LOST: One of us

"What did one snowman say to the other snowman?"
-- Desmond Hume, "Adrift" (2x02)

"What lies in the shadow of the statue?"
-- Ilana, "The Incident" (5x16)

If you can answer those questions, you are one of us -- one among a group that is about to be very, very annoying to the uninitiated. (Just ask The Onion.) We are "Lost" fans, and we can't stop talking about the impending final season of our favorite TV show.

We provoke nasty, sometimes violent responses in outsiders. Many of those who call our beloved show "stupid" have either never seen it or gave up long ago. One co-worker told me she was out the minute the "dinosaur" showed up, which I can only assume means she made up her mind based on the sounds coming from the jungle at the 20-minute mark of the first episode. Surely, that was enough time to make an informed opinion, right?

But just by pointing this out in a sarcastic way, I am making our fan community that much more annoying. It's hard not to be -- "Lost" inspires a kind of fanaticism that comes along once in a great while. "Star Trek" did it. "The X-Files" did it. "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" did it, too, and anyone who, like me, didn't watch those shows and got tired of hearing how unbelievable they were knows how annoying their fans were. And that's how we, the Losties, are now.

The only thing more annoying than an elitist fanbase -- and don't pretend that we're not -- is an elitist fanbase that turns its back on the one it loves. It's going to happen to a lot us in the next few weeks as the final episodes of "Lost" unfurl and, undoubtedly, confuse, perplex, and infuriate. We all have preconceived notions of how the show should end, and we're all going to be let down in one way or another.

But we shouldn't rush to judgment. If you're one of us, you've chosen to believe producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse when they say the big picture of "Lost" has been planned from the beginning, and that they've known the final image of show for a long time. They know the risk for disappointment is great, but they also know that nothing they do could possibly please everyone -- so however "Lost" ends, we have to have faith that it ends in the fashion Damon and Carlton wanted it to end. It is, after all, their story.

Four days from now, the final chapter begins. I'll be here each Tuesday night, blogging after each episode. (I'll be very late on premiere night; Feb. 2 also happens to be Election Day in Illinois, which is a pretty busy day for we in the newspaper business.) Since none of us can stop talking about this show we love, why not talk about it some more right here?

So, the future of the project is in your hands. On behalf of the Paddocks, John Lampinen, and all of us at the Daily Herald, thank you, namaste, and ... good luck.

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