After a painful eight-month hiatus that sent rabid fans into withdrawal, season four of the cryptic, elaborate ABC series Lost returned with signs of maturity in its foray into the lives of the remaining survivors of a plane crash.
With 90 days elapsed since the plane first crashed in 2004's first season -- stranding 40 people on a remote island -- the show's priorities are changing and viewers are left to fill in the blanks of the patchy chronology. Meanwhile, the focus has diverted into characters' petty fights and innocuous love triangle filler.
Last season's finale, in which the show's writers began fleshing out the storyline by flash-forwarding to the future lives of six fortunate survivors who escaped the island, was a brilliant and advantageous shift in storytelling. Previously, the show had used flashbacks to frame the storylines on the island with the characters' past experiences, a tactic that had grown tiresome and increasingly felt like a tool for the writers to slow the pace and buy more time.
By looking forward, instead of backward, the writers unlocked the potential for a narrative with a wider scope, affording themselves even more liberties in how they can divulge information. This season, the flash-forwards are used to serve the plot and quell an impatient audience that has been confused for far too long.
In the first couple of episodes, it is revealed to the survivors that the dying message from drug addicted ex-rock star Charlie, prior to drowning, was to not trust the rescue team on the helicopter that recently landed somewhere on the island. In a recurring motif, Jack (Matthew Fox), the man of science, and John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), the man of faith, take opposing sides in interpreting Charlie's message.
"The Beginning of the End," the first premiere without a spotlight on Jack, surprisingly opened with a bland flash-forward about Hurley, the show's source of comic relief. Jack watches Hurley on television, involved in a high-speed car chase from the police, as if he were a Duke of Hazzard. This action-packed sequence is enjoyable but completely innocuous and ignorant of the bigger picture.
Unfortunately, the season opener and the second episode, "Confirmed Dead," doesn't move fast enough and feels like a step back from the finale, which dished out information at an exhilarating pace.
While flash-forwards are a solid opportunity to create a whirlwind portal into the beyond, the start of season four isn't quite as fresh as season one and lacks the imagination and inventiveness of season two. Then again, it's also not as dull and trite as many moments in the third season.
This season hasn't dared yet to duplicate a ludicrous plot device like the introduction of characters Nikki and Paulo last season. They were survivors who the audience had never met and were awkwardly thrown into the cluttered story, just to be killed off at the end of their very first flashback episode. Hopefully, the writers will steer clear of such experimental contrivances, aware of a smarter, note-taking audience that desperately wants closure in equal proportion to shocking twists.
For more than three years, viewers have been waiting to understand the meaning behind a handful of the island's mysteries: the smoke monster, the four-toed structure, the appearance of animals on the island, to name just a few that have solicited head-scratching. Thankfully, due to the conclusion of the writers' strike, viewers won't have to suffer another hiatus before the end of the season.
Grade: B
