Lost – Season 3

Archived review – After the six-episode arc that aired before Christmas:

Only six episodes have been shown so far, thanks to the inventive scheduling that is 'showing one episode every week without countless repeats'. My, how did no one ever think of that before?! Because of this, it's kind of hard to figure out whether season three will be any good or not. Certainly, the first six episodes have been fairly good, of a similar (but not better) standard to Season 2. We've already had the introduction of the intriguing Juliette, a lot of information about the Others, and the surprising death of a fan favourite. Flashbacks have been a bit disappointing so far as they've all focused on characters we know so much about already. Also, the focus on the Others mean there's been little screen time for a lot of people; Hardly anything has been seen of Hurley, Claire, Jin/Sun and two new characters that have not yet shown any promise. The jury's still out.

And at the end of the season:

After an amazing first season, a so-so second season and those initial six unanswering autumn episodes, Lost has finally returned to form in what might overall be its best season yet. Once the show returned in January (or at least once Hurley's episode broadcast and finally lifted people's spirits from the previous era of capture/torture/depression), the pace got a little faster and questions were finally being answered. Such a conspiracy show is never going to hit the breakneck speed of, say, Heroes, but at least something significant seemed to happen every episode. Even more standalone episodes such as Expose, in which the writers admitted that the two new shoehorned-in characters were annoying and no-one cared about them by killing them off in an entertaining way, proved to be captivating detours. And someone please give newcomer Elizabeth Mitchell an Emmy for her performance in One of Us, or at least a nomination. The finale achieved everything that is so good about Lost - the death of a major character showed that anyone is expendable, there were brief moments of hope and joy amidst what is quite a sombre and despairing show. And for the first time ever, everyone was working together, a pleasure to watch after all the separation and trust issues raised this season. There was also an exciting twist that could change the entire format of the show (although I don't think there will be much impact for a while yet) and with the announcement of an endgame after 48 more episodes, hopefully the quality can be retained and a satisfying conclusion can be achieved with most major questions answered. For such a popular cult show, it would be a shame for it to peter out like The X-Files did. Here's hoping.