According to Lindelof, "Season 4 is about who gets off the island and the fact that they need to get back. Season 5 is about why they need to get back, and season 6 is about what happens when they get back." Meaning there's going to be a lot of sitting around on that island throughout the rest of this season. Sure we've had some flash-forwards, but it feels like you're going to see Locke cooking breakfast for some time to come. Plus they've run out of eggs, so I hope everyone enjoys pancakes. Although they must realize it's getting slow, because Cuse added, "There will be very significant mysteries answered in the seventh episode. The eighth episode is non-traditional and the start of something new."

Remember how bad Season Three got last year? People were proclaiming the death of Lost everywhere, and the ratings were plummeting. Then all of the sudden it got better right at the end, and everyone cheered and said it had regained the magic. Well, we're several shows in, and it's already showing signs of sputtering again. We're bored with the whole fate of those left behind, the new Freighties are sort of boring, with the slight exception of Jeremy Davies. We're mired in squabbling that seems to repeat from episode to episode, the Dharma Initiative remains a big unanswered mystery, and it's just the Jack, Kate, Locke and sometimes Hurley & Sawyer show. If you think it's boring now, just wait. Lost takes a month-long break in a two weeks, then returns with the wacky episode 8. We hope it's not just another empty hatch.

[Chicago Tribune]

And here are some new promo pics from season four, episode four, "Eggtown". [Lost Spoilers]

The episode was a fabulous, Hurley-centric return to form. There was a minimum of soap opera; I only gagged a little when Claire, Sun, and Rose sat around congratulating each other's men and teasing about the superiority of giving birth in hospitals. The opening car chase/crash sequence revealed that Hurley is one of "the Oceanic 6" who have made it back to civilization, presumably along with Jack and Kate and three yet-to-be-identified others (though you can never, ever take anything for granted with this show). Flash-forwards show that Future Hurley is having just as much trouble with life off the island as Future Jack.

Meanwhile, back in 2004, Desmond returns from the Looking Glass with the news that it's Not Penny's Boat. Jack's too invested in being a Fearless Leader of Men to listen, and the survivors split into two groups: those who want to leave follow Jack, and those who want to stay go to the barracks with Locke.

And yes, there are the inevitable questions. Who are the people who, according to Charlie, need Hugo? Who was the man who visited Hurley in the hospital? If Hurley wanted to stay on the island with Locke, why is he back in L.A. with Jack? Where's Walt? Was that Jacob? When did Sawyer get so sensitive? What happened to make Future Jack change his mind about going back to the island? In summation, storylines were advanced, helicopters arrived, new questions were raised, and Charlie came back from the dead with a cute new haircut. I can hardly wait for next week.

• "The Watch": This was the kickoff scene for these scenes, and it didn't bode well when there was some hammy acting and dialogue. Basically, Jack's father gives him a watch, which belonged to his father. And no, he hadn't been keeping it in his ass. The moral of the scene is "Don't be a crappy father like I was."

  

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• "The Adventures of Hurley and Frogurt": Remember Neil, the frozen yogurt salesman from Season One? The producers always promised he'd become "more interesting." Sadly, that doesn't happen in this clip when he tells Hurley to make a move on Libby or he'll step in.

  

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• "King of the Castle": Ben and Jack play a friendly game of chess, and Ben promises Jack he won't try to stop him from leaving the island... but the island might. He also tells Jack that one day he might look back and regret leaving, and that if he does he hopes that he'll remember this conversation. Ooooooh! This is probably the best acted of all of these, and written by comics scribe Brian K. Vaughan to boot.

  

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• "The Deal": Juliet visits Michael while he's held captive by the Others, and tells him that he can believe Ben's offer of freedom. She confesses that she's staying there to help save her sister, and wouldn't he do anything to save Walt? Michael sure isn't happy about it.

  

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• "Operation: Sleeper": Juliet wakes Jack up and tells him she's been working with Ben all along, and that the other survivors have been right not to trust her. Off all the mobisobes, this one felt the rip-offiest.

  

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• "Room 23": Alarms and panic around the Barracks! Juliet tells Ben they need to let Walt go, but Ben tells her he's special and that Jacob wants him there. She shows him a pile of dead birds around Walt's window and wants to know what's so special about that. Is Walt's power the ability to get birds to commit suicide? We've seen it before, and we'll probaby see it again.

  

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• "Arzt & Crafts": It's Arzt! He's in his pre-dynamite phase, and he's trying to convince everyone on the beach not to move to the caves. That is until they hear the smoke monster's crazy horn bellow, and he craps his pants.

  

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• "Buried Secrets": Michael stumbles across Sun burying her fake California driver's license in the woods, and she confesses that she was going to leave Jin. They almost kiss, but then Vincent cockblocks them. That's right, the dog makes 'em stop.

  

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• "Tropical Depression": Arzt confesses to Michael that he lied about the monsoon season, and that he just wants to get off the island. He also tells him that he'd flown to Sydney to meet a woman he'd been chatting with on the internet, but she left him at the restaurant. Boy, this guy really has a depressing life.

  

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• "Jack, Meet Ethan. Ethan? Jack.": Jack meets Ethan while looking for medicine, and Ethan whips up a few tears and tells Jack his wife and child died in childbirth. Then he creepily stares at Claire. After he leaves, Jack creepily stares at Ethan, like "Hey... I know something is weird about that dude."

  

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• "Jin Has a Temper-Tantrum On the Golf Course": Jin has a Happy Gilmore freakout on the golf course after he can't sink a putt. While Hurley and Michael look on, he sinks to his knees and curses the ball. Probably the best scene out of all of them.

  

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• "The Envelope": Juliet burns her hand on something in the oven, and then almost confesses to Amelia and shows her Ben's x-rays, but someone rings the doorbell. Another exercise in frustration, since this one is really just a deleted scene. Okay, maybe this one was the big ripoff.

  

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• "So It Begins": There's a POV shot of Vincent running through the forest until Jack's dad stops him and tells him to go wake Jack up on the beach, just moments after the crash. So is Jack's dad alive? This is the only real "What the hell?!" clip in the whole bunch.

  

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So, without the commercials you've still got about 75 minutes of Lost to watch next week, and rest assured they're probably saving the really good stuff for right before the second hour ends, all the better to make you turn in the following week. However, it's worth at least part of these six minutes to see Hurley continue to assert his newfound balls. Think he'll run over someone else with the van?

Red Hot Video: Lost Sneak Previews [E! Online]

Desmond wakes up, punches the numbers into the computer, riffles through his vinyl and drops the needle on Cass Elliot singing "Make Your Own Kind of Music." He washes up, works out, injects himself with a gigantic dose of serum, and then—kaboom! The beauty of these season-opening moments is that until the first-time viewer sees Jack and Locke peering down the chute into the hatch, they have no idea where or who Desmond is or what the hell is going on. Extra points are also awarded for our first glimpse of Desmond without his shirt.

Locke's Backstory, Part 1. During the first several episodes of season 1, John Locke is established as a faintly sinister survivalist/naturalist, a New Age Grizzly Adams with a case full of knives. Then, in episode 4, a flashback reveals that not only did he used to be a game-playing geek with a paper-pushing job at a box company, but he was confined to a wheelchair. It was a genuinely surprising turn of events that gave the character plenty of impetus for his future actions.

The Orientation Film. The Hanso Foundation orientation film is an absolutely brilliant pastiche of every educational film I was ever forced to sit through in grade school (barring "Hemo the Magnificent"). What an incredibly entertaining way to learn more about the Dharma Initiative, Alvar Hanso, and the island's unique electro-magnetic properties.

Apocalypse on the Beach. From the nightmare-inducing scenes of the plane crash to Jack wandering the beach in a state of shock to the weirdness of Locke smiling at Kate with a slice of orange in his mouth, the very first episode offers lots of crazy, disoriented post-apocalyptic imagery that still packs a punch on viewing three seasons down the road.

Sawyer: More Than Just Fish Biscuits. I don't think of Sawyer as one of my favorite characters (and I'm sure he'd feel the same way about me), yet so many Sawyer-centric moments made my list that I'm giving the manipulative pretty-boy scoundrel his own entry. He is master of the snappy one-liner, and delivers a favorite when accused of stealing annoying Shannon's asthma inhalers. As a myopic constant reader, I strongly relate to his book love and cobbled-together reading glasses from another first season episode. And, really, who can resist all those nicknames?

Honorable mentions go to:
Just about every scene with Hurley, from the moment he reveals he won the lottery but believes he is jinxed to the golden moment when he gets the Volkswagen bus started up.
Mr. Eko and his whacking stick, for being the best of the "Tailies."
Driveshaft's hit song, "You All Everybody". For being a perfect and perfectly meaningless rock anthem and because I miss Charlie, though of course, we probably haven't seen the last of him.

Tomorrow: Lost's Greatest Misses.

You'll play Eliott, a character who (surprise!) we haven't seen before. He's suffering from amnesia, and will be sent all over the island solving mini-games, deciphering clues, and yes, even punching the sacred numbers into the hatch computer. You'll find out a bit more about stuff like the mysterious black smoke and the Black Rock ship that's been marooned on the island for years. You'll also interact with the main characters, although they've used soundalikes for most of them, which is fairly lame.

Since we've been wasting far too much time on the Lost viral marketing games, this game looks even more promising. Check out the trailer for it here. However, we wonder if automatonic versions of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer can tide us over. Will we be playing all of our favorite shows as video games in a few months? Come to think of it, we'd welcome the chance to play a cool Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica game. Keyword being cool.

'Lost' Video Game Preview — Writer Taunts Me With Knowledge Of Black Smoke And Four-Toed Statue [MTV Multiplayer]

Well, if you haven't seen the show, then we doubt you'll "get it", but for the uninitiated out there, 815 was also the flight number of the Oceanic flight that crashed onto the island. We'd also forgotten about the four-toed giant statue... what the hell does that thing mean? Plus we love how they say Mr. Friendly throws like a girl because he most certainly does.

In the future, we wouldn't mind having all television shows and movies given to us this way. They've compressed 69 hours of Lost down to 8 minutes, and kept most of the pertinent facts that you need to know intact. At this rate, we could also watch every episode of Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and the entire run of Planet of the Apes (both the movies and the television show) in an hour. Our brain might not survive the onslaught, but think of all the time we'd save. Plus it would make commercials entirely subliminal, which would thrill the advertisers. How can you skip past what you don't even know what you've seen?

Capsulized television. Bring it on.

Let's assume for a moment that you're one of the thousands of actors trying to make it in Hollywood, fighting daily for auditions, waiting tables by night, and hoping your big break will come along at any moment. Then suddenly you're catapulted into fame and fortune and starring on a hit show that films in, of all places, a tropical paradise. Sounds fairly idyllic, so what would lead someone in that position to become a drunk-driving boozehound?

• Daniel Dae Kim: Kim plays enigmatic Korean Jin-Soo on the show, and he's the latest in a trio of Lost stars drinking their way to DUI charges. He's also the first actor to actually fight his arrest in court. He pled not guilty on Friday to the charges from his October 25th arrest, which included a blood alcohol reading that was above the "highly intoxicated" level. We're not sure what sort of evidence he'll be presenting in his case, but look for plenty of black smoke and escape hatches.
• Cynthia Watros: After playing one of the survivors from the tail section on the show, and later Hurley's love interest, Cynthia was pulled over and arrested on the same day as fellow costar Michelle Rodriguez, although she was driving a separate vehicle. She plead guilty to driving under the influence, and was later killed off by Michael on the show via an "accidental" gunshot. Ka-blam. However, it looks like she'll be returning this year, albeit in flashbacks and dream sequences. Don't give up on Hurley getting some action just yet.



• Michelle Rodriguez: Michelle played hothead L.A. cop Ana Lucia, and her problems onscreen mirrored some of her offscreen dramas, including an arrest for assault, a hit and run, and a previous DUI. After being arrested the same day as Cynthia Watros, she also plead guilty and was offed seconds before Cynthia was on the same episode. Coincidentally, the show where they both bit it was called "Two For The Road." She's back on the hot seat lately, having broken her probation. Chances are she'll be serving more time before she appears in James Cameron's Avatar.

We're not sure if the monotonous days of filming are driving these actors to excess, or if it's something darker and more mysterious. However, if we were betting people, we'd have to put money on Josh Holloway's Sawyer as being the next to guzzle and gas. After all, it would be fitting for his character who has amassed quite a hoard of alcohol on the show. With the writer's strike holding up filming, it might be causing everyone to catch Island fever.