The "Getting Lost" series is about a Lost newbie's attempts to watch all five seasons of the show for the first time, just as the sixth (and final) one rolls along.

What I Watched on Week 12: Season 4, Episodes 6-10 ("The Other Woman", "Ji Yeon", "Meet Kevin Johnson", "The Shape of Things to Come" and "Something Nice Back Home")

Surely you used the six days in between initial broadcasts of Lost to ponder what you just saw. Oddly for me, the opposite is the case. I mean, if I don't watch an episode for more than a couple of days, I find myself going "what?" all over again. That's exactly what happened when I resumed watching last week, after a week-long break which saw me fly to Singapore amazed at "The Constant". I felt a bit disengaged, to be honest.

Then again, I was watching "The Other Woman"--and I don't really like romantic storylines on the show, because it's distracting. I mean, do I really need to know about Juliet's affair with Goodwin? Well, yes, but I ended up knowing more about Ben having this freaky crush on Juliet. And ten episodes later, I don't see it coming to play, because they aren't really together, and he isn't doing anything to get to her, even if he knows (or claims) that everybody in the island is in trouble because of the presence of the Kahuna folk.

I did find my footing again, thanks to my best friend, Wikipedia. No, I'm not cheating--I just always look there when I end the episode, just to help me organize what I saw. After all, I don't have that one week between broadcasts, that one week that will help me put everything I've seen over the past three months into context. I'd like to think I have a pretty good memory, and when something comes up on the show that stems back to an episode a few seasons back, I don't really find myself watching an episode again. Still, Lost is an assault on the senses, and with eighty episodes of information or so at my disposal, I'll lose my way once in a while. Or, more often.

Yes, that threshold of confusion I was talking about a couple of weeks ago.

I don't know why I realized this just now, but the thing with Lost is, it keeps throwing questions at you, never mind that you still have twice as many unanswered questions in your bag. Last week, I was thinking about the implications of time travel on the entire thing (and it was a pretty good discussion we had). Right now, I'm thinking about why Widmore wants the island, and why Ben won't give it up.

I mean, sure, it's Ben's home, and like every other human being he's got all the right to defend it, especially if his life is threatened. But what exactly is that thing that makes it special? The infrastructure the Dharma Initiative left behind? Its supposed healing qualities? All that time-related stuff? Why does Widmore know about it? And why does he say it's his? Does it all go back to the Initiative? I'm guessing he is involved with the Initiative--Widmore drugs in the hatches, note--and wants the island back, thinking he's been slighted, maybe when Ben's purge happened, or something. But in the first place, Widmore wouldn't be involved in the Initiative if he doesn't know the special thing with the island. It's a circle! I'm crossing the threshold again!

And then, in the past few days, time travel rears its head again, and I don't know what track to pursue. The doctor's dead body drifts to the island, and yet the folks at the Kahuna say the doctor's doing just fine. The anomaly, I presume, is working its wonders again, foreseeing (possibly) the doctor being killed by Kevin Johnson--err, Michael Dawson--only the gap is bigger than the original 31 minutes, and the island is actually ahead of the boat. That anomaly could possibly explain why Michael and Walt have been through so many things upon returning to the United States even if it's been just a month--they say it's a flaw in the storyline, but I want to see what happened between their departure from the island and their arrival.

And then Claire disappears, and the world suggests she's killed by the attack at the barracks and is actually a ghost--no, I don't buy it, but that's another track to follow. Ohhhh.

I know I'm rambling again, but please forgive me. I'm the big picture type of guy, and just when I thought I had the little details worked out and a slightly clear idea of what it is, someone taps me in the shoulder and tells me, "you missed that." All I can get is that there's four sides battling for something--the 815 survivors, the Others, Widmore's side (I must mention I don't think Faraday and the rest know what they're actually supposed to do in the island) and the island itself. It's organized chaos that makes things murkier than I thought they were. And I haven't factored in the universe supposedly course-correcting errors, which means all this confusion is the very thing that's supposed to happen.

Alyssa was right.


The series so far:
Week 1: An Introduction and the First Six Episodes
Week 2: I Want My Australian Accent Back!
Week 3: The Week I Felt Like Locke
Week 4: All These Numbers Are Giving Me A Headache
Week 5: I Tried So Hard, Shannon, But I Can't Seem To Like You
Week 6: "I Guess It's All Relative Now, Huh?"
Week 7: The Science of Going in Circles
Week 8: You Know, Like in Cartoons, When You Watch Too Much and Your Eyes Swell?
Week 9: Can You Help Me Untangle This One, Brother?
Week 10: Killing Charlie Softly and Other Destiny-Related Issues
Week 11: If Anything Goes Wrong, I'm Dead





- Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
(Image courtesy of ABC)