Lost fun!

Top 10 signs you're obsessed with Lost (courtesy of Letterman, of course)

10. After each episode you do an all kitty re-enactment in your basement
9. You refer to your in-laws as “the others”
8. While visiting New York, you stood over every manhole and screamed, “Good God, a secret hatch!”
7. You are halfway to your goal of licking every cast member
6. Your friend phoned during Lost. The next day you beat him to death with a hot poker
5. You pitched NBC a show about 12 people stranded backstage at Saturday Night Live
4. Co-workers affectionately refer to you as “that loser who’s obsessed with Lost”
3. Renamed dental practice “flost”
2. Your wife is getting sick of playing the bedroom game “find the castaway”
1. You sat through all 10 of these lame jokes


Why have the ratings been so bad lately? (from EW's resident Lostaholic, Doc Jensen)

So if Lost's lost viewers haven't been sucked into the mindhole that is Criminal Minds... where have they gone?

Here's my theory: I don't think they're watching anything at all. Not really. I don't doubt there are some former Lost fans who've become Lost haters — who believe the show has ''lost it,'' who seriously doubt the producers know what they're doing. But what I do hear from those who've given up watching Lost on a weekly basis — and I know more than a few — is that Lost has let its urgency slip away, most likely as a result of what TV writers call ''The Stall.'' The Stall is what happens to ongoing TV shows that are trying to tell a story that has an ending when the storytellers don't know when or if they'll be allowed to actually ever end it. Lost has definitely moved into Stall mode, atomizing storylines into tiny bits and strewing them across manymanymany episodes (like Jack/Kate/Sawyer's stay in Othersville) in order to fill the time. Kinda like a football team that's jumped out to a big lead, then adopts a prevent defense that allows an opponent to gain yards and maybe put up a few points, just to burn off the clock, which can be risky, because you also allow your opponent to gain momentum or wrest control of the game. Or something like that.

Tortured sports analogies aside, for people irritated by The Stall, Lost has surrendered its must-see status. For them, the watercooler conversation has lost its boil. At the same time, what I've noticed is that these people are still invested in the unfolding story of Lost. Yet they also know that there are other options available to them that would allow them to experience the show without having to put up with its glacial pacing and its ''answer a question with new questions'' tactics. They can bank a bunch of episodes on TiVo, then watch 'em all at once, to get the kind of full-meal deal they wish every episode could deliver. Or they can just wait until the entire season comes out on DVD and binge. In fact, I know of two people who just recently became fans of the show via the DVDs. They loved what they saw and decided to become weekly watchers when the show began its third season. By the third episode, they were burned out. One of them popped into my office and said, ''How can you stand to watch the show this way? It's so... slow.'' He decided he was going to jump off the riverboat and catch up with it downstream, when it docks at his local Best Buy. (Again with the tortured analogies!)

What Lindelof thinks about the new time slot

''I personally am thrilled. Now I can watch American Idol without feeling guilty.

''Oh. Wait. I still feel guilty.''

Depraved enough to watch some clips?

If you were paying good attention at the end of the fall finale, you'll remember ABC's promise to show some new Lost scenes in a desperate (and unsuccessful) attempt to make you watch Daybreak. Here they are:

Lost Moments 1-3