Sir Monkeypants and I finally got around to watching the end of Lost this past week — we’d stored up most of the season’s episodes on our PVR. The episodes went unwatched during the spring because we just couldn’t seem to summon up enough enthusasiam for the show, and we even considered dumping it at one point, but then everyone told us that it had gotten significantly fabulous in the latter few episodes, so we decided to catch up and keep it on the playlist for next year. As I expected, once we got going we were quickly sucked back in. Already I can’t wait for its return, which won’t be until next January.

I’m really encouraged by the fact that the show’s creators have announced that Lost will have only three more seasons, and each of the remaining seasons will be short — I think only 11 episodes. They wanted a set end date so they could work on wrapping up the storylines and answering the mysteries; they didn’t want to have pressure from the network to extend the mysteries for an artificially long time, to stretch the show into more seasons than it could sustain, until the point where its viewers were just too frustrated to stick with the show. Sir Monkeypants is not convinced that all our questions will be answered in the end, but I have faith that all the major mysteries will be resolved in some way.

Since the show won’t be returning for several months, I wanted to record a list of my own questions about the show. I’m hoping all of these will be answered over the next three seasons. Next January I plan to return to this post to refresh my memory about what makes the show so darned interesting.

1. What is the mystery disease that infected Rousseau’s group? Is this the same disease that the Dharma people protect themselves from, with injections of the mystery serum? Why aren’t any of the Losties sick, even after visiting the Black Rock?
2. Speaking of the Black Rock, how did a ship end up in the middle of the island?
3. Who put the black smoke monster on the island, and what is its purpose? Why didn’t it kill Locke when it had the chance?
4. And speaking of Locke, what is it about the island that cures people? Is it true that Ben can harness this quality to cure people in the outside world, like Juliet’s sister?
5. Who is Jacob, and why does he need Locke’s help? Why do the Others blindly believe in Jacob and follow Ben, when none of them can see him or hear him?
6. What was the “incident” that the Dharma video mentioned, that caused the button in the original hatch to have to be pushed? What really happened when the counter hit bottom, and Desmond turned the fail safe switch? Did the hatch implode? If so, how did Desmond survive?
7. Who does Naomi work for? Was she telling the truth about the flight having been discovered with all the bodies on board? If so, does that mean the Losties are all actually dead? Does that explain why some of them can see dead people from their past on the island?
8. Why was Libby in the asylum with Hurley?
9. Does Walt have special powers of some sort? Are these related to the island? And does Aaron have the same qualities? Why does Claire have to be the one to raise Aaron?
10. Why were the Others building a runway?

I’m sure I’ll think of more in the months to come. Feel free to post a comment here if you think of anything to add.

In other TV news, Sir Monkeypants has finished watching Sports Night, and now has moved on to The West Wing. It’s very interesting seeing the two Sorkin shows back-to-back like this, because they have a lot in common. Of course they have a similar writing style, but more than that, they are surprisingly thematically the same — Sorkin worked a lot of his political and moral ideas into Sports Night. Also, there are quite a few overlapping cast members in small roles — we spotted Janel Maloney, who plays Donna on The West Wing, in a small role as the sports show assistant wardrobe manager on an episode of Sports Night, and the girl who plays the President’s middle daughter, Ellie, on The West Wing had a small part as a nanny on Sports Night. In any case, they are both great shows, totally involving with sparkling dialogue and great characters, and I hope to see Sorkin working in television again soon.