Broken Frontier

After more then eight months Lost has finally returned, and in just five episodes it’s already reminded me why it’s my favorite show.

This season picks up right where the last one left off. There are two enormous twists in the storyline that have altered the show dramatically. The first is that "rescuers" have managed to land on the island. I say rescuers in quotes because they’ve made it clear that saving the survivors of the crash is not their main objective. The second major change is that instead of splicing the island storyline with flashbacks of the survivors, they’ve changed it to flash-forwards, in which six of the survivors, appropriately named ‘the Oceanic Six’, are back in the real world. Not all of the members of the Oceanic Six have been revealed yet, and they all share a common secret that hasn’t been revealed yet. Some speculations are that there are survivors still on the island and the Oceanic Six are lying about them all being dead for some reason. Whether or not that’s what the people on the island want them to say is yet to be determined.

The other lingering question (and by that I mean a question that has a potential of being answered in the near future, unlike many of the mysteries on Lost), is about Ben’s connection to someone on the rescuers’ boat. He claims he has a man on the boat that’s monitoring what their doing and we’ve seen this person help the survivors that are on the boat. I have strong suspicions that Ben’s man on the boat is Michael. The actor who plays Michael, Harold Perrineau Jr., has had his name in the opening credits all season but has yet to make an appearance. We’re supposed to find out who it is in the next episode and I’ll bet my cat it’s Michael.

Then there is the whole bit with the rescuers. They seem to know quite a bit about the island and about Ben, but no one quite knows what their intentions are yet. In the last episode we were told that they’re being employed by Penny’s father, Charles Widmore (Desmond’s girlfriend), and Ben claims he’s trying to exploit the island. Locke seems to believe this, but we all know what comes fro trusting Ben. Each of the rescuers seems to have a different task. One is an anthropologist, one is a medium, and one is a physicist. How these jobs combine is anyone’s guess.

A big theory being thrown around this season involved time travel. There are websites dedicated to this sole theory (which isn’t really saying much, because there are sites for a myriad of theories, including one that suggests all the survivors are made of marshmallow Peeps). Slowly more and more evidence is being revealed that leads to time travel. One instance was the appearance of a polar bear from a long time ago with a Dharma collar on it. Another was Desmond’s flashback episode where his mind was getting stuck in between two time periods, 1996 and the present. While everyone was waiting for that one ‘Ah-ha!’ answer, such as, ‘They’re all really dead!’, time travel isn’t really it. This will require a bit more thinking. I suddenly envision long discussions about Schrödinger's cat around the water cooler. While it’s a brilliant theory, I think many fans are afraid the show might run out of steam before finally arriving at a solid conclusion.

Lots of fans are concerned with how the writers’ strike will affect the show. With such a long hiatus, fans are bound to be upset when they have to wait for the new episodes to shoot. Many fans will remember the gap in season three that outraged many fans. In this case the reason for the break is a good one, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. And with a reported eight episodes set to air, it’s not going to be long before fans have to go without Lost once again. There is mixed information as to whether or not more episodes are being made for the fourth season. Some sources say more episodes are being filmed, while others say that the writers’ strike put the show beyond the Rubicon for this season.

Fans will also notice that ABC boldly moved the time the show airs. The changed the Wednesday 10 o’clock time slot to Thursdays at 9. This puts it up against hits on other channels such as CBS’s Grey Anatomy, and NBC’s The Office. Will the new time slot be a good fit for the show, or will ABC change it in a month. No one can say for sure.

So Lost is back, and it’s just as good as it’s ever been. If not better. The season premiere was packed with all the mystery and intrigue that made you fall in love with the show in the first place. Along with all the flaws like, how is it everyone knows how to track people in a forest, and if you have someone that knows answers why not put a gun to their head until they tell you everything they know?! All kidding aside, with this new approach to how the story is told, and with all the new twists and turns, this is the show that everyone’s talking about. Again.