Losing the plot ... Lost's mysteries are reaching epic proportions. Photograph: Sky
The fourth series of Lost comes to a climax this Sunday with a two-hour double episode on Sky One. America is ahead of us in screening the show, so for many fans this will mean approaching the internet with caution for three days. Frankly I don't think I'll make it.
To have continued this far with Lost means that you have had to become an addict, and I'm in deep. Those that gave up in the difficult second series became irritated by the lack of answers and quite possibly the over-use of the nickname Freckles. We who remain have learned to live with the fact that we'll never get answers, and to love Sawyer for his cunning way with a soubriquet (among other names, bulky anti-hero Hurley has been known as Mutton Chops, Grape Ape, Snuffy, Jabba and Chicken Little).
Instead, our interest is kept alive by a constant drip-feed of more and more mysteries. Lately it has reached epic proportions. As one puzzle is resolved, three more are revealed - along with a rabbit hole down which a dozen more lurk, along with a couple we'd forgotten about (Hurley's numbers made an unexpected but welcome return last week).
Unravelling Lost has become an internet sport that demands a grasp of quantum physics alongside a knowledge of the show - Lost Mysteries logs 440 questions that are puzzling viewers and charts the answers (there are not many); Lost Timeline pulls together hundreds of clues to make the link between The Black Rock and Oceanic 815 as well as offering a plausible reason for why polar bears are running around a tropical island; Lost...Stuff picks over photo clues that would be missed if you simply sat down and watched television like a normal person.
One of Lost's triumphs has been to mobilise this army of obsessives - not just to discuss the show online, but to serve as continuity watchdogs, a brain trust for future plot developments and to help the makers crack the ridiculous puzzles they inserted into the storyline for a laugh while out of their skulls on Dharma branded tequila. While it's true that Lost makes you think more than any other TV show, what it mainly makes you think is a load of preposterous rubbish. Somehow I have managed to suspend belief so far and stay with it (although I'm still troubled by the time Desmond worked in a Scottish vineyard) but this "moving the island" nonsense could be the moment Lost finally loses me.
That said, if anyone could tell me what Ben's "plan" is I'd be much obliged, as I'm not getting much sleep.
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