Lost! No "Snappy Title" Puns Included.

Well, well. Lost is back, after some nine-odd months, and I am personally quite pleased with this occurrence. I enjoy Lost. It's a good sci-fi, a good myth, a good character study, and a good serial. Perhaps it's a good allegory as well, who knows? We should be finding out soon just how allegorical (or not) it is. Sure, it had the one bad season, like every other show on the planet (except, to date, other one-name wonder Life), but if you haven't bothered with Lost because you've heard all kinds of crazy stuff about it being, well, crazy, I'd urge you to pick up season 1 and reconsider.

Here's the thing: Lost is good/great TV. You can enjoy it without sinking yourself in, or obsessing over, the raft of theories that surround it. You probably won't enjoy it as much if you insist that the mysteries of the show must be either purely scientific or purely supernatural. It is what it is, which is mostly a well-built mythology that reminds me of (and, I think, borrows more than a bit from) Stephen King's Dark Tower books. Of course, not every question was answered with finality in The Dark Tower. Dum dum duuuuum!

That being said, that you can enjoy Lost without obsessing over theories, there's a lot in the show that makes for interesting analyzing; it's a rich story, and well thought out. For that stuff, I like to sit back and let Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen do the leg work. He's an excellent analyst, and not rabid or fanatic about one theory over the other, and he always has something to write that's worth reading. If you are into Lost, and up to speed on all the seasons, check out 'Doc' Jensen's pre-season commentary for some sound thoughts on, in particular, those crazy Dharma Initiative videos (Ma'iq the Liar, anyone?). The Doc also does a post-episode analysis on a weekly basis, though I imagine us in Canada with no cable will be behind on those now, because apparently everyone else got to watch the season premiered with two episodes instead of the one aired locally. Boo-urns.