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player ready...‘Lost” is back.
Well, to be specific, “Lost” is leaving — temporarily. It has one more outing 8 p.m. Thursday on WLS-Ch. 7, then the ABC drama takes a break until it returns with five additional episodes starting April 24.
What I mean is, “Lost” is back. It’s back to being a fascinating, meaningful, surprising, clever, infuriating and utterly unmissable drama. It’s back to being a show that keeps you up past your bedtime talking to your fellow couch potatoes, deciphering clues and scanning message boards for insightful comments or ranting about your least favorite plot twist.
Though I think the last two outings of the show were on the weak side, there’s no doubt that “Lost” has more than delivered the goods this season.
That phone call between Desmond and Penny in the Feb. 28 episode — what a classic “Lost” moment. It was full of heartbreak, hope and confusion (if you can figure exactly where and when both characters were, you deserve a PhD).
We not only got that for-the-ages episode, this season we also saw Sayid as a brooding, Jason Bourne-style assassin, and we met a bunch of deliciously intriguing new characters, including the twitchy Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) and the aggressive Miles (the terrifically intense Ken Leung).
We mourned Charlie while getting a memorable last visit from him. Hurley unleashed not just some great quips, but he also played an unexpected trick on the hapless Kate. And for a while anyway, we saw the return of the Col. Kurtz-style John Locke.
Frankly, I had almost given up on “Lost.” Former Seattle Post-Intelligencer critic Melanie McFarland once wrote that she was in a “loveless marriage” with “Lost,” and that’s where the show and I were heading. I yearned for the magical spark that went missing as the show mired itself in useless flashbacks and ominous portents that went nowhere.
But then with the Season 3 finale, which featured a flashforward instead of the usual flashback, “Lost” got its mojo back, in a big way.
The show is back to doing what it does best — messing with our heads and our expectations (in ways that usually work) and brilliantly fleshing out characters. Thanks to the mostly ingenious time games Season 4 has played, “Lost” has kept us guessing, and the off-island scenes are now often the most exciting parts of the drama.
The result: “Lost,” we’re not in a loveless marriage anymore. Even when you tick me off, I know it’s worth sticking around. And if I get on your case, it’s only because I care.
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