Finally, a touchdown for Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton.

The two performers, long neglected for their celebrated work on "Friday Night Lights," each scored Emmy lead acting nominations today for their work on the series' fourth season.

Overall, "Lights" received four Emmy nominations today, matching the program's total from its first three seasons combined. Rolin Jones was nominated today for writing "The Son" episode, while Linda Lowy, John Brace and Beth Sepko were cited for the fourth year in a row for casting.

The noms are credited to DirecTV, which helped "Lights" keep on the air through an arrangement with NBC. Though a small amount of hope remains that the clock has not officially run out on "Lights," the cast and crew are aware that their current production season is likely their last.

"The thing that makes this so sweet is that we only have two episodes left (to film)," Britton said this morning. "Another thought was this was good for the show. We're always thinking of ways the show can be saved at the 11th hour."

"This is cool, dude. It's very old school -- you and me, trekking through the jungle, on our way to do something we don't quite understand. Good times."

Well put, Hugo. This sew, "Lighthouse," did have a heavy old-school "Lost" vibe. It was at least a eight or nine "dude" episode for Hurley, which is always a trademark of quality. And there was a "Littleton" name check, which is always a bonus for this viewer.

But I especially liked this episode because I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the flash-sideways narratives and what it is they're telling us about the characters.

As we saw in Jack's climactic scene with his preteen son, David, the characters in the no-crash 2004 timeline still have plenty of flaws and heartache, but they're somehow better equipped to deal with their problems.Jack finds the way to communicate with his son ("In my eyes, you can never fail") -- I guess we're to presume Sarah is the mother? -- just like Locke appeared to be on his way to coming to grips with his physical limitations in last week's episode. And for good spooky fun, they're salting the stories with a few holy-cow encounters, like Jack running into Dogen at the conservatory tryouts, or Locke running in to Ben as a fellow junior high school teacher. Maybe these seemingly random no-crash 2004 encounters will pay off down the road.

My Variety colleague Justin Kroll posits that the "someone" that Jacob says is "coming" to the island are the 2004 no-crash versions of our characters. Sounds plausible to me.

The promise of answers to "the most important question in the world" was dangled in front of Sawyer -- and us viewers -- in this episode like an aged bottle of Jack Daniels. We wound getting a sip or two, but hardly the snoot-full we were hoping for.

"The Substitute," the third hour on our march to the series finale, spent a good deal of time pointing out the  parallels in the lives of Original Locke (O'Locke) and Sawyer, and showing that O'Locke is a key (perhaps the key) pinball that bounces off the other characters in the no-crash 2004 scenario: Jack, Boone, Rose, Hurley and Ben "European history" Linus, for starters.

In the episode penned by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Melinda Hsu Taylor and nicely helmed by Tucker Gates, Fake Locke (F'Locke) is described by Ilana as being on a "recruiting" mission in the wake of Jacob's death. Richard flatly turns him down, but F'Locke finds a slightly reluctant recruit in a whiskey-addled Sawyer, who's drowning his sorrows at his old house in New Otherton, listening to '70s hard rock. (I recognized the sound but can't quite place the band. Aerosmith? Thin Lizzy? Thanks commentors, tune is "Search and Destroy" by Iggy and the Stooges from "Raw Power.")

After a classic-"Lost" tromp through the verdant jungle, in which we encounter a frantic Richard Alpert and a stern young boy (Jacob reincarnate?), F'Locke and Sawyer get to cave area in the cliffs where we get some tantalizing clues (our Oceanic 815 heroes all have assigned numbers from The Numbers! The Scales of Good and Evil!) but no real clarity to speak of. Other than that Jacob was a numbers nut, per F'Locke.

The flash-sideways segments were all O'Locke, all the time. Nice to see Katey Sagal again in her role as girlfriend Helen. It was all the talk of O'Locke and Helen prepping for their wedding that made me think of the parallels to Sawyer-Juliet. Two men, both of whom have known betrayal, fear, anger, disappointment, etc., as F'Locke puts it to Sawyer at one point in their journey to the cliffs. Obviously, things are going to go awry for O'Locke and Helen.

I'm not the only "Lost" nut who loves Arzt.

ABC.com has recruited Daniel Roebuck, the thesp who plays Dr. Leslie Arzt, to offer his "expert commentary" on an enhanced edition of the two-hour opener, "LA X."

Viewership of the opener went through the roof on ABC.com and Hulu, and ABC is smartly milking that aud for all its worth. Arzt's return to the storyline, brief as it may be, has been one of the pleasant surprises so far of the final season.

Here's the verbiage from the Alphabet, and here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2. 

Beginning today, ABC.com will offer the premiere of the finale season of “Lost” with special Expert Commentary from the actor Daniel Roebuck who is plays ‘Dr. Leslie Arzt’ on the hit ABC series.

ABC.com’s new Expert Commentary feature allows viewers of the site’s Full Episode Player an opportunity to experience insights from the stars of ABC’s series and specials, as well as producers, writers, directors, production and costume designers, music supervisors and network executives, among others. 

Consistently one of the most-viewed series on ABC.com’s full-episode player, “Lost” continues to connect with fans across the web. Following its successful season premiere on Tuesday, February 2, on ABC where it ranked as the night’s No. 1 scripted TV show and was watched by over 12.1 million viewers, “Lost” drove record online viewing at ABC.com on Wednesday, February 3, with more than 580,000 episode starts of the premiere on the site, an increase of more than 34% over last season’s “Lost” premiere, according to internal data.  Overall, last Wednesday marked ABC.com’s highest full episode viewing this season with more than 1.17 million total full episode starts.

This season, ABC.com offers highly-interactive, community-driven features including user-created Top 5 lists which allow fans to arrange, rank and share their personalized lists of show-related favorites; and Episode Commentary where fans can not only access commentaries created by series’ insiders, but also create and share their own commentaries for each episode.  Additionally, the site will soon unveil a Fan Art Wall, an interactive area for fans to upload, view and rate “Lost”-themed art created by fellow fans, and also give fans the opportunity to participate in the Ultimate “Lost” Fan Promo Contest, providing users a “mash-up” tool to create and share their own “Lost” promos with a winning promo to be featured on-air.

If last week's "Lost" opener was all about the thrill ride of glimpsing how the plot will thicken in this final season, episode two, "What Kate Does," was all about reminding us who these people are at their emotional core. Particularly three of our primary heroes/anti-heroes, Jack, Kate and Sawyer.

We also got a boat-load of examples of eerie twists and parallels between the new 2004 L.A.-based storyline and the old 2004 storyline as it was told through the first five seasons of the show. In the seg penned by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and helmed by Paul Edwards, we were also treated to a return visit from the great William Mapother as Ethan -- except that he wasn't going by Ethan Rom but Dr. Goodspeed (great name for a baby doctor), which as we all know was the surname of the genial Dharma Initiative manager Horace Goodspeed. (Update: How could I forget?? Ethan is Horace's son!! D'oh.)

And as a bonus shoutout to the hardcore fans, a nod to the years of joking about the "zombie season" of "Lost" from Hurley when he asks Sayid 2.0: "You're not a zombie, right?"

Now, go figure. Of the show's central love triangle, Jack seems to be the only one who's actually showing some emotional growth as he struggles to deal with yet another baffling and frustrating set of circumstances. He's well past the "man of science" days of denying the possibility of the metaphysical hijinks that take place on this island. He's willing to suspend his med-school education and believe that Sayid could be miraculously healed by the murky spa waters of the Temple.

But at the same time he's got the courage of his convictions as he's tested with the pill at the hands of Dogen and Lennon. (The translator with the wire-rimmed glasses has been dubbed Lennon in the "Lost" blog-o-sphere for obvious reasons. I was calling the Japanese guy "Ono" in my notes but then he had to go and offer his character's name.)

 
Ratings update: Good news. The preem easily won its 9-11 p.m. time slot in adults 18-49. Average for the two hours was 5.6 rating/14 share -- a good number by any standard and up 12% from last year's opener. Total viewers topped out at 12.1 million. I can't believe that any one would want to watch anything else last night, but I suppose I'm biased.

Long live "Lost." The sixth season preem, "LA X," was worth the ten-month wait.

I can't begin to make sense of the storyline or where in space and time our heroes are (at any given point) but one thing that is clear from the two-hour opener is this final season is going to be stuffed with people-pleasin' moments, a payoff for the ardent fans who have stuck with Mssrs. Lindelof and Cuse through thick and thin, Nikki and Paolo, time travel nosebleeds and even Jack's goofy beard.

In the opener alone we got fresh material from Charlie, Boone, Cindy the flight attendant (then and now), Arzt, Frogurt, Claire, Rose and Bernard and even Zack and Emma. I'm sure Vincent is waiting in the wings for his big entrance in just a few segs.

We seem to be cruising into parallel universe terrain where our core characters are on the island, albeit back in 2004-ish 2007-ish time frame rather than 1977, and at the same time experiencing an alternate reality in which Oceanic Flight 815 never crashes but the characters' lives nonetheless intersect in unpredictable ways back in 2004. Or maybe the LAX and beyond sequences are still slightly in the future, at least the future as Jack, Kate, Sawyer, et al are experiencing it now on the island (now being circa fall 2004). 

It's just all too much to figure out at the end of a loooong workday that started well before 9 a.m. with Oscar nominations. (Go Giacchino Go! Go "Up"!) I do know that the swooping shot from the plane through the clouds on down into the ocean floor where we zoom over the presumably sunken island was pretty darn breathtaking.

"LAX" overall had its share of gasp and holy crap moments as you'd expect from a seg handcrafted by the best of the best: written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender.

Whoo-hoo. The hour of the "Lost" season preem draws near. And then we'll be as happy as these lucky fans in Hawaii that got a sneak peek of the show on Saturday with the cast members.

Check back here tomorrow morning for a write-up on episode 1 of the final season, "LAX."

I'm getting freakishly excited about the return of "Lost" for its sixth and final season in a little more than a month. ABC has been stoking the fever nicely with its trailers and teasers for a few weeks now -- kudos to whoever chose Willie Nelson's beautifully spare rendition of "Amazing Grace" to accompany one of those blurbs.

Now ABC is mounting a "Lost" sweepstakes that promises to give 815 lucky winners a sneak peek at footage from the sixth-season opener and unseen footage from last season's finale. (Juliet, are you safe? Or blown to smithereens?)

To enter the contest, go to http://lostthefinalseasonsweepstakes.com.

As ABC's press release explains: "Upon registration, each contestant must answer six questions about the show, and are then automatically entered to win one of 815 “messages in a bottle.” The 815 winners will receive a “Lost” bottle containing a USB port that resembles character Desmond Hume’s fail-safe key. The key contains a video with a sneak peek at this season’s premiere – which will be the first time anyone will have seen this footage – along with scenes of last season’s finale. All prizes will be delivered on Friday, January 29."

The real prize comes Tuesday, Feb. 2, when we all get two hours of fresh "Lost," plus a recap spesh, for the first time since May. May! I've missed those guys...

-30-

There's no official episodic pictures posted yet on ABC's media website, but some new portrait shots of the "Lost" boys and girls have popped up. A few of my faves are posted here.

Lots of "Lost" goodies this weekend.

Extra special thanks to the intrepid Jennifer Godwin of E!'s "Watch with Kristin" blog for the links to the entire "Lost" panel at Comic-Con on Saturday. From what I've seen and read, it was hoot.

And ABC is back at it with an elaborate "Lost University" website that promises to begin "enrollment" on Sept. 22, 2009. From what I can gather it has a tie-in with the Blu-ray edition of "Lost's" season five DVD set.

As much fun as these things are, there's the bittersweet factor of having to wait a minimum of six months for the dawn of the Final Season. Wherefore art thou, Juliet?

... ignored Jack Bender (pictured left) for drama series direction. He only helmed the best episodes of season ("The Incident, parts 1 and 2"; "Namaste," "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham," among others) Need we say more??

And how did "Lost's" badass cinematographers get completely shut out?

Oh, and what about one of the most talented composers working in film and TV today -- Michael Giacchino (pictured right) who still writes mini- movie scores for "Lost" every week that are recorded by a LIVE ORCHESTRA, not a souped-up synthesizer or computer.

He kept the insanely emotional quality going on "Lost" this past season even when he was kinda busy with a few other projects -- little movies called "Up" and "Star Trek," not to mention working on J.J. Abrams' Fox drama "Fringe."

What more does it take?

OK, picking up where I left off in the wee hours of Thursday out of sheer exhaustion and from thinking so much about what transpired in Wednesday night's "Lost" finale...

Clearly, one of the big questions we're left to chew on is this "loophole" business and how it affected the corporeal John Locke. Or New-bad Locke as we've taken to calling him. (Round of applause here for Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson's fanastic work in this seg.)

Clearly, we need to figure out why there was such bad blood between Jacob and the other guy with the salt-and-pepper beard that he was verbally sparring with in the opening sequence. The other dude's promise that he would "find a loophole" to come back and do bodily harm to Jacob kicked things off on a nasty and oh-so-mysterious note. Are we to presume that salt-and-pepper is the guy who's inhabiting Locke's body?

 And what the heck was the time period ofthat opening segment? Jacob and Angry Guy were speaking in contempo argot but the presence of a clipper ship (similar to the ship in the bottle Richard was building in last week's ep) and the full-bodied statue certainly hinted at Black Rock era of the late 1800s (I think?).

Even more tantalizing was the other guy's Jacob's comment about how "they come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt -- it always ends the same" as he looks out on the ship. So we're to assume that motley crews have been arriving on the island for a long time? That would explain a lot, I suppose.

Cleary, we still need to figure out the Richard (Ricardos) connection in all this. And the Ben connection to Richard. I still can't shake the feeling that they are still working together despite everything that's gone down -- and Ben's promise to his vision of Alex a few episodes back.

Clearly, I need to watch the episode again to formulate anything like a coherent analysis of what we learned last night and where we're going in season six. Until then, let's review the great moments:

No. 1: The long scene with Jack and Sawyer in the jungle. First they communicated with each other like never before -- Sawyer opening up about his childhood, Jack expressing his love for Kate and regret for losing her -- and then they fought like never before. Chopsocky in the jungle! If it's a "Lost" finale, then somebody's getting beaten to a bloody pulp, but this one is by far a record for bloodied heads.

Son of a bitch!

(Stop immediately if you haven't seen the "Lost" finale yet.)

Thursday update: "Lost" finale averaged 9.3 million viewers and 4.3 rating/12 share in adults 18-49 demo from 9-11 p.m. Not bad, but I still find it hard to believe that 12 million people thought "CSI: NY" was more compelling!

Straight up, folks: I can't do these two atomic hours of television justice without a second viewing. Just can't be done. My skin was tingling and my heart was racing for the last 15 minutes of "Lost's" fifth-season finale, "The Incident, Parts 1 and 2." I could barely catch my breath as I watched Juliet fall down the Swan's rabbit hole.

For now, about all I can handle is noting some of the great moments, killer lines and what the #$$%@ just happened bits that we'll be pondering all summer and fall. It almost seemed like ABC was rubbing it in with the title cards flashed over the end credits: "Destiny Found" and "2010."

Oh how I dig this show. The auspices of the finale don't get any better: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse wrote the first hour while the credit for the second hour was flipped to Cuse and Lindelof. And both hours were helmed by Jack Bender, for whom I am on record as raving about, and tonight was no exception. As I said to one keen-eyed "Lost" fan in an email a few weeks ago: "Jack Freakin' Bender. How can he be so talented?"

In fact, "Destiny Found" is a pretty good summation of one of the big plot threads we dealt with in this finale. With Jacob now appearing to us in the flesh (?) in a mysterious, Zelig-like way, we now seem to have evidence that our core group of characters are connected not at random but for a larger reason. We don't know what that reason is yet, but it's no accident that Jacob encountered them in their pre-island pasts (all but Hurley), at pivotal moments in their development.

Good AP interview with Michael Emerson. Click here.

This episode of "Lost" was a study in contrasts. The leadership skills, character styles, motivations and powers of persuasion of the show's original alpha-male pillars -- Jack, Sawyer and Locke -- were deftly dissected in an hour that was already so full of action and intrigue it made my head spin more than once.

A lot of it came together for me after I looked up the title of the seg on the ABC press site: "Follow the Leader." All in all, a hell of an episode from writers Paul Zbyszewski and Elizabeth Sarnoff and director Stephen Williams. It worked on many levels and demands multiple viewings, especially because it involved all of our key main characters. We're on the runway for next week's two-hour fantasmic finale fer sure.

Thursday update: A second viewing was incredibly helpful, particularly for all of the Locke stuff.

So what'd we learn tonight?

** Jack can't get Kate to put her faith in him for nothin'. And really, can you blame her?

** Sawyer has finally grown up enough to be a do-right, all-night man. (Of the many great versions of that song, it's the Flying Burrito Brothers' rendition that puts a lump in my throat every time. Thanks Gram.)

** Locke has more faith than sense. (OK, we already knew that.)

** Richard Alpert and Ben are still somehow in cahoots toward some common goal, or common enemy. Of this, I have faith.

It was disconcerting in several scenes in this seg to see the magical, mystical Richard Alpert looking very, very confused. (I'm confused about how his stubble manages to grow in such a perfect line across the bottom half of his face. Radiation side effect?) Ben describes him as an "a kind of advisor." Yeh, like Rasputin was to the Romanovs.

"Welcome to the circle of trust."

That line from Horace in tonight's ultra-fabulous "Lost" seg, "Some Like it Hoth," applies to all of us humble viewers at home. As "Lost" winds down its penultimate season, we are indeed getting the answers and the backstories that we've craved for so long. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are men of their words.

Carlton has often referred to the "Lost" saga as a mosaic wherein the shiny tile pieces will be gradually be laid down, not in a methodical, finish-off-this-corner-first way but rather a let's-sprinkle-them-in-as-we-see-fit way, which has made for some astounding and confounding television for the past five seasons.

To my mind, tonight's seg completely made up for the shortcomings of the storytelling in last week's installment (mostly I felt it was too rushed). Darlton prepped us in last week's podcast that they felt the need for an episode with some lighter moments -- kind of like a "Star Trek" fourth episode -- and in that "Hoth" delivered.

Hurley and Miles (GREAT work by Jorge Garcia and Ken Leung) are the Cheech and Chong for a new generation. Instead of dope and rock 'n' roll, they riff about Star Wars and daddy issues. (I'm sure ABC's already thinking: Hmmm, how about a half-hour spinoff with a couple of time-traveling cut-ups in cute Dharma overalls?)

Kudos to writers Melinda Hsu Taylor and Greggory Nations for giving us the levity that some of us sorely needed (it's been a rough week at Variety, lemme tell ya), mixed with a generous helping of revealing OMG moments. And I've said it before and will surely say it again -- but folks, when you see the words "directed by Jack Bender" on an episode of "Lost," you know you're in for a good time.

There's something about the way the camera moves, the way the actors act, the way the frame of each scene is captured just so that makes television a joy to behold whenever Bender's behind the camera. Besides, what other show could pay homage to George Lucas and Billy Wilder in the same breath?

(No pics of this ep available from ABC but check out these snaps from "Lost's" recent 100th episode party. The Big 1-0-0 seg airs April 29.)

There's never a dull moment in a Ben-centric episode of "Lost." Tonight's was a doozy. In truth, it felt a little bit over-stuffed. There were some moments -- like Ben's confrontation of Penny and Desmond at the dock in L.A. -- that seemed really rushed, and thus lost some of their impact. (After a second viewing, this didn't bug me as much and the whole seg grew on me considerably.)

But in the main -- we sure did learn a lot in "Dead is Dead," written by Brian K. Vaughan and Elizabeth Sarnoff and helmed by Stephen Williams. It might've also been titled "Rules are Rules," or "The Loves of Benjamin Linus."

Ben does go on and on about doing everything for the sake of "the island," as does Widmore (it's getting to the enough-already point), but I think Ben's adventure with the resurrected Locke and in Smokey's underground cavern was all about his atoning for Alex's death -- not about breaking the rules of returning to the island once you've worn out your welcome with Jacob.

We got a lot of glimpses of the bitter battles for island supremacy over the years -- between Widmore and Richard Alpert, Ben and Widmore, Horace and Richard, Ben and Richard, and Ben and Locke. And they all love to play the Jacob card on one another. "The island chooses who it chooses," is Richard's retort when Widmore gets worked up about the decision to take in the dying 12-year-old Ben in 1977. Notice a pattern to the leadership choices here? Maybe it's time Jacob thought about bestowing the crown on a femme (Juliet?) for a change.

We even get the comic relief of seeing Ben and Locke needling each other about it -- as if they were kids in a school yard -- as Locke takes them to the Temple site to smoke out Smokey. But boy you can really see, as Ben admits, that Locke's intuition about all things Island is bugging the hell out of Ben. He nearly breaks down emotionally when he comes to realize that Locke was dead-on about what Ben's really going to face Smokey's judgment for.

Although I should know better by now, the action in this seg kept me guessing at every turn about Ben's motives and the truthfulness of his statements until the end. And I was right to do so, as proved by the big moment at the end where Alex (or the ghost of in the guise of Smokey, duh) comes to Ben and orders her guilt-ravaged dad to become a faithful follower of Locke, and to forget his plan to kill Locke for a third time.

"If I understood why Jack does what he does, I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here."

Whoo-hoo! After a lull last week, the Peabody Award-winning "Lost" was back in fine form with "What Happened, Happened." It might also have been titled "Role Reversal," because that's what we've got going on with some of our key characters.

But for starters, let me offer a few kind words to Kate, who has annoyed me more often than not during the run of the skein to date. And the kindness should extend to Evangeline Lilly, who was very good in last night's seg. I've been hard on her in the past for being wooden, especially in her big emotional moments, but she showed some growth as an actress in this seg.

I particularly liked Kate's flashback scenes back in L.A. (I presume) with Sawyer's ex, Cassidy (played by the talented Kim Dickens, who some of us know better as Matt's mom on "Friday Night Lights").

This episode was also fulfilling because we got a lot of recent backstory filled in in a short amount of time -- and very straightforwardly too, unusually so for "Lost." It felt like a real come-to-Jacob episode for Kate, Jack, Sawyer and Juliet.

In a nutshell, we see Kate turning into a real warrior-avenger; Jack turning into an utterly self-obsessed cretin who is so lost he's turning to island-religion to try to make sense of things; Sawyer starts out desperate to protect his new settled-down status quo but ends up doing the right thing in the end -- all things that we'd never have expected from Sawyer even last season; and we got a Great Moment with an Angry Juliet that came as the cherry on this cake.

Oh, and at the very end, Locke shows up, just in time to make Ben's life miserable in 2007. Somehow I think he's going to get some help from Caesar in this effort.

Amid all the moving and shaking, we're treated two priceless scenes of Miles trying to help Hurley understand Faraday's Law of Time Travel, with a nod to the Zemeckis Theory as laid out by Hurley. (By the way, where is Daniel? And Rose? And Bernard? And what about Vincent??!!). "This is really confusing," Hurley says.

On the backstory front, we got a key piece of the puzzle for Kate and her erstwhile charge Aaron filled in last night as we peeked in on Kate's actions in the days leading up to her decision to board Ajira Airways Flight 316.

As many of us suspected, she's not particularly interested in following Jack to the ends of the earth -- despite what she tells Juliet in the quote above -- but she's actually on a mission to find Claire, Aaron's rightful mum. Until then, the next best thing she can do is give Aaron to his biological grandmother, Carol Littleton. (No relation.)

By Shalini Dore

No secrets were spilled, but there was plenty for Losties to geek-out on during the WGA Foundation’s panel sesh with "Lost" scribes Thursday at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills.

The “Inside the Writers Room With Lost” evening gave fans plenty to chew over as Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, Liz Sarnoff, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz talked about how they plot the ABC drama.

The process of writing each new season starts with a blue-sky meeting where scribes discuss what the season will accomplish. After that the writers break down the episodes and write them. Usually there are three storylines: on the island, off the island and one other.

What helps the writers? Rabid-fan discussions of reality shows like “Top Chef,” which Sarnoff took credit for introducing to the "Lost" writers room.

"A 12-year-old Benjamin Linus just brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I'm doing?"

Am I the only one who thought of "Five Easy Pieces" with all the talk of chicken salad sandwiches in this seg?

Tonight's installment of "Lost" was the weakest of the season to date, for this Dharma bum. I didn't gasp enough, which means I've been spoiled by the greatness of the previous nine installments. "He's Our You" had a bunch of good lines and the whoa factor certainly picked up in the last four minutes or so.

Generally speaking I love a good Sayid episode so this was kinda doubly disappointing. But let's think about what we've learned tonight about our favorite former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard.

Certainly this seg, written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and helmed by Greg Yaitanes, reinforced what we've already learned from Sayid's unfortunate dalliances with Femme Nikitas in past segs. At heart, he's a lover, not a killer. He has a healthy libido, for sure, but even more than that, he wants to be loved. He wants to be accepted as a good guy, not a monster who tortures and murders on demand (whether it's chickens or Russians or a golfing buddy of Charles Widmore).

Even in the childhood flashback scene to his boyhood in Tikrit, you get the idea that Sayid snapped the neck of the chicken for his brother (I presume?) to be a pal, rather out of a blood-lust for poultry. Interesting that the brother is unfailingly honest and admits that Sayid killed the bird without hesitation, to his own detriment. Which probably only raises Sayid's esteem for his brother.

Moreover, Sayid seeks a purpose to his life. For a while, it was the burning desire to reunite with his long-lost love Nadia. Then of course it was getting the Oceanic 815-ers off the island. And then it became avenging Nadia's death after their devastatingly short reunion, and protecting the friends he left behind on the island (that's some guilt trip, eh?).

But when Ben dumps him in the flashback scene in Moscow after Sayid takes out the Russian dude, he's crushed. Not only is he being abandoned but he's now lost his purpose, and he suspects there never was one to begin with, that Ben's talk about needing to protect his friends was horse manure.

"There's no one else in Widmore's organization we need you to go after," Ben tells him. "Mission Accomplished!"

Sayid sounds like anything but a warrior, whining in a Moscow back alley: "What do I do now?"

The hits just keep on coming for "Lost."

ABC drama appears to lead the TV-on-Internet herd by a wide margin, drawing 2.5 million unique viewers in the month of February, according to the latest numbers from Nielsen Online. Those 2.5 million viewers initiated some 48 million streams of "Lost" episodes, clips and made-for-Web content a la the ultra-fun audio and video podcasts that showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse grace us with once a week (or thereabouts).

As much as I love writing "'Lost' is No. 1'," there's an important caveat to these numbers. Nielsen Online's monthly survey does not include numbers from Hulu, the NBC Universal-News Corp. joint venture. Hulu is on a tear these days, as readers of today's Daily Variety know from this page 1 story on Hulu climbing to No. 2 among online video providers behind only YouTube (which remains the equivalent of Wal-Mart, Microsoft, McDonalds and Toyota combined when it comes to online vid).

ABC.com ranks No. 6 among Internet vid providers for February with 187.1 million streams, up 14.5% from January. Hulu, on the back of its big marketing push, spiked 33% to 309 million streams. The average Hulu viewer spent 176.9 minutes watching its vid, compared to 104.8 minutes for ABC.com

So with that understanding, here's the rest of the top five online TV shows per Nielsen's report. They're mostly ABC shows, but that would likely change if only Hulu would cough up some show-specific numbers. Nielsen's report does include the individual websites of Hulu partners NBC and Fox, so there is some representation of their shows.

"Grey's Anatomy" -- 18.7 million streams/1.3 million unique viewers

"The Bachelor" -- 15.1 million streams/962,000 unique viewers

"The Office" -- 15 million streams

"Heroes" -- 11.7 million streams

Holy Horace Goodspeed, this is why I love this show.

Just when all of us smarty-pants obsessive "Lost" fans start to think that we have (some of) it figured out, by gum, along comes an episode like this to knock us back on our heels. I'm a little light-headed after absorbing everything that was presented to us in "LaFleur."

I think it felt particularly intense because a lot of it seemed to be pretty straightforward. I lost track of time after the second or third "Three Years Earlier/Later" slate and just tried to keep up with the ride as best I could. There were too many WTF and OMG moments to count. I was scribbling the whole hour; for once, I didn't mind the commercial breaks (except the Victoria's Secret spot with the skeletal model. That bugged the hell out of me. Enough with the emaciated look, already.)

One big question that popped into my mind right as I sat down to write: Where's Ben in the '70s Dharma groove that we've settled into?

By the end of this captivating seg, written by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Kyle Pennington and helmed by Mark Goldman, we learn that our ragged band of time-travelers -- Juliet, Sawyer, Miles, Jin and Faraday -- first integrate themselves with Dharma in 1974. And three years from that time would be, of course, 1977 (summer of "Star Wars" - I remember it well).

Ben, as we know from that great season three episode), was born by the roadside in Portland, Ore., sometime in the early 1960s (to the best of my recollection at this moment) and of course was delivered by good ol' Horace Goodspeed and his girlfriend/wife who were kind enough to help Ben's mom and dad in their moment of need, and then help Ben and his no-good dad come to the island when Ben was 10-11-ish. So doing the math, you gotta believe that Ben definitely arrives on the island somewhere between the 1974-1977 time frame, if not before. And, if memory serves, he's about 20-21-ish when he helps deliver the gas attack on the Dharmas, on his birthday no less.

During the episode, I kept thinking about how the presence of Sawyer et al for these years will turn out to have influenced the course of the Dharma story. As Faraday reminded us yet again tonight, "What happened happened." I'm sure our "Lost" leaders have answers for us, at some point.

Another thing that made this seg so engaging was the superb casting. The scene early on with the Dharma guards in the monitoring station who are afraid to go get "Mr. LaFleur" was a fantastic case of When TV Worlds Collide. Guard Jerry was the great Herc from "Friday Night Lights," played by Kevin Rankin. And Guard Phil was the unctuous, but somehow charming, Jimmy Barrett from "Mad Men," played by Patrick Fischler. Whoo hoo. Bonus points for TV junkies!

"Hey, I'm just a driver."

When you're Lance Reddick, you're never just an anything. You are the creepiest, spookiest, strangely compelling and "Wire"-y driver who ever prowled the streets of L.A., or Tunisia, or Santo Domingo, or Santa Monica. Gawd, he's a fantastic actor, and there wasa great pic and feature story on our man Matthew Abaddon in today's L.A. Times.

Abaddon's return to "Lost"in episode seven, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham," was the maraschino cherry and jim-jims on top of a six-scoop (one for each of tonight's extra minutes) hot fudge sundae. What did we do in our past time travels to deserve such a wonder on Wednesday night. (Sadly, ABC has no art from last night's seg; apparently none of its photogs covered this episode.)

There's much to sort through in this seg -- delivered to us by the power trio of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof and helmer Jack "Badass Lenser" Bender -- but let's start with some big-picture questions.

** So, who exactly is Richard Alpert aligned with? Ben? Widmore? Jacob? Captain Jack Sparrow? Someone/thing else entirely? Interesting that both Ben and Widmore sort of dismiss him to Locke.

** How did Widmore know to track Locke pre-815 crash? How'd he know to send Abaddon to work as the orderly in the hospital where he told Locke to go on the Oz walkabout, etc. Who told him about Locke? Alpert? Or did Widmore know from their 1954 meeting? I loved it when Widmore in Tunisia asked Locke "how long has it been for you" since Locke first encountered Widmore at 17. Everything we think we know is wrong.

** Caesar (c'mon, there's nothing coincidental about that name) who we first met briefly last week, is no innocent victim here. He seemed to be very deliberately and purposefully looking for something in that office space on the island in the opening shot. I don't remember a Dharma station that looked quite like that however. And Ilana, the woman who seemed to be a cop escorting Sayid on the plane in last week's seg, seemed to know Caesar as more than just a fellow castaway.

Here’s a news flash: “Lost” is a hit online. But so is CW’s “Privileged.”

For the first time, Nielsen Online has released rankings for online streaming of episodes and clips.
“Lost” tops the chart for the month of December with 1.4 million unique viewers, followed by NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” with 1.1 million.

By the yardstick of the total time viewers spent with a show online, the surprise leader in December was CW’s “Privileged.” The rating-challenged dramedy drew only 29,000 unique viewers, but those that did tune in stuck around for an average of 214.6 minutes.

There’s a big caveat to these rankings, however, in that they don’t include shows streamed via Hulu because Hulu won’t breakout its numbers to Nielsen (at least if I'm reading Nielsen-ese right. A Nielsen Online rep would only say that Hulu is "not available in our syndication service.")

Nielsen’s survey includes the websites of Hulu partners NBC and Fox, as well as ABC, CBS and CW. But by all accounts, Hulu's vid streaming traffic has outpaced that of the Peacock and Fox nets' individual websites. The survey captures clips that are embedded on other websites and blogs, as long as the streams come from the network's proprietary player (but not Hulu's player).

"It's OK, he's with me."

No, Jack, you're with him.You might as well have a dog collar around you're neck because you are sooooo subservient to Benjamin Linus now that it's hard to take. Just ask Kate.

For all the curve balls that tonight's "Lost" installment, "The Little Prince," threw at us -- and they were fast and furious in the last 15 minutes (JIN! ROUSSEAU! JIN! JIN! JIN! JIN!), the one big moment of clarity I had was that Jack is just a goner. He may be cleaned up a bit, having sworn off the OxyContin and the facial hair, but he most certainly has lost his mind -- the sharp, skeptical, strategic mind that helped the castaways so much in the early going of Our Great Adventure.

I saw it most particularly when Jack and Kate were sitting in Kate's car outside the motel, when Jack talked Kate into letting him go confront Claire's mother. (It's always a good "Lost" episode when there are multiple references to Claire's surname, or in this case "Mrs. Littleton," though in point of fact I am not a Mrs. Littleton, but it's still cool...)

Jack pleads: "I can fix this, Kate." So cloying. If you have to spell it out, you're doomed. Jack of old would've been up the staircase before Kate had time to react, and he would've tried to punch out the lawyer on his way down the stairs. And then he would've wigged out some more and made sure he hadn't given the guy a concussion.

In the closing scenes, Jack just sounds ridiculous trying to convince Kate "we all need to be together." Earlier in the episode he tries to convince Sayid "Ben is on our side." Can't he tell how ridiculous he sounds? Sayid wisely corrects Jack: "The only side he's on is his own." But does Jack listen? Nooooo.

"Put the gun down, Widmore." I squealed at that line.

So, we're three episodes in to the penultimate season of "Lost." Where are we? When are we? Who's who and what's what? I don't have a freakin' clue from minute to minute, but I'm loving the ride.

Tonight's seg, "Jughead" -- written by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Paul Zbyszewski and helmed by Rod Holcomb -- was deceptively slow-paced, at least that's what you think until you see it all the way through. There's lots to digest, but I want to start by focusing on someone who's been bugging me for a while: Juliet.

She knows more than she's telling about a lot of things. I don't mean to suggest that she's got ulterior or evil motives, or that she was anything less than committed to helping the former castaways (Jack, Kate, Sun et al) or Sawyer and the rest of the small group she's stuck with now. I think Jack had it right back in season three when he told her that he could see in her eyes how desperately she wants off that island.

But there's still something beguiling about her, so wonderfully and maddeningly mysterious about her, and that's a testament to Elizabeth Mitchell's talent in handling this tough role. You get the feeling that Juliet hasn't told anyone one-tenth of the horrors she saw in New Otherton and other locales on the island. Maybe it's all just too painful and she's blocking it all out.

But Juliet continues to have these moments where she dribbles out a little more information about her past -- like the scene in this seg where she starts conversing in Latin with the two guys they've captured from Richard Alpert's group. The quizzical look of disdain that Sawyer gives her when she matter of factly explains that the guys speak Latin "for the same reason I do -- because they're Others."

Let's get "Lost."

We're waiting for the pizza to arrive. It's just under an hour until "Lost's" season five premiere.

A half-dozen of the biggest "Lost" geeks at Variety are gathering in a conference room to eat, theorize and be merry as we enjoy the first two episodes. "Lost" is better with friends.

Emerging from my December blog hibernation, I'm much more inclined to look forward to what the small screen has in store for '09 than reassessing '08. Fortunately, my Variety colleague Stuart Levine was motivated to muse on his highs and lows for '08 (posted after the jump).

There's not a whole lot that I've penciled into my must-see sked for the first quarter. Of course, the Big Event is the Jan. 21 return of "Lost" for its high-five season (more on that later). The final two "Friday Night Lights" segs of the season (maybe forever) on DirecTV Jan. 7-14, will be three-hanky affairs, for sure, according to sources who have already screened them. And there'll be more multicamera hijinks to enjoy from "The Big Bang Theory" ensemble, my fave comedy troupe on the tube these days, hands down.

As for new material, I was very impressed by what I saw on the four-episode screener of Showtime's "The United States of Tara." Toni Collette is amazing as a suburban mother and artist who grapples with three distinct personalities who also inhabit Tara's corporeal being. The supporting cast is also strong, with John Corbett playing Tara's husband in an understated way, and the always-engaging Rosemarie DeWitt as Tara's sister. Brie Larson impresses as the older of Tara's two teenage kids.

"Tara," which as everyone knows was conceived by Steven Spielberg and birthed by Diablo Cody, bows Jan. 18.

The island is calling again...“Lost” returns to ABC on Wednesday, Jan. 21.

The fifth season of the fantasy-mystery skein will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m., after airing on Thursdays last season. The current occupant of the Wednesday 9 p.m. berth, ABC’s sophomore season drama “Private Practice,” will be relocated after “Lost” returns, ABC said Friday.

It’s expected that ABC will make more skedding changes on Wednesday in the near future, given the weak perf of 8 p.m.’s “Pushing Daisies” and 10 p.m.’s “Dirty Sexy Money” this fall. “Private Practice,” on the other hand, has been given a full-season order.

“Lost” will bow Jan. 21 with its usual season preem drill: two back to back segs from 9-11 p.m., preceded at 8 p.m. by a clip recap show.

(Sorry, as a reader points out, "Lost" has not previously bowed with back-to-back segs. The screeners ABC sent out at the start of season 4 and the bifurcated season 3 included at least two episodes, so that's the source of my late-on-a-Friday-afternoon confusion.)

Oh boy, here's the new "Lost" trailer. ABC hasn't officially set the preem date beyond "early 2009." Here's to hoping it's closer to mid-Jan.than early Feb. Still wondering what Sawyer and Juliet have been talking about all this time...

Lotsa fun to be had out on the red carpet at the Nokia. Where else are you going to see moments like William Shatner apologizing to Glenn Close for stepping on the train of her dress? Melora Hardin and Tina Fey complimenting each other on their shows and predicting that each other's would win the top comedy prize.

Plenty of actors seemed to come in character, like most of the "Mad Men" troupe. Couldn't help but notice that Elisabeth Much Moss and Vincent Kartheiser came together -- Elisabeth looking lovely in silver sequins.

Christina Hendricks (pictured left) could stop traffic -- or more accurately, start traffic -- in a gorgeous emerald green clingly thing with a drop-dead neckline. Even her jeweled strappy heels were gorgeous.

Didn't get to see Jon Hamm or January Jones, but Bryan Batt (Salvatore), Michael Gladis (Paul) and Rich Sommer (Harrry) all came together, and in character it seemed (Gladis sported a silk polka dot scarf).

Most fun was running into Stephen Colbert, who was bragging about how he goes way back with Sarah Palin. "Sarah and I go way back together. We used to hunt together. She's all truthiness."

Most enlightening was running into Emilie de Ravin from "Lost." "Claire's not dead," she said when I gave her my condolensces. She won't be in the first few episodes of the fifth season, but "she's not dead." She said it twice so it must be true. Phew.

Brooke Shields (pictured right) is channeling Rita Hayworth tonight. She looked stunning with flowing curls and a maroon frilly dress. Va va voom.

What do "Lost," the U.S. Open golf tourney and "So You Think You Can Dance" all have in common? Click on over to this post on the Season Pass blog to find out.

Hint: It involves TiVo viewing and commercials, and the people who love them both.

Good to finally get a proper look at this year's "Lost" vid from Comic-Con now that it's popped up on ABC.com.

"Secret Candle" drops a lot of hints, though I just don't know if I buy that Marvin Candle (aka Edgar Halliwax) is Pierre Chang, professor of astrophysics from Ann Arbor, Mich.

"Time isn't just of the essense, it is the essense," Candle/Halliwax/Chang pleads, from 30 years in the past (or is it his future and our past?). The audio of the "Lost" panel with Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and Matthew Fox from Comic-Con is also posted on the show's podcast page.

I'm grateful for any morsel of fresh "Lost" material, but it's also kinda harsh to see the "returns in early 2009" posted on the show's home page, given that it's the dog days of August and we still have to wait another Six Months at Minimum for the next full-length adventure with the Flight 815's once-and-future castaways.

Can't wait for this year's "Lost" Comic-Con teaser vid with the creepy Dr. Marvin Candle (or whatever his handle is) to show up on ABC.com or iTunes.

I've seen the grainy versions captured on cell phone cameras and posted on YouTube but those are more frustrating than anything else because you can't grasp all the nuances, hints and clues. For those of us who didn't make it to Comic-Con, Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune has provided us with the next best thing -- a fabulous write-up of the "Lost" panel on her The Watcher blog.

It's so good, you'll feel like you've time-traveled back a few days to the S.D. Convention Center after reading it. Thanks, Mo.

Emmy's picks for writing and directing nominees in the series categories are kinda like a state of the craft report card every year. They're often the category where new and innovative programs are recognized long before they crack the more prominent races.

But in a year when Emmy voters seemed to embrace new and different, the choices in the writing and directing heats seem more pedestrian, though some of this year's contenders were so obvious (Bryan Fuller and Barry Sonnenfeld for "Pushing Daisies" Pie-lette, Matthew Weiner and Alan Taylor for the "Mad Men" pilot) as to take some of the suspense out of the race this year. Sonnenfeld (pictured left) and Taylor (pictured right) have already bagged DGA Awards for their work on these pilots.

Sonnenfeld, IMHO, can safely begin rehearsing his acceptance speech for comedy helmer. (Coming from him, it oughta be a doozy.) The competish is strong -- a six-nominee category meaning that there was one tie in the nom ballotting -- but nothing was quite so inventive and visually distinct as that first slice of ABC's "Pushing Daisies."

From my viewfinder, the dark horse in the race could be James Bobin of HBO's "Flight of the Conchords." Bobin, co-creator of the series with Kiwi comedy-rockers Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, is up for the "Sally Returns" episode of "Conchord's" 12-episode frosh season.

Dan Attias nabbed a nom for the "No Cannes Do" installment of "Entourage." Paul Lieberstein has shown that there's no end to his talents by performing, writing and directing segs of NBC's "The Office," and now he's up for helming the seg "Money" Parts 1 and 2 (sounds like a James Brown hit from the early '70s). Also nommed from "Office" is Paul Feig, for handling the season finale, "Goodbye, Toby," which happened to mark the farewell of Lieberstein's character. Michael Engler of NBC's "30 Rock" is up for the "Rosemary's Baby" installment.

So glad I didn't have to work up a sweat over another "Lost" Emmy snub this year. (It helped me save my fire for the final snub of "The Wire," which "On the Air" contributor and fellow "Wire" nut Stuart Levine called more than a week ago.)

Season four of "Lost" was one long thrill ride -- a cerebral adventure that called for viewers to have masters degrees in physics, engineering, philosophy and literature. Hard to believe Henry Ian Cusick, aka Desmond, didn't make the supporting drama actor cut, given that the seg submitted to the Acad was his tour de force in "The Constant."

Now, there really would've been trouble in TV town if Michael Emerson had not made the list, for his labors as the nefarious Benjamin. He's so good in the role that you can never quite decide if he's evil incarnate or just a misunderstood Other. (My favorite bit of Emerson trivia is that the actress who played Ben's mom in the season three flashback segs, Carrie Preston, is his wife.)

Also nice to see the Acad recognize that "Lost" is the best lensed show on TV with a cinematography nod, to John Bartley for "The Constant." And another nod for Michael Giacchino for his most excellent scoring work. He wuz robbed earlier this year at the Oscars when he lost for "Ratatouille." Here's hoping he adds another Emmy to his collection in September.

Like parents trying to get the kids to turn off the TV and the Wii and spend some time between covers this summer, ABC and "Lost" stewards Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have launched the "Lost Book Club" via ABC.com and iTunes.

It is exactly what it sounds like: A running list of books that have made their way on to one of the smallscreen's Best Shows Ever. There's info about each title, details of how it was referenced on the show and of course, a forum for fan gabbery. It's a little something to help tide us over during the (argggh) seven more months (give or take a week or two) until our heroes come storming back in early '09.

(I'm just dying to know what's transpiring between Sawyer, Juliet and that bottle of Dharma rum right about now...)

Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise 4 Ever!

It was a surreal when-worlds-collide scene during the SAG solidarity rally today held outside the union's headquarters, which are conveniently located across the street from Variety.

The rally was designed to be a demonstration of SAG's resolve to fight for a "fair deal" and make it crystal clear how SAG feels about the primetime contract that its fellow actors union AFTRA just reached. The "vote no" chants and frequent cries of "AFTRA sucks" from the crowd left little doubt where SAG leaders come down on how the unions' 44,000 overlapping members should vote, as Variety's ever-laboring Dave McNary reports.

But as I made my way closer to the speakers platform where SAG's Alan Rosenberg and Doug Allen were speechifying, I was stopped dead by the presence of an Other. I started to hear the whispers. I ducked, scanned Wilshire Boulevard for signs of Smokey, and then looked up at the turquoise sky to make sure that a commercial airliner wasn't about to explode overhead.

It kinda felt like time stopped for about 48 hours or so after "Lost" delivered to us its amazing season four finale on Thursday night. I couldn't think of anything else but the scads of plot developments served up in the three-parter, "There's No Place Like Home."

I watched it again the way it was clearly meant to be viewed -- the three parts consecutively, with pause and rewind buttons at the ready -- and tried to step back a bit and think about the larger story that has gripped so many of us since Oceanic flight 815 hit that first nasty pocket of turbulence on Sept. 22, 2004.

Interesting, if not surprising, to see that Jack is the most focused on piecing together the truth of what's been happening to them -- even in his pill-popping, boozy, out-there state in the flash-forwards, he's on a quest for answers. The remaining survivors, even Have Gun, Will Travel Sayid, seem to still be in a state of post-traumatic island fever denial.

On one hand, the fact that there is a conspiracy to cover it up -- the staging of the faux 815 plane wreckage, etc. - should give credence to Jack's stance that it's not about destiny or miracles but science, the individual and free will -- in this case some folks very determined to snuff out the free will, and the last breaths, of the 815 survivors. (It's not explicitly clear to me whether Jack's aware of who Charles Widmore is, but I'm guessing he got an earful from copter jockey Frank Lapidus during the time they spent together on Penny's boat)

But on the other hand (no pun intended), Jack has a fascinating conversion in the life boat after the helicopter crash, just before they run into Penny's boat. Soon as he sees the light at the end of the tunnel -- the lights of a boat that can help them get back to civilization -- he must've heard Locke's warning from the greenhouse echoing in his ears. In insisting that the shell-shocked survivors concoct a doozy of a story to cover their tracks, he's tacitly accepting at least some of what Locke asserted.

"Lie to them. If you do it half as well as you do it to yourself, they'll believe you."

Oh Locke. Jeremy. Locke. Bentham. Whatever your name is. Wherever you are...

"Lost's" fourth season finale, "There's No Place Like Home, Parts 2 and 3," wasn't 88 minutes of television. It was somewhere between a religious experience and a psychedelic journey through time and space, through the earth's crust, past the frozen donkey wheels, past disappearing islands, heroic dudes making the ultimate sacrifices for the ones they love and a latenight break-in at a low-rent funeral parlor in a bad part of L.A. I am still tingling from the enormity and the emotional gamut of the experience.

Friday ayem update: Ratings are in. Big but not nearly as big as you'd think for two of the Greatest Hours of Television Ever. No doubt the DVR numbers will add significantly to the viewership by next week, and the web streams off ABC.com will surely be flowing during the next few weeks. 9-10 p.m. hour of finale averaged 11.9 million viewers and 4.6 rating/13 share in adults 18-49. 10-11 p.m. hour did 12.5 million and 5.1/14 in 18-49.

There's so much to think about, so much info to process and plot development to parse that it would be folly to try to offer anything like a definitive commentary on these segs while the first viewing is still reverberating around my brain. I didn't know how they were going to be able to top last season's gut-wrenching finale, but Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof (who penned both hours) and helmer Jack Bender surely did.

So first some top-of-mind observations and a few questions. After repeat viewing(s), I'll try to draw some larger conclusions. There's plenty of time. I think part of the emotional roller-coaster of tonight is having to come to grips with the fact that we won't get any new episodes until January-February. Shudder.

**A moment of mega-significance seems to be the scene toward the end in the life boat (I felt the ghost of Tallulah Bankhead in the scene) when Hurley is talking about "miracles" and Locke moving the island. "One minute it was there, the next minute it was gone." Hurley's statement was such an echo of the conversation Jack had with Locke in the fantastic, fantastic, beautifully shot scene in the Orchard station greenhouse where those two are once again going at it on the science/faith seesaw.

"Just wait til you see what I'm about to do," Locke warns him, and then tells him he has to lie about the survivors' plane crash experience to protect those left behind. Now fast-forward toward the scene in the life boat and Jack as always is scoffing at the notion of miracles, but, the minute he steps into what turns out to be Penny's boat (Penny's boat!), what's the first thing he cooks up? The Big Lie, for their own protection. For his own protection, as Locke warned him in the greenhouse: "the knowledge (Jack has) will eat you alive from the inside out. You're going to have to lie." Oh boy.

"Do you believe in God, Jack?"

"Do you?"

"Two days after I found out that I had a fatal tumor on my spine, a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky...If that's not proof of God, I don't know what is."

This exchange between Ben and Jack in "Lost" episode "The Cost of Living," while Jack's imprisoned in the bowels of the Hydra station is more than just an epistemological debate -- it's a heck of a bit of writing that, to my way of thinking, helps prove that the first half of "Lost's" third season has been unfairly maligned as being weak. In preparation for tonight's two-hour, season four closer, I dove into the season three DVD set again.

Time has softened some of the harsher criticism, but in the fall of 2006 it seemed that even some of the show's most devoted fans felt the show was off the rails in the first six segs that aired in October and early November, before taking a two-month break. That skedding pattern didn't work well for the peculiar storytelling pattern of "Lost" -- live and learn, and to ABC's credit, they surely did.

Season three also carries the stigma of having the dreaded Nikki and Paolo storyline, which enough fans   yelped about to get the poor misguided characters buried alive before the end of the season.

But my goodness, let us not forget that the first few segs of season three are the ones that truly introduce us to Evil Sadistic Madman Ben -- beating Sawyer to a pulp, making Kate break rocks in the hot sun in an itty bitty sun dress and keeping them in cages while he plays  major head trips with Jack in the underground glass-walled cage. He's so bad ass he's not afraid to stroll around in tan pans and white shoes well after Labor Day.

This one opened and closed on high notes but hit some rough sledding in between.

"There's No Place Like Home, Part 1," the first of the tri-part season four finale, is the first "Lost" seg of the season where I had believe-ability issues with the plot that were nettlesome enough to take me out of the thrall of the storytelling, ever so briefly here and there.

Jacob's mouthpiece tells Locke to move the island? I can dig it. Ben is a master manipulator who has secret rooms and stashes of "Doctor Who" props all over the island? I'm down with that. Polar bears in the jungle and black smoke monsters with gnarly tempers? Sure. But Aaron is five weeks old? Give me a break!?! That baby is at least three-four months old if he's a day.

(Saturday afternoon update: A reader with impeccable credentials on all things "Lost" makes two good points that should be noted. First, in the "Lost" chronology, Aaron is actually only seven weeks old at the time of the press conference, given that he was born in season one on day 38. Second, and this I really should've remembered, Screen Actors Guild rules and other labor laws make it virtually impossible to do scenes of any length with infants younger than two months. So we gotta allow some slack there.)

None of the reporters at that press conference would've bought that, and they would've charged that dais to get at Kate with questions about her giving birth on the island. They would've challenged Sayid's assertion that there were "absolutely not" any other crash survivors. How could he possibly know?

Jack, as Kate says earlier in the episode, is a horrible liar and Sun is no better. The press would've smelled the B.S. and pounced. There would've been no decorum or quick exit for the survivors -- there would have been a riot, and the story would've turned to skepticism about the claims of the Oceanic 6. I thought that was where they were going when the reporters started to ask Kate about giving birth and Sun about her husband. The only thing worse than Jack trying to lie to the press was the awkwardness of him instructing the other five how to lie just before they landed. I noticed they weren't looking at Jack with quite the same reverence as before.

Second major hole in the "Lost" ozone layer for me this week: Sun and the business about buying up a controlling interest in her father's mega-conglom. I'm sure each of the 6 got fat settlements from Oceanic Airlines once they turned up, however they turned up. But enough to swoop in and steal control of a multinational conglom from its meglomaniac leader? Oh come on. Those South Korean firms are huge -- it'd take billion(s) and it would not be the kind of transaction you could do in a single morning.

They could've still had what was otherwise a hell of a showdown scene between Sun and her father without that flight of fancy. We know Sun's got plenty of reasons to despise her father. For starters, I can't swear to it but I don't think Mr. Paik was in that opening scene of the Oceanic 6 reuniting with family members on the tarmac of the military facility. (I'll check in the ayem.) OK, he was there....sorry Mr. Paik.

All that said, once again, it was still a mighty entertaining hour of television delivered in the seg penned by our "Lost" leaders, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and helmed by Stephen Williams. We learned a lot.

**It jumped right out at me this time: Kate looks an awful lot like Jack's mom, Margo (played by Veronica Hamel, pictured above).

**I'd been wondering, like every other "Lost" fan, about what to make of Ben and his whining about losing control to Locke and his faux emotional trauma over his daughter. I don't buy it now. I think he's still the puppet master, manipulating every situation he's in for own nefarious ends. Granted, Ben's got more of a challenge these days with all the unruly factions on the island. But as he informed Locke toward the end of the seg: "I always have a plan." He also admitted once again to not being "entirely truthful" with Locke. Duh.

**In the flash-forward scene of Hurley's surprise party, Hurley appeared to have the same style of ceramic Virgin Mary statue that bedeviled dear old Charlie way back in season one, only Hurley's was painted gold. Great line from Mama Hurley: "Jesus Christ is not a weapon" as Hurley holds it over his head ready to strike a charging polar bear or something with it.

**So Jack finds out about Claire, at his father's long-delayed funeral no less. He just can't catch a break. I confess to wishing that they would use Claire's surname more often on the show. It has such a familiar ring to it...

"Destiny, John, is a fickle bitch."

"I'm a lot more than just an orderly."

"I'm cool with you going in alone too."

Godspeed John, and onward Christian Shephard. Good grief, where to begin?!?

(At the risk of diverting away readers, check out this blog post from Alan Sepinwall of the New Jersey Star-Ledger. He's always insightful, analytical and has a doozy of a theory at the very end of his post.)

The pace picked up considerably in "Lost's" episode 11, "Cabin Fever," compared to last week's installment. At times like these, I find comfort in bullet points. Scribes Elizabeth Sarnoff and Kyle Pennington and helmer Paul Edwards have given us a lot to sort out.

**In a word -- Claire! If she wasn't dead in that scene with her long-lost daddy Christian Shephard in Jacob's creepy, creeky cabin, then she sure was stoned. I'm leaning toward dead...but I don't think that Locke was hallucinating in that cabin. I think she and Christian appeared to him for the very specific reason of instructing him on what to do to "save the island." But it's heartbreaking to see her so unconcerned about being separated from Aaron.

"I'm with him," she tells Locke, referring to Christian and agreeing with him that Aaron just isn't "supposed" to be there.

**We've learned that Locke has been monitored for all of his born days by the omnipresent Richard Alpert (back from his mission to Miami to infiltrate a rival network series that is destined to be axed after one season). Just the sight of Richard puts me on edge. Actor Nestor Carbonell is fantastic.

**Are we to take Ben at face value when he whines to Locke: "The island wanted me to get sick and you to get well. It's yours now."

**The freighter doctor does wind up with his throat cut. I can't even pretend to grasp the logic of the time-travel/consciousness projecting business.

**Michael still can't be done away with, not yet, even when he enrages a killing machine like Keamy. (Mr. Friendly was not fooling.) The narrow room where the freighter fiends were holding Michael chained to a pipe was very reminiscent of the tiny room in the hatch where the survivors held Ben in season two when he was intro'd to us as Henry Gale. Ha! More like Elmira Gulch.

**The look of Locke in the scenes in and around the cabin was very, very Col. Kurtz from "Apocalypse Now," minus about 75 pounds compared to Brando of course. But c'mon -- the army green T-shirt, sweaty bald head, lantern lighting touches. I half expected to hear him whisper "the horror."

**The sight of the Dharma Initiative mass grave site makes me want to puke every time. I can't imagine how the show's production crew must feel having to set it up. It's instantly suggestive of Holocaust imagery from the camps. Never forget.

**Friday afternoon update: Can't believe I forgot to mention Locke's encounter with Horace! Any time a scene starts with "Lost's" trademark zoom-in-on-an-eyelid-that's-about-to-open shot, you know it's going to be good. According to ABC's release for this seg Horace's last name is Goodspeed. I loved how he was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt underneath his Dharma jumpsuit. Noticed that the job category printed under his name was "mathematician." And of course, noticed that he was dealing with that nasty nosebleed that comes with time travel. That would account for the instant replay of his greeting to Locke as he's chopping down trees, and it would account for his statement: "I've been dead for 12 years."

Right off the top, a round of applause for director Stephen Williams and cinematographer Cort Fey.

The look of this seg, "Something Nice Back Home," was fantastic -- sharp enough to cut glass. You never saw so many shades of green in the jungle. The sweat and stubble on Jack and Sawyer's faces was palpable, and it seemed like many of the shots were framed more tightly than usual -- heightening the sense of being inside a character's head.

If last week's "Lost" seg, "The Shape of Things to Come," was an "Indiana Jones" episode packed with action and adventure, then this week's was the John Cassavetes' edition, an intense, intimate look at the dark side of love and relationships and betrayal.

Scribes Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz did a fine job of writing was was essentially a multi-pronged character piece, though the plot pace surely picked up in the last few minutes. The operating room scene where Juliet overrules Jack on the anesthesia was quick-cutting at its most effective.

The episode had plenty of crowd-pleasing moments. The sight in the first flashforward of Jack and Kate enjoying domestic bliss, however briefly or tenuously, must've cheered many fans (same goes for the lingering shot of Kate's butt), though true to real life, Sawyer does seem to still cast a long shadow over their lives.

As if we needed more reasons to like Rose, she gave us one early on in the seg when Bernard is pressing Faraday on whether he's being honest about the freighter failing to answer their radio calls and Charlotte starts to get snarky.

"Just watch your tone, Red," Rose scolds. Thank you, Rose, thank you.

"Who the hell is Jacob?"

As usual, Sawyer cuts through the haze and gives voice to one of the key questions that viewers have had about "Lost" for a long time now.

For sure, "Lost's" stormy, sensational return with No. 9 of this season, "The Shape of Things to Come," written by Brian K. Vaughan and Drew Goddard and helmed by Jack Bender, was one hell of a Big Ben episode, a tour de force for thesp Michael Emerson.

But it was also a big night for Sawyer, who demonstrated the kind of courage and resolve under fire that only those with the highest moral character, integrity and compassion possess. First he does a "Saving Private Ryan" and risks all to save Claire as the invasion begins. Then he tries to do the same for Hurley, only Hurley won't let him. Sawyer, we always knew you had it in ya.

"Lost" scribes surely did give us a lot to process in tonight's return after the five-week, strike-hangover hiatus. Let's review the apparent tangibles before we dive into the 'what the #$%^&?' issues.

**We now know that by Oct. 24, 2005, Ben makes his way to Tunisia.

**We know that Ben kept up with news coverage of the early days of the Iraq war, more than a year before Oceanic flight 815 crashed. Shock and awe, indeed.

**We know that Sayid reconnects with his beloved Nadia after he gets off the island, no doubt because of his notoriety from being one of the Oceanic 6. And we know that Nadia is killed in L.A., three blocks away from the intersection of La Brea and Santa Monica. Don't tell me they were having lunch at the Formosa Cafe? Pink's? Shopping at Target?

Some highlights from this morning's Q&A at the National Assn. of Broadcasters confab with "Lost" stewards Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.

We will find out more back story as to why the late Libby was in the same mental hospital with Hurley, prior to the plane crash, and presumably after she gave her boat to Desmond for the race.

Will we at some point catch up with Emma and Zack, the two kids from the tail section group of survivors who were kidnapped by the Others in season 2's "The Other 48 Days."

To the question of whether we'll ever see Katey Sagal's Helen character (Locke's former flame) again, Darlton indicated that they hoped so.

To the question of whether the DeGroots, the hirsute couple who founded the Dharma Initiative, are still alive, Cuse and Lindelof paused a bit and then pressed for more specificity on the time frame of the question. As of where the time line of "Lost" will be when the series returns on April 24, Darlton would only say: "One of them is."

Lindelof let it be known that in a recent episode when one of the castaways (Locke? Hurley? Sawyer? I can't remember offhand) asked Ben if he knew what the island's smoke monster really was and Ben responded that he didn't know -- big lie. "Ben was lying about the smoke monster," Lindelof said.

And once again, Darlton made it clear that they do in fact have a blueprint for the series, stem to stern, and that "the last scene has been in our heads for a long period of time."

More to come from the sesh, which mostly focused on big-picture business issues and production processes, once I transcribe the tape.

In the meantime, above and below are some pics from the upcoming April 24 seg "The Shape of Things to Come."

A show that did not disappoint on its post-strike return last week was NBC's "The Office" with seg "The Dinner Party."

Special commendation is owed to Melora Hardin, who is turning beyond-bizarro Jan into the show's most explosively funny character. Considering that she's playing opposite Steve Carell's Michael Scott, that's saying something.

Plot of this episode was particularly funny because it is something we've all endured -- an evening with a couple who are obviously not getting along. Of course, Rainn Wilson's Dwight Schrute took the laughs up a notch by crashing Michael and Jan's dinner party with his one-time babysitter ("Strictly carnal," he assures them) and his own food and wine in tow. I didn't catch the actress' name but she gave a great deadpan perf. Thank goodness ABC's "Lost" is moving from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. hour when it returns April 24 -- no tough choices on whether to check in first with the "Office" or the island....

Speaking of "Lost," ABC this ayem put out the good word -- strike be damned, "Lost" is getting a two-hour  finale after all on May 29. (And yes, confirmed with ABC that it is two original hours, not a recap show leading into a finale.) That translates to six post-strike segs instead of the five that Darlton previously forecast. (Only downside: "Lost" will be preempted on May 22 to make room for a two-hour "Grey's Anatomy" finale that night.)

I hope to pry a few details about the next run of "Lost" adventures out of exec producers Damon Lindelof (pictured left) and Carlton Cuse (pictured right) Tuesday morning when I have the pleasure of moderating a Q&A with them as part of  this week's National Assn. of Broadcasters confab in Las Vegas.

Here's something we didn't expect to see at the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" 1000th episode party on Thursday night: Dominic Monaghan. The dearly departed "Lost" star was making the rounds poolside at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel and hanging with "it" couple Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman.

Monaghan must've had a good time making the Jimmy Kimmel-Ben Affleck music vid a few months back (he's in the sing-along celeb gospel choir). He's also guested on "Kimmel" five times since the dawn of "Lost" in the fall of 2004.

Monaghan, looking very neat and clean (we still can't get used to that) in a crisp open-collar dress shirt and gray suit, didn't stay in one spot for too long, but we stopped him long enough to share a heartfelt "awwww" over Charlie's heroic sacrifice. Thesp said he's "trying to do something with Sarah for her show" (presumably the Comedy Central skein that resumes production in the next few weeks) and he does read the scripts that "Touchstone" (guess he didn't get the memo on the name change to ABC Studios) is sending him but is more focused on film than TV these days.

Monaghan reported that he's just wrapped production on the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" pic and is soon off "to go find the world's biggest spider." Not entirely sure what that means. We do know that there's a shot of a spider in the "Happy Accidents" exhibition of photos that Monaghan recently had on display at West Hollywood art gallery Hamilton-Selway Fine Art.

By the dim light of the heat lamps at the party, Monaghan looked cheery and chipper, like he was enjoying himself. Heck, that's all we ever wanted for Charlie...isn't it?

(Just a few quick observations for now... I'm on vacation this week, but as Mr. Friendly reminded us, you're never free from the clutches of The Island.)

OK, so I know he betrayed Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley. I know he shot Ana-Lucia and Libby in cold blood. He acquiesced to the Others and buddied up to Ben. I know all this, and still I have to admit, I was really happy to see Michael again in "Meet Kevin Johnson," penned by Elizabeth Sarnoff and Brian K. Vaughan and helmed by Stephen Williams.

To my mind, Michael's one of the most interesting of the Oceanic 815-ers: flawed, tortured, hard to read, volatile, fighting his innate talents, his own worst enemy, at times, and at others, a totally stand-up guy. And he is the spawn-er of Walt, who we all know has some truly pivotal role in all of this island fever. Harold Perrineau plays it just right most of the time -- no hysterics or scenery-chewing, just a man trying to do the right thing, most of the time. (I still wonder about Walt's mom, if she may come back into Our Story at some point.) So, hey man, welcome back. Can't wait to catch up more on April 24 and thereafter when "Lost" returns with its post-strike produced segs.

Few other quick thoughts on our eighth installment:

**Mr. Friendly lives? Of course, Michael didn't know that he was shot by Sawyer at the end of season three....hmmm. And he's a swinger too! Who knew?...His reference to Michael being on "shore leave" made me laugh, don't ask me why. (One reader suggests that Mr. Friendly does not live and Michael's flashback is prior to his getting shot in the season three finale.)

**Ben -- don't trust him one bit, not even with that "When I'm at war I'll do what I need to do to win...but I don't kill innocent people." How much B.S. is that? He's evil, evil, evil and I don't buy anything he sez. I don't even think he's all that devoted to Alex anymore either. I think she was set up completely by her purported father to be used as a pawn by the Freighter Folk in his survival bid.

**Rousseau -- It was so nice to see her cleaned up a bit, and not quite so wild in the eyes. Oh well. Alex's boyfriend Karl, however, might as well have been wearing a red shirt throughout his run on this show. You just knew he was in for it, one of these segs. Then again, if Mr. Friendly is any guide, we may or may not have seen the last of Rousseau and Karl.

**Frank Lapidus, the helicopter pilot character played by Jeff Fahey, is getting more and more intriguing. He obviously provided some very interesting tidbits about the faked Oceanic 815 wreckage in the ocean...of course there's no guarantees that they're true (even if Lapidus believes it).

** Oh the irony. Sayid is disgusted to learn that Michael is working for "Benjamin Linus".... As we know, he shouldn't be so quick to judge.

**Mamas and the Papas/Cass Elliot -- By my count this is the second Mamas and the Papas tune used in "Lost." When we first met Desmond at the start of season two, he was spinning "Make Your Own Kind of Music" (a song so infectious it's bound to stick in your head for a week or so every time you hear it...and as a reader points out, it's not the Mamas and the Papas but a Cass Elliot solo tune) and then in this seg "It's Getting Better" is on the radio as Michael's trying to off himself by slamming his car into a big trash bin. Cass Elliot's pipes are recognizable on the first note, and her soaring vocals add class to any scene.

Before we parse tonight's episode, let's take a moment to salute one of "Lost's" under-appreciated heroes: Jin.

Say what you will about his past, he's been rock-solid hunk of good guy since we first met him on Sept. 22, 2004. Yes, he was involved in a lot of unsavory business back in Seoul while working for his ruthless father-in-law. But he's grown and changed in many ways since the crash. And you get the sense that his still had an inner moral compass -- certainly we've learned through the flashbacks that Jin's job was getting to him, big-time, just before the crash.

Jin is a man of many skills (didn't he snap that really mean Other's neck with just his feet while tied up in the season three finale? As many readers have pointed out, that was Sayid, sorry...), and he's endowed with patience and generosity. His skill as a fisherman helped keep the survivors alive in the early days. He's quick to volunteer for the toughest duties (he was on ill-fated raft launched at the end of season one), and he's loyal to a fault. Back in season two, when Michael first split off from the group (led by Ana Lucia at the time) in his mania to search for his son Walt, who was it that insisted on going after him? Jin.

More than anything else, Jin loves and cherishes his wife, Sun. They've had their marital ups and downs, of course, before and during their stay on the island. But nobody, least of all Sun, has a shred of doubt that he loves her truly, madly and deeply, and that she feels the same about this extraordinary fisherman's son (even if she was intending to leave him if the plane had made it to LAX). "Lost" fans know this like they know the flight number of the plane; the credit for that goes to the writers for fantastic character development over the years, and of course to actors Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim. I bought them as husband and wife from the beginning. When they fight, you can feel the tension.

Where to begin?

This episode was packed with plot development -- fabulously concrete, tangible, easily understood plot development, which is the rarest kind on "Lost."

First, the big picture. It's a genius move to go back to flashbacks on one of the principle characters that we know the least. Filling in more Juliet's story, and by association, Ben's, was very, very satisfying, especially coming on the heels of the last few segs that were way more question-raising than answer-providing.

Most intriguing thing to me about our sixth installment -- "The Other Woman," penned by Drew Goddard and Christina M. Kim and helmed by Eric Lanueville (he's come a long way from swabbing the halls on "St. Elsewhere") -- is how much it provided firm evidence of Juliet's complicity in the Others' dastardly deeds. We've grown to know her only in her heroic resistence-fighter mode, but in reality, she's got some 'splaining to do.

Sure, Juliet was duped into joining a super-elite research org, etc., but the progession of the flashbacks in this seg makes clear she knew a lot, if not everything, that Ben was up to in New Otherton: the dossiers on the survivors; snatching the tail-section survivors, including the kids (remember Zach and Emma?); heck, she even fingered Jack for Ben as being an accomplished spinal surgeon.

When Ben starts dispatching his lieutenants as Oceanic 815 disintegrates over their heads, it's clear that the focus is not on helping survivors, but somehow exploiting them. (How many times have we seen that scene? Yet each time there's a slightly different perspective on the reaction in New Otherton, which makes for a creatively satisfying way for ABC to amortize a costly fx shot.)

At the same time, the flashbacks humanize Juliet even more by filling in her back story of having an affair Goodwin and being the object of Ben's obsessive, possessive desire.