Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few months, you know that the WGA strike played havoc with a lot of shows’ programming schedules. Lost was definitely one of them. What was originally going to be a 16 episode season was, briefly, only going to air the first batch of 8 episodes. Then, when the strike lifted, the opportunity arose for a slightly more complete season of 13 episodes.

Word is that Lost producers are in talks with ABC to extend the season by an extra hour. This excites me for a whole host of reasons. First, and most obvious, I’m always up for more Lost.

Secondly, though, to me this means that they don’t have enough room to tell their story in 13 episodes. This points to something that should excite every Lost fan in the room…less filler! If there’s one huge flaw about Lost, it’s that, in previous seasons, it’s spent too much time doing nothing. Hopefully, the producers’ desire to have a bit more time to really tell the story illustrates a tighter season…without wasteful episodes like last year’s “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead”.

The big question that arises, then, is one of scheduling. If Lost is to return on April 24, then that places the current finale right in the middle of sweeps, on May 22. Obviously, the network is not going to air a finale after sweeps week. Will they bump the return date up? Or maybe air an episode on a different night (like one episode Wednesday night, and the next episode on Thursday)? Or lump two episodes together into a two-hour finale? My money’s on that one.

Now none of this is set in stone, so it could change at any moment. But I think it’s definitely good news all around.

Season 4, Episode 8 - Meet Kevin Johnson

So last night saw the last episode of “Block One” of Season 4, and also heralded the return of Michael, who we haven’t seen in almost two full years. I really enjoyed the structure of this episode…rather than hopping back and forth off the island, we had a solid block of flashforward, bookended by our island time. Last year’s Desmond-centric “Flashes Before Your Eyes” did the same thing, and I think it’s a nice breath of fresh air to mix it up.

The semi-major revelation was the fact that, somehow, the island has some kind of far-reaching abilities. There have been several events that have happened off the island that have seemed a bit contrived, but now we see that the island somehow can control events extra-island events. For example, if a person as more work to do, the island will not let that person commit suicide. That explains why Jack couldn’t jump off the bridge in last season’s finale. I think I like it…I’m not sure. The idea that, once you’re caught up in this island’s net, you can’t get out…it has some serious consequences for our castaways.

We can finally be assured of what the freighter’s true objective is…they are there to wipe out everyone on the island. Apparently Mr. Widmore has his sights set on the island for some reason, and is determined to kill everyone who knows anything about it. I wonder…has he been intrigued about the island for a while, and his daughter’s lover, Desmond, just happened to stumble upon it…after crashing while competing in a race that Widmore himself arranged? He sure did go to a lot of effort to throw off the chase, knowing that 815 crashed there…what with digging up bodies, buying a 777 airliner and dressing it up Oceanic-style, and sinking it where no one could ever hope to resurrect it.

Anyway, it would appear that not everyone on the boat shares this evil intent. Frank, who seems to be the resident expert on Flight 815 (though he didn’t recognize Michael…curious), is interested in saving the survivors. I hate that we didn’t get to see any of Faraday…and Miles, assuming he sticks around, could become my favorite character on the show.

One thing that I really appreciated was that we know that Ben is telling the truth while the islanders don’t. He’s sitting there telling them that the people on the boat are only there for one purpose…to kill every person on the island. For once, the audience is saying, “Listen to Ben!” How did he become the protagonist all of a sudden…

…or is he? Saying that he wanted to protect Alex, he sent her away to “the Temple”, presumably another DHARMA station, and Danielle and Karl followed her. Once they get there, they come under sniper fire, and Alex’s mother and boyfriend are both, possibly, killed. First of all, surely Danielle isn’t dead. I mean, come on, it’s the French Chick…she’s been a pretty huge player so far…and the only send off she gets is an episode with a handful of lines and getting shot down? I don’t think so. Karl’s a loser, though, so who really cares? Next, who is/are the shooter/s? Surely Ben wouldn’t have sent his daughter on a death march. Could it be the freighter team? They haven’t struck me as a shoot first, ask questions later group.

Can you imagine if this episode was the last bit of Lost that we would get in 2008? Talk about unfulfilling…man, I am so glad we’ve got more new episodes coming our way. I really enjoyed it…no real gripes to speak of. Only a month left until it returns in its new post-Grey’s slot.

Episode grade: A-

Season 4, Episode 7 - Ji Yeon

The past few episodes have been a bit of a relative slump for this season. While the first few installments really seemed to start off with a bang, the previous two weeks have seemed to be…well…filler. Ji Yeon, unfortunately, continues that tradition.

In the “main” storyline, Sun convinces Jin that they should not leave the island, and they decide to join in Locke’s camp. Juliet pleads with Sun to leave the island for the sake of her baby…and finally reveals the secret of Sun’s affair to her husband. This results in them staying in Camp Jack. And then they all make up and everyone’s okay. So the characters are in the exact same place as they were when they began the episode. Zero character development = filler.

Elsewhere, Desmond and Sayid are still stuck on the freighter. They receive a note from the mysterious mole on the boat, telling them not to trust the captain. They meet said captain, who reveals that the boat is the property of one Charles Widmore, the father of Des’ beloved Penny. Some chick commits suicide. The captive duo are then lead to their new, roach-infested, blood-stained quarters. This lead to my favorite moment of the episode…the return of Michael, in the guise of janitor Kevin Johnson. I love the barely contained surprise, and somewhat rage, between the characters.

Then, in the flashbacks and flashforwards, we discovered that Sun had a baby girl, named Ji Yeon. Somewhere however, apparently between the “rescue” and the baby’s birth, Jin met some kind of untimely end.

And that’s really it. There weren’t any major revelations…we already knew the freighter was Widmore’s boat, and that they were not really there to rescue the castaways. We already knew that there was wreckage of Oceanic 815 that has been recovered. Granted, these revelations were made to new characters, and that new information has new meaning for them. But, since the series has a finite end in sight, this show has to continue to dish out answers and continue to push the narrative forward. This episode did neither of those things.

Episode grade: C+

UPDATE

So when I was watching the show, I saw all of the dates on the tombstone except for the important one, I guess. Take a look at this picture…especially the date on the far right.

Click to enlarge

Jin’s date of death is actually listed as 2004-9-22…which, for us Americans who don’t read dates like everyone else in the world, translates to September 22, 2004. Sound familiar? That’s the date of the Oceanic 815 crash.

Jin is not one of the Oceanic 6. So now I’m confused…it was teased that we would know the identities of all the Oceanic 6…but Jin seems to have never left the island. Did they consider little prenatal Ji Yeon to be one of the survivors, too?

Now that we have something to talk about, I may have to bump my review up to a B.

TV Jab cowriter Michael and I have had many a conversation about Lost, and its ability to have a satisfactory ending. His concern, as well as many other fan’s, I’m sure, has been that the only way that the show can end is to go with the “it’s all a dream” ending, which has been done to death in everything from St. Elsewhere to Newhart (now there’s a throwback for you). On this weeks official Lost podcast, producer Damon Lindelof gave a definitive answer on that very issue…

“We’re not interested in ‘all a dream’ storytelling…You can have dreams on the show, but you won’t ever have a character waking up, going ‘it’s all in a snowglobe’…we can confirm that Lost is not all a dream.”

Now, I guess you can start with the “he said it wasn’t a dream…but it could be something like the Matrix” argument, but I choose to believe that we can rule out that, in my opinion, lazy plot device. It’s safe to say that what these characters are experiencing is real…in some form.

Oh, yeah, and Lost is on tonight, and we officially find out who Ben has on the boat (though that doesn’t exactly take any powers of divination to figure out), as well as the final two members of the Oceanic Six.

I’ll admit, I’ve never been a huge comic book nut, but the forthcoming Iron Man flick has me really pumped. With Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role and with Jon Favreau in the directors chair, it’s got the makeup of something great. Plus, the previews have been incredibly awesome.

The newest trailer will be shown during this week’s Lost, a Desmond-centric episode entitled The Contrast. So there’s one commercial break that you won’t have to fast-forward through.

Lost is on Thursday night at 9/8c. Iron Man premieres May 2.

Season 4, Episode 4 - Eggtown

Broken record time…this is the best season of Lost yet. No doubt about it. It’s almost like the show has been reinvented, and its new form is just as good, if not better, than before.

Tonight’s episode was a Kate-centric flash forward, dealing with her trial, post-rescue. I know there has been some speculation that Kate may not actually be one of the Oceanic Six, but that she somehow snuck her way off the island. That can be laid to rest.

We discover in the early moments of the show, also, that Kate has a son, which will lead to a BIG reveal at the end.

On the island, Kate is determined to figure out what Miles knows about her past. He tells her that he will give her all she wants to know if he can just have one minute with Ben.

Being the hoochie that I’m coming to realize that she is, Kate enlists Sawyer to distract Locke while she sneaks Miles into Ben’s cell. Miles reveals that he is willing to lie to the people on the boat and tell them that Ben is dead in exchange for $3.2 million. Like Ben said, why this specific amount? Also, Ben seemed pretty nervous about the “him” that Miles works for. Hanso, maybe?

After she is discovered and banished by Locke, she ends up in bed with Sawyer, and them skips out on him the next morning, heading back to be with Jack’s group. I loved his comment about her inevitably getting pissed at Jack and coming back to Sawyer, along with her subsequent reaction…a slap across the face.

The off-island events didn’t hold my interest as much as the other episodes have this season. Granted, it was interesting to see that the survivors had developed some kind of cover story…that they crashed in the water and they were the only six to survive. But the rest seemed a bit too much like filler. Maybe it had something to do with the strange wardrobe choice for Kate. The high-collared, early-1900’s style was kind of weird.

I’ll admit, the ending got me. I was trying to understand the timeline and try to figure out who the father of Kate’s baby was. I was actually expecting for her to go upstairs and we find Sawyer…but the ending we got was phenomenal. Apparently, Kate has taken custody of Aaron, Claire’s baby. Did Claire meet an untimely end on the island and Kate stepped in…or did she just ask Kate to take the baby with her? I’m so intrigued.

Also, this is a perfect example of how this show can make a scene play one way, and then, when you go back and watch it again, it has a completely different message. Remember the scene where Claire is asking Kate to hold Aaron? Kate is hesitant, and at this point, the audience thinks it’s because she has a son of her own and misses him. But now we realize that she is being honest…she really is uncomfortable with children…which really says something about her being willing to take care of Aaron later on. Beautiful.

As for this next part, it didn’t really fit into the recap, but I absolutely LOVED the throw-back to Season 2 in the hatch with Ben and Locke. Ben plays mind games, Locke loses his temper and throws his plate of food, and Ben smiles evilly. Another one of those nuances that I love about this show.

All in all, this was my least favorite episode of the season. But the worst episode of the best season still puts it right on top.

A-

While our good buddy Drew is out of pocket today, I’ll be filling in with the “Lost’ report. Drew loves the show, while I am only “in like” with it - but last nights episode was engaging and interesting. I am more interested in Lost than I have been in a very long time, and its episodes like this that keep me tuning in.

This episode focused on Sayid - and by the way SPOILERS AHEAD - who joins Hurley, Jack, and Kate as members of the “Oceanic Six”. While everyone else was arguing over the revelation that the “rescue team” was looking for Ben, Sayid noticed that the recently deceased Naomi was wearing a bracelet that read “I’ll always be with you. R.G.”.

Meanwhile, in the future, Sayid has become an assassin, killing people that are on a list made by his employer.

Back on the island Sayid heads up a group consisting of Kate and Miles to go rescue Charlotte from Locke’s team. If they do Jeff Fayhe agrees to take Sayid and two others to his ship.

It is also discovered throughout the episode that there is a 31 minute time gap between the outside world and the island.

To keep this recap brief, Sayid makes contact with Locke’s team, and reaches and agreement, trading Miles for Charlotte and returns to the location of the helicopter. Kate decides to stay behind with Locke’s team.

In the future, Sayid has fallen in love with a woman he is supposed to be using to get to another person on the list. It goes bad, and he discovers he’s been dupped, and she is not the innocent woman he thought she was. She shoots him in the arm, and he responds by shooting her in the chest - twice.

He looks at her as she dies, and grabs her wrist, looking at the same bracelet that Naomi had on earlier in the episode (or the same kind, anyway).

On the island, Sayid and Desmond, along with Naomi’s body, load up on the helicopter and head out to the ship. The last thing we see here is Sayid staring out at the water as they leave the island.

Back in the future, Sayid goes to a Veterinarian to get his gunshot would fixed. We see that he is talking to his boss - a man you may be familiar with - his name is Ben. He reminds Sayid that killing the people on this list is helping his friends. Just which friends we don’t know….

Very good stuff. i can’t wait to see what happens next.

If your significant other is as enamored with the soon-to-be ABC Thursday night lineup as you are…these are the e-cards for you.

Over at this link, you can pick from a selection of cards from Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy and Lost to send to your true love. As you can see, I prefer Hurley.

Hey, look…another Lost story! And it’s not even Thursday yet!

One of the big questions when it was announced that Lost would jump to the Grey’s Anatomy spot on Thursdays was what would happen when Grey’s returned after the strike. ABC has announced that, once the stars align and Grey’s and Lost are both showing new episodes in April, Grey’s will return to the 9/8c slot, and Lost will move to the later slot of 10/9c.

Sidenote…has there ever been a show that jumped around as much as Lost? It started Wednesdays at 8, then moved to 9, and then to 10, then back to 9, then to Thursdays at 9, and then to Thursdays at 10. It’s amazing that it has retained any viewers.

Anyway, back on topic. Another interesting bit is that, since episode 7 apparently makes a more “logical” break, it’s likely that we could be looking at episode 8 to kick off the second block of episodes. That also provides for two sets of episodes that are less lopsided.

The new timeslot puts Lost against Without a Trace on CBS and ER on NBC. Could be pretty stiff competition. But with the powerful block of Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy and Lost, ABC could become the force to be reckoned with on Thursday nights.

Now that the strike is officially resolved, shows are gearing up to get back into production. One of the biggest question marks has been the fate of Lost. Executive Producer Carlton Cuse chatted with TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello about what lies ahead for the ABC drama.

As has been previously reported, the team will be producing five more episodes of the show. Depending on your opinon, that could be a good thing or a bad thing…personally, I think it’s a good move. Cuse did confirm also that there would likely be a break of about four weeks between the current run of episodes and the launch of the new batch. While I’m not crazy about this, it’s understandable…four weeks is not much time to get new episodes on the air.

Cuse also revealed that the episodes that will be “lost” this season will likely be rolled into future seasons. There will be 40 additional hours of Lost, as has been promised…it will just result in slightly larger seasons down the road.

Anyway, it’s nice to know that the writers are back at work as we speak, and the production process is once again rolling along.