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I tend to go against the grain when it comes to the Lost fan community. Last season when everyone was singing the show's praises, I was bored. The show took an entire season for the Oceanic 6 to get off the Island, something we knew would happen at the end of season 3 with the brilliant flash forward twist. The final scenes from seasons 3 and 4 literally took place on the same night. That's not story progression in my book.

And now in season 5 as ratings decline and fans grow frustrated with the 1977 DHARMA storyline, I find myself loving Lost more than ever.

The fact is that Lost is at it's absolute best when I have no idea what's going to happen. When every episode is a mystery and the story branches into unknown territory, I get excited. Who could've guessed that the survivors would mostly be stuck in the past, living with the same people who were a large part of the mystery of season 2?

For four seasons, the survivors were trying to get off the Island, so while the Others and DHARMA and the Black Smoke Monster added some intrigue, the basic premise was still the same. Now, even the basic premise of the series is in question. Is Sawyer actually thinking a plan to bring them back to the present, or are they content to live out their lives in DHARMA-Ville?

And what about the "present"? John Locke is miraculously still alive and Christian Shephard promised a long journey for Sun to reconnect with Jin. That story could go a thousand different ways, and I don't know which one the writers will choose.

Lost is succeeding this season because of the unknown. The mystery isn't who the Others are or what the Hatch is or where the Black Smoke Monster comes from. The mystery is the entire series, where it's going, and what's happening. That's the genius of Lost.

I have enough predictable dramas in my life. I know that the police will investigate crime in the first half of Law and Order, and at the 30-minute mark, the district attorneys will prosecute the offenders. I know that Dr. Gregory House and his team will have a number of incorrect hypotheses before stumbling onto the right one thanks to some seemingly unconnected conversation. I even know that the Heroes will follow their own separate paths before joining up at the end after learning valuable lessons to defeat the main villain.

But I don't know what's happening on Lost. I don't know whether the timeline is constant or if changing events in the past alters the future. I don't know whether Sawyer and the others will ever get back to the present, or if Sun will go to the past. And I definitely have absolutely no idea how this season of Lost will end.

And that's just the way I like it.

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