LOST returns.

my relationship with LOST was not an intentional one. i started watching sophomore year for two reasons:

1. some of my new compadres at k-state watched every week on wednesday night and i wanted to fit in.

2. a total babe asked me if i wanted to watch the first season with her.

i didn't watch much television when i was a kid (and by kid i mean before i turned 20) and i had only been committed to one other television show prior to 2005, so when she asked me if i wanted to watch i didn't really know what i was getting myself into. i assumed that i would sit down and enjoy the show, but never did i realize that i would be enthralled as much as i was. i ended up taking the first season home, turning the couch in my living room so that it was about 6 feet from the tv, and parking myself there until 5 am until john, jack, hurley and kate busted open the hatch (only to find out later that there was a secret backdoor the whole time).

since that day the relationship has been rather hot and cold. i started watching the show every week at first, but it became so frustrating that i had to stop. so many questions and never an answer. so i quit watching until season two came out on dvd. my roommates and i pooled our money very unevenly (40-40-10-5-5), bought it, and watched it in a week before season 3 started up. cue relapse and bring on the addiction.

and so it goes with season 3 and now season 4. get bored with it on tv, wait til the next season is about to begin and frantically catch up. addiction, dissatisfaction, relapse, addiction.

so i'm all caught up and fully expecting a moment of dissatisfaction just around the river bend*, but here are the few things that will forever ring true in the world of LOST for me:

- the moment that will forever stand as the Greatest LOST Moment Ever: when Arzt blows himself up at the black rock while lecturing about how temperamental dynamite is. also wins Greatest Insignificant Character Development and Greatest Character Death Ever on Television**.

- there has never been a better show to sit down and watch back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-etc than LOST.

- best decision the writers ever made: killing off shannon. her voice is like an alarm clock with no snooze button.

- never has there been a show to cast more awful female actresses than LOST. examples: maggie grace as shannon, michelle rodriguez as ana lucia, elizabeth mitchell as juliet, shannon again.

- walt will always be the coolest character on the show.

- best use of dramatizing various shrill orchestral noises on a television show ever.

i think that's the list. or at least a few points that i find extremely important to the success of the show. i'm glad that LOST is back in my life for the time being. hope i didn't throw out any spoilers by mistake...knowing that shannon dies isn't necessarily a "spoiler" though. more of a "sigh of relief" so that you know she'll get what's coming to her at some point and you can look forward to it.

-ap.

* - beyond the shore. somewhere past the sea. ** - not to be confused with Greatest Character Death Ever in Cinema - that would go to the guy who gets another guy's throat chucked at his face and then stabbed in the chest in the pinnacle battle in the original Blade.