Those who saved up a little extra pocket change from the lack of Blu-rays released over the last few weeks will probably want to grab a hammer and break open the piggy bank, because there are a slew of must-own titles hitting stores today. Even better is the variety, from new horror films and old classics to cult television shows and HBO mini-series, this week features one of the best HD line-ups that you’re likely to see all year.

“Friday the 13th” (Warner Bros.)

The new adventures of Jason Voorhees may just be the latest in a long line of mindless sequels (in fact, one might even argue it’s little more than a compilation of greatest hits from the first three films), but it does serve as an excellent reboot of sorts that horror fans should appreciate. While Jason’s ninja-like stealth is a bit ridiculous, it’s but a minor obstacle in an otherwise entertaining slasher flick. The kills are just as inventive as they were 30 years ago (there’s even a Blu-ray exclusive featurette that takes an in-depth look at the seven most memorable ones), and at the end of the day, that’s all anyone really cares about. Whether or not it truly revitalizes the franchise is a whole another matter, but at least Warner Bros. is willing to stand behind their product. The Blu-ray release is one of the studio’s best yet, and includes an extended (but still R-rated) cut of the film, as well as a making-of featurette, deleted scenes and a picture-in-picture video track.

“Dr. Strangelove” (Sony Pictures)

Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire isn’t exactly the kind of film that benefits from high definition, but it still looks remarkably good for its age. Though I’ve never really been a fan of black-and-white cinema, “Dr. Strangelove� is one of the few exceptions. It’s probably because the movie would seem absolutely ludicrous in color. Not only are many of the characters (like George C. Scott’s General Turgidson and Peter Seller’s Strangelove) already so outlandish that they’re practically cartoons, but the monochrome effect lends a certain seriousness to the film that only makes the events that follow even funnier. The “Inside Dr. Strangelove� retrospective included on the disc – which covers everything from Kubrick’s original idea of making a serious political thriller to an 11th hour legal coup designed to delay the release of the similarly-themed “Fail-Safe� – should be of particular interest to fans of the film, while the addition of never-before-seen pages from the screenplay sheds new light on the infamously deleted cream pie fight ending.

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That seems to be the new rumor going around the ‘net today following the release of a new ABC promo featuring Patrick Dempsey, Ed O’Neill, Courtney Cox-Arquette and ex-Lostie Dominic Monaghan. While TV spoiler guru Michael Ausiello has received word from a network insider that “There’s obviously a lot of ABC talent in the promo… It doesn’t necessarily mean that Dominic is returning to Lost,” it’s hard to argue otherwise considering the promo ends with Dempsey telling Monaghan “You’re so dead,” and Monaghan coyly replying, “Actually, I was.”

The fact that fellow cast member Emilie de Ravin was just announced as returning to series regular status for the final season, it would certainly open up the opportunity for Monaghan to return as well. Whether it’s as a ghost or a real person (what if Juliet really did change the past?) is uncertain, but whatever the case, I know that lots of fans (myself included) would just be happy to have him back. We’ll have to wait until January 2010 to find out, but for the time being, it’s definitely worth speculating about.

UPDATED: As it turns out, the rumor was just that — an unfortunately untrue rumor. Mr. Ausiello has gotten the real scoop, and it involves Monaghan joining another hour-long show on ABC. Any guesses? Ausiello’s comment section is already filling up with suggestions, including one I like (”V”) and one I don’t (”Grey’s Anatomy”).

The Television Critics Association has officially begun the gearing-up process for its 25th annual awards, which will honor the finest work of the 2008-09 season as selected by the association’s 200-plus member critics and journalists. One of those members is yours truly, and I figured I’d see what the readers of Premium Hollywood had to say about the nominations and who they’d like to see win the various categories. I’ll have to submit my votes by June 10th, but since the winners won’t be announced until August 1st (the ceremony takes place at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa in Pasadena, CA, with Chelsea Handler opening the ceremony), so speak up quickly. There are a couple of things I’m on the fence about, and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts before I make my final selections.

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

* “Battlestar Galactica� (SciFi Channel)
* “Lost� (ABC)
* “Mad Men� (AMC)
* “Saturday Night Live� (NBC)
* “The Shield� (FX)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

* “30 Rock� (NBC)
* “The Big Bang Theory� (CBS)
* “The Daily Show� (Comedy Central)
* “How I Met Your Mother� (CBS)
* “The Office� (NBC)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

* “Breaking Bad� (AMC)
* “Friday Night Lights� (NBC/DirecTV)
* “Lost� (ABC)
* “Mad Men� (AMC)
* “The Shield� (FX)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT MOVIES, MINI-SERIES AND SPECIALS

* Summer Olympic Coverage (NBC)
* “24: Redemption� (Fox)
* “Generation Kill� (HBO)
* “Grey Gardens� (HBO)
* “Taking Chance� (HBO)

OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM OF THE YEAR

“Fringe� (Fox)
“The Mentalist� (CBS)
“No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency� (HBO)
“True Blood� (HBO)
“United States of Tara� (Showtime)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY

* Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock�)
* Steve Carell (“The Office�)
* Tina Fey (“30 Rock�)
* Neil Patrick Harris (“How I Met Your Mother�)
* Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory�)

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA

* Glenn Close (“Damages�)
* Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad�)
* Walton Goggins (“The Shield�)
* Jon Hamm (“Mad Men�)
* Hugh Laurie (“House�)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMING

* “Camp Rock� (The Disney Channel)
* “The Electric Company� (PBS)
* “Nick News� (Nickelodeon)
* “Sid the Science Kid� (PBS)
* “Yo Gabba Gabba� (Nickelodeon)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS & INFORMATION

* “60 Minutes� (CBS)
* “The Alzheimer’s Project� (HBO)
* “Frontline� (PBS)
* “The Rachel Maddow Show� (MSNBC)
* “We Shall Remain� (PBS)

HERITAGE AWARD

* “ER� (NBC)
* “M*A*S*H� (CBS)
* “Saturday Night Live� (NBC)
* “The Shield� (FX)
* “Star Trek� (NBC)

And Upfronts Week rolls on, with the American Broadcasting Company offering up their slate for the new season. Sadly, as Mr. Paulsen revealed yesterday, “Samantha Who?” will not be returning for Season 3 (and that rather depresses me, as I quite liked the show), but on the up side, “Better Off Ted” did score another season. Woo-hoo! You can view the network’s fall schedule below, along with info on the new shows and details on what to expect come the mid-season.

Monday:

8:00 PM - Dancing with the Stars
10:00 PM - Castle

Tuesday:

8:00 PM - Shark Tank

From Mark Burnett, executive producer of “Survivor� and “The Apprentice,� and Sony Pictures Television comes “Shark Tank,� an exciting new reality show that gives budding entrepreneurs the chance to make their dreams come true and become successful – and possibly wealthy – business people. But the entrepreneurs must first try to convince five tough, multi-millionaire tycoons to part with their own hard-earned cash and give them the funding they need to jumpstart their ideas.

9:00 PM - Dancing with the Stars Results Show

10:00 PM - The Forgotten

From executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer comes a crime show in which a team of dedicated amateurs work on cases involving unidentified victims. After the police have given up, this group must first solve the puzzle of the victim’s identity in order to then help catch the killer. They work to give the deceased back their names, lest they become — The Forgotten. Stars Rupert Penry-Jones as Alex, Reiko Aylesworth as Linda, Michelle Borth as Candace, Bob Stephenson as Walter, Anthony Carrigan as Tyler and Rochelle Aytes as Detective Grace Russell.

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This season of “Lost� has been one of the best (if not the best) in the history of the series. The season finale? Not so much. While we’ve been hearing for weeks that the finale would prove to be a game changer – prompting many to even wonder how the show could go on – I just don’t see how anyone could come to that conclusion. Was tonight’s finale really better than the flash-forward of Season Three? Hardly, and though it may have changed the series more than we think, we still won’t know anything until Season Six starts up in 2010. After all, the show may have ended with a literal bang, but it felt more like a whimper with that fade to white.

Tonight’s episode also had way too much going on for me to even attempt my usual format, so instead, I’ve decided to break my recap down into more general ideas so that I can discuss each one in a little more depth. Hopefully it’s not too difficult to follow along and will make it easier for commenters to address certain topics without having to go into too much detail. I apologize in advance if it does the complete opposite.

1. Jacob – He certainly wasn’t at the top of my list of questions I was eager to see answered, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed by the lack of explanation we received for Jacob. Apart from the fact that we know he has some kind of magical power (including Richard Alpert-like immortality and the ability heal), Jacob remains shrouded in mystery. Oh yeah, and now that Locke’s convinced Ben to kill him, we may never find out who he really is, where he’s from, and how he was able to leave the island so frequently throughout the last 30 years. Which brings me to…

2. Jacob’s Flashbacks – Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have always had fun trying to connect each character to one another, so it was cool to see Jacob pop up throughout the Losties’ history. Even more important, however, was that he seemed to always do so during a crucial moment in their lives. Okay, so I’m not exactly sure what significance paying for a stolen New Kids on the Block lunchbox has for Kate, but the others all made perfect sense. The funeral of Sawyer’s parents; the death of Sayid’s true love; Sun and Jin’s wedding; and the list goes on and on. The most important of the bunch, however, is Locke’s crippling fall from the apartment building. Many people called in to question how someone could possibly survive such a fall around the time that original episode aired, and now we know the answer – Jacob revived him. Which brings me back to my first point: just who the hell is Jacob?

3. Rose, Bernard and Vincent – The writers have been promising all season that we’d eventually get to see what happened to the beloved secondary characters, and as it turns out, they’ve been time jumping with the rest of the survivors all this time. That was pretty much a given, but the fact that they were able to do so without anyone the wiser is pretty impressive. Apparently, they’ve not only decided to retire in a nice beach house since the “flaming arrows three years ago,� but they’ve also become hippies in the process. I could have done without the whole “All We Need Is Love� speech that Bernard delivered, but seeing as this is probably the last time we’ll ever see him or Rose again, it was an admirable send-off for a couple that could have easily been excised from the series after Season Three.

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Typically, the second-to-last episode of every season of “Lost� has never really been the calm before the storm, but rather the storm before the storm, which makes tonight’s episode difficult to write about. It’s not that it wasn’t good, but that when compared to past seasons, it just wasn’t quite as spectacular. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have always done a great job with getting all of their ducks in a row before the big two-hour finale, but while they’ve done that here again, it was unusually mediocre.

I mean, sure, we now know that Faraday is officially dead, but couldn’t they have at least pretended to try and revive him? I find it hard to believe that a little kid that was shot twice by a trained soldier can be miraculously resurrected hours later, and yet Faraday dies within seconds of being shot once in the back. Perhaps it’s just my disappointment over his death, but for a show that has done a relatively good job with logic, that has got to be one of the most illogical things that has ever happened. Obviously, it had to happen or Eloise would have never agreed to help Jack blow up the island’s electromagnetic power source, but it sucks nonetheless.

Thankfully, the episode had some really cool moments as well, the best of which included the return of Sayid when he popped out of the bushes to save Jack and Kate from a mob of angry Others with guns. Sayid’s been gone in the wild for so many weeks that I nearly forgot he was even absent in the first place, but it’s nice to have him back. And if anyone was going to help Jack detonate Jughead, you can bet your ass it was going to be Sayid. Aside from Jack during the early years, Sayid has been the number one supporter of all things anti-island, so it isn’t at all surprising that he’d jump at the chance for a clean slate. Of course, the chance that it’s actually going to work is pretty doubtful because, well, there’s a whole another season left to go. (Then again, wouldn’t it be brilliant on the part of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof to end the show a year earlier than expected?)

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It’s not very often that we welcome back a character the same night we say farewell, but if the end of tonight’s episode is to be believed, Daniel Faraday is no more. To which I say, fuck you Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Killing Charlie was bad enough, but if this death sticks, I’m going to be pretty pissed. Okay, maybe not. It’s kind of hard to stay mad at you when you continue to deliver top-notch episodes like this, but that doesn’t mean I’m not upset. Nevertheless, just like Charlie’s last few episodes at the end of Season Three, Faraday’s last hurrah was one for the ages.

First, we find out that Eloise is Faraday’s mother, and then we find out that Widmore is his father, but honestly, anyone that didn’t see that one coming hasn’t been paying attention these last few years. Still, Faraday’s connection to the island certainly has to be the most interesting of all the characters, and the fact that Eloise willingly sent her son back knowing exactly what was going to happen takes serious guts. Of course, if the Others were able to save Ben Linus from a gunshot wound, what’s to say they won’t be able to do the same for Faraday? It seems plausible, and wouldn’t it explain Faraday’s memory loss in the future/present?

Speaking of which, Faraday’s flashbacks weren’t quite as revelatory as some might have hoped, but it was fun to revisit key moments (like his reaction to the Oceanic 815 recovery footage) knowing more about his journey after those events. The same goes for the opening scene from the season premiere, where we saw Faraday passing Marvin Candle/Dr. Chang in the Swan station, but nothing more. Now we know that Faraday not only spoke with Candle about evacuating the island, but also broke several of his own time travel rules by telling Candle that he’s from the future and that Miles is his son. Candle didn’t seem to buy into either claim, but how could he not? The only Chinese guy on the island with the name Miles? Yeah, it seems like a pretty airtight argument to me too.

Whatever Faraday was expecting Candle to do, he seemed to believe that he was going to do it after their little talk, and let’s hope that he does, because Faraday’s ultimate plan is explosive to say the least. Some of the commenters on this blog were insistent that ‘ol Jughead would rear its head again in the future and, well, they were right. Personally, I completely forgot about the hydrogen bomb between all the time jumping during the middle of the season, but once Faraday mentioned blowing up the Swan’s mysterious power source using the bomb, it suddenly made a lot of sense. Of course, Faraday’s plan doesn’t exactly work under his initial theory that “whatever happens, happens,â€� but since the Losties currently are experiencing their present, they still have the power to change their future. It’s a pretty cool theory for sure, and it’s really the only way the writers could have gotten out of the hole they conceivably dug themselves into.

Now that Faraday’s dead, though, who will carry out the plan? Jack and Kate are probably stuck in Others territory, Sawyer and Juliet have been outed by Radzinsky, and Hurley and Miles are stuck in the middle of it all. Plus, with three more hours left to go, there’s still more than enough time for a couple of wild cards to be thrown into the mix – namely Locke, Sun and Ben, who will no doubt play a role in all of this before the season is over. Oh yeah, and there’s no way the Losties erase the past by blowing up the Swan. At least, not with an entire season still to go. Can this show really get any better? God I hope so.

- Ratings for the season finales of “Chuck” and “Heroes” failed to impress. This is especially bad news for “Chuck,” which is definitely on the bubble to get a pickup.

- TV.COM reports that talks between ABC and the producers of “Scrubs” are heating up. The ratings haven’t been great, but ad sales have been solid due to the upscale nature of the show’s audience. This season has been up and down, and has suffered some with portions of the cast missing significant time (as a planned, cost-cutting measure). But when everyone’s accounted for, the show still has its moments.

- EW.COM is reporting that the CW is planning to run repeats of “Privileged” this summer, which could be taken as a good sign as far as the show’s future is concerned.

- VARIETY discusses the still-a-ways-off-series-finale of “Lost,” and how the producers are approaching it.

- The ratings for the return of “Prison Break” were poor, and TV By The Numbers says that it’s bad news for “Dollhouse.”

- One of my favorite shows, “The Unit,” is on the bubble, but the good news is that producer Shawn Ryan (”The Shield”) has been invited by CBS to present ideas for a fifth season.

- The NY Post says that Mary Louise Parker is thinking about leaving “Weeds” after next season.

- FOX’s “Sit Down, Shut Up” didn’t do all that well (ratings-wise) in its debut on Sunday, considering it was sandwich between stalwarts “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.” I’m a fan of both of those shows, but I couldn’t make it through a full episode of “Sit Down, Shut Up.”

- TiVo is continuing to move into Nielsen’s territory. They’ve been offering national ratings since 2007, but now plan to provide market-by-market ratings as well. It makes sense — the TiVo is essentially a computer that can track what a household watches (if they choose to opt-in).

- Variety compares “Heroes” to “Lost” in that both programs started off really strong before faltering a bit. The question is — will “Heroes” find its way like “Lost” did? (Methinks maybe an end date two or three seasons down the line would do the trick.)

First thing’s first: tonight’s episode must had one of the coolest titles in the history of television. It’s exactly this kind of geek humor that makes the “Lost� writing team one of the best in the business. (Check out Will Harris’ interview with executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof for further proof.) In fact, I liked it so much that it wouldn’t have even mattered if it didn’t make any sense in the end, but as it turned out, it did, and suffice it to say that it led to one of the biggest laughs of the night. I thought for sure Hurley was scribbling something in his journal a little more important than a script for “The Empire Strikes Back,� but then again, that’s Hurley for you. His scenes with Miles have helped fill the void ever since the big guy became friends with Sawyer, and though tonight’s episode was all about Miles, it was a great to have Hurley along for the ride.

Along with Faraday, Miles has been one of my favorite characters since his arrival in Season Four, so it was nice to finally get some backstory other than the brief bits we saw in the episode featuring his first appearance. I believe Cuse and Lindelof intended to address Miles’ past at some point last year, but had to cut the story when the season was shortened by the strike. Whatever the reason, it actually worked for the better now that the Losties have travelled back in time. We always knew that his sixth sense was the reason he was recruited by Widmore, and some of us have even had the hunch that Marvin Candle (or Pierre Chang) was his father when it was suggested that he had previously visited the island, but I don’t think anyone realized that Miles knew as well.

As it turns out, he’s known ever since his third day as a member of the Dharma Initiative when he spotted his mother in the lunch line at the cafeteria. (At least he didn’t hit on her à la “Back to the Future.�). Heck, he even saw himself as a baby later on, which begs to ask the question: is Miles’ special ability a product of his time on the island or is it just sheer coincidence? I don’t think we’re going to find out the answer to that just yet, but one thing we do know is that Miles is adamant about not wanting to meet his father. He’s more or less forced to, though, when Horace gives him a special assignment to deliver a package (read: dead body) to Candle at the Swan station.

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With the writers’ strike finally behind us, the television industry has sprung back remarkably well. Granted, it isn’t all puppy dogs and ice cream for all of our favorite shows, but after the strike forced us to cancel the spring edition of our semi-annual TV Power Rankings, it’s nice to be able to show some love for those series that had been gone for far too long. A quick look at our Winter 2008 list may suggest that a major shakeup has occurred in our new Top 20 below, but seven of the shows from last November are either on hiatus or cancelled. Likewise, nearly every eligible show previously on hiatus has snuck its way back into the Top 20, while five new shows have also cracked the list. Most of these are experiencing some of their best seasons ever, and though “Heroes” continues its mighty fall, the return of “24″ only further cements the notion that TV is back and better than ever.

Below you’ll find a few entries, but be sure to check out the full list, where we’ve also included links to DVD reviews and interviews, as well as a host of Honorable Mentions and our list of favorite shows currently on hiatus.

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Ever since his introduction in Season Two, Ben Linus has fast become one of the most compelling characters on “Lost,� so it isn’t much of a surprise that tonight’s episode was one of the best of the year. While much of the allure of this season is due to the recent boost in science fiction-heavy fare like time travel, the last few weeks have really emphasized the strong relationships between the people on the island. And if we’ve learned anything, it’s that Ben has some of the most fascinating relationships of them all. Oh yeah, and Michael Emerson deserves an Emmy nomination.

Ben’s ongoing feud with Charles Widmore has made for some great moments in the past, but it was nice to finally see how that feud came to fruition. Both men have always been viewed as villains, but based on the flashbacks from tonight, it’s clear that Widmore is the worst of the two. He didn’t seem to have any logical reason for wanting Rousseau and her baby dead other than the fact that they were outsiders, but Ben’s decision to stand up to Widmore and protect baby Alex showed a side of him that we always knew was there but rarely saw. Of course, that was before Ben became the monster he is today, but it was apparently enough to prove to Richard that he was worthy of taking over leadership after Widmore was booted off the island for breaking the rules.

One of those rules was having a child with an outsider, and as we all know, that child grew up to be Penny. What we didn’t know, however, was what had come of Penny now that Ben had left the island. Many seemed to believe that his brutal beating was a result of killing Penny on her boat (after all, he made that call to Jack from a dock), but as it turns out, that wasn’t it at all. Well, not exactly, anyway. It turns out Ben did intend on killing Penny (he even shot Desmond in the shoulder for trying to interfere), but the minute he saw Penny’s son, he decided against it. Of course, that didn’t stop Desmond from beating him to a pulp, but like I said before, it just goes to show that Ben isn’t nearly as bad of a guy as people once believed him to be.

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You know you’re a casual TV viewer when…you don’t know the name of your favorite show’s producers. If you’re pretty hardcore about your viewing habits, however, then you’ve probably memorized just about every name in the credits to the series you watch regularly, and if “Lost” is one of those series, then you’ll instantly recognize the names Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Of course, they’re not limited strictly to that show. Mr. Cuse had a hand in “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai” and “Nash Bridges,” while Mr. Lindelof did his time in the trenches over at “Crossing Jordan.”

“And then we say, ‘Surprise! Turns out Walt was autistic, and everything that happened in the series was just in his imagination!’”

Bullz-Eye will be talking to Messrs. Cuse and Lindelof in conjunction with the appearance of “Lost” on our upcoming TV Power Rankings, and we’d like to give the dedicated readers of the show’s blog the chance to ask them some questions. Whether it’s about the headaches of time travel that have resulted from this season or that damned four-toed statue, just leave them in the comments section and we’ll add ‘em to our list. Then check back here and on Bullz-Eye.com on April 15th to read their responses…and, of course, to find out where “Lost” turns up in the TV Power Rankings!

UPDATE: The interview has been conducted. Stay tuned for their answers!

Ugh. Is it really time again for another Kate-centric story? Unfortunately, but while tonight’s episode wasn’t one of the year’s best, at least it wrapped up another plotline from earlier in the season. Though Aaron’s whereabouts probably weren’t at the top of most people’s lists, it did add some much needed closer to Kate’s past. Up until the final moments of the night, I was actually starting to think that she had either lost him to a stranger at the supermarket (though, admittedly, that would have been pretty lame), or given him to Cassidy to take care of. After all, she’s clearly proven to be a fit mother from raising Saywer’s daughter, Clementine, and as we learned throughout the course of the episode, she and Kate actually became pretty good friends.

Speaking of Clementine, it was also confirmed that the big secret Sawyer whispered into Kate’s ear before jumping off the helicopter was a simple request to take care of his daughter. Not exactly a surprise when you consider there wasn’t much else he could have asked, but it’s still nice to get that out of the way. In fact, while the reveal wasn’t much of a shock, Kate’s immediate honesty with Cassidy was. Didn’t she even think of the consequences that might have come with Cassidy blabbing her mouth about how the Oceanic Six’s story was all a lie? Apparently not, and it’s a good thing she didn’t, because if the two of them never became friends, Kate wouldn’t have made the unselfish decision to head back to the island and leave Aaron in the care of Claire’s mother.

It was a necessary story to tell, but it was pretty dull compared to the island portion of tonight’s episode. After Jin awakens to discover Young Ben has been shot by Sayid, he rushes him back to camp to get help. Horace thinks the Others are planning an attack, and while everyone begins preparing defenses, Juliet desperately tries to save Ben’s life. As expected, she goes to Jack for help, but he’s too busy acting like an asshole to care. Sure, the kid’s going to grow up to become a monster, but does that give him the right to decide whether or not he should die? If a criminal was brought into his ER, wouldn’t he be professionally (and morally) obligated to save his life?

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“A 12-year-old Ben Linus just brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I’m doing?�

It seems like forever since we’ve had a Sayid-centric story, so I was really excited to discover that tonight’s episode was all about everyone’s favorite Iraqi torture specialist. Unfortunately, for as many great lines as there were, it actually ended up being one of the flatter episodes of the season. That probably had something to do with the strange collection of flashbacks and flash forwards that accompanied the present day (or new present, anyway) storyline, because with the exception of Sayid’s introduction to Ilana – who doesn’t appear to be a federal marshal at all, but rather some sort of bounty hunter – we didn’t really learn anything new about the time between his rescue and return.

Even the action on the island was pretty dull. Well, not dull so much as just really thin. I mean, how many different times did we really need to see Sawyer trying to convince Sayid to cooperate with the Dharminians? And why didn’t Sayid want to take the easy way out by telling them that he was just trying to escape from the Others? I brought this up last week because it didn’t make any sense for Sayid to want to remain silent, and now it makes just as much sense after declining Sawyer’s offer to become one of them. If all he cared about was killing young Ben Linus, wouldn’t it have been easier to do so from within that circle of trust?

Apparently not, because Sayid didn’t budge one bit, and as a result, Horace took him to go see Oldham (William Sanderson of “Deadwood� fame) in order to get some answers. It was pretty obvious that Oldham was Dharma’s torture specialist the moment his name was brought up, but Sayid asked Sawyer who Oldham was nonetheless, to which Sawyer replied “He’s our you.� Now, if that didn’t send chills down your back, I don’t know what will, because that has to be one of the best episode titles in the history of the series; and even more so because of the way it was worked into the story. I would have liked to have found just what it was that Oldham stuck in Sayid’s mouth, though, because while it seemed to initially operate as a truth serum, the later effects made me think it was some kind of psychedelic drug instead. Whatever it was, it worked, but while it looked like Sayid would blow Sawyer’s cover by spilling the beans, the moment he mentioned he was from the past, Horace seemed unconvinced that the drug had worked.

After Dharma’s council votes to kill him, however, Sayid’s Christ-like sacrifice (which he seems to believe will atone for all his sins) is interrupted when he’s sprung from jail while everyone else is trying to deal with a flaming Dharma van that has randomly rolled into camp. (Even during times of stress, Sawyer’s wit is spot on: “Three years, no burning buses. You’re all back for one day…â€�). Curiously enough, it’s young Ben who’s responsible for saving Sayid, who does so under the condition that he can join him on his way back to the Others’ camp. I don’t know if that’s where Sayid plans to go (it seems to be his only option at this point), but he definitely doesn’t intend on bringing Ben with him. Granted, I didn’t expect Sayid to kill a child in cold blood, but then again, who’s to say Ben is really dead? Faraday has already stated that the past can’t be changed, so it’s probably more likely that Ben will be saved/revived by the Others and eventually made their leader. After all, Ben’s spinal condition had to be a result of something, so why not an old gunshot wound that he received as a kid?

For as much as I appreciate a week off from blogging, it’s hard to deny that those breaks really suck the momentum out of the show. Luckily, “Lostâ€� makes it so easy to get sucked right back in – especially when the writers are having so much fun introducing characters from the present to former acquaintances in the past. Tonight’s episode featured several instances, and while they made a fairly big deal about Sayid meeting young Ben (probably because he’s going to try and stop him from poisoning the Dharma Initiative in a future episode), the brief mention of Ethan being Horrace and Michelle Dessler’s son was a far more exciting reveal from a fan’s point of view.

Then again, it also settles a fairly major debate regarding how Michelle was even able to have the baby in the first place. On the present day island, child birth was considered impossible until Claire had Aaron. Of course, that also didn’t happen until after Charlie killed Ethan. So what if baby Ethan was never supposed to be born, and as a result of Sawyer and Juliet saving Michelle’s life, they indirectly prevented any other child births from successfully taking place on the island until the mistake was reversed? It certainly makes a lot of sense, but I’m still not sure how it fits into the grand scheme of things.

Getting back to Sayid, the guy has run into some pretty shitty luck. While Jack, Kate and Hurley get to take the easy route as Dharma recruits (“What’s up with the jumpsuits?� “You didn’t tell them?�), Sayid has the unfortunate pleasure of being pigeonholed into the role of a hostile. Some trigger-happy nerd named Radzinsky wants to shoot him then and there, but Sawyer, who’s managed to rise among the ranks during his years as a company man, takes him to the barracks instead. What I don’t understand is why Sayid doesn’t just spin his story to make it seem like he’s running away from the hostiles? He’s already wearing handcuffs, so perhaps he could just explain that he was trying to escape. Then again, they’d probably think it was a trick and kill him anyway.

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After last week’s good but not great Locke-centric show, it probably wasn’t the best idea to air another character-heavy episode so soon. That hasn’t stopped the powers that be from doing just that, however, and though it probably won’t go down as one of the season’s stronger stories, it was still a solid, more traditional hour of “Lost� that finally gave Sawyer his day in the sun. Fortunately, he’s also currently one of the best characters on the show thanks to his recent pairing with fellow island dumpee, Juliet.

The two of them have quickly assumed leadership of the B-Team since, well, Jin still can’t talk very much English, Miles is a total slacker, and Faraday is mourning the death of Charlotte. With Locke gone and no sign of the well even having been built yet (though did anyone notice the four-toed statue being erected in the background?), the island is moved one final time before, as expected, it stops for good. From here, the episode shuffled back and forth in time from their newest location to three years into the future, where they currently exist when the Oceanic 6 return to the island.

Over those three years, the B-Team somehow managed to warm their way into the hearts of the Dharma Initiative and become full-fledged members. Granted, we never actually find out how that happened (which was probably why I felt so lukewarm about the episode when it ended), but we do know that they’re stuck sometime in the 1970s and that Sawyer in particular (now going by the name Jim LaFleur) has become somewhat of a leader in the camp. He’s not the leader, mind you, but after saving the life of a woman named Amy (played by Reiko Aylesworth, who will now be referred to as Michelle Dessler) and smoothing out a broken truce between Dharma and the Others, Sawyer wins his place among them.

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Forget what I said at the end of my last post, because despite what Jack, Kate and Hurley may think, the plane has indeed crashed on the island, and it’s taken almost no time for Caesar (Jack’s friend from the airport) and Ilana (the U.S. Marshall escorting Sayid) to assume leadership. Caesar has already begun scouring through a nearby cabin for any information he can find, but to no avail. Luckily, they just so happen to have a surprise visitor among their ranks: John Locke, back from the dead. Though he remembers dying, Locke doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing on the island, or more importantly, how he got there.

Interestingly, while Jack, Kate and Hurley disappeared when the plane passed through the bright light (AKA The Island Time Warp), Locke and Ben remained on the plane. We still don’t know what happened to Sayid and Sun, but I think it’s safe to say that they made the jump as well. This means that because Locke and Ben left the island by an alternate means, they’re being treated as newcomers, and have to re-enter the island as such. Now, the Oceanic Six are stuck in the past with the rest of the original survivors, while Locke and Ben are in the present. Of course, this is great news for the Newbies, because while they’re probably not too happy about crashing on an island where they’ll likely be stuck for the rest of their lives, at least they’ve got Locke there to explain what the hell is going. Whether or not they believe him is another thing.

Unfortunately, that’s all we got to see of Locke’s grand return in tonight’s episode, as most of the show was spent telling his post-island story. It’s really too bad, because after the discussion between him and Ilana on the beach, I was foaming at the mouth for more. Don’t get me wrong, it was cool to finally learn what really happened to Locke between the time he left the island and the time he was brought back, but it just felt like a whole lot of exposition with very little payoff. I mean, we already knew that he was going to visit everyone to try and persuade them to come back, and we already knew that they were all going to say no. Plus, his visit with Walt was really awkward – like the writers wanted to include the meeting between the two but didn’t have anything important for either one to say. It was a nice proper send off for Malcolm David Kelley, but that’s it.

There was one interesting thing about the episode, though, and that’s Charles Widmore coming to Locke’s aid in Tunisia. Up until now, no one’s really known whether Ben Linus is a good guy or a bad guy, but Widmore has always been pegged as a villain. (After all, he did send a freighter full of mercenaries to blow up the island.) Tonight’s show placed him in a completely different light, however, and after he explained to Locke his history with the island as a leader who was exiled by Ben, it’s hard to determine what’s really going on. Could Widmore be the good guy and Ben the villain? It’s certainly possible, though I wouldn’t rule out that they’re both just evil, evil men.

As for the latter, he’s certainly not helping his chances of redemption after shooting Abaddon and strangling Locke. The latter was probably the biggest surprise of the night, and not because I thought Locke would hang himself instead. I can’t imagine anyone killing themselves if they didn’t want to (especially someone like Locke), but why did Ben have such a sudden change of heart. One minute, he’s helping untie the noose around Locke’s neck, and the next, he’s turning an attempted suicide into a homicide dressed as a suicide. It clearly had something to do with Locke’s mention of Jin and Eloise (as it wasn’t until then that Ben started acting a little strange), but why? I’m not sure it really matters. Locke’s alive and he’s staring down at his killer like he’s about to open up a can of karmic whoopass, and quite frankly, that’s good enough for me.

If there was ever any question whether “Lost� was the best show on television right now, tonight’s episode surely quieted its detractors. Arguably a weaker episode compared to the others this season, it was still a solid hour that not only answered more of our questions about the island, but also introduced a few new ones that, thankfully, we should know the answer to in a matter of weeks, and not years. While the Islanders have been enjoying their month in the limelight, however, it was only a matter of time before the A-Team became the stars of the show once again. And as we all knew was bound to happen, they’ve finally made it back to the island. Well, Jack, Kate and Hurley, at least, though much like the episode, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

46 hours earlier, Jack seemed like the only safe bet to return. His meeting with Mama Faraday probably wasn’t the most encouraging to anyone still on the fence (especially after Desmond’s fervent warning), but I feel like that whole scene was more for the audience’s benefit than the characters. After all, it’s the viewer who cares the most about how this whole world operates (Jack was going to return to the island no matter what), and Eloise quickly proved that she is her son’s mother with a mouthful of scientific gibberish sure to confuse anyone that wasn’t listening carefully.

From what I gathered, the strange underground station they were standing in was called The Lamp Post. (Apparently, Dharma had a thing for silly nicknames even before they arrived on the island.) The station is how the scientists originally found the island, what with it being built over a pocket of magnetic energy, much like the island itself. It wasn’t until they stopped trying to find where the island should be and looked where it would be that they actually located it. You see, the island is constantly moving (though I don’t believe she meant through time, like it’s doing now), and in order to get back, the Oceanic Six have to enter through a dimensional window that can only be accessed at a certain place during a certain time. In this case, it’s via a flight from Los Angeles to Guam.

Before Jack heads to the airport, though, he picks up Locke’s body from the butcher’s. Ben was originally supposed to take care of that, but he calls Jack last minute asking him to do it instead. Curiously, when Ben finally did board the plane, all bloodied and bruised, not a single person asked him what the hell happened. Was it Sayid who did the beating, and if not, why was he being escorted by a federal marshal? It all seemed a little suspect to me, but the scenes at the airport were still the highlight of the show. It was really cool to see everyone reunited under some very awkward circumstances, from Kate randomly ditching Aaron to Hurley doing a little damage control by buying up as many seats as he could. (On a side note, I loved that he was reading a Spanish edition of “Y: The Last Man.�)

In the mid-’90s, my then-girlfriend watched “Melrose Place” religiously. I wasn’t opposed to the show itself - any show with Heather Locklear is worth at least a look with the sound off, right? - but every time Marcia Cross came onscreen, I would repeat my mantra: “Would someone please KILL HER?” They would even tease us with promos saying, “One of these character will die,” then show all the leads and one blatant Red Shirt character. It made me crazy that these people would knock on Death’s door and ask him to punch them in the face, but they survived everything, like a bunch of bed-hopping cockroaches. For years, I would think that TV shows didn’t have the balls to kill their characters. It would be too risky, too polarizing.

Man, karma’s a bitch. This week alone, Daphne bites it on “Heroes,” and now Charlotte succumbs to Time Jumping Syndrome. TV finally gave me everything I ever wanted. It wasn’t what I wanted. Come on, they couldn’t have killed the cheerleader and Juliet instead?

Ben Linus might be the most conniving bag of douche on God’s green earth, but you have to admire how unflappable he is. He never loses his cool or panics even when someone has a gun to his head, and that happens a lot. This time it was Sun that was looking for a little payback, though one thing about her arc bugs me: she gets the gun through covert means, and is flipping through a file with shots of Jack and Ben before meeting them at the pier. At first, it looked as though she was on assignment, and Ben was the target. Is she a contract killer, or did she merely pull a few of Daddy’s strings to acquire some heat?

“You go ahead, Sawyer. I’m going to watch the love of my life regress to her childhood self and die, but not before scaring the living shit out of me.”

The bits between Rousseau and Jin were interesting, though much like everything else about “Lost,” they ask more questions than they answer. Her entire group goes to save their leader after the smoke monster drags him below (though not before he loses an arm, yikes). Then Jin jumps forward a little bit, and the rest of her group is now “infected,” though with what we’re not sure. She even thinks Jin is infected too, and since the father of Rousseau’s baby just tried to shoot her, I can’t say I blame her for being a little paranoid. Still, I hope they shed more light on what happened to them in the “temple.” I’d also love to know how Ben came to be Alexandra’s “father.”