Lost Has Been Found! (Written in 2008)

Lost Has Been Found!

4 8 15 16 23 42. It’s not Penny’s boat. Who is Jacob? What is the black smoke monster’s purpose? Why can Desmond see the future? Whatever happened to Walt and Michael? Will the survivors ever go home? Whose funeral did Jack attend? Why am I still watching this show?? ARGH!!!

For three compelling seasons, Lost has captivated and tortured the minds of watchers around the world, and its now back for its fourth season. On January 31, 2008 the most entrancing show will return to primetime television, but not without some changes. Due to the writer’s strike, the number of episodes will be drascitilly cut down, but the show may not experience the usual hiatus midway through the season. These factors also might explain why the airing of the first new episode was pushed back.

It was also announced that the series will end in 2011, meaning that the creators will have to start giving us answers if they want to tie up all the loose ends. For some of us that comes as sweet relief, but to others the end is coming too soon.

For those desperate and obsessive followers who cannot survive any longer without learning more, the creators of Lost have given us a few extras to make up for the shortened season and the long wait. First, the ABC website and Verizon Wireless V-Cast has a new series of short web episodes called Lost: Missing Pieces. The short episodes provide new background information on the inhabitants of the island, which supplements the further insane bonus features on all the DVD box sets.

Does anyone remember Desmond’s line about the puzzle without a picture on the box? While he was describing his ability to see the future, the marketing staff had created a series of four puzzles before that episode was aired. These thousand piece torture devices have only a teeny tiny portion of the picture to work off of. Everything else is left up to you.

The series of puzzles link up the clues about the hatch, the numbers, the others, and everyone’s lives before the crash. While most of the clues are already well known, there are a few pictures and notes that have not yet been aired.

Once you finish slaving away over the tiny pieces of cardboard, turn over the puzzle for a glow-in-the-dark replica of the map drawn on the hatch’s door. All four puzzles connect to complete the image, and you can read all the notes about the set up of the island and the other hatches, but of course, most of the writing does not make sense and only opens up more questions.

I, along with the aide of my family, have completed two of the four and begun the third. Without a doubt, it is hell, but once you finish and more of the mystery reveals itself, you sigh with relief. Though the next, day you stare at the next unfinished puzzle and wonder what you’ve you gotten yourself into.

The entire Lost empire leaves people feeling like that, especially after hours of watching episodes screen by screen to catch the images in the black smoke monster. Still, we love it, even if we lay awake in our beds and then come into the school screaming our heads off at our friends and we feel good when we solve one of the mysteries of the island. It’s only a matter of time until the craziness starts up again and you’ll be able to see who’s who when it comes to Lost. To those of you who still want to know what everyone else is talking about, you can watch the old seasons online on ABC or rent the DVDs from Blockbuster or NetFlix. You can watch these episodes over and over again, trying to divine what will happen next.