A new way to find "Lost".(analysis of television programs )

"Gather round, younguns, and listen to how it was before everyone with two dimes t' rub together had a dinner plate up on the roof chatterin' away at some satellite. We had three channels. Then PBS came along, and we still had three channels, 'cause no one watched it, nothin' but guys prancin' around in tights. By gum, when a show ended in those days it died for good. And there dang sure warn't no programs that kept you waitin' fer days and weeks to find out what happened. And ..."

Thanks, Gramps, I'll take it from here.

He has a point; it was different in the old days. TV episodes did not leave you hanging all summer. Now even a series about Zen moss gardeners will have a cliffhanger. So what happens when you miss an episode?

Consider "Lost"--last year's big hit. It's "Gilligan's Island" meets "Twilight Zone" on "The Forbidden Planet" and it was a hit for a reason: It's very, very good, a far cry from the three-channel days. Every show was a cliffhanger. And the dogmas that rule most network drivel are mercifully absent. No hip kids with a quiver full of withering putdowns to make the grown-ups feel lame. No disease-of-the-week. No law firm boardroom shouting matches. Just 40 people marooned on a tropical island after a plane crash, with nothing but their wits, limited supplies, and enough dramatic archetypes to ensure three seasons' worth of plots. Plus a monster--a dark beast of the Id that thrashes and clanks through the foliage when the plot flags.

If "Lost" was just a show about focus-group-approved beautiful people playing "Survivor" for real, it would have been gone in seven episodes. But it had something else. It had flashbacks which provided a steel, concrete, and plastic world to play off the smothering foliage. It had characters whose personalities guaranteed endless combinations. The hero was Jack, the overdrive doctor who takes charge: unqualified good guy, better than you. There was "X-File" veteran Terry O'Quinn as the parapalegic Special-Ops type who got his legs back when the plane went down: he was good, but spooky scary good. We had Sawyer, the self-loathing grifter ...