Okay, I’ve managed to hold out for the first four episodes of “Lost” this season, but after tonight I couldn’t resist it any longer. It’s a rant. It’s gonna be spoilerish, and long-winded, usual disclaimers apply, etc. etc. Only click through if you’re ready.

I’m really starting to think they (the creators) have lost track of things and everything is starting to slip. Plus, I guess I’m just not as enchanted with the show as I was during the first season and the half or so of the second. A lot of the mystery and mythology and backstory they developed at that time just seems forgotten or pushed aside now, and it feels really sloppy to me. In particular…

The Others

This season was hyped to be all about the Others, and how everything we thought we knew about them would be turned on its ear, and they’re not what we think, and pomp and circumstance. Well, so far the season is all about them, but I have to say, they are exactly what I think: a bunch of evil, lying, murdering sons-of-bitches out to get the survivors for some reason.

No? Well, instead of offering humanitarian aid of any kind to the survivors of a horrific plane crash, they infiltrated them, spied on them, kidnapped a bunch of them, and murdered a bunch. Right now they’re torturing their prisoners. And yet they keep proclaiming that they’re not killers… so did the writers forget about:

• Ethan trying to kill Charlie when he abducted him and Claire. Dead but for Jack resuscitating him.
• Ethan (we assume, maybe others as well) killing at least one, maybe more, survivors when they wouldn’t give Claire back to him.
• Goodwin (from the tail section survivors) killing the guy Ana Lucia had mistakenly thought was an Other.
• The Others on the motorboat kidnapping Walt, shooting Sawyer, blowing up the raft and leaving Sawyer, Jin and Michael for dead on the open ocean.
• They were going to operate on pregnant Claire in the medical hatch in an apparently bad way, according to Alex, who helped Claire escape.

And what about Alex, Rousseau’s daughter? (And, just where is Rousseau, anyway?) We saw her last season obviously reluctant to be working with them, and actively aiding the survivors… and we may have seen her this season sneaking a word with Kate at the work camp. Clearly she knows they’re up to no good.

Yep, except for the opening scene of this season showing the Others living in suburbia in the middle of the island, which was cool, I just don’t have this “new perspective” on the Others. They’re the bad guys, they’re killers, and there needs to be some retribution. Sun shooting (and ultimately) killing one of them two weeks ago was a good start.

And tonight’s episode, where they wasted an hour “conning” Sawyer just to show him that they’re on some prison island apart from the main island? Weak, weak, weak. Too many flaws in the “logic” of that. They’re trying to impress upon him the futility of running, but come on: the Others got to the island somehow—boats, underground tunnels, something—so it’s completely feasible that Sawyer and company could escape. The polar bears did. That should strengthen his resolve, not break down his spirit. Weak writing, guys.

And, they’ve revealed at least why they need Jack: to operate on the tumor growing on the spine of their leader. Two things: wouldn’t they have gotten Jack’s help with a lot less trouble and bloodshed had they actually just helped the survivors? And number two… doesn’t the island itself heal people?

Remember Locke? And Rose? Crippled and terminal cancer, respectively… both healed. Sun’s infertility? Pregnant now. They spent two seasons hammering into us how the island was special and was healing people, among other things. Um, hello?

The Flashbacks

Yeah, those flashbacks, which were awesome in the first season, growing a bit tedious in the second, are by now totally annoying. I think we’ve moved past the “everyone’s interconnected” stage, and it seems like it’s only being done because it’s expected… but they’re not really having anything to do with the story anymore, and don’t really serve a purpose.

Other than filler.

Important Stuff the Writers Forgot (or seem to have)

• See stuff I mentioned above.
• The monster. Or “security system.” Or black smoke, or whatever it is.
• Jack’s father’s body.
• The whispery voices on the island.
• Unknown pathogen or sickness infecting “outsiders.”
• Walt and his apparent powers. Yeah, I know they wrote him out of the series. How convenient.
• Kate’s Black Stallion is running around the island.
• The caves where the survivors were staying… with fresh water and shelter and everything.

The Books

Of course, I couldn’t get by without blogging the books that appear on the show, like I did last season. So far I remember Carrie by Stephen King from the season premiere, and Of Mice and Men tonight. As with the rest of this rant, though, I think any significance that might once have been attached to them no longer necessarily applies…

And Finally…

Come on, let’s have something happen, can’t we? Something substantial, and intelligent. Things are starting to slip the rails. I won’t say they’ve jumped the shark yet… but it feels like it’s heading that way.