KEY POINTS:
Given up on Lost? You're not alone. In the US, ratings for the third season of the mysterious drama plummeted as fans got humpty with the unexplained black smoke, the Others' bizarre agenda, and what the hell that big foot statue thing was meant to be, other than
another convoluted twist in the plot.
Angry bloggers have accused the show's writers of arrogance for not rewarding their loyalty with answers.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The next episode should give you reason to believe in Lost again as a whole new mind-bender is thrown into the mix.
Remember Desmond, brother? The crazy Scot in charge of pushing a button every 108 minutes so the world wouldn't end? We finally see what happened to him after he turned the key to stop the hatch imploding in the season two finale. And his complex backstory might be more than just a flashback.
In this episode, named Flashes Before Your Eyes, Desmond meets a Ms Hawking (hmm, as in Stephen, author of the book one of the Others was spotted reading recently?), a character who will have you turning back into a Lost geek quicker than you can say "Dharma Initiative". Last week's episode also had a clue, when Juliet was recruited to the island by the company Mittelos, an anagram for lost time.
But if your memories of Lost are lost in time, here's a quick season three recap: Kate and Sawyer hooked up while imprisoned by the Others on a smaller island. They were kept in cages that may have once held the polar bears.
Juliet held Jack in captivity. Jack agreed to remove a tumour from Others' leader Ben's back, despite Juliet asking Jack to kill Ben.
Alex (Rousseau and Ben's daughter) helped Kate and Sawyer to escape; in return they freed her boyfriend Karl, who was being brainwashed by the Others (via a very trippy, Clockwork Orange-esque video). Mr Eko died after a run-in with the smoke monster. Flashbacks revealed Locke worked on a drug farm, Kate was married to a cop and Juliet worked as a ground-breaking fertility doctor.
New characters Nikki and Paulo showed up as part of the survivor group as if they'd been there all along.
LOWDOWN
What: Lost
Where and when: TV2, Wednesdays, 8.30PM