A 'Lost' fan says farewell

After the disappointing, borderline-insulting final season of "The X-Files," I swore I would never again get involved in a densely plotted TV mystery.

But then I found out John Locke was in a wheelchair before Oceanic 815 crashed.

I suspect that fourth episode of "Lost" hooked a lot of us for good, and this weekend we'll find out if our six-year journey ends as poorly as my nine-year love affair with Mulder and Scully. (Last week's puzzling Allison Janney episode didn't exactly inspire confidence.)

Of course, satisfying answers to the show's mysteries are not as important as the emotional journeys of its characters. I'll be OK if we never find out why women couldn't get pregnant after "the incident," or where the DHARMA food drops came from, but I will be upset if Sawyer and Juliet don't find each other in the flash-sideways, or if Ben isn't allowed a final act of redemption.

"Lost" is not a perfect show, but its ever-evolving construction might be. The flashbacks of the first three seasons allowed it to be a mystery, a medical drama, a soap opera, a crime show and a comedy. When the back stories were exhausted (i.e., when we learned the origin of Jack's shoulder tattoos), the flash-forwards were introduced. Season 5 brought time travel, and Season 6 brought us ... uh, whatever the heck this alternate timeline is.

You can call "Lost" a lot of things, but you can't call it boring - not even during Kate flashback episodes, since they were often so infuriatingly lame. At its best, "Lost" made me forget I was watching television. I wanted to crash on that island. I wanted to drive a DHARMA bus with Hurley. I wanted to enter the numbers and push the button.

But all I can do now is sit back Sunday night and see how it all ends.

(And then we can talk about what it means Monday morning.)