But I’m not knocking television–I admire ambitious scripted drama. It’s the time commitment that daunts me.

Plus, to be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of “teasing” shows–shows that have some big mystery that drags on and on, revealing little details here and there, often with a sense that everything is being made up ad hoc. It’s like Wolverine’s past in the comics–writers just kept making crap up and then other writers would come along and say that what the previous writers had written were “implants” and blah blah blah, with no cohesive vision.

And I wonder about Lost…do the producers know exactly what’s going on? Have they worked everything out beforehand? Or will this become like the X-Files, where they keep adding new twists and material to the mythology, much of which ends up contradicting the previous stuff, until the whole thing becomes a mess? The problem with American television is that if a show has a successful first season, then it get a second season, even if the writers are unprepared for it, or if they more or less wrapped up the story in the first season.

Thus, Jack Bauer has a number of very, very bad days–but all of which get wrapped up more or less in 24 hours. Kind of like John McClane (“Oh man, I can’t believe this. Another basement, another elevator. How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?”).

But I’m willing to grant that maybe Abrams knows what he’s doing and actually has a storyline mapped out. I still don’t really like shows that continually tease you with a mystery. It drove me crazy on the X-Files until I figured out they were making it up as they went along, like one of those round-robin storytelling games I played when I was a kid.

If you like Lost, though, I’m really surprised you haven’t given Battlestar Galactica a shot. People at my last job who loved Lost were even more rabid about BSG, and it does a lot of that teasing too–trying to figure out who’s a Cylon, what the Cylon’s overall plan is, and so forth. That said, I do think the BSG folks have a cohesive vision, and I applaud their relative realism in the day-to-day depiction of life in space (supply problems, limited number of personnel and vehicles, silence in space, and so forth).

As for the writing – the staff now includes Drew Goddard (Buffy, Angel), Paul Dini (the Batman animated series) and Jeph Loeb (comics writer, Smallville) – and they are kicking the mythology big-time.

All in all – this season has been more compelling to me than last season. The one knock I can hit it with is the frequent downtime (repeats) that broke some momentum, but that’s a fault of the suits not the producers. Next season remedies that with a 7 episode mini season followed by a late season 15 episode run. Plus – DVD cures it all together.

BTW Jason – You really should pick up this show on DVD. You have no idea how sci-fi this show really is. That was illustrated quite a bit in last night’s season finale. What’s interesting is it has to be the most popular sci-fi show that has ever aired in prime-time (in terms of weekly ratings). The show has a dense, cryptc mythology that keeps you going – yet parses out just enough answers with minimal X-Files-esque Monster of the Week downtime. I think people came to the show thinking it was a dramatic Survivor and found themselves digging on the mystery. Now they’re hooked. Grab that Season 1 set. By Episode III – Walkabout – I guarantee you’ll be hooked. Season I hinted at the mysteries of this island and Season II was off the charts. X-Files fans. Sci-fi fans. Adventure fans. Da Vinci Code fans. This show has elements to thrill all.

You too can own an “action figure” of a guy sitting!