Lost

Lost is a different genre, one that may infuriate even the loyalists, but there's something impressive and rewarding in its density.

What's great about the series this season is that you can dive deep into its familiar-yet-fresh bubbling stew of physics, ? numerology, and smoke monsters...or you can just skim across its blinding-sun surface, grooving on the thwarted romances, ?the time-shifting nosebleeds, and how great Kate looks in a business power suit and heels.

I've seen both of tomorrow's episodes, as well as next week's, and I loved every minute. But I'm also a geek who read Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov growing up.

Lost nevertheless approaches its twists with what appears to be a greater degree of intellectual rigor than almost anything else on primetime.

When Lost returns Wednesday with a thoroughly entertaining two-hour barnburner, you will want to be there.

The decision to create a Season 6 exit strategy for Lost may turn out to be one of the best things ever to happen to a TV series, restoring a sense of purpose for the show, which had been treading water.

The feverish action is as tantalizing as ever, and so is the script.

The season's premiere represents pig-in-the-python storytelling--there's so much to work through, so many details, stories, characters and time dimensions to attend to, that after a while this all starts to feel like a very full meal.

So, two quantum physi cists walk into a bar and one says to the other, "It's 10 p.m. Do you know what time it is?" If you love that joke, or if you even understand that joke, have I got a fifth season for you.

The show's flashback/forward structure has provided an interesting commentary on the relationship between time and narrative, but it also struggles against its 40-minute playing time and the expectations of a weekly network audience.

As the fifth season opens this week, the time-travel training wheels are coming off--and the path thus far seems blissfully free of the usual stumbling blocks.

The episode is a fast-moving two hours that answers enough questions to satisfy fans and raises still more questions in an effort to further the intrigue.

You can either let this annoy you, or you can try to work out the meaning, or you can just enjoy the flow in a noncommittal way that does not preclude your being stimulated, shocked or held in suspense--like a fun-house ride. I am of the third disposition, and have also been of the first.

Lost returns Wednesday exactly the way fans like it: utterly, totally, completely incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't know the secret handshake. If you're a fan, however, or if you're willing to really study the one-hour crash catchup course that ABC is airing before the first two new episodes tonight, you'll be rewarded with richly intertwined and well-acted drama.

Things chugged along on the island, even if its temporal hiccups were too often reduced to flip dialogue ("When are we?” was the annoying question du jour).