2008 Winter TV Preview: Lost

Lost - Season 4

Premieres: Wednesday, January 31st at 8:00 p.m. EST (2-hour premiere)

Network: ABC

Creator(s): Damon Lindelof, J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber

Starring:: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O’Quinn, Naveen Andrews, Jorge Garcia, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim

Website: ABC.com

Lost, probably the most confounding series to hit primetime…ever, is the story of the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, which crashed onto a mysterious island back in 2004. When the show first premiered, many people thought it would be a straightforward story about what happens when you’re stuck on an island with a group of strangers trying to survive—Until a polar bear started running around unscathed by the tropical sun and a monster showed up and started eating people. Suddenly, it was a whole different ballgame.

At its core, Lost is a desert-island survival story. It just happens to have smoke monsters, and experiments and people in nice houses who have book clubs and die when they get pregnant. At the end of the third season, after many deaths, battles with The Others, and aborted escape attempts, it looked as though the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 were finally getting off the island. The season finale changed the game by showing flash forwards instead of the show’s signature flashbacks. What the flash forwards show is that while some of the main characters did indeed make it off the island, it may not have been the best idea. The season ended eight months ago with an anguished Jack telling Kate that “We have to go back.”

OMGLostiscomingback! Okay, it’s pretty exciting. I’ve been with this show since the beginning, and while it’s made me bang my head against the wall many times, I still love it. The writers strike has truncated this season, giving us only 8 episodes instead of the promised 16, but I’m determined not to think about how angry I’m going to be 8 weeks from now and just concentrate on how happy I’m going to be on Thursday. Season 3 started out weak (the 6 episodes before the hiatus really disappointed me) but came back better than ever. I’m pretty sure I peed a little during the finale. Season 4 should be intense, as we’re going to get a mix of present day, flashbacks and flash forwards.

Part of the fun of Lost is discussing it with other people, dissecting all of the clues hidden throughout the episode and finding ones you missed. Blend Television is hosting a Lost chat on Thursday, starting a half-hour before the premiere, at 7:30. Be sure to click here to access the chat before, during or after the episode airs.