Will You be 'Lost' Tonight?

I will be, although I can't decide whether to be excited about the season premiere which kicks off the final season of Lost, or if I should keep my expectations low.

Fans of the show seem to be largely of two minds:

1. The final season can't possibly meet expectations and provide "reasonable" answers to the main questions that will make all these hours of head-scratching TV viewing worth it. (This is my husband's position.)

OR

2. Since the writers had a series end date in mind, they must've thoroughly thought this all through and will deliver a conclusion to Lost that will leave us fans feeling satisfied. (This is my hopeful position.)

Among the naysayers is Boston Globe writer, Mark Feeney, who wrote that in order to continue to embrace the show through its various ups and downs, you'd need to be a fan of what he called, "implausibility porn" and be okay with that. "We all like a dollop, or more, of implausibility," he said. "Otherwise why bother with superheroes and infallible private eyes and Jedi knights. But even in a galaxy far, far away, the basic rules of cause and effect are expected to apply."

For Feeney, those rules of "cause and effect" were violated on Lost when he felt as though he could no longer suspend his disbelief while observing all these coincidences, specifically last season's scene when Desmond Hume happened to arrive "in Los Angeles to see [Daniel] Faraday’s mother at the exact same instant Ben, Jack, and Sun show up." That was it for Feeney, he wrote, adding, ". . . [I]t was the serendipity that broke the camel’s back. This wasn’t wallowing. This was drowning."

So, where do we go from here? I'm optimistic that there won't be horrific shark jumping in the final season. (*fingers crossed and knocking on wood*) We left off in the 1970s with a grieviously wounded Juliet flailing away at the H-bomb with a rock hoping the bomb would detonate and, essentially, re-set the clock and alter future events. Was Jack right about his prediction that setting off this bomb would be a good thing?

ABC has released a teaser video which they named, "Message in a Bottle." However if you are averse to spoilers, do not, I repeat, do not watch the video. You've been warned.

'Lost:' All Five Seasons in 8 Minutes 15 Seconds

Feeling like you're not quite ready for Lost's new season and perhaps could use a little refresher before the final season premieres next month? ABC has created a video which rapidly (and humorously) summarizes the head-scratching insanity that is Lost. It's not as clever as the quirky, action figure fueled Lost Untangled videos ABC wound up creating last season when all that time traveling business got brain-numbingly confusing and people started to complain, but it does its job of providing a CliffNotes recap for the award-winning series reasonably well.

However if you have never seen Lost before -- what the heck are you waiting for? -- don't watch this video. I strongly recommend that you start with season one episode one. It'll be a much better experience that way.

'Lost' Supper? What Does These Promo Photos Mean?

Stumbled across a new Lost promotional image on Pop Candy this morning with the cast of Lost posed to resemble Jesus and his disciples in Da Vinci's famous painting, The Last Supper.

While I was trying to absorb the imagery (ruins of a Dharma building, gun under the table, a skull . . . maybe? Is that supposed to be a cross over Jack Shephard's left shoulder?), I saw the twin promo photo, where the castmates are all looking at the dead-not-dead "Locke," with a few of the people sitting in different places (Claire, Sun, Jin and Miles).

The New York Times' TV blogger Dave Itzkoff points out that in both images Sayid is standing where Judas stood (I would've thought Ben Linus would've been put in this position) and that Locke is smiling in the image when everyone's looking at him but not in the one where everyone's looking straight ahead.

What does this Locke-as-Jesus photo mean with the Losties sitting behind a table fashioned out of an airplane wing?

Image credit: ABC via Pop Candy and via the New York Times.

THIS 'Lost' Promo Has Me Anxious for Feb. 2

Unlike the new Sex and the City 2 trailer, which left me feeling as flat as stale champagne, this latest one for Lost: The Final Season, was riveting.

". . . Every great story must have an end. Everything you questioned, everyone you loved, everything leads to one date, Tuesday Feb. 2nd. It's the beginning of the end."

The last image was of the interior ceiling of a passenger airplane as the "fasten seatbelts" sign was illuminated.

They're raising expectations pretty high over there at ABC. The final season had better live up to them.

ABC Releases New 'Lost' Promos for Final Season, Highlights Romance

"I had her. And I lost her." -- Jack Shephard

"Soldier of Love."

Seriously. That's the title of the new Lost promo that ABC has released to promote the sixth season premiere on February 2. The video emphasizes the Lost love stories. Jack and Kate. Kate and Sawyer. Sawyer and Juliet. Charlie and Claire. Sun and Jin. Makes ya kind of sad given what we last saw of Juliet in the closing moments of the season five finale.



For those who aren't so thrilled with the romantic angle, there's the Amazing Grace promo that was also released by ABC:



Or you could just go with an old school promo, with grand, dramatic music in the background and the important-sounding voice-over:



Watching these promos provides me with a solid distraction from the fact that there's still a gaping hole in my week that goes unfilled by Don Draper & Co. Sunday nights aren't the same. However once Lost is back with new, mind-boggling episodes in February, the week will seem all the better.