During the first season of Lost, I gave up only several episodes into it. Man did it open strong and really grab hold of me, but then the show got all heavy into flashback-fever and teasing us with strange monsters that would quickly drop off the scriptwriter’s radar and, well (sorry)… it lost me.
Typically when a show can’t keep me interested, seldom is it that I’ll come back, but something happened with Season Two and I was all over it — much to the dismay of my wife who, like me, had shrugged it off after the first year and, unlike me, had absolutely no interest in going back. Can’t peg exactly why I returned to the island, certainly I became more engrossed with some of the characters and something about it was able to tap into my long-dormant Twilight Zone lover and get that groove going.
Even with all the repeats and backstories and such I just ate it up yum the second time around. Looked forward to it every Wednesday through to its eventual cliffhanger finale and couldn’t wait until season three, which arrived a few weeks ago. And while it didn’t bang-zoom grab me and shake me up outta the gate like I’d been hoping, I didn’t notice much loss of momentum with the ensuing episodes and I was ready to settle in and ride it out in whatever direction it would take me.
Then I get to the end of this week’s episode —which was about as soap opera-y as it’s ever been — and I’m waiting to see the preview of next week’s but instead ABC announces not only that its yanking the rug out from under my feet but that it’s throwing it into next year. Sitting there expecting to hear the narrator intoning “Next week on Lost…” instead my disbelieving ears are left trying to comprehend “When Lost returns in February with all new episodes…”
Excuse me… February? As in three months from now? As in 2007? As in what the hell are they thinking?
Maybe this isn’t the first time a network’s thrown such a void into the middle of a show’s season, and no doubt as the TV watching world moves closer to its return to the airwaves ABC will be hyping it huge,. But I’m sorry, you drive a wedge in like that and come February I stand a good chance of having, shall we say, a severely diminished enthusiasm.
So in the meantime and in Lost’s place ABC wants me to give a deja vu drama called Day Break a break. From the looks of the previews I’m not all that impressed. It comes off as Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day played as Keifer Sutherland’s 24.
Sounds lost to me.