob as a bodyguard for his Candidates. I was hoping for a full-blown flashback episode for her, especially once I determined that she ranked among my favorite female characters on the show, but we’re left to imagine just how Jacob became “the closest thing she had to a father”. While I found myself frustrated that I didn’t see more of her, this tough but compassionate woman became one of my favorite elements of the sixth season, particularly in her scenes with Ben and Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey).

Throughout most of the season, Frank has little more to do than toss out zingers, but I love the way his caustic sense of humor adds levity to scenes as somber as the funeral in The Substitute, my favorite of the show’s many memorial services. He also elicited one of my biggest cheers of the series late in the season. Similarly, acerbic Miles (Ken Leung) is barely involved in most of the season’s main events, but he provides some levity at key moments and is a catalyst for one of my favorite scenes. Moreover, he shows some nice development as a character, becoming more considerate toward others while still maintaining some self-serving quirks that hilariously manifest themselves in a callback to the third season.

Always-underused L. Scott Caldwell and Sam Anderson appear in just four episodes as contented couple Rose and Bernard, but each of their scenes makes a powerful impression, whether they are gently mentoring characters in the Sideways or calmly facing a threat in what was, for me, the most terrifying moment of the season. Also appearing in just a few episodes are new characters Dogen (Hiroyuki Sanada), the intimidating guardian of the Island’s Temple, and Lennon (John Hawkes), his hippie-ish translator. These two never really took off with a lot of people, but I was glad for the sojourn in the Temple, an Island landmark I’d been very curious about, and I liked both Lennon’s humor and the respectful rapport between Dogen and Jack.

When the Sideways turned up in the season premiere, it led to a great deal of speculation as to whether there would be any traditional flashbacks this time around. I was hoping we’d have at least a couple, and one character who definitely merited a flashback was Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), the wise, diplomatic Other who never seemed to age. While Richard always seems extremely in the know in earlier seasons, season six leaves him just as confused and disillusioned as Ben, with the result that there are many cracks in his sage demeanor. We watch him wrestle with his doubts as to the task he has been given, and in Ab Aeterno, we spend almost an entire episode in his distant past, learning how he came to be on the Island and stop aging and getting several other answers in the process. One of the most polarizing episodes of the season, it is anchored by an absorbing, physically demanding performance by Carbonell, who spends most of the episode speaking broken English. I admired his performance and the episode’s epic scope, along with the surprising revelations about Jacob, Smokey and Richard himself. While I’d long ago resolved to like Richard despite my suspicions about him early on, this was the episode that cemented him as one of my favorite characters.

Similarly, Across the Sea spends an entire episode in the Island’s ancient past in order to give us the backstories of Jacob and Smokey. Probably the most reviled episode of the season, it came after an especially shocking cliffhanger, forcing viewers to wait an extra week before moving on to the true denouement of the series. For me, however, it came at the perfect time, finally showing us exactly how these old enemies related to one another while giving us a brief respite from the main conflict. From his first appearance in the season five finale, I found myself magnetically drawn to Mark Pellegrino’s performance. Jacob was a character whose official introduction I’d so anxiously awaited, I was convinced that he could never live up to all the hype, but when he finally showed up, he drew me in more completely than I ever could have anticipated. As each episode of the sixth season began, I hoped that he would make an appearance, and despite the fact that he died in the same episode in which we met him, he preoccupied me more than any other character, in part because of his wonderful rapport with ghost whisperer Hurley, both before and after his death. As with Ben, I was acutely interested in the direction Jacob would take, and Across the Sea was the episode that settled my opinion of him once and for all. Pellegrino continued to impress me as he added earthier flavors to this mystical character, and Titus Welliver played against him brilliantly as a much older incarnation of the Man in Black, as he did in two previous episodes.

Ab Aeterno and Across the Sea are the season’s most “mythological” episodes, addressing such questions as What happened to Jacob’s statue? Why is there a slave ship in the middle of the jungle? Who were the people whose skeletons were dubbed Adam and Eve in the first season? How long have Jacob and Smokey been on the Island? and Just what is the Island, anyway? These episodes provide a partial answer to this all-important last question, though it’s as incomplete as the answer to what makes the Numbers so special, which is provided earlier in the season. As for me, I felt sure that we’d find out a little more about Annie, Ben’s childhood friend, but like Aaron, she turns out to be a character who is not nearly as significant as it first seemed.

While Cuse and Lindelof promised to answer questions and implied that they would have more concrete answers than they ultimately provided, the final season drops several self-referential hints in order to limit audience expectations. They poke fun at the obsessive need to find answers to everything when they have Jack find Shannon’s inhalers, a moment that tracks back to 2009’s Comic-Con, when Jorge Garcia, casting about for insignificant unsolved mysteries, demands to know their location during a question-and-answer period. Later, we’re told that “every question will only lead to another question”. It’s easy to see why many found the final season frustrating when so many threads were left dangling, but when explicit answers were provided, more often than not, fans found them disappointing. Throughout season six, mirrors frequently come into play, and it seems to me that we’re ultimately meant to look at LOST as a mirror of sorts. When we peer into it, each person sees something a little different, and leaving a lot of things open-ended allows for a multitude of interpretations. I think LOST is ultimately more about questions than answers.

No character better reflects the desire for answers than John Locke, so brilliantly played by Terry O’Quinn. In this season, O’Quinn’s talent is on full display in his portrayal of two completely different characters. In the Sideways, we see a character much like the kind but troubled John we met in season one, though there are some subtle differences. On the Island, he’s the ruthless Smoke Monster, a not-quite-man hardened by centuries of struggle against someone with an opposite worldview. He is the most fearsome villain the series has seen, though O’Quinn still brings a glimmer of humanity to him entirely missing from Keamy and cruel conman Anthony Cooper. Shrewd and determined, he has no qualms about using others to achieve his goals, and he cares little about collateral damage - though one might contend that this is also a shortcoming of Jacob, noble as his aims might be. Still, while I hoped that the Candidates would triumph against Smokey, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was any hope that there was good remaining in this entity that could be drawn out in the end. As brilliant as Emerson was this year, as he always is, I can’t help but conclude that O’Quinn’s performance is the cornerstone of the season.

LOST’s sixth season isn’t perfect, and as much as I love the Sideways as a device for exploring characters, I confess I find the mechanics of it a tad confusing, and there’s little doubt that some of its scenes are written with the intent to deceive. Nonetheless, I had several ideas of how the show might end, and the finale came much closer to what I wanted to see than what I didn’t. I think the remaining ambiguities are there largely so that debate and conversation about the series can continue - though it’s rather distressing to see that a show so concerned with people of differing viewpoints learning to get along has sparked some of the most virulent comment wars I’ve ever seen. I doubt that the DVD set for season six will change many minds about the season as a whole, but there are some nifty extras for those who want to stretch the LOST experience out just a little more.

The main attraction is The New Man in Charge, a 12-minute-long epilogue of sorts that explores a missing piece of Island history with two of my favorite characters. Well, after a fashion. None of it actually takes place on the Island, unless you count the filmstrip that is presumably filmed there. That’s the educational portion of the short, once again featuring Dr. Pierre Chang and answering a few lingering questions about the Dharma Initiative. The filmstrip is embedded in a scene involving a visit to a Dharma warehouse, where we are introduced to two amusing fellows whose confusion is meant to reflect our own. This portion is largely comical, while the final part attempts to bring closure to a seemingly abandoned storyline. This poignant scene will probably please longtime fans the most, though it introduces as many questions as it answers. While I was hoping for more interaction between the two characters at the heart of this epilogue, it’s a charming little coda that goes by all too quickly.

There’s the usual bloopers and deleted scenes, with about ten deleted scenes, though only a couple of them are terribly involved or interesting. Segments on the heroic qualities of various characters and on the Sideways are engaging, and a feature about the cast and crew coming to grips with the show ending is quite touching, especially the scene in which Jorge Garcia reads the finale script for the first time. I bought my DVD from Best Buy, where it came with an extra DVD. An amusing feature on Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack is well worth the watch, especially for the commentary of Samm Levine of Freaks and Geeks, who appears in a scene in Everybody Loves Hugo. There’s a short segment dealing with the martial arts skills of Sayid and Dogen, and the Lost on Location features dig into my favorite and least favorite episodes of the season. The Sundown segment mostly involves Kevin Durand making freakish faces at Anthony Azizi, who plays Keamy’s right-hand thug Omar, but Dr. Linus has some interesting commentary from Emerson and some of his Sideways co-stars. Probably the best feature, though, is the peek at the LOST Live event in L. A., which allowed fans, along with cast and crew, to experience a live performance of Michael Giacchino’s orchestra playing some of the most iconic themes in the series. As if the music weren’t great enough, it’s accompanied by several actors reading notes that redshirts left in the bottle that went on the raft with Michael and the gang in season one. Keep an ear out for Sonya Walger, Carbonell, Garcia and especially Emerson bringing these background characters to life.

Every person who watched LOST had slightly different expectations for the final season. Mine were mostly met, and while I’ll grant that it’s clear that there was an element of making-it-up-as-we-go-along at play, there were so many callbacks to previous seasons and character arcs satisfyingly resolved that I’m inclined to believe that most of it was planned out in advance, at least roughly. At any rate, however they got there, everyone involved in the show came together over the course of six years to create an epic that will be remembered as a landmark television event, and I thank them for sweeping me up in it. Namaste.

No One Pulls Off An Orange-Peel Grin Like John Locke - Now In Bobblehead Form!

I hate to think that I have too many things in common with Dwight Schrute, the uber-eccentric beet farmer / assistant manager on The Office who seems to thrive on making his coworkers’ lives difficult, but I can come up with at least two odd interests that we share. We’re both fans of LOST, and we both have a peculiar fondness for bobbleheads. So while I have yet to see a character from my dearly departed favorite drama bobbing along on Dwight’s desk, I have to suspect that he would approve of the John Locke bobblehead just released from Bif Bang Pow!

John is the sixth LOST character to get the bobblehead treatment, and like his predecessors, he stands seven inches high. I’ve designated the piano as my bobblehead display area of choice, so to the left, I have the trio released in February, along with the shifty Ben Linus from last summer, and John and Claire stand apart from the others on the right. This feels fitting, considering that not only is John the only one of the bobblehead characters to have interacted much with Claire (save Hurley, who hasn‘t been released yet), he took a rather intense interest in her for about a season, serving as a protector for her and her baby, Aaron. That role came to be subverted in the sixth season, but as that’s not really John’s fault, I prefer not to dwell on that too much.

LOST is largely a character study, and very few characters underwent as many strange twists and turns as John. I find it interesting that while the other two bobbleheads in this second wave of 2010 depict characters in their season six states, this one takes us back to the very beginning of the show. John has always been a character who fascinated me more than most, so I knew I’d have to snag him for my collection no matter what he looked like, but I burst into delighted laughter the moment I saw what this bobblehead would look like.

John Locke, so expertly portrayed by the amazingly expressive Terry O’Quinn, has taken part in many of the show’s most iconic moments, but all these years later, one of my favorites remains the tiny scene from the epic pilot episode in which renegade Kate looks up from her distasteful task of swiping the boots off a fallen passenger to see John’s slowly widening smile. In his mouth is a slice of orange, with the orange peel facing out so that she sees only the peel instead of his teeth.

It’s a wonderful moment that reveals so much about John with a tiny gesture. First off, we see that he is resilient and self-sufficient, as he has procured an orange and neatly excised a slice with his knife, an instrument which will come to be strongly associated with him. Second, it shows that he has a sense of humor. While John is one of the most tragic characters in the series, many of his lines and gestures are subtly funny, especially as acted by O’Quinn. Despite his darker qualities and unfortunate past, John is one of the characters who most consistently makes me laugh.

At the same time, it establishes him as someone who tries to help and encourage others. Though he sometimes strays wildly from this role, season one finds him taking every opportunity he can to mentor his fellow castaways, some of whom react to him with as much disdain as Kate does in this scene. That’s largely because there’s just something very strange about John Locke. Most of the people around him sense that there’s something just a little off about him, and it’s hard to dispute that when he’s sporting a big orange grin and has a long scar running along the right side of his face, punctuated by his eye. Creases and wrinkles in his forehead and cheeks and around his eyes accentuate both his age and his joie de vivre.

I’m so glad that whoever designed this bobblehead chose this moment to capture. It’s quintessential John, and the figure brings that across perfectly. We’ve got John Locke, standing tall on a vaguely round base that looks like a patch of sand, grinning out at the world with a beneficent, albeit slightly crazed, smile. This is a John renewed, thrilled to finally find himself in a place that feels like home and to be freed of the painful restrictions so unfairly placed upon him. No matter how many times he stumbles in the episodes that follow, some hint of this euphoric beginning is always evident.

The words “John Locke” stand out in white with black trim along the front of the base, while “LOST” is written across the back. John wears shiny black shoes, or perhaps boots, with thick soles but no hint of laces. His pants are khaki, while his checked button-up shirt is pale blue. His left arm rests at his side, with his hand clutching the knife that he has just used. His right arm is bent at the elbow so that the orange he holds in his open palm rests right around the middle of his shirt. The skin tone on his arms and head is natural, if perhaps a bit on the light side; then again, I’ve grown used to seeing him tan from months out in the hot sun.

Because John is bald, his ears stand out much more prominently than those on any of the other bobbleheads. They seem to have a slightly Elven quality about them when I look at them from a distance, though upon close inspection they are more curved than pointed. Whatever their shape, they stick out usefully; just give one of them a little tap, and John’s head will start to jiggle.

John is the first character in this series to also have been a part of the McFarlane toy line that, sadly, ended prematurely a couple years ago. Those incredibly detailed figures also came with sound chips, and that spoiled me a bit. That said, it would be a little strange to hear John speaking when he clearly has his mouth full of fruit. Though he’s harder to come by these days, I do heartily recommend the McFarlane John Locke action figure for its intricate details, its poseability and its quotes from the show. I’m still amused whenever a push of a button causes a resounding Terry O’Quinn snarl of “DON’T EVER TELL ME WHAT I CAN’T DO! EVER!!”

I’m less impressed with what I’ve seen of the new action figure forthcoming from Bif Bang Pow! It’s not nearly as detailed, and the hinges look extremely clunky. What’s more, you have to buy him with Hurley, and though I would suspect that any big fan of the show wouldn’t mind that in theory, this Hurley is downright funny-looking. It makes me sad that these figures look so much less like their on-screen counterparts than the McFarlane figures, mostly because there’s a set featuring Jacob and his nemesis, as depicted in the opening scene of the season five finale. Those are two characters I’d love to have, but the resemblance just isn’t strong enough for me, especially when it comes to the Man in Black; if I could purchase Jacob separately, I might be seriously tempted to buy him.

All this is to say that while there are other versions of John available, one of which is well worth having, I still heartily recommend the Bif Bang Pow! bobblehead, which retails for $13 at Entertainment Earth or $15 at ABC’s LOST store. This is a fun and finely crafted figure capturing one of his most iconic scenes; of all the figures in the series thus far, I think it does the best job of giving us a specific character-revealing moment.

John Locke is a hardy fellow, but he’s certainly not invincible; by the same token, this resin figure may become cracked if you’re not careful with him. He does come in a large box with molded plastic so that he can be moved safely, and of course, you can keep him in the box at all times if you prefer, though given John’s long, ugly history with boxes both on and off the Island, this seems rather cruel. I’ll take my chances with keeping him on the piano, in easy sight of the kitchen. If anything ever mysteriously disappears from the fruit bowl, I know who my prime suspect will be...

It's Goodbye Flashbacks, Hello Time Travel in Season Five of LOST

July 2007 was a momentous month for me. I expect May of 2010 will be the same. It isn't every day that a beloved series concludes, and I can honestly say that ABC's LOST has seeped as deeply into my soul as Harry Potter. It's hard to believe it's almost over. But before I settle in for the sixth LOST premiere, something tells me I'll be returning to the penultimate season for a refresher course.

Season five of LOST is a curiosity known by many as "the time-travel season". While season one focuses on basic survival, two on the hatch, three on the Others and four on the consequences of leaving the Island, season five finds the remaining contingent of Islanders leaping around through time, experiencing nasty side effects and wondering how they might go about geting back to a fixed continuum. Sawyer (Josh Holloway) finally steps up as a true leader, with an increasingly traumatized Dan (Jeremy Davies) his frazzled advisor. Meanwhile, the Oceanic Six are back in the "real world," and since Jack (Matthew Fox) has come to the conclusion that it's time to return to the Island after three years away, he has the unwelcome task of trying to round up his fellow escapees, with the help of the notoriously untrustworthy Ben (Michael Emerson). Bridging the two parties is John (Terry O'Quinn), whose obsession with destiny compels him to leave the Island he so adores in order to coax Jack and his friends back. And that's all before 316, which introduces another major division resulting in most of the characters being on the Island together, but in different times.

Structurally, season five is pretty unique, since so many of the episodes have neither traditional flashbacks nor flashforwards. Because the groups are so divided, instead of focusing primarily on one character at different points in his or her life, the writers choose to jump back and forth between the Island and the mainland, or the 1970s and the 2000s. John, Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Ben, Miles (Ken Leung) and Dan are the only characters with the sort of flashback episodes we've come to expect, while Saywer, ageless Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and enigmatic Jacob (Mark Pellegrino) have arguably centric episodes, though the execution is unusual. Lessening the focus on individuals allows the season to cover a lot of ground quickly, which it needs to do. While new questions are introduced, the season provides more answers than any previous season, and the accelerated action primes us for an explosive conclusion. (I hope I don't mean that literally.)

Back when I watched the devastasting finale of season three, the deaths of two of my favorite characters left me gutted, but I was perhaps most distraught over Jack's miserable future state, which seemed to negate any purpose behind the sacrifices made throughout the first three seasons. In season five, one of the first things Jack does is shave off his beard, the symbol of his descent into realms of haggard despair. We see him clean up his act, seemingly bothered little by his sudden alliance with the conniving Ben, who, throughout much of the season, comes across as being genuinely good-willed. Jack continues to grapple with his faith until he finally boards the plane that will return him to the Island, a process that unfolds much more quickly than I expected. His sense of purpose is renewed. But once he gets back, the situation is vastly different, and there's little for him to do but sit back and try to act inconspicuous. Not so easy for this born leader. Erratic behavior ensues. It's good to see Jack coming out of the doldrums, but he's not really at his best in this season.

Sawyer, on the other hand, is marvelous. He's his old snarky self as he leads the remaining survivors in a series of Island treks, but it's clear that these desperate circumstances have at last molded him into the hero that's been percolating all along. LaFleur, one of my all-time favorite LOST episodes, swiftly covers three years of his life, enabling us to see how the dimpled con man goes from scoundrel to respected official. The new Sawyer is perhaps not as entertaining, but while he's grown responsible, he's still got enough of his old spunk to be pretty satisfying. As the season begins, he's still smitten with Kate, who seems to be thoroughly over him by the time they finally meet again. There's a definite world-weariness to her this time around, and it seems her only concern at this stage of the game is doing what's best for pseudo-son Aaron (William Blanchette), and by extension, children in general. Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), meanwhile, ceases to seem even a little bit sinister as she and Sawyer help one another recover from their wounds and find powerful new roles in a placid society. If only for a couple of episodes, we get to see Juliet incandescently happy. We also get to see what strong stuff she's made of.

John, always enmeshed in mystery, becomes more enigmatic than ever as the episodes progress. This season finally seems to answer the age-old question, "Just what's so special about John Locke, anyway?" The revelations are surprising and, more often than not, disturbing. O'Quinn does some of his best work yet in this season, particularly whenever he is partnered with Emerson. Every time they share the screen, it prickles with energy. Their scene together in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham is among the most riveting confrontations I have ever seen. This season takes John in some very strange directions, and the sense of wonder is undiminished by what the season four finale revealed about him. As John has been one of my favorite characters from day one, I'm very curious about where these developments will leave him in season six.

It's hard to believe now that Ben was supposed to be a short-term character, only lasting a few episodes. Thanks in large part to the amazing Emerson, who finally earned an Emmy for his work on this season, Ben is the one character on the show who seems hardest to figure out, as evidenced by the following overheard exchange in this month's Reader's' Digest: "Girl #1: This whole Ben situation is really starting to tick me off. Girl #2: I know! I just don't know what his deal is. Girl #1: He called me like 12 times yesterday. Girl #2: He called you? [Pause.] Oh, you mean Ben your boyfriend. Girl #1: As opposed to? Girl #2: Ben from LOST." Like Snape in the Harry Potter books, Ben is probably the most complex character in the series, and the one whose motivations are most hotly debated. As the season opens, he seems to be on the castaways' side, though as he stands to gain as much as they do from their return, I wouldn't go so far as to call him altruistic. The second half of the season shows a Ben who is apparently deeply conflicted, and peeks into his past, including his youth (meaning the return of Sterling Beaumon as pre-teen Ben), help shed light on some of his methods. Some of Emerson's most powerful scenes are in Dead Is Dead, which shows how Alex became Ben's "daughter" and reveals the outcome of his vendetta against Penny (Sonya Walger), daughter of his longtime nemesis Charles (Alan Dale). Most of the season seems to support my conviction that Ben will turn out all right in the end. But st least two shocking scenes deal hefty blows to that theory. I'll just have to wait and see...

If Ben is the most inscrutable character in the series, Hurley (Jorge Garcia) has to be the least complicated. Perhaps season six will dredge up hitherto unsuspected depths of darkness from Hurley's soul. But I find that hard to imagine, since from day one he has been nothing but sweetness and light, crippling anxieties notwithstanding. Hurley is rather underused this season, but when he's around, he makes a big impression, from his heartfelt (and simultaneously hilarious) confession to his mother (Lillian Hurst) that the Oceanic Six have been living a lie to the mystical scene that leads to his decision to return to the Island. Ever the voice of the everyman, Hurley pesters Miles with all those pesky time-traveling questions the audience has been pondering; the two turn into quite the comedic pair, particularly in Some Like It Hoth, which, like season three's Tricia Tanaka Is Dead, involves male bonding and daddy issues. Unlike that episode, however, we also get copious amounts of Star Wars. Hurley continues to take nearly every opportunity to make people's lives better, whether it's helping Miles reconcile with his father or ensuring that no more passengers wind up on the second flight to the Island than necessary. But it's hard to blame him for his one act of violence: pelting Ben with a Hot Pocket when he turns up to whisk him away in the middle of the night.

Sun (Yunjin Kim) begins the season as a black widow, determined to avenge the death of her husband Jin (Daniel Dae Kim). Except Jin isn't dead. Somehow, he washes ashore in the late 1980s, just in time to meet up with a lovely young Danielle (Melissa Farman). One upside of the structure of the season is by the midway point, Jin is speaking fluent English. But as of the finale, he and Sun are still no closer to each other; though she's returned to the Island, 30 years separate the couple, and despite John's claims, no one seems very clear on how to facilitate a reunion. Both characters are seriously underused, but Sun gets one of my favorite moments of the season when she makes a discovery relating to a cherished character no longer on the show.

Among the original main castaways, that leaves just Sayid, who starts off the season with a killing spree and never loses that violent streak. Some of his actions are motivated by self-defense, but as the season goes on, it becomes harder to find the moral, conscientious side that was so prevalent in the first season. Sayid is as much of a train wreck as Jack was, and probably more. He's Our You finally delves into his childhood with a scene reminiscent of Eko's youth, prompting us to wonder if he is noble for sparing another the trauma of killing or if he simply gets a charge out of the act itself. Vincent (Madison the dog) and Rose (L. Scott Caldwell), other characters who've been with the show from the beginning but who have never been given as much attention as I'd like, disappear after the second episode, along with Rose's husband Bernard (Sam Anderson). I've been very displeased with the way these characters have been neglected, especially since the end of season two, but at least the the writers eventually acknowledge what happened to them after their separation from Sawyer and the gang.

Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), having finally achieved his happily-ever-after with Penny, hardly seems like a part of the group anymore, but in response to a sudden memory cleverly planted by Dan, Desmond takes his seafaring little family on a trek to fulfill the mad scientist's request. Aside from Jughead, in which he unearths some unsettling facts about Dan's tenure at Oxford and, with a single word, delivers one of the most touching moments in the season, Desmond is present for only a scene or two in the few episodes in which he does appear. More compelling reasons for the curious kinship between Dan and Desmond are revealed, but it's unclear whether that relationship will ultimately be good for the wandering Scotsman. Penny's fate is tied to his, so while it's exhilarating to see them together at last, there's occasion to wonder whether her husband is unintentionally leading her into danger.

Since the four newbies introduced in season four's Confirmed Dead managed to survive to the fifth, we have a chance to get to know them all a bit better. Charlote (Rebecca Mader) begins to remember her hazy past, even as she loses her grip on the present in the wake of time-travel sickness. Her connection to the Island is intriguing. Miles, too, has unexplained ties to this place, and the sharp-tongued ghost whisperer becomes more sympathetic as his vulnerabilities are exposed. At first, it seems crusty but trusty pilot Frank (Jeff Fahey) may have little more to do with the Island, but he is reincorporated brilliantly, and in 316, he gets to utter what is quite possibly my favorite line of the season. None of these characters get as much time in the spotlight as I might have preferred, but given the constraints, I'm happy with their representation.

I particularly adore Dan, who won me over immediately in season four, though I wasn't entirely sure I could trust him. He vanishes for several episodes, but boy, when he's there, he makes an impact. In the beginning, this brilliant but absent-minded theoretical physicist has to explain to Sawyer and all us ordinary folks at home the scientific principles behind what is going on. Dan knows his stuff, but conveying that to Joe Schmoes isn't so easy for this severely socially stunted fellow. Since he's really the only one who has any idea what is going on, the burden is on him to find a way to stop it. The situation is made all the more urgent by the fact that Charlotte, with whom he is in love, is affected so adversely by the time travel. Largely, Dan serves as a liason between the inner workings of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse's Stephen Hawking-drenched minds and the baffled viewers, but he is also fascinating as an individual, and the profoundly moving The Variable finally firmly cemented him as a character I love every bit as much as Hurley, John, Desmond and the late great Charlie (Dom Monaghan).

We are introduced to surprisingly few new characters this season. Almost everyone we meet is somebody we already know or know about, though we might not realize it at first. Ms Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), who, in her one previous third-season appearance, seemed likely to be deeply involved in the inner workings of the Island, resurfaces with an intriguing connection to one of the characters. Like Charles, she is a Desmond flashback character who has gone on to become vitally important in her own right. She and Charles are both fleshed out considerably this season, and glimpses of their earlier years reveal a great deal about the Island's history and their roles in shaping it. Like Ben, these are shadowy characters with plenty of evidence both for and against the idea that they are "good guys", as is the soft-spoken Richard. While it takes several actors to give us a complete view of these two, Richard, while having his most significant role in the series to date, is still played solely by Carbonell, even though we see him in a number of different years stretching all the way back to 1954. One of my major hopes for the sixth season is that he will finally get a proper flashback that explains his unique position on the Island.

Because the end of the time-skipping means that Sawyer and his friends are stuck in the 1970s, several of their new colleagues are folks we met in Ben's first centric episode, season three's The Man Behind the Curtain. Much to my delight, hippie-ish Dharma official Horace (Doug Hutchison) becomes a fairly major player, and Ben's despondent dad Roger (Jon Gries) gets more screen time, appearing both more reprehensible than before and easier to pity. We're able to see Pierre (Francois Chau), the man of many pseudonyms from the Dharma filmstrips, off the job, and the long-overdue introduction to loose cannon Stuart (Eric Lange), first referenced in the season two finale, begs the question of the correlation between unhinged behavior and communications duty. Much to my disappointment, however, there is still no mention of Annie (Madeline Carroll), the childhood friend who meant so much to Ben. I trust that season six will offer some closure on that front.

Of the new characters, only a couple seem likely to have much significance. There are several bit players in Dharma times, including one played by Kevin Rankin of Friday Night Lights, but I rather doubt we'll be seeing them again. Modern-day, the most interesting addition is Ilana (Zulekha Robinson), a dangerous but perhaps virtuous woman with a long-standing alliance with Jacob, who might almost be considered a personification of the Island itself, or at least certain aspects of the Island. Though it takes a hundred episodes before LOST finally assures us that this murky figure truly exists, he's been stitched into the fabric of the show all along, first explicitly mentioned midway through the second season but hinted at in some ways from the first episode. I suspect that he will be the central figure of season six, though whether or not we'll actually see him again is anybody's guess.

LOST has a lot of questions to answer, and little time in which to do it. No doubt, some of those mysteries will remain when the series ends, but I believe the stage has been effectively set for the most pressing concerns to be addressed. Seasons five is a head-scratcher, full of confusing concepts that aim to make amateur scientists of us all. But then one of the plusses of the show has been the way it challenges its audience intellectually. Wrapped up in the science are ethical debates, with the chief question being whether it is possible to change a seemingly fixed future and advisable to try. Add to that wide-ranging discussions, from religious topics - often, curiously enough, instigated by Ben - to pop culture phenomena - in season five, usually courtesy of Hurley - and you've got a show that's constantly encouraging its audience to explore new areas of study. In Namaste, Sawyer coolly tells the newly-arrived Jack that his leadership style involves reading and thinking, mulling things over before he acts. This seems like a good way to describe the most invested LOST viewers as well. Incidentally, I was disappointed that, although so much of the season is set during the '70s, the ol' Dharma record player never spun anything by Simon and Garfunkel, John Denver or any of my other favorites of the era. I can think of a couple of episodes in which Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle would have felt particularly fitting. Oh, well. At least I got It Never Rains In Southern California.

Of course, I don't have the complete inside scoop on the DVD set, since it doesn't come out for another couple of months, but anticipation over Monaghan's appearance tonight on Flashforward, a show that explores so many of the same themes as LOST, has whetted my appetite for season six so much that I decided this review just couldn't wait, especially since I rarely pay much attention to special features beyond deleted scenes anyway. The season five DVD includes those, along with Lost on Location, A Day with Josh Holloway, Los Angeles crew tribute with Michael Emerson, the 100th episode, Time Frame and Continuity and Bloopers. The Blu-ray's list price is 20 bucks more, but right now, Amazon is selling them for practically the same price, so if you're as high-tech as all that, the Blu-ray is probably worth it, especially since it includes a tie-in to Lost University, the Alternate Reality Game meant to tide fans over for the last month before the new season starts. For those of us who still think of DVD players as newfangled, I hope there will be a way to participate; I'm already enrolled and looking forward to sitting in on a lecture by Jeremy Davies! In any event, I know that the fifth season's episodes are ones I will want to return to, especially as I gear up for the final season. Oh, the anticipation! Darlton, you'd better not disappoint me.

Season Four Marks a Turning Point for the Castaways of LOST

"Well," Dad remarked to me the other day, "less than two months to go!" "I know!" I replied. "They're starting to show commercials for the fifth season now. I'm so pumped!" At which he laughed and said, "Gee, you didn't even consider that I might be talking about the Inauguration, did you?" Nope, I didn't. And nope, he wasn't. Dad and I are anxiously awaiting the fifth season of LOST, along with everybody else who's been left hanging since May. It's hard for me to believe, but the fourth season was the first one that I actually watched live in its entirety; I saw most of season three that way but had to catch up on the fall episodes on video.

While waiting this time around has been a pain, it hasn't been nearly as difficult as it was last year. I think that's partly because the season four finale left me feeling a lot more hopeful than season three's did. The website www.dharmawantsyou.com also helped, allowing me to take several exams to determine my suitability for a position as a Dharma Initiative volunteer; I received my results not long ago, and I was assigned the role of gardener, which puts me in company with Sam Gamgee and Rubeus Hagrid, a fine pair of peers indeed. I also amused myself by carving a LOST-inspired jack-o-lantern and dressing as a member of the Dharma Initiative for Halloween. But now the wait is nearly over, and fans of the series can brush up on LOST lore by snatching the fourth season on DVD.

I never really felt that LOST lost its footing as a whole, though I have occasionally disagreed with certain creative choices. I have a hard time choosing a favorite season when each has such a distinct flavor and brings something so important to the puzzle that is this show; I'm more inclined to choose favorite episodes. That said, despite the fact that this season contains only 13 episodes, it has several that floored me. The general consensus seemed to be that this was LOST's strongest season since the first, and I certainly have to concur that they were doing something right.

I was nervous about the fourth season because Through the Looking Glass had such an overwhelming despairing effect upon me. Two of my favorite characters got killed off, along with more than a dozen others. We saw into the future, and it wasn't pretty. We were left with the uncomfortable feeling that the desperate rescue plan for which such grave sacrifices were made may have actually been to the undoing of all. Not fun. And there are bone-chilling atrocities in this fourth season. Yet there are still opportunities for light, for hope, for all of the wonderful character-driven moments that make LOST so addictive.

The fourth season begins to move into the show's end game by giving us as many flash forwards as flashbacks, sometimes keeping us guessing as to which is which. We learn that Jack's (Matthew Fox) contact with the freighter will lead to six castaways returning to civilization in the near future. It isn't until halfway through the season that we know the identities of them all, and there's still much to learn about what happens to them between their departure from the island and Jack's desperate determination that "We have to go back!" I was worried that seeing the future might render the present less interesting, especially in terms of knowing that certain characters will survive, but I rarely found that to be the case. The future revelations just gave me different things to focus on as I studied those characters back on the island.

This season brings with it several new characters, the most prominent of which are introduced in Confirmed Dead. In this unusually structured episode, we see what each of these four characters was up to when he or she found out that Oceanic Flight 815 had been found at the bottom of the ocean with all its passengers confirmed dead. (The mystery of just how this illusion was accomplished endures, though there are some conflicting clues.) The intriguingly named Charlotte Staples Lewis is the only woman of the bunch. Played by Rebecca Mader, she's a fiery English archaeologist whose interest in the island may be more than historical in nature. Miles Straume (Ken Leung) is a smart-alecky "ghost whisperer" largely out for personal gain whose unusual skills could be especially handy on an island where so many have recently died.

Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) is a crusty pilot who was supposed to have been flying Oceanic 815 and has become obsessed with learning the truth about what happened to it. He's rough around the edges, but his blunt sense of humor is a welcome addition; shortly after we meet him, he dazedly utters my favorite goofy line of the season: "I saw a cow!" Frank was the first of the freighter folk I came to trust completely, and his heroic qualities render him extremely helpful to our beleaguered friends. Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) is probably the most notable newbie, given the fact that one of the most prominent clips going into the season was of him saying shiftily, "Rescuing you and your people... I can't really say it's our primary objective." A jittery college professor studying anomalies in the space-time continuum, he seems like a gentle, absent-minded professor, and I embraced him quickly, but troubling questions about his mission on the island remain throughout the season.

Other new characters include Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick), an imposing figure who makes his shadowy entrance at key off-island moments, apparently manipulating characters toward a desired end. We still know little about him, but all evidence seems to suggest that he is a creep. More ambiguous is Captain Gault (Grant Bowler), the no-nonsense Australian captain of the off-shore freighter. With the intentions of his crew unclear and some very strange phenomena surrounding his ship, figuring out whose side he's on is no simple task. Same goes for communications officer George Minkowski (Fisher Stevens) and the ship's crotchety doctor (Marc Vann). The only one on the ship who seems absolutely unfit for alliance with the good guys is Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand), a steely-eyed mercenary who seems to take icy satisfaction in methodical killing. He reminds me of No Country For Old Men's Anton Chigurh, and it didn't take long for him to become my most loathed character in the show's history.

Season four finds the castaways we already know and love deeply divided. A majority of them head back to the beach with Jack to wait for further communication from the freighter. Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is among them; awkwardly, so is Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), still a rival for Jack's affections. Parents-to-be Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) are there too; as their marriage continues to mature, they anxiously await news of a rescue, as Sun's survival depends upon leaving the island before her pregnancy becomes too advanced. Surprisingly enough, Rose (L. Scott Caldwell) and her protective husband Bernard (Sam Anderson) opt for the beach as well, even though Rose suspects that leaving the island may result in the return of her terminal cancer. Her profound, accepting brand of faith is a welcome contrast to John's crazed pursuit of his destiny, and I wish the show would explore it more often. Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) start out with Jack but hop Frank's freighter-bound chopper in hopes of getting some answers; they get more than they bargained for when they meet "Kevin Johnson," a figure from past seasons with a lot to atone for.

Meanwhile, John (Terry O'Quinn), having survived a Ben (Michael Emerson)-induced near-death experience, leads a small band of dissenters to the cozy series of buildings Sawyer (Josh Holloway) terms "New Otherton". Yes, brooding Sawyer has joined the island-loving John, though he's none too thrilled about Mr. Clean keeping Ben alive. Theirs is a complex relationship, but despite Ben's shockingly petulant behavior in The Man Behind the Curtain, he and John seem to need one another, in part because they seem to be the only people convinced that this supposed rescue is bad news. That the half-cocked John manages to get any followers at all is mostly thanks to Hurley (Jorge Garcia), who delivers an impassioned speech in the wake of his dear friend's death in hopes that it will not have been in vain. Claire (Emilie de Ravin), at least, is convinced, and part of Sawyer's rocky road to redemption lies in the way he, with no ulterior motive, strives to protect her and her infant son.

LOST strays further into science fiction territory with this season, but it's so well done that I doubt even the least geeky viewers mind too much. The biggest mind-bender of the season is The Constant, a riveting, dizzying episode that finds a disoriented Desmond yanked back and forth through time, doomed to eventual brain hemorrhage unless he connects with Penelope (Sonya Walger), his one true love from whom he parted so badly. I consider this one of three episodes in this season that serve as bookends to third-season episodes; it is a perfect continuation of Flashes Before Your Eyes, which introduced the temporal anomaly plaguing the smokin' Scotsman, and taken together, they are every bit as romantic as the gushiest chick flick. In addition to including one of my absolute favorite moments of the season, The Constant reveals a great deal about Daniel in some wonderful scenes that are, by turns, comical and heart-rending.

The second bookend episode is The Shape of Things to Come. I waited for it for a month, and after I watched it I wanted to throw things at the television. The utter despair of this Ben-centric outing renders it the only episode that can compete with Through the Looking Glass in terms of inducing depression. In this episode, we finally see the true consequences of the castaways' choices in the season finale. Suffice it to say they're not good. Dark days are upon the island, and this new threat makes the surviving Others, most of whom are hidden away in a secret fortress, look like little more than annoying neighbors.

Thankfully, it's followed up with the brilliant Cabin Fever, which follows John through childhood and adulthood much like The Man Behind the Curtain did with Ben. Both episodes involve a trip to see the elusive Jacob and a question of whether Ben or John is intended to be the true leader of the Others. The parallels between the episodes are so plentiful that I won't attempt to list them here, but trying to discover them all is a fun exercise. I love this episode because Hurley and John have been among my favorite characters from the beginning, and while Ben undeniably has villainous traits, he's so intriguing that I've come to love him nearly as much as those two. He spends most of this season under duress of one kind or another, and it pains me that Emerson was denied an Emmy for his riveting work once again. An entire episode focusing almost exclusively on these three characters is thrilling, and just as fascinating as the interplay between the once and what may be the future king is the way Hurley reacts to them. His wordless exchange with Ben toward the end of the episode may just be my single favorite moment in the season.

Because of the writers' strike, some characters' storylines suffered, particularly the newbies; head LOST liaisons Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have promised that we'll delve more deeply into their backgrounds soon. The stories that fascinated me most involved Desmond, whose Odysseus-like journey seems tantalizingly close to a conclusion following Through the Looking Glass but faces unfathomable obstacles; Sawyer, who has hit rock bottom in terms of his moral development and must reclaim the progress he had made, with plenty of subtle guidance from Hurley; Sun and Jin, who remain one of the best examples in prime time of a loving couple struggling to make a troubled marriage work; and Ben and John, who are locked into an uneasy partnership as control of the island hangs in the balance. I can't wait to see who will be given the most opportunity to shine during the fifth season. I'm hoping Rose and Bernard will be among the favored; they still are used far too little, though I was glad to see them more active in the fourth season than in the third. No matter who is most prominent as the series moves rapidly toward its 2010 conclusion, I hope that the quality of the episodes remains as high as ever. Somehow, I don't think I will be disappointed.

The Mysteries Deepen in LOST's Third Season

It's been a long wait between the season three finale of LOST back in May and tonight's season four opener. Eight months, during which we learned that the already short sixteen-episode season would probably be cut down to eight courtesy of the Writers' Strike. In November, we finally got a little something to tide us over with the mobisodes, brilliant little scenes first sent to cell phones and then posted on ABC.com a week later. Each of these nuggets has been pure gold to me, whetting my appetite for the excitement to come. I'm especially intrigued by the revelation in the 13th mobisode, though my favorite probably remains King of the Castle, in which Jack squares off against Ben in a game of chess and shrugs off suggestions that he might not really want to leave this island for good.

This month, we got the fantastic www.find815.com, an interactive website whose contents I still have not fully explored. It allows fans to follow the journey of Sam Thomas, former Oceanic employee and longtime boyfriend of an 815 stewardess named Sonya, who decides to conduct his own search after Oceanic gives up on finding the fallen airplane. Filled to the brim with fascinating tidbits, it no doubt offers some hints about the upcoming season.

But there's nothing like the show itself, so I was eager to pick up season three, which came out in mid-December, though I waited until January to buy it. I've heard and read a lot of complaints about its unevenness; most reviewers seemed to agree that the last few episodes had saved a substandard season. Maybe it made a difference that I saw the first six episodes close together, so I didn't have to wait such a long time to see what had happened to everyone after the season two finale, but I had few of those frustrations with the season.

Oh, sure, it was aggravating to see Kate and Sawyer stuck in bear cages and Jack in a shark tank, unable to roam freely and being manipulated by the Others. I worried that they might not make their way back to the beach, but in my heart of hearts, I figured they would. I think the writers could have given one of the second season's key characters a more graceful exit, and two of the third season's most superfluous characters a more natural entrance. But for the most past, I found the season absolutely riveting, and I was thrilled to be able to watch it in real time at last.

Season three is very focused on the Others, who are mostly hinted at in the first season and still shadowy in the second. We get to know the deliciously creepy Ben, formerly known as the sniveling Henry. Michael Emerson's exceptional Emmy-nominated performance kept me hanging on Ben's every word and gesture. Ben is especially compelling in conjunction with Jack (Matthew Fox), who gets intimately acquainted with the Others this season, and John (Terry O'Quinn), who despite long absences manages three centric episodes, the intensity of which were enough to score O'Quinn the Emmy.

Our castaways are very fragmented, particularly at the beginning, with Jack, Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) in captivity; Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun (Yunjin Kim) in decoy Otherville; Hurley (Jorge Garcia) wandering through the jungle; Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), John and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) unaccounted for and the rest of the gang back at the beach - save Michael (Harold Perrineau) and Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), of course, who have skipped the island in the Others' motorboat. As the season progresses, the fragmentation continues as the characters shuffle around, but in the entire season, we never see all of the castaways together in the same place - though we come close at one point, with only John off on his own, becoming more embroiled in the mysteries of the island and demanding answers from Ben.

Because the Others are now a prominent faction, there are many scenes, especially toward the end of the season, that don't involve the castaways at all. Much of the action hinges on the loyalties of Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), a fertility specialist brought to the island because every pregnancy in recent memory has ended with the death of both mother and baby. Controlled by Ben for three years, all she wants is to get home to her sister and the nephew she's never met, and she's willing to do anything to facilitate that escape. She seems to have bonded with Jack, but is it all an act?

Richard (Nestor Carbonell), a soft-spoken man with heavy eyeliner who "looks fair but feels foul," recruited Juliet with some wheedling words and a little help from the dearly departed Ethan (William Mapother), who, like Christian (John Terry), has a habit of popping up frequently even though he died in the first season. Richard seems to be Ben's advisor, and quite possibly a scheming one at that, while Tom (M. C. Gainey), hitherto known as Mr. Friendly, is his lackey who is not nearly as intimidating without his beard. My favorite of the secondary Others, Tom is known for his congeniality, and in this season he generally comes across as a regular guy without as many sinister underpinnings as his cohorts.

Cohorts like Mikhail (Andrew Divoff), affectionately known as Patchy. This one-eyed Ukrainian first pops up on a television screen in the surveillance hatch. A loose cannon, he lives reclusively on a farm equipped with communication devices and shoots at anyone who comes to visit. He's surly and unpredictable, and he's much more important to the season than it at first appears. And then there is Jacob, the enigmatic leader of the Others who no one but Ben seems to have seen. Supposedly he calls all the shots, but does he even exist, or is he just another way for Ben to exert control over others?

The mysteries pile up in this season, but some compelling questions are answered, among them What is the Dharma Initiative, and how does it relate to the Others? Who is the original Sawyer? How is it that polar bears are wandering around on a tropical island? How did Locke get in the wheelchair? Some less intriguing questions receive an unwarranted degree of attention, most notably What's the deal with Jack's tattoos? But I'll forgive that debacle of a back story because the episode also focuses on the teenaged Karl (Blake Bashoff), who may be Luke to Sawyer's Han Solo and who shares a gorgeous Somewhere Out There moment with Alex (Tonya Raymonde), unhinged island resident Rousseau's (Mira Furlan) long-lost daughter, as the episode closes.

Sawyer certainly is one of the most riveting characters of the season. Though he hasn't grown any less snarky, he seems to be advancing steadily in his maturation process, and Jack's absence is doing him some good as it gives him the opportunity to step up and take some responsibility, with a little help from the wise Hurley. But this is Sawyer we're talking about here; can it be long before he backslides? All of the characters face new challenges this season, but the one I couldn't keep my eyes off of was Desmond, who we only really got to know during the season two finale. Now he's a regular part of the gang, though all that time in a hatch didn't do much for his social skills. He's a loner, but as he spends the season haunted by disturbing visions foretelling the death of Charlie (Dom Monaghan), the pair remain predominantly in one another's company, which is lovely for me, since they are two of my four favorite characters.

Charlie's supposed doom comes to light in Flashes Before Your Eyes, an episode whose format is unique among all those we've seen so far. Framed in the present, the bulk of it takes place at a key moment in Desmond's past - or is it? With its mind-bending premise and epic overtones - not to mention a terribly romantic storyline for a show that aired on Valentine's Day - it firmly establishes Desmond as a key player in the third season and makes the question of Charlie's survival a principal concern. Expose, on the other hand, disposes of two much-maligned characters and is widely regarded as a wasted episode, but the light-hearted tone and alternative perspectives actually made it one of my favorites of the season - though I am cross when I realize that while we are putting up with Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) and Paolo's (Rodrigo Santoro) pointless shenanigans, we could be getting some more time in with the fantastic Rose (L. Scott Caldwell) and Bernard (Sam Anderson), who are missing in action for the vast majority of the season.

LOST just keeps getting more and more complex, and it's nice to know that the writers now know exactly how much longer they have to wrap up the series. Presumably, this provides assurance that we're actually going to unlock most of the show's mysteries - though no doubt some will be left for us to discuss long after LOST has ended. I wish I could say that the show seems to be building toward the optimistic conclusion indicated by the first season, which was largely an idealistic study in how flawed people from disparate backgrounds can learn to live together peaceably. If you discount those killed upon impact in the plane crash, there are about twice as many deaths in the third season as in the first two combined. I certainly hope that trend doesn't continue. But whatever the case may be, I know exactly where I will be on Thursday night at 9 p.m., even if it is only for the next eight weeks. LOST has lost none of its appeal for me. I can't wait to see what Damon and Carlton have in store for us next!

A Cataclysmic Crash and Compelling Characters Draw Viewers Into LOST

September 22, 2004 was an important day for my parents, as it marked their 25th wedding anniversary. It was also a significant date for America, since it signaled the beginning of a cultural phenomenon, whispered about on the air waves for weeks: LOST. This first episode had to deliver all the drama and mystery promised by those haunting advertisements. It had to make viewers believe that 40 or so people could survive a plane wreck on an island thousands of miles from the nearest continent and that even with today's modern technology, they would not be quickly found. It had to make us care about this diverse group of individuals even though we were likely to go into over-load with so many major characters to keep track of. It had to be something really special. It was.

It begins with the opening of an eye. A man is lying in the jungle. He pulls himself to his feet and struggles toward the beach, catching a glimpse of a yellow lab along the way. The scene awaiting him at the shore is chaotic, with plane wreckage strewn about and survivors screaming. He springs into action, rousing those in the most immediate danger, healing wounds wherever possible, for he is a doctor and, whether he intended it or not, a leader. His name is Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), and this is his story.

But it's also the story of Charlie Pace (Dom Monaghan), a well-intentioned but mostly incompetent rock star whose primary preoccupation is initially how to get his hands on the heroin he was snorting in the plane's bathroom. It's the story of Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin), an innocent and very pregnant Aussie. It's the story of Hurley Reyes (Jorge Garcia), a squeamish, gentle giant whose easy-going nature allows him to make friends quickly. It's the story of Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), a kind-hearted renegade who doesn't want her fellow survivors to find out what she was doing on that plane, and Sawyer Ford (Josh Holloway), whose antagonism and opportunism cast him in an unfavorable light.

It's the story of Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), once a communications officer for the Iraqi Republican Guard and now their best hope of finding a way off the island, and John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), a mysterious sage who may be their best hope of surviving until that happens. It's the story of Rose (L. Scott Caldwell), a serene woman whose husband was in the tail section of the plane when it crashed.

It's the story of Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim), a Korean couple who keep themselves set apart from the rest, from whom they are already separated by a language barrier, of Boone Carlyle (Ian Somerhalder) and Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace), siblings who snipe at one another constantly and seem ill-equipped to prove themselves useful, and of Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) and his estranged young son Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley). It's even the story of Walt's dog Vincent (Madison), whose disappearance further strains Michael's relationship with his son.

Yes, that's a lot of stories to keep track of, but we meet the characters gradually enough that we're not completely overwhelmed. Because most of these people have never met before, there are plenty of introductions to be made, and we catch glimpses of each character's personality that will be built upon later. There are wonderfully revealing little moments in the midst of the high-octane disaster and the ensuing attempts to settle in safely until they can find a way of contacting civilization, not to mention in the flashbacks to the fateful plane ride itself. We know, as these dazed individuals do not, that they're in it for the long haul and are going to have to work together if they're going to make it. And as if being stranded in the middle of the ocean weren't bad enough, this island boasts several mysteries right here in the pilot: Man-eating monster! Polar bear! Distress call running on a loop for 16 years! Just what kind of place is this, anyway?

LOST presented viewers with an opening chapter so epic and a cast of characters so engaging, it's no wonder legions of fans were born. Now that the third season is wrapping up, the events surrounding the initial crash seem so simple. No Others, no hatch, no evil numbers to worry about... Just a bunch of world-weary folks emerging shakily from a traumatic event, propping each other up and managing to survive until the next set of challenges arises. Truly television at its best.

We May Still Be LOST, But There's Nothing Second-Rate About the Second Season

I knew that I was going to be a big fan of LOST before the show ever started. It was just a gut feeling, a tingly excitement whenever the commercial came on the air. I ended up waiting much longer than I'd intended for confirmation of that fact. But I've often found that when there is an unusual delay in reading a certain book or watching a particular movie or TV series, it seems as though it's been saved for the right time. Maybe it's just to make myself feel better for having been out of the loop for too long, or maybe it's the fact that I haven't had to wait a week between all the episodes, but I really think this was the proper time for me to see LOST. Unfortunately, as hard as I try to make my viewing uninformed by the opinions of those who have seen it already, since I have several friends who are glued to the show week after week, I can't help but pick up a few tidbits. So when we started watching the second season early in November, I was nervous, since the general consensus seemed to be that LOST had jumped the shark already, boasting a second season not nearly as riveting as the first. But the more I watched, the more I wondered, "Okay, when does it start getting crummy?" At the end of the season finale, I was still wondering.

If I'd watched the show right along with everybody else, I may have had a different experience, but as it was, I felt relief. And while there was a certain magic in the first season that may have been slightly depleted in the second, on the whole I was very impressed with season two. It encompasses slightly less time, largely because there are even more people to keep track of than before, and in several episodes they're so scattered that we see the same span of time from multiple perspectives. This approach is interesting and provides all sorts of additional information, though it sometimes becomes tedious to see the same thing over and over. In particular, three intense altercations seem to play out ad nauseam, though this is due in part to the recaps that precede most episodes. I suppose these refreshers are handy with a week between installments, but some clips are shown far more times than necessary, particularly since they tend to be climactic events viewers are unlikely to forget.

In the first season, John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) discovered a hatch, and half the season built up to finding out just what was in it. The revelation at the outset of season two only opens the door to many more questions, but the hatch becomes the centerpiece of the season. The game changes drastically because it veers far from a Robinson Crusoe-type experience of trying to survive in the wild while awaiting a rescue. Yes, this island has always been teeming with mystery. But now, there's a massive underground shelter equipped with stocks of food, a record player, a reel-to-reel tape player, a library... oh, and a computer, into which someone much punch a series of numbers - the same numbers that haunted Hurley (Jorge Garcia) in the first season - every 108 minutes. Or else.

Inhabiting this hatch at the time Locke and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) bust in is Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), a wild-eyed Scotsman who's been stuck alone at his post since his companion's death a month and a half earlier. How anyone could manage to survive that length of time with fewer than two hours at a time in which to do anything, including sleep, is beyond me, but it certainly explains why he seems so unhinged. To top off the weird-o-meter, he and Jack once met back in the "real world," and that is only the first of many interconnecting back stories that we get this season. When Desmond runs off into the jungle, eager to escape the prison that has housed him for so long, Locke diligently takes up his button-pressing duties and sets up a schedule so that the task can be shared. His sense of purpose has shifted, and he believes that this is the task the island was preparing him for. Jack (Matthew Fox), however, isn't so sure, and he and Locke clash repeatedly over Jack's conviction that performing this ritual is of no value. Incidentally, I find it amusing that after Locke went to so much trouble to get into this hatch and climb the long ladder into its dark, mysterious depths, there's a backdoor that opens out into the jungle and scarcely seems hidden at all. A pity no one found that first...

Meanwhile, Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau) make it back to the island with a little help from the wreckage of their raft, which was destroyed in their confrontation with "the Others," who snatched Walt (Malcolm David Kelley). All are in a compromised position, with Michael so enraged he can scarcely think straight, Sawyer hindered by a festering bullet wound and Jin still only understanding a modicum of English and being able to speak far less, though he and Sawyer seem to have worked out a decent communication system of their own. None of them, however, are well equipped to deal with the strangers who place them in captivity upon their arrival on dry land. But as it happens, these are not "the Others"; rather, they are fellow survivors of the very same plane crash, long thought dead, and if their behavior teeters on the hostile, it's because "the Others" have tormented these tailies relentlessly, whittling down their numbers to the point that they live in a constant state of fear and vigilance.

Among these newcomers are several who will become increasingly important as the season wears on. Abrasive Ana-Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) is the ring-leader, a trigger-happy, tough-talking cop who calls the shots, though she's tempered by the mild-mannered Libby (Cynthia Watros) and enigmatic Mr. Eko (Adwale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who is probably the most intriguing addition to the cast. A Nigerian priest with a dark back story, he is reminiscent of Locke as a man marked by unusual physical prowess and a mysterious sense of connection to the island. Eventually, their relationships with the island change due to a shared experience, leading to a dramatic confrontation in the season finale. Also noteworthy: the lost-long Bernard (Sam Anderson), fidgety, devoted husband to the calm, wise Rose (L. Scott Caldwell), whose role is increased in this season.

Different characters are preoccupied by different things in this season. For Locke and Eko, it's the hatch. Michael is obsessed with finding Walt, and Shannon (Maggie Grace) is convinced that she has seen him out in the jungle, though newfound love Sayid (Naveen Andrews) attributes her "vision" to stress. It certainly doesn't help that she loses track of Vincent, the dog Walt entrusted to her. Charlie and Hurley both battle their addictions while seeking romantic attachments. The discovery of a cache of heroin proves a great threat to Charlie's recovery process, and when Claire realizes that he has been hiding his past drug use from her, she loses her trust in him. Hurley, meanwhile, is attracted to the newly arrived Libby, but a sudden overabundance of food tests his self-control while other events call his sanity into question. Sun (Yunjin Kim) remains anxious over Jin's safety, while Kate is still torn between the affections of Jack and Sawyer. But love triangles become the least of everyone's worries when "the Others" become an increasingly tangible threat.

Before the end of the season, we get a good look at the presumed leader (M. C. Gainey), a bearded, hickish-looking fellow who was among the men who kidnapped Walt. He warns them, with a civil smile but growly voice, to stay away, but both sides have suffered losses attributable to "the Others," and Jack and Ana-Lucia begin to plot a possible ambush. We also spend a good deal of time getting to know a man named Henry Gale (Michael Emerson), who claims to be a survivor of a hot air balloon crash. A nebbish, cowering man with a pathetic story to tell, he is pitiable when Sayid drags him to the hatch for a torturous interrogation. In fact, when my dad watched that episode, he didn't much care for Sayid anymore. How is that behavior any more defensible than the atrocities "the Others" are feared to be responsible for? There's a great deal we don't know about Henry, and how the survivors relate to him creates all sorts of ethical dilemmas. Who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys"? Is such a division truly necessary?

One thing I didn't like about the second season was the violence. True, there were many unpleasant happenings in the first season, but most were wrapped up in the mystery of the island. Some suffered fatal accidents, others simply vanished. But as much as tempers flared, particularly amongst Sawyer, Sayid, Jin and Michael, there was little intentional infliction of lasting bodily harm. The second season almost seems a PSA against the NRA. Suddenly there's an overabundance of firearms, and everybody's getting just a little bit too trigger-happy. Hear a noise? Shoot, and hope you get lucky like Sawyer did in the first season and hit a polar bear closing in for the kill. Shoot blindly, because you can't afford to take the time to determine whether the source of the sound is malevolent. Shoot passionately, because you have all that power right there in your hand and you can. Heaven help anyone who ticks you off with those guns in reach. Locke tries to keep a lock on most of the weapons, but as fear and anger bubbles up, the island becomes increasingly dangerous, homicidal tendencies are unearthed in surprising places, and the list of known murderers among the castaways becomes ever longer.

The second season is in many ways uglier than the first, less marked by a sense of innate goodness in humanity, and while the mysteries persist, we begin to get the sense there are many practical answers to be found where mysticism was expected. The season finale drops a bombshell that explains a major event in a way that seems to deny destiny, implying instead a random coincidence. But there are far too many convenient entanglements amongst those who have found themselves on the island for me to believe that any of it was totally random. I am reminded of other stories exploring these themes, and I always come to the conclusion that certain events and characters come together for a reason. Bilbo Baggins was meant to stumble into that deep, dark cave and find the Ring and spare Gollum's life. Those four turtles were meant to be in the sewer when that mysterious green ooze found its way there. (Can you tell I'm gearing up for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie?) That airplane was meant to crash on the island, with its specific combination of characters. And I was meant to watch LOST unfold just enough behind schedule to be pleasantly surprised by the quality of its second season.