Views from Medina Road

Lost is still very cool. The third season premiere was last night, Wednesday. (In fact, the whole episode can be watched for free at http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index.) The cleverest part, actually, is the opening teaser, the first two minutes: it opens with a close-up of an eye, as did many of the first season episodes, then proceeds to a scene in which a woman selects a CD and puts it into a player, in an updated version of the season 2 opener, in which the guy in the bunker was seen playing an LP in his '60s style pad (and in this new scene she plays '60s hit "Downtown"). After some business about burned muffins in an oven (what is this about?), we see a book club meeting in which members argue over some unrevealed Stephen King title -- one member complains "it's not even literature; there's no metaphor; it's by-the-number hokum-pokum; it's science fiction". Though we never see exactly which Stephen King book it is. Still -- presumably this an homage/reply to King's friendly criticisms of the show in his periodic Entertainment Weekly columns?... ;) And one can't help but think that things like eyes and muffins in this story *are* intended as metaphors by the show's producers... even if we can't yet figure out of what.

Then there's an apparent quake, everyone runs outside, and we see -- Henry Gale, and another familiar face; and we see -- a jet airliner overhead, as it breaks apart, the tail section veering there, the front end heading there... We're replaying the very opening, from the first season, of Oceanic Flight 815's breakup and crash, viewed from the ground, from those already on the island. And then we pan back, abruptly, and see this small town village, this village of the dreaded Others, nestled in the coastal hills of the Island, as if there for years, now nestled along the shore where smoke rises from pieces of wreckage in the distance...

It's easy to nit-pick; surely we previously were given the impression that Flight 815 broke up during normal flight, at cruising altitude -- while this clip visualizes the plane at a much lower altitude. (Not to mention the implausiblity of anyone surviving such an airplane crash at all; cf. the crash in Brazil a couple weeks ago.) Still-- there are fascinating surprises here, new revelations, and despite the cynical premonitions of how ongoing series like this can erode and self-destruct, I have hopes, hope that the producers have developed an over-arching story that really will explain everything in the end. Surely it can be done. The failures to do so in the past (e.g. Twin Peaks) are known by the producers... as are the priorities of network execs, who understandably want to milk a hit for as long as they can. But surely it can be done...