LOST dominated the ratings its first year out. Nobody could quite put a finger on its success. Was it the association of super show creator JJ Abrams? Was it the beautiful cast? Was it the gorgeous scenery, shot on location in the islands of Hawaii? Maybe it was the story, the twisting and turning mystery that kept itself out of site like a serendipitous reptile. LOST possessed that often sought after but never categorized quantity, the ‘X’ factor. So powerful was this weird concoction of surreal stories and charismatic characters that even the might American Idol was held at bay. But something happened at the beginning of season two. As Jack, Locke, and Kate descended into LOST’s mysterious and eponymous ‘hatch’ the chlorophyll engorged brilliance of the island receded and was replaced by the moldy concrete and steam punk technologies of the Dharma Initiative.

People mark season three as the end of LOST, but in reality its death began with that fateful trip into Desmond the hatch hermits inner sanctum and his evil number hungry computer. This turn in the LOST story line seemed to plunge the show into a world of dark corners and cold fluorescent lights. A place where no-one wanted to be, no matter how cool the twist seemed at first.

The only place to get this right was Buddytv with it’s article Saving LOST in five easy steps. The number one suggestion was to close the book on the cold concrete prison-cell like settings and move the story back outside, to the island. In the beginning, it was the island that was at the center of LOST. The island had become the shows defacto lead character. Some fan favorites, like John Locke for example, seemed to converse with it, while others, like Boone, seemed to be the subject of its will.

LOST is not dead yet, so there is still time to save it, and the best possible way we can think of at this point is to get out of the ‘stations’, the bear cages, and the ‘hatches’ and back onto the beach where the island is the central character and its rusted innards are just a minor part of the tale.