Most of the people who wander into this blog are looking for one thing: pictures of the star of Resident Evil without any clothes on. But the ones who don’t get here via misguided Google searches usually mention the “Lost” recaps. I missed last week’s because I’ve been commuting between Strong Badia and Liberty City.

It’s just as well, since last week’s episode, “Something Nice Back Home,” was kind of dull. There are still spoilers though: Jack had his appendix taken out, Claire revealed who her dad was (to the audience, who’d already figured it out anyway), and… Baltar hung out with a bunch of horny women? I can’t remember. Something about Jack being haunted and getting engaged to Kate in the future, too.

This week’s episode, “Cabin Fever,” made up for it by being double plus cool. I started counting “holy crap!” moments, where I actually said, out loud, watching alone in my apartment, “No other show would do something like that.” There was only one of those, but plenty of times I was reminded how cool this show is. Here’s a list!

• Seeing creepy immortal guys following Locke around his entire, 50s-cliched life.
• It made me feel mysteriously smart, somehow, when I was able to predict that Locke would pick the vial of salt (sand?), the compass, and the knife before he did it. And that the knife would be the wrong choice.
• I liked young Locke repeating the old Locke’s “Don’t ever tell me what I can’t do” mantra. I didn’t like it so much that this guy has had the most miserable life imaginable, but it does kind of make you root for his being happy on the island for once.
• Special-ops guy tries to shoot Michael and fails; I’d already forgotten that the island was keeping him alive.
• I was surprised to see the doctor up and about on the ship, since I mis-remembered him already getting snuffed in an earlier episode. It was kind of perfunctory how they closed off that time loop real quick — special-ops guy just does not understand the word “hostage” — but I still appreciate the effort.
• “Lost” has the coolest dream sequences; Locke’s dream about Horace Mathematician is my favorite since Hurley’s dream inside the bunker where Jin showed up speaking English.
• I wasn’t expecting to see Jack’s dad in the cabin, and I definitely wasn’t expecting to see Hot Claire lounging there, either. I’m still hoping that there’s some point to that, and it wasn’t just there for shock value.
• Some of this feels like moving pieces around on a game board and having to skip a few moves — what was the point of Desmond just sitting there and watching the climax on the boat take place?
• In case anybody reading this has access to the writers’ room, could you sneak an index card that says “DANIELLE’S BACK STORY” up on the board somewhere? It shouldn’t be a problem to sneak some explanation in the show, since they’ve got no problem making dead people main characters.

I’ve been plenty frustrated with the series, but every once in a while you’ve got to take a step back and marvel at how such a weird show got to be such a huge phenomenon. Larry mentioned in a comment that they “lied” about its not being a sci-fi show, but really, it’s not. It’s just a conglomeration of pop culture detritus, and sci-fi is just ingrained in pop culture at this point. Treating it as a separate genre just seems kind of weird and dated now; when everybody has a communicator and a robot that’ll vacuum your house, and time travel is a concept that most people can grasp with no problem, what’s to be gained by trying to confine this stuff to some nerdy ghetto?

I’m always hearing people (sometimes it’s me) complaining about a TV or comic series, saying, “They’re making it up as they go along!” Most of the time, I don’t see the big deal about that — they don’t have everything planned out? Cool! It means they’re “nimble,” right? But sometimes it gets awkward.

This week’s episode of “Lost” was called “The Shape of Things to Come,” and it felt like they had to saw a few of the rough edges off before they could get everything to fit with The Shape of Things That Have Been Coming So Far. There was a lot of awesome stuff going on, and the episode itself had a solid story. But it also felt like they had to prune out a few characters instead of following through on them, and that they suddenly decided which of the two dozen storylines they were going to run with.

Everything else is a spoiler:

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This week’s episode of “Lost” was called “Meet Kevin Johnson.” It ended on a soap opera-like cliffhanger, with Sayid making a dramatic announcement and the camera lingering on other characters giving meaningful looks at each other. And then another cliffhanger with gunplay. Which won’t be resolved until late April.

But “Battlestar Galactica” starts back up real soon to hold us over! And that kind of sums up the give and take with this episode. For every scene that delivers a “This is totally the best show on television” moment, you have to take another that makes you ask, “Whuh?” (And for every post on here about “Lost,” you have to take spoilers).

For instance:

• Michael, like everybody who watches “Lost,” hates Michael, and he tries to kill himself!
• …but fails every time, because the Island has some kind of control over him, even in Manhattan.
• Driving a car off a pier? no into a dumpster while more hatch-like music is playing on the radio!
• …and a really shockingly creepy comeback from Libby!
• …but she got like 30 seconds total screen time in this episode, which seems like a waste for flying her out to Hawaii and everything. Plus there’s still no sign of getting more of her back-story with Hurley in the institution.
• …also, Michael recovered from his suicide attempt within less than a week storytime, because of the above-mentioned Island powers..
• Big Other Tom got officially outed, posthumously, clarifying that “You’re not my type” comment to Kate in season 3 that had some people on the internet speculating he was an alien or something!
• …and they handled that pretty well, actually. It was just another aspect of his character, and they had him back to fist fights and telling Michael to “man up” instead of mincing around or becoming magically extra-sensitive or something.
• A new Dharma location, with an appropriately creepy name and a cool Lord of the Rings-esque map and the location of Ben’s secret forces!
• …leading to a betrayal that I saw coming from the first scene of the episode, when they showed Ben looking warily at the boyfriend with his arm around Alex’s waist.
• An opening scene of like 10 minutes of a bunch of characters standing around telling each other “no more secrets” and explaining in detail everything that’s going on and everyone’s secret agenda!
• …which was jaw-dropping only because this is “Lost.” On any other show, it would’ve been annoyingly clunky exposition.

But really, on the whole I was more impressed with this episode than annoyed by it. All of the episodes this season have been surprisingly solid, and this one had moments (especially when Libby was involved) that surprised me more than anything since the beginning few hatch-centric episodes of season 2.

I’d been hoping for no more than that the series would find its feet again, just so that it could limp to some sort of resolution for the various storylines, instead of imploding into an incomprehensible mess like “The X-Files” did. But this season has exceeded all my expectations, and it’s really delivering. Maybe not delivering on the answers, so much, but delivering on the potential of the premise.

The only question I remember being raised here: We saw two characters getting shot, one we don’t care about at all and one we kind of almost care about. Did they both die? And I guess a secondary question: Could they be setting it up for Alex to lead a counter-offensive against Ben and/or Jacob?

And what is the deal with Starbuck, anyway?

This week’s episode of “Lost” was called “Ji Yeon,” and it was about Sun & Jin, which means it’s another chance to get your weep on. (Warning: Every post on here about “Lost” contains spoilers).

It was pretty clear early on that they were doing a Jame Gumb-in-Silence of the Lambs style reveal, in which Jin wasn’t going to meet up with Sun. But all along I was hoping that they were building up to a reveal of two separate future timelines: one in which Sun made it off the island, and one in which Jin made it off (and had remarried). Not to second-guess the writers or anything, but I think that would’ve been a lot more poignant than the simple “Jin’s dead that’s sad the end.”

Which is still pretty sad, but considering how much the writers want to see Sun and Jin miserable, and how much they’ve been pushing time travel this year, it seems like you’d get more mileage out of a story of two lovers separated by time.

On the off-chance anybody from the production staff is doing a Google blog search on the show: You guys have my official permission to pull whatever kind of stunt or contrivance is necessary to give Sun & Jin a happy ending. Time travel, a big Dharma RESET button, the non-Oceanic 6 passengers aren’t really dead but still trapped on the island, even Sun waking up to find it was all just a dream. Whatever it takes to give those guys one break after six years.

Also this episode: we learned the shocking identity of Ben’s man on the boat! The interesting part of the subplot, of course, is what’s causing people on the boat to kill themselves by drowning or whatever it is that could make a huge bloodstain on a wall.

The new information:

• Something’s causing people on the freighter to commit suicide.
• Widmore and the people on his freighter think it was Ben who staged the “fake” Oceanic 815 wreckage at the beginning of the season.
• Assuming Juliet’s figures are correct, the “Oceanic 6″ will get off the island within five weeks.
• Did anybody else notice Sun’s TV was playing that episode of “Xpose” (the late Nikki’s TV series) at the beginning?

And questions:

• What was making that clanging noise on the boat that Desmond was complaining about? I was assuming at first that it was Morse Code, but then pretty much every person on the boat should’ve been able to understand Morse Code, not just Sayid. If it were a code, was Michael sending it, or someone interesting?
• How did Hurley get out of the psych ward to visit Sun in Korea? Or was this before he started seeing Charlie’s ghost?
• Where have I seen that guy who plays the captain before? He looks totally familiar.

Thursday’s episode of “Lost” was called “The Other Woman,” and the double entendre in the title is the most interesting thing about this episode. (Assume spoilers in all these “Lost” posts.)

Not that it was bad, just completely straightforward. The whole question of whether the freighter gang are bad guys was supposed to climax in a tense showdown at the immediately-gas-everybody-on-the-island plant, but it didn’t quite work out that way — there wasn’t any possible way that scene could’ve played out differently and kept the series running, so there was no tension. Their throwing in a catfight was a nice gesture, but ultimately this one only exists for Juliet’s flashbacks and the Locke/Ben subplot.

Important things we did get, assuming I didn’t miss anything:

• Locke is still a total tool, who is ridiculously easily manipulated by Ben
• Widmore is most likely the guy running the freighter, if Ben’s info to be trusted (and this connection seems reasonable enough). But I don’t believe Ben’s explanation for why Widmore is investigating the island; I hope there’s more to it than just that.
• The Tempest station has the cool logo from The Living Seas at Epcot. Have they revealed all the Dharma stations at this point? I lost count.
• The island’s healing factor is what causes pregnancies to go awry. I can’t remember if they’ve said that before, but at least here they’re saying, “This is something important to remember.”
• Ben’s crush on Juliet is his biggest vulnerability, considering he seems to be impervious to repeated punches to the face.

And new or outstanding questions:

• If it’s only pregnancies conceived on the island that are at risk, why was there such a big deal about Claire’s baby? When they kidnapped Claire, was it to have Juliet study and/or work on her?
• The therapist, Harper, said that Ben’s crush on Juliet was understandable, since “you look just like her.” Who’s the “her?” Ben’s mom? Are we going to start seeing Ghost Mom again?
• Are they ever going to give British Freighter Woman any identifiable personality, other than “likes to fight other women?”
• How is Ben issuing orders to the remaining Others? And where are they hiding out?
• DOES ANYBODY KNOWS WHAT IS THE SMOKE MONSTER?????????
• Are they expecting us to be at all surprised when they reveal who Ben’s inside man on the freighter is? There’s only one person it could be: of course, it has to be Boone. But no really, I hope they’re not hoping that showing Michael is going to be a dramatic reveal next episode; every time they mention the inside man, you can practically hear “WAAAAALLLT!” off in the distance.

I kept hoping that they’d do one last little jab at the end of this episode. In particular, I was hoping that one of Juliet’s flashbacks would show Harper’s getting killed, and the version of her in the rain at the beginning would be a Walt-like ghost or the smoke monster or an immortal or whatever it is that’s explaining all the visions from season 1. In a way, having her come out of hiding to find Juliet in the middle of the jungle during a rainstorm was both more straightforward and more implausible than her just seeing a ghost.

This week’s episode of “Lost” (I was laid low with crushing head trauma Thursday, so I’m just getting around to watching it) was called “The Constant.”

If I ever start bouncing back and forth through time, the one constant I’ll be able to latch onto is that I’ve always been ridiculously easy to manipulate, and will start crying like a hormonal pregnant teen watching the last 15 minutes of a Disney movie. The ending of this episode had me all misty-eyed, in the sense that my eyes were still a little bit misty after having cried profusely.

And it was remarkably restrained, is the funny part. They kept the swelling music under control, and they weren’t in the most romantic setting — an ugly room in a freighter with a dead body being watched by a sweaty Iraqi holding a goofy looking phone hooked up to a lantern battery with frequent interruptions of creepy static. I think it was the editing that got me, of all things. It was just masterfully done.

Especially remarkable since I don’t really like the character of Desmond. The actor’s fine — nobody on TV does the confused and panic-stricken expression better — but the character’s kind of a loser. He’s always seemed like a cipher that cool stuff happens around. Underground late-70s era bunker: cool. Hey, he’s like Ulysses!: very cool. Precognitive powers: that’s neat! Traveling through time: even neater! And meeting people who know he’s traveling through time: wow! But the guy himself: my only cue that I’m really supposed to care about his love story is that they keep showing that picture over and over again.

And yet, it obviously works if a phone call can make me weepy.

For the series overall: am I just confused, or did they really drop a bombshell with this episode? I suppose they’ve been hinting at time-displacement for so long that it’s not really “hinting” anymore, so maybe I’m just still unaccustomed to “Lost” resolving anything. Even with this season’s fantastic record so far. But this seems to suggest an explanation for everything from Jack’s dad, Kate’s horse, and Locke & Shannon’s frequent sightings of Walt; to why the “natives” don’t age.

It even calls the flashbacks into question: are they not just memories? It’d be awesome to think that all this time, whenever a character goes into a flashback, everybody else is standing around staring at them while they’re catatonic. But nobody’s bothered to talk about it yet, because, you know, it’s “Lost.”

As for ongoing questions: I suppose Faraday’s journal note to himself was supposed to be intriguing, but I didn’t get it. I also couldn’t tell when he wrote it; is it supposed to be a note he left for himself from 1996, that he’s just now discovering? Did it only appear when Desmond did his thing, suggesting that you really can alter history when you’re time-jumping? Or did he just write it for himself on the ride out to the island? Whatever the case, I felt like I was hearing a “duh Duh DUNNN!” but not seeing what was causing it.

And the auction scene had Mr. Widmore bidding on The Black Rock journal, and Alvar Hanso was mentioned in there somewheres. If I remember correctly, the last time Desmond was in Widmore’s office, there was a painting of The Black Rock on his wall. It’d be cool if they’re rolling that stuff back into the mix; I was afraid they’d abandoned most of the season 1 intrigue with that doofusy and disappointing alternate-reality game.

I went looking around the internet for an explanation of the title of last Thursday’s “Lost,” which was called “Eggtown.” That turned up nothing, forcing me to resort to a Steve Miller Band reference. It’s tenuous at best, but I assure you that one bad title is not indicative of my entire oeuvre.

One thing you do discover looking for “Lost” stuff on the internet is that “Lost” fans are wacky. Reading the comments just on one random blog posting about the episode, you can find:

• People who didn’t hear the end, and missed the entire point of the episode
• Eighteen-paragraph long analyses of how this episode’s flash-forwards fit into the overall space/time continuum theory on the island
• DOES ANYBODY KNOWS WHAT THE BLACK SMOKE IS???????
• At least a dozen calls to order
• Detailed explanations that refer to characters by names I don’t recognize at all
• Whoooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!! [note: that's the first time I've ever seen the exclamation-point 1 used non-ironically.]
• Debates over whether the baby would technically count as one of the Oceanic 6
• Debates over who’s hotter
• A tangential flame war over Downs syndrome

I dunno what I could add to all that. I thought it was a fine episode, continuing the momentum of this season without blowing me away or anything. I could see the end coming from a mile away, as soon as they showed Kate & Claire at the clothesline and Sun talking about her baby (as opposed to “our baby.”)

Attempts to turn Locke back into a bad-ass fail when he comes across as such a tool at the beginning. There’s a real fine line to his character, and they keep jumping back and forth over it — this is like the eight thousandth time he’s gotten completely played by Ben, which doesn’t make him seem like a tragic figure under the control of an evil mastermind, but like a doofus. And the way he handled Kate’s mini-insurrection wasn’t so much power-mad dictator as snippy condo organization spokesman. Making a dude bite down on a grenade doesn’t do a whole lot to make him seem any cooler.

Especially when said dude is, after only two episodes, already giving Michael a run for his money as most annoying person you could ever get stuck on a deserted island with. I think the real mystery of the island is how it manages to attract such a ridiculously high jackass-to-normal-person ratio. Any day now I’m expecting a catamaran to wash ashore carrying the dehydrated bodies of Andy Dick and Nancy Grace.

I don’t know any particularly big questions raised by this episode, except how does the end tie in with the prophecy that psychic gave Claire? That horrible things would happen if her baby were raised by someone else? Is it somehow the cause of Jack’s beard?

As I mentioned, I was confused for most of last year’s ComicCon, so I missed the “Lost” panel. I wasn’t aware until reading about it on a message board just now, that during that panel they showed another Dharma Initiative orientation film, that was later repeated on ABC’s website.

This one is for station 6, “The Orchid.” And watching it has me more excited about “Lost” than anything since the first orientation film. I’ve already been impressed with the show because of the strength of this season’s episodes, but this just confirms that they’ve still got the same cleverness and attention to detail they did when they first introduced the bunker and the Dharma Initiative. And now they have the freedom to take the story where they want and draw it all towards a conclusion.

In short: I love this series again. Now I’m going to check out the Season 3 DVDs for any special features. You really need to watch the video if you haven’t see it yet.

Edit: As it turns out, the Orchid video is included on the Season 3 set (I’d gotten a copy as a Christmas gift, but hadn’t watched them until today). They’ve also got a thing where the executive producers give definitive answers on some of the questions that have been circulating. There’s nothing earth-shattering there; in pretty much every case, they’re just confirming that the most obvious answer is the “correct” one (e.g., Desmond’s failure to push the button is what caused the 815 crash). It is good that they’re reminding viewers that they haven’t forgotten everything from the first couple of seasons, though.

It’s also good that they thought to include a bit after each “answer” where they interview a bunch of people for their take on the “new info.” Because I just couldn’t rest until I knew how Jimmy Kimmel interpreted the big mysteries of “Lost.” Hopefully the Disney Corporate Synergy department will work its magic on future releases, so I can hear Raven, Miley Cyrus, and the cast of “High School Musical” give their take on the series.