Lost? Lost? W(here)TF are Michael and Walt?! or, Man, this show sure sucks lately.

My top 6 episodes of Lost, airing during the Fall of 2006.

1. Ep1: A Tale of Two Cities -- This one ranks number one essentially because of the cold open. Yeah, holy freaking crap, it was pretty good. It starts in a suburb, at a book club -- and then Benry Gale shows up and you realize it's where The Others live. Then a freaking plane crashes! Yes, a freaking plane! And suddenly it's the mother of all holy flashbacks: to The Others right before our little Losties got stuck on the Damn Island!

The rest of the episode? Meh. All we get is Jack, Kate and Sawyer, with nary a mention of Locke and Charlie and the awesome hatch explosion that turned the sky all holy-hell-white. And also some Jack flashbacks that were sort of nice, but upon further review, actually really annoying. But damn, D-man, Benry barking out orders to that scary Ethan dude was pretty cool. And Juliet knowing the skinny on Jack’s entire past in the holding cell was an awesome "hell what?!?" kind of moment. Good job, J.J. Good job.

2. Ep3: Further Instructions -- A Locke episode! A John Locke episoooode! Ooooooooo! D-d-d-d-d. Say yeah! So anyway, this one was mostly awesome, because it was about John Locke and had a special appearance by the ghost of Boone (with surfer hair?). Plus, Desmond and Hurley got some wicked-funny "Dude, you're naked" jokes to tell. And we learned that Desmond can see the future! The future, Conan? Yes, my friend, all the way to the Year 2000!

While Locke's flashbacks were only half-good (sort of like a ho-ho stacked up against a twinkie), Locke's vision quest/paste-induced hallucination was pretty righteous. But what ruined this episode for me was that the dumb polar bear was back, and that it captured Eko, but decided not to eat or maul or otherwise do him any harm besides just sort of gnawing on him. Pretty lame. Polar bears should only show up when Walt reads those comics, and since Walt is somewhere out at sea, this episode made me kind of want to kill myself by the end of it. But only sort of, because of the awesome naked jokes and the ghost of Boone and how they made me want to live. So here I am, and here we are, making lists.

3. Ep2: The Glass Ballerina -- This was the first Sun and Jin flashback that totally made me want to barf. Sun's having an affair? Big whoop. Okay, sort of new for her character, but still, lamis to the maximus [additional fake-latin jargon here]. And during the whole Kate-loves-Sawyer scenes I nearly clawed out my eyes, and I would have, had I claws to, you know, claw with. But this episode had two OMG moments where I actually think I said, Oh my God! The first was when Benry revealed to Jack that The Others have access to the outside world. What? What!?! Oh yeah, Jack, we get FOX Sports and everything. Here is a video tape. Why we don’t have DVR is beyond me, but we’re interrogating you in a freaking submarine so stop asking so many Doggamn Questions!

But that wasn't the best part. That came when Sun shot that stupid lady in the stomach while Jin and Sayid were trying to set an ill-conceived trap for The Others. Yes, in the stomach! Take that, Others! Our women may be having affairs in lame flashbacks, but they will still shoot you in the stomach should you goad them into doing so by saying "you won't shoot me" over and over and over again! Seriously, best moment of my life.

4. Ep5: The Cost of Living -- This one time, Neil Gaiman wrote a graphic novel called, Death: The High Cost of Living. It was about Death personified, and how she had to spend one day every 100 years walking the earth as a human to better understand blah-blah-bitty-blah. It was good, and was drawn by Chris Bachalo, who is pretty much nails when it comes to penciled sequential art. Then, a few years later there was this crap-filled episode of Lost with a similar title. And I hated it. *SPOLIER ALERT* Eko dies.

Okay, so this episode had its moments, like when Sayid, Locke and the new kids, Nicki and Paulo (who are dumb and will be dead soon so I'm trying to pretend to like them so that when they do die, I will at least be a little bit sad) see a video feed of Patch-Eye somewhere else on the Damn Island. Who is he? Where did he come from? Is he one of The Others? Answers I'm sure we'll get sometime in Season 7. Until then, Eko gets into a fight with the Black Smoke Monster and dies real bad. Had he not died, this episode (because of Eko's sweet flashbacks) could have jumped up a spot or two. But now, with most of the tail section dead, you have to wonder why they introduced that plotline in the first place. You also have to wonder where the hell Rose and Bernard are, and why they decided to introduce Nicki and Paulo when they've got Rose and Bernard hanging out off-screen. Honestly, you've got to wonder alot of things about this show. Like, why does it have to suck so damn hard these days? BKV rings activate! Clean up this mess now!

5. Ep4: Every Man for Himself -- Does anyone else remember when Sawyer's episodes didn't taste like buffalo-crap-on-a-stick? Like that one time he shot a man who had an affair with his mother that led to his mom's murder and his dad's suicide, and it turned out to be the wrong man? Holy sweetness, that was good television! Now we just get ho-humb flashbacks about his illegitimate child and even more ho-hum island stories with Sawyer having a fake kill-switch planted deep in his heart. Oh yeah, and there are two islands. At this point, who freaking gives a crap? Remember that ginormous foot-statue we saw last season you dumb producers?!? WTF was that? I wouldn't care if this was an island chain with a resort on the other end, just re-learn how to build story tension already. It was kind of sad when the rabbit died, though.

The one moment that brought this episode out of the cellar was when Kate quoted Jack's immortal "Live together, die alone" line after Sawyer told her to escape without him. He might be boring lately, and she might have lost all sense of character, but that's a damn fine catch phrase if you ask me.

6. Ep6: I Do – What sucks worse than a bad Sawyer episode? This. Jack operates on Benry. Locke and Company deal with the death of Eko. Kate and Sawyer have gross "We haven't showered in days" sex. And Eko's Bible stick completely misquotes John 3:5. And that's the mid-season finale.

Anyways, Kate's flashbacks were sort of nice, but they didn't further the story or tell us anything new about her character. However, the last three minutes nearly redeem this episode from total pointlessness when Jack defies Juliet by not killing Benry in surgery, then threatens to anyway unless Kate and Sawyer are let go. Matthew Fox yells real good. Someone get that man a Golden Globe. A Golden Globe for good yelling. Kate, damn it, Run! Truer words were never spoken. Run little lovelies, all the way to February when hopefully this show will be fun to watch again. Because waiting for Locke episodes to come around just don't cut it. That being said, God I love this show. Please get better soon. We miss your face.

[Screencap courtesy of lostscreencaps.blogspot.com.]