September 21, 2005, 8:12 a.m.
Get Lost
Preparing for a second-season obsession.

I have no idea what's down The Hatch, on the Emmy-winning TV show Lost. Nor do I have any special theories about The Others," or that maddening string of numbers: 4-8-15-16-23-42.

But I do know that the invisible thingamajig that terrorizes our favorite group of castaways since Gilligan's Island may not be invisible after all. It just might have black tentacles.

I know this because I own Lost: The Complete First Season on DVD. During a slow-motion replay of the final-episode scene of Locke being dragged through the jungle and yanked into a hole, it looks like there's a black cord wrapped around his leg. A botched stunt device that viewers aren't supposed to see? Or a hidden clue that's meant to feed speculation among obsessed fans? If this article were a radio talk show, I'd open the phone lines right now.

I'm a Lost> newbie. I missed the show entirely during its first run. But one night this spring, after my wife and I had gotten the kids to bed, we flipped on the television and caught the first episode in rerun. When the hour was over, we were hooked on this cross between Survivor (with its island hardships and shifting factions of characters) and The Twilight Zone (with its weird enigmas). We watched Lost all summer long, and then raced through the last few episodes when the DVDs came out earlier this month — all in preparation for the second-season premiere this Wednesday at 9 P.M. EST on ABC.

Here's why I like Lost: Every episode gives viewers something substantial to think over and discuss, whether it's a new puzzle about the island or a revelation about a character's life before the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. I'm not familiar with another TV program that's so ripe for Thursday-morning water-cooler conversation — a 21st-century version of the 19th-century serial novel. Moreover, the acting is good and the writing is solid. When this show was being pitched, some TV executive must have complained that there's no way the audience could keep track of more than a dozen characters. Yet Lost succeeds, through a deft combination of mystery, drama, and humor.

Because of this, Lost has performed the trick of attracting both a popular audience as well as a cult following. I never watched Twin Peaks or The X-Files, but Lost feels like a similar phenomenon, only now it's fueled by the Internet. There are a lot of websites devoted to it, many of them brimming with addictive gossip, sophisticated conjecture, and detailed plot summaries. This one, this one, and this one appear to be pretty good.

The biggest mystery of all may have nothing to do with the bizarre happenings on a strange island, but rather the simple matter of whether Lost can remain good for much longer. A lot of fans were disappointed by the first season's concluding episode because it concluded so little, raising new questions without really answering any of the old ones. Season finales often feature cliffhangers, of course, but they also tend to deliver a few payoffs. Lost, however, was all tease, tease, tease.

Will its writers find an ingenious way to satisfy viewers and also coax them back for more? Or will they now stretch the franchise past its breaking point in a desperate bid to keep the program afloat for as long as possible? The example of Alias, which shares a link to Lost through creator J.J. Abrams, is not encouraging. It enjoyed a strong first season but has become increasingly ridiculous and now merely sputters along on the fumes of Jennifer Garner's personal celebrity. This fall, in case you're the only person in America who hasn't heard, Garner is going to be The Spy Who Came in from the Maternity Ward. (No, that's not the title of John le Carre's next novel.)

The good news may that Lost has a plan — a blueprint for how the series will unfold over time. At least that's what one of its masterminds says during an interview filmed for the Season One DVD.

Here's the bad news: It's a five-year plan, and the history of five-year plans is not exactly inspirational.

So I'm going to sign up for another season of Lost — and hope that when two dozen episodes have come and gone once more, I don't feel like I've been left stranded.

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