TV is the New Reading

Have I ‘LOST’ my addiction?

Like junkies in the wake of their dealer’s arrest, “LOST” fanatics have been wandering around aimlessly on Wednesday nights, hoping for something, anything, to provide the kind of emotional connection they got from ABC’s hit series, pretty much since last May.

Oh, there was the keening in the wake of the hatch explosion. The withdrawal symptoms that began once the rush subsided from the blindfolds being whipped off the castaways. The longing that followed Michael and Walt sailing out of sight. And then there were the pins and needles waiting to find out what exactly that listening station picked up in Siberia, and the midnight call to Desmond’s lady love – seeming proof that what happens on the island doesn’t necessarily stay on the island.

There was a flush of adrenaline that attended the first confusing episodes of the third season back in September. The hungering for new developments and the wild-eyed speculation as to what was going on with The Others. Why can Desmond suddenly tell the future? Where the heck did Nikki and Paolo come from? Why is absolutely nothing happening with Jack, Kate and Sawyer in separate cages? Why is everything so unnecessarily confusing?

Rather than slaking our hunger, the six-week burst of programming proved to be a handful of unsubstantial crumbs. The producers didn’t want to answer any questions at all in this tiny taste of things to come. They just wanted to string us all along until next Wednesday, when the third season of “LOST” resumes at its new time of 9 p.m., following a one-hour special to bring people up to speed, scheduled to air at 8 p.m.

Addiction

They’ve not actually developed a patch for “LOST” addiction, but between the summer hiatus and the last three months of static, a lot of people may in fact have completed “LOST” rehab.

Will we tune in again?

Well, part of why ABC chose to structure its programming the way it did was all the viewer complaints last year about endless reruns. Viewers would tune in for their weekly “LOST” fix and as often as not, it was just another repeat. Plus, it was usually a Season Two repeat, which was when the flashbacks became increasingly lame and uninformative and were kind of a slog the first time around.

So this year there’s no repeats. It’s new episodes now all the way through May.

And there’s reason to suspect that if we do tune in, someone might actually talk about what the heck happened with that hatch.

First, however, the castaways have to regroup, so the first episode will probably just be Kate and Jack and Sawyer running around, which I personally find to be extremely boring. Chase sequences are rarely enlivening, especially when you have no idea what’s actually motivating the pursuers. Right now it seems if they lost Kate and Sawyer they’d have two fewer people picking rocks and playing their stupid mind games. And does it really matter if Ben dies from the operation or from the tumor, which Jack already said was inoperable in a real hospital setting, let alone this unreasonable facsimile?

The story needs to straighten itself out more than a little, and I for one am tempted to stay strong and continue living clean. But if I’m honest, Wednesday night probably will find me tuning in – even if just during the commercial breaks for “Medium.”

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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