'Lost' in the ozone again

Not to brag, but I've read James Joyce's "Ulysses" - several times. I can diagram the various time frames in William Faulkner's initially impenetrable opening Benjy section of "The Sound and the Fury." I can explain the use of the circle of fifths in Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta," and I believe I have a rudimentary grasp of what makes Ornette Coleman's harmolodic jazz so entrancing.

I can go on at length about how the attack on the Death Star in the original "Star Wars" is an allegory for how spermatozoa fertilize an egg.

Yet I'm here to say that not only does the hit ABC show "Lost" have no clothes, but it's gotten so moldy and overblown there may be nothing at all in inside that mountain of muck, much less any sort of emperor.

"Lost," as its many fans well know, returned for the first two of its final 34 episodes last week in a three-hour extravaganza complete with an introductory, hourlong "'Lost' for Idiots" overview. Don't feel bad if you missed it, though, because it only made the point that all "Lost" is for idiots, although you can see for yourself when ABC reruns last week's climactic program, "The Lie," at 7 p.m. Wednesday on WLS Channel 7, followed by a new episode, "Jughead," at 8 as the show wends its way toward a merciful finale next year.

Here's all a TV viewer needs to know about "Lost." It concerns 48 survivors of a plane crash stranded on a South Pacific island. At the end of last year's fourth season, having survived dangers ranging from polar bears to a smoke monster - yes, that's right, a smoke monster - six got off and made their way back to civilization. Now they simply must go back to save the rest - at least that's their perception - only the island seems to have moved, not only in space, but in time, and no one knows how to find it.

If only "Lost" itself would disappear so completely from the prime-time schedule.

It's all too ridiculous, yet somehow typical of this series, which never seems able to make up its mind about what sort of universe it exists in.

The only thing consistent about "Lost" is its inconsistency.

Even so, an estimated 11.4 million tuned in the season premiere, slightly more than the 11.1 million who waved the strike-shortened third season goodbye last spring. What's the appeal? I'll try to explain for the uninfected - I mean, the uninitiated.

The Oceanic Six, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 who got off the island, include the five main characters and a baby: Matthew Fox's Dr. Jack, Jorge Garcia's fat dude Hurley, Naveen Andrews' ruthless Iraqi agent Sayid, Yunjin Kim's widowed Sun (her husband died in their escape) and Evangeline Lilly's combative Kate, who has taken on the infant Aaron, son of Emilie de Ravin's Claire, who just sort of dropped out before it could be revealed she's Jack's half-sister.

They've been pursued by Michael Emerson's Ben Linus, a deeply troubled individual who just sort of "transported" himself off the island and now insists they return to set things right, seeing as he used to be leader of the island's original residents, the "Others," and of the island's mysteries, as he was a neurotic product of the DHARMA initiative, a sort of Skinner Box society placed on the island. For now, he's simply convinced Sayid there's a vast conspiracy at work and turned him into his own personal hit man.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Terry O'Quinn's Locke has become leader of the Others and protector of the island's mysteries ("lord of the realm" just won't do) and is trying to figure things out with the help of Jeremy Davies' scientist Daniel and Josh Holloway's ever-resourceful if amoral Sawyer, who is forever conceiving new excuses to walk around with his shirt off. There's also a Richard Alpert who pops up like Rumpelstiltskin, and a guy named Desmond who has ties to a certain Charles Widmore through his wife, Penny.

I kind of like the notion that Widmore is a sort of Rupert Murdoch character who has set this whole conspiracy in motion for his own nefarious purposes, but otherwise I can't find much to hang my hat on in "Lost."

Because it keeps moving the hatrack. "Lost" plays by no known rules. People go back and forth in time and space, but according to Daniel they can't alter the past, violating the key plot twist to every time-travel story from "Back to the Future" to "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." The characters change with a moody inconsistency - whether Jack is noble or a lush, whether Kate is caring or self-concerned - and while Jack and Kate belong together, they're made miserable by something the studly Sawyer whispered to Kate before sacrificing his own freedom to set the other six free - this from a guy previously concerned only for his own skin.

I don't know if that's ludicrous or all too cliched, but either way I don't like it.

"The island is sort of like the worst AA meeting you can imagine," said writer-producer Damon Lindelof in last week's "Destiny Calls" overview. Tell me about it. If that's the true appeal of "Lost," Your Friendly Neighborhood TV Critic is taking 12 steps in the opposite direction.

Still "Lost"?

Replay last week's season premiere, "The Lie," at 7 p.m. today on ABC7, followed by a new episode, "Jughead," at 8 p.m.