Warming up the engine for Season 6

Yawwwwn! It's been a loooong hiatus - and there's still a little more than 2 months to go before Lost returns on February 2. But with Doc Jensen's return to regular Lost postings at EW.com (click the title of this post to be whisked away to the Doc's musings), I thought it was time to start warming up for one final season of LLL.

First, in response to the Doc's column (which centers on the anxiety/ excitement dichotomy in internet chatter regarding what appears to be a continuity "reboot" at the start of Season 6), I am reminded of my prior geek obsession, Marvel's X-Men comics. In my mind, the most successful plotline of the post-Chris Claremont era of the X-Men was the "Age of Apocalypse," in which all 8 X-Men titles were suddenly scrapped in favor of stories taking place in an alternate universe, where Charles Xavier never lived to form the X-Men, and the world had turned into a dark, despotic regime led by X-Men baddy Apocalypse. In addition to a brilliantly conceived, interlocking complex narrative, the series offered an amazing look into familiar characters. Some had such pre-determined character traits that, despite radically different surroundings and backgrounds, they emerged into characters similar to the ones we already knew. Others, who were more products of their pasts, departed dramatically. Ultimately, reality "rebooted" again to its prior state, but not without having been affected profoundly by this through-the-looking glass crisis.

I am profoundly hopeful for a similarly satsifying Lost season, if, indeed, such a reality re-do is what's in store (and if it is not, then bully to the producers for all the false clues suggesting otherwise).

But that said, I am trepidatious about the season to come. It's no big shock that I've loved, I mean seriously loved Lost throughout its first 5 seasons. All along, I've carried my team Darlton-inspired faith that the writers knew what they were doing, and all would pay off.

But now, for the first time, I head into a season wondering if that will turn out to be true. Obviously, not every one of the zillion questions the show has posed to its astute viewers can be precisely answered (leading to the possibility of continued debate long after the series has ended). But now we've reached that point where faith will either be rewarded, or sharply disappointed. How many potentially great stories fell apart with lousy endings? (I'm talkin' to you, X-Files, and every X-Men crossover since "Age of Apocalypse"). And what about the inevitable mourning period, when there will be nothing left to dissect except the minutia such as where the pocket watch Locke and Richard kept giving to each other actually first came from.

I think it's this fear (coupled with a busy year at work, a kid who's now a toddler, and a wife who's now 8 months pregnant) that has kept me from obsessing about Lost all throughout the hiatus as I have in previous seasons. Indeed, I haven't even watched the last installment (or 2?) of the kitchy "Secrets of the DHARMA Initiative" video ABC.com has been posting since the end of the summer.

But that said, I am pretty stoked for the possibility that the final season will bring us the most satisfying TV conclusion since Bob Newhart woke up as the character from his previous eponymous series to the realization that he had just had an elaborate, years-long dream.

So until "LA X" (extra space intentional) on Groundhog Day, my fingers will remain crossed. Namaste.