A Complete Review of 'Lost' Season 3

'Lost', Season 1, revolutionized the TV drama like nothing else. From the intelligent use of overarching metaplot to profound character exploration via flashbacks, 'Lost' scratched the itch that every TV-holic had, but couldn't reach. Season 2 brought even more of the same, but explored greater mysteries as it uncovered new layers of suspense like a Russian doll being exposed to its minute, yet intrinsically dense core. Then Season 3 came along. Well, to say the least, it's something that can't be described in just one sentence.

At the beginning, the initial six episodes of Season 3 hit the ground like a ton of bricks in a very bad and a very disappointing way. In an attempt to "reinvent" itself, producers began to throw in more sex scenes, more needless violence (namely against and through Sawyer), and pointless back stories that really didn't seem to add anything new (e.g. We get to find out that Sawyer spent time in prison, but conned his way out of time-wow, big surprise. We also find out that Jack's a control freak who tends to cry a lot-haven't we been through this?). And all this doesn't even include the major gripe that, from the beginning of the season, the producers tried to "sneak" in two new characters that no one's ever heard of or even cared about without any explanation. Paulo and Nikki? Who the heck are they? Oh, apparently they were always on the island with the survivors, but they just never spoke up until now. To me and to anyone, that was just very weak and very lazy on the part of the writers.

Then after a long, long, LONG hiatus from TV (about three months), 'Lost' finally came back with brand new episodes until the season's end. At that point no one cared as much about it and 'Heroes', which is another a marvelous show, had already started to steal much of its former spotlight. Overall, the first few post-hiatus episodes of 'Lost' continued to range from mediocre to disastrously dull (such as an episode involving Hurley's attempt to repair an old DHARMA van). In addition to this, the pacing of the show's metaplot continued much at a snail's pace, with most of the show's highlights being "transition" episodes or ones that focused on characters moving from one location of the island to another and then back again and so on and so forth.

But then, towards the final few episodes of Season 3, the show itself suddenly did a 180 and reverted back to it's original formula that made it a smash to begin with-one that focused on mystery, mythology, and the exploration of new territory in terms of character development. It was simply amazing-it was almost as if the show's producers realized their mistake and did a quick job to rectify it. After spending one episode killing off Nikki and Paulo with one fell swoop, fresh character conflicts and struggles were back in the groove and brand new plot hooks were thrown in with good measure to make old territories new again. Gone were the pointless sex scenes and violence for the sake of violence. Gone were the over indulgence of soap-opera love-triangles and cheesy melodrama. Now it was about mystery-about facing it head on and finding answers to it through struggle, conflict, and character driven plots without beating around the bush. In fact, in terms of mystery, the one episode that definitely highlighted the entire season was one that focused almost entirely on the background of the nefarious Benjamin Linus (a.k.a Henry Gale), who's the apparent lead antagonist to the survivors and high-ranking leader to the Others. Besides revealing his childhood and background, the whole DHARMA history on the island was given in the same package, making it an excellent treat that no other 'Lost' episode ever provided before.

Overall, when placed in comparison to the previous seasons, Season 3 is definitely an inferior season with a deep low point in its first half. In fact, many 'Lost' fans voiced their complaints about the season during its first few episodes and many critics have done the same. But then, with its sudden turn around at its latter half, things picked up again, bringing back its original appeal, like an old college friend dropping by your dorm room after a long tedious winter break (couldn't think of a better analogy). If you ask me, sometimes I think that the show's producers actually surf through some of the 'Lost' message boards to figure out what they'll do next for the show's direction. If that's the case, let's just hope that the fans who post on them continue to come up with good ideas!

Overall Season Rating: Three out of Five Stars.

Some Important Highlights in Season 3:
- Revelations are given as to what happened to Desmond after the Swan exploded/imploded.

- The "lifestyle" of the Others is further elaborated on.

- The ultimate fate of the original DHARMA Initiative on the island is revealed via flashback.

- The head leader of the Others (the 'Him' that Henry Gale describes in Season 2) is "revealed".