Hi - My name is Melissa and I'm a LOST-ATIC

Just so you know.

From the summer I spent poring over Season 1 DVD's while on maternity leave with Sofia, I have had a love affair with this show. It re-ignited my interest in scripted drama. It made me think and I was excited to tune in week after week. I remember the first few months post partum with the twins, being sick as a dog and going to bed at 8 p.m. only to wake 15 times during the night, watching the latest episode through bleery, profoundly exhausted eyes while simultaneously diapering and feeding the twins (not to mention attempting to avoid a nervous breakdown. ) You know I am a fanatic when I am framing my recent life's milestones around what Season of Lost I was watching at the time.

Tonight, I'm rewatching Lost because a) watching Lost is one of my top 5 favorite things to do and b) there were 2 hours of complex happenings that really necessitate e a second and third watching to fully digest.

So, ok. The producers are leading us to believe that yes, there is time travel involved. They have spent the better part of the past few years implying there was no time travel, alternate universe mumbo jumbo, dream, etc. causing the wacky island happenings only to present us now with the current time travel storyline.

I know this because for almost 4 years now, I've been a member of a hard core Lost message board. Some of the members have spent hours, weeks, hell, YEARS coming up with full fledged theses on different aspects of the show. It's fascinating to read, but almost makes it impossible for the show to live up to. There are some major Mensa member Lostatics out there spouting some mind blowing theories.

Some hefty discussions are out there: QH/Homoplasmates & Z2 QUANTUM NUMBERS, Homer’s constant meta-conflict theory: Athena versus Poseidon,Theory of infinite regression related to Lost, Time, and art, explaining the "?" and The Four Toed Synthesis Meta Theory just to name a few. My personal favorite? Time Loop Theory.

Maybe I've spent too much time reading all of this stuff online, catapulting my expectations to a level that no mere mortal could ever deliver on. I mean, bottom line, this stuff is fun to read (well, maybe fun isn't the right word) but the average viewer will never understand theories this deep. The answers have to be presented to them in an accesible way and accessible these.are.not.

(For anyone who has some interest or experience in quantum physics, there is a great thread with screen caps of Daniel Farraday's notebook and chalkboard writings. )

Some of the Lostatics expaneded their discussion by starting their own website for the critical study of Lost called Lost Studies. This blog is not for the faint of heart. Example? One of the topics - "Lost: Poststructural Metanarrative or Postmodern Bildungsroman looks particularly wieldy. Uhhhh? Gesundheit?

Just some light reading, really, for a mom of three with lots of free time on her hands.

I marvel and bow down to the level of analytical thinking that goes into these topics. Just reading them makes my brain hurt.

Honestly, I love this show. I love the way it looks. I love the music. I love the jokes. I love having something to look forward to on Wednesday nights. I love the swooshy noise when we are going to a flashback (or is it a flash forward?) I love that it weaves themes from philosophy, art, literature & science into the narrative, but sometimes, every once in a while, I kind of feel like they are messing with me. That I'm pulled in 15 different directions and they don't really know where they are going with all of this and I'll have hung on for 5 years only to be profoundly disappointed.

The time travel stuff is intruiging to me, but I'm definitely in a wait and see mode. I half expect to see Doc Brown pop out of the jungle with his flux capacitor and start offering rides back to the mainland in his Delorean. Time will tell if they take this to a satisfactory, yet accessible conclusion.

Yes, I said time will tell. Pun intended.