What I'm Watching: Lost

Lost: Season 3, Episode 20 "The Man Behind the Curtain" (D-)

Just when "Lost" is returning to the fascinating kind of television it used to be, along comes another episode just like last month's "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" which featured Hurley trying to get a VW Bug across the jungle. The highly anticipated Ben flashback reveals a lot about the origins of the Dharma Initiative but produces thousands of new questions (shocking!) and takes on a preposterous nature which makes little sense. When I first watched the pilot of "Lost," I was unimpressed by the mysterious monster in the jungle, but I became accustomed to it and came to enjoy the excitmeent and intrigue of the whispering Others in the woods. But seeing Ben trek across the woods to a cabin with a ghost who speaks to Locke just goes way too far. "Lost" is not a ghost story, and the added flashback plotline of natives on the island does not line up with any of the rest of the recent developments on the show. Ben and Locke were probably the most fascinating characters on the show, and the simultaneous decline of the legitimacy of Ben's character and Locke's possible impending death are a tragic blow to the show. I hope for a much more impressive episode next week and a much finer, more exciting finale with no mention of this horrid Jacob storyline or the island natives.