As a show whose major selling points have always been mystery and confounded expectations, perhaps it's inevitable the eventual rescue implied in the premise of ABC's hit drama "Lost" would be turned on its ear.
Season four's fourth (of 13) episode airs tonight, and this season has associated the concept of rescue from the island with terrible fates, both in the immediate (the terrifying "freighter," its off-putting personnel) and the future (uniformly depressing flash forwards of the Oceanic Six).
Three and a half years ago, who could guess fans would eventually cross their fingers that the castaways would stay lost forever?
By setting these two new concepts against the show's central premise, "Lost" has managed to reverse its own course in a way that's intelligent, inventive and unexpectedly moving. Where viewers once cheered on Claire's quixotic messenger birds and Michael's raft-building, fans are now in the position of knowing that a few make it home and how bad things get there.
These developments are not entirely surprising, as we've been conditioned by the show to accept and expect game-changing reversals at least twice a season.
Remember when the castaways only had to worry about a burlap bag over the head in the middle of the night? Now they're contending with multimillion-dollar paramilitary organizations whose purposes are still unknown.
Where the show has fallen in the past is in the careful preparation of its revelation-to-mystery ratio. However, viewers also need that chaotic feeling that anything can happen — that the true size and scope of the field of play are still unrevealed — or else the show's central attraction falls by the wayside.
The new flash-forward structure seems like a brilliant way to reintroduce that first-season sense of enormity while still giving fans their time's worth.
New roles
"Lost" is as compelling and intriguing as ever, drawing the revelations and threads of last season's finale tightly around the new off-island threat. One of the most exciting aspects of the show's new rules is the fascinating new angles and opportunities they create for the characters. New divisions in the central crash group, fights over leadership and new alliances have all revitalized and sometimes irrevocably radicalized tired characters.
What were once Jack's finest qualities — his innate sense of right and wrong and his trust, as a physician, in the laws of cause and effect — become more and more limited and suspect as viewers learn more about the island's nonstandard physics. And then, through his flash forwards, fans know his rescue and escape have created a lonely prison of what was formerly a life, before the island.
Likewise, there's a chilling anticipation in the concept of watching Sayid go from repentant ex-torturer to murderer in Ben's service: How does it happen? What will it look like? Will it seem so repugnant when we get there?
The one thing fans can count on with "Lost" is that nothing is what it looks like. If something seems awful or scary at first, chances are it's probably pretty cool in the end. And the opposite is true as well, as with Walt and Locke's relationship going from spiritual haven to possible psychotic break, while Jack and Locke's once-comforting patriarchal presences become rigid, violent and scary.
Or take Hurley, who this season has become a doomed hero of nearly epic proportions. Between his flash forwards of psychological relapse and his growing relationship with the island, he seems to be one to watch this season.
And as for Ben and Juliet, those holdovers from the conflict with the Others, it would seem the freighter is the best thing that could have happened to them. By joining the original group's narrative, by hook or by crook, they've made themselves invaluable in the conflict to follow.
Now, having spent enough time with these characters to see their strengths and weaknesses, there is an opportunity to see just how far they can be pushed by the realization of their greatest wish: the possibility of escape, and of return.
The future's great, but …
Where it gets most interesting is in the flash forwards. They offer proof that Locke and Ben are completely correct — leaving the island is a terrible, terrible idea.
Jack's in an alcoholic shame spiral worse than anything he experienced pre-Oceanic, Kate's seems caught in yet another horrible relationship, Hurley's crazier than ever and Sayid seems to have lost the sense of honor that was always his best quality.
There's a feeling close to trepidation when a flash-forward story begins, if only because they are so uniformly bleak and open-ended.
Tonight marks the 73rd episode of 117. The show’s nearly two-thirds of the way to its conclusion. As the headlong rush into that last third of the story begins, it's tempting to spend every episode reviewing how far things have come, and how much things have changed.
But it's much more fun to imagine how much more things have left to change.
Jacob Clifton is a staff writer for Television Without Pity.