The fourth season of ABC's Lost begins - finally - tonight at 9 ET, eight months after the previous first-run episode. It's a strong season premiere, introducing new characters, dilemmas and mysteries, but the biggest question of all regarding Lost is this: Now that ABC has built it, who will come?
By the time the previous Writers Guild of America strike ended, overall TV viewership fell about 10 percent, and never recovered. Now that the current strike is about to enter its fourth month, signs are everywhere suggesting viewer fatigue - or worse, viewer apathy.
Last week's double helping of fresh episodes of Chuck on NBC? Good episodes, but even against Thursday reruns of Grey's Anatomy and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, their audience levels were series lows. The strike-finale episodes of Criminal Minds and CSI: NY last Wednesday? Set or tied season lows. ABC's fresh Ugly Betty? Except for holidays, another season low.
In other words, just being fresh isn't enough. The return of Lost is the biggest series event of the February ratings sweeps - so if it can't draw as many viewers as it did for its season premiere (or, at least, its season average) last season, it's a strong indication that this strike already may have had a draining effect on viewership.
What's Lost, at this point, may be more than just a TV show.
As for the show itself: ABC is asking for such a veil of secrecy, critics are requested not to discuss plot details of things revealed even before the opening credits. That's really pushing it: What happens in the opening minute of a show ought to be considered fair game for a review.
But I'll behave, for now. It's fair to say that we see more of the flash-forwards that stunned us in last season's finale, and learn that Kate and Jack were not the only ones to make it off the island. We learn, in fact, the identity of another, as well as the total number of those who returned.
We also spend time in the present, as the would-be rescuers - the ones, Charlie warned in his handwritten final act, from "not Penny's boat" - get closer to the island, and the survivors. The show, in short, is a reminder of how much fun a thought-provoking fantasy series can be.
If, that is, people bother to tune in to watch. Right now, that's as big a mystery as anything involving black smoke, polar bears or vanishing cabins.