Lost Forget calling it a television show.† Somehow that doesn't do it justice.† A national phenomenon is more accurate.† The greatest serial mystery ever broadcast. And it can only turn out to be the greatest disappointment in television as well.† Why? Because the stakes are too high.† Because network executives always screw good things up.† Because Twin Peaks and The X-Files are proof that such storytelling is incredibly difficult to sustain. But there is an even greater reason Lost must disappoint. What we don't know is always more powerful than what we do know.† Meaning: as writers invent solutions to solve their incredible island riddle, we will only be disappointed as our theories are slowly eroded by bland, real facts, as we learn the game is ending and the mystery is over. The mystery is what makes Lost so compelling. It started out as all TV stars out -- a bad idea.† An executive at ABC wanted to make a television version of the film, Cast Away.† JJ Abrams saved the idea from Gilligan Camp by adding a vital science fiction component.†† Our plane crash survivors have to contend with malicious forces on the island. Now, we as a national audience must contend with an equally malicious force: a three-month hiatus.† Lost won't return until February. But that is more than enough time for head scratching, theorizing, and speculation on the fate of those plane crash survivors. Or in other words: we won't be FOUND anytime soon.

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