If the creators of “Lost” truly have everything figured out and planned, then why did they chop season 3 into two halves and effectively jeopardize the show’s existence?

The ill-planned hiatus given to season 3 convinces me that “Lost” is nothing more than a hit-and-miss experiment in mystery television that has done nothing more than set up a mystery and allowed its fans to determine its direction. I suspect it will go on until its fans grow tired at which point the producers will wrap things up hastily and claim that exactly X number of seasons were intended from the beginning.

In fact, one of the show’s producers makes an apt analogy in a commentary on the DVD extras, not intending that analogy to work for the show, but for a particular shot. The analogy references M. Night Shamalayan and “Signs”, pointing out how effective it is to have a shot where it’s the audience’s imagination creating the mystery and tension because they don’t actually see anything. Such is the case, I suspect, with “Lost”. Ultimately, the entire thing is like teasing a dog with a juicy bone.

Clearly though, the island is not purgatory since the season finale reveals that Jack and Kate get off the island. On the other hand, there is some kind of experiment going on and there are still far more questions than there are answers. For instance, why doesn’t one of the characters who has been on the island for at least twenty years, age? What’s the mysterious, black cloud? Why can only Ben see Jacob and only Locke hear him? And where are the unrated scenes of Evangeline Lilly running naked on the beach?

I will say this for season 3: at least they kill off Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), one of the most despised characters since Wesley Crusher on STNG. Charlie is weak and a whiner and watching him pine after Claire (Emilie de Ravin) fruitlessly without really making any sort of move is painful. Undoubtedly, producers realized what a drag Charlie was on the show and decided to off him.

What new information will be revealed in season 4? Well, if the producers are smart, they will fast forward the show into the future where season 3 ends. I’ve had enough of the island and the Others and its unexplainable mysteries. Reinventing the show is its best bet to stay fresh and not make me want to use my 7 dvds from this set as Frisbees and toss them off the top of the highest mountain.

My hunch, after watching season 3, is that it’s the producers who are and always have been lost.