ABC's 'Lost' is back and better than ever

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — It's never easy to write about "Lost" when I've seen more of it than you have, because I don't want to spoil the fun by giving too much away.

Suffice it to say that the first three hours of the fifth season of "Lost" are great. Lots of action, lots of great character material and — dare I say it? — even some answers to some questions that have been hovering over the show pretty much since it began.

(The first two hours air Wednesday at 7 and 8 p.m. on ABC/Ch. 4. "Lost" begins airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on Jan. 28.)

OK, here's just a bit of spoiler-age. At the end of Season 4 when Ben (Michael Emerson) turned that wheel and the island disappeared, it didn't really. It became sort of disconnected from time. The characters who remain on the island are unchanged, but every so often there's a big flash of light and time changes. They're still in the same spot, but they could be 50 years in the past, a couple of years in the past or even in the future.

Meanwhile, the characters who got off the island are having their own adventures. Ben has convinced Jack (Matthew Fox) that they've got to return to the island, but they've got to take Sun (Yunjin Kim), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and even the corpse of John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) with them.

Yes, Locke is dead. Off the island. But not necessarily on the island. Whoops — slight spoiler-age. Although that quickly becomes obvious.

I'd tell you that things are starting to make sense, but I'm not sure that's wise. Because I won't for a moment claim that what I think is happening is what's really happening. I'm just not sure.

But who cares? Re-invigorated by its impending end date — 16 episodes this season; 16 episodes next season; and that's it — "Lost" is a rip-roaring roller-coaster ride that's more fun to watch than it ever was.

That end-date thing is not just my opinion. The people in charge of putting "Lost" on the air readily admit that, before it was announced, they were killing time with some tedious episodes in an attempt to drag the show out as long as possible.

Executive producer Carlton Cuse said his gratitude to the studio and network executives who "negotiated the end date knows no bounds."

"That completely liberated us. We didn't know whether the mythology we had had to last two seasons or nine seasons, and that was utterly paralyzing.