Island of Lost souls

You’d have to be living on... well, the mysterious island featured in Lost not to know that the series and fellow breakout U.S. hit, Desperate Housewives, helped Channel 7 have a great 2005. A year is certainly a long time in television land, with the formerly dominant Nine Network now appearing to be the one in the poo after many years at the top. So for several reasons, not the least being revenge, the Seven Network were no doubt hoping for Lost and the Desperates to sustain their watercooler factor.

As far as Lost is concerned, I think it’s become even more of a must-see this second series. Several times throughout the first series, I forgot to watch a show here and there and lost a few plotlines but it didn’t really bother me until later on when I started to get hooked. Now I’m in there every week making sure I don’t miss one single detail.

I’m not the only one who felt that last season sometimes seemed like the writers were making it up as they went along. Just when you thought there might be some reasoning behind it all, a polar bear would suddenly appear for one episode or Michael’s son Walt would seem to have some sort of sixth sense, and then it wouldn’t be mentioned again. It was like they were trying to come up with new ideas to intrigue viewers but didn’t know where to take them.

Of course, the show’s producers aren’t about to admit to any of that, and now that things are going strongly in series 2, they needn’t worry that the accusation will come at them again. This time round, they appear to have dotted every i and crossed every t, and naturally with the introduction of the plane’s tailend survivors led by the bitter and twisted Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), there’s a whole new world opened up to explore with all their pre-crash flashbacks.

The possible downside for fans of the first season is that some of their favourites have been getting precious little screen time, their stories fading into the background, at least for the timebeing.

It was bizarre a few episodes ago when we were reminded that the survivors had only been on the island for 48 days. At least that might stop people complaining that Hurley hasn’t had any discernible weight loss yet! It also paved the way for several fascinating but also frustrating episodes in which we learnt what the tailies had been through during that time.

The frustrating part was that you’d end one ep. with a cliffhanger, such as finally getting into that darn hatch or Shannon being shot, only to go right back and see simultaneous events in the following episode, leading up to exactly the same cliffhanger at the end. Aaagghhh! But at least it makes you work for the thrill, which is a nice change from so much disposable TV that assumes viewers don’t have an attention span beyond that of the average seven year-old.

At the time of writing this, there are so many mysteries still to unfold – whether it be why those numbers have to be keyed at regular intervals or what the mysterious newcomer Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) is really about – that the producers could easily spin out several more seasons. The way things are going, they’ll certainly get the chance to do so.

Vicki Englund

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Lost

On: Seven

Time: Thursday, 8.30 pm