Fans still found “Lost,” even on a busy television week dominated by the Super Bowl.

The genre-busting mystery opened its final season last Tuesday with 12.1 million viewers, the Nielsen Co. said. That’s an increase of 6 percent over the audience for the 2009 season debut.

Among younger viewers, it was the best performance for “Lost” in two years, ABC said. Producers intend to wrap up the series in May. Nearly 10 million people watched a video crib sheet bringing viewers up to date on the story an hour earlier than the debut, even though it competed against “American Idol” and “NCIS.”

A closer look at national ratings showed the Super Bowl captured 106.5 million viewers, confirming its new status as the most-watched U.S. television event ever.
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You may not have thought of this — I sure didn’t — but someone decided to put together a video showing the crash/non-crash of Oceanic 815 on Lost.

On the left, the original, from the first episode. On the right, Tuesday’s. See the differences?

Thanks for the link, Videogum!

More questions abound about John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and Sayid Jallah (Naveen Andrews) after the season debut of 'Lost'. (ABC)

By FRAZIER MOORE

Hopeful, breathless, even fretful over what may lie ahead or be forever unexplained, “Lost” fans have welcomed back the ABC mystical thriller for its sixth season — the beginning of its long-coming, too-close-for-comfort finale.

The end is coming May 23, according to “Lost” co-creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, who made it official Tuesday during guest appearances on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

The first two of the final 18 hours had aired earlier in the evening as its season premiere.

Did this double-dip opener address the pair of island mysteries gnawing at viewers since last May?

What was the upshot of the kookie nuclear explosion Jack (Matthew Fox) masterminded to rewrite history and render the series’ whole story line moot? And what’s the scoop with the dead John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) coexisting with his very-much-alive John Locke look-alike?

(Warning: possible pesky spoilers ahead.)
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Two of the top stars on “Lost” say they are ending their television acting careers after the series finale.

Top 10 Hottest Stars of ‘Lost’

Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly have said in no uncertain terms they won’t be returning to the small screen, according to Us. “I won’t be doing any more television … I’ve done two six-year shows, about 300 hours of television,” Fox said, referring to his former show “Party of Five.” “I’m done with that.” Read the full story

Many shows don’t want you to look behind the curtain. The fear is that you’ll find plot holes big enough to pilot a wayward 747 through.

Over the past five seasons, ABC’s Lost has practically handed us a microscope. The show dares us to parse every clue, every scripted word, everything involved. And in the end, one usually ends up with more questions than answers.

Now that we head into the sixth and last season of Lost (premiering Feb. 2 at 9 p.m.), big questions still linger. Read the full story

When ABC’s drama “Lost” ends in May, it will definitively end — don’t look for any sequels or spinoffs.

The show’s producers said Tuesday they’ve had the final image of the mythologically dense series in mind since the first season, although Carlton Cuse said the last episode hasn’t been written yet. It will air sometime in May.

Cuse and Damon Lindelof were giving away few secrets to the show’s rabid fans at a news conference Tuesday. But they said the show’s sixth and final season will hearken back to its first season in 2004.

One secret they did reveal: actress Cynthia Watros, who played the character Libby before being killed off in the second season, will return this year.

You know us Lost fans — we pore over every detail of every episode, every tidbit that comes out of the show, hitting the message boards hard, trying to figure out exactly what’s happening.

So when ABC released a cast photo modeled after Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, you just know we were pulling out the magnifying glasses. (We’re getting fired up — season premiere’s only a mere four weeks to the day from today!)

(Before we begin getting seriously Lost-geeky here, it’s been pointed out that The Last Supper is a template for a lot of shows’ cast photos. The Sopranos had a famously dissected one, and Battlestar Galactica fans have gleefully told some sites already that their show did it better.)
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How hungry are you for a preview of the final season of Lost? Yeah, me too!

Now, as Warming Glow reports, Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said there’ll be no footage shown of the sixth and final season before the episodes actually air.

But does that mean you have to go the boring route, like ABC is? Nope. Spain’s Cuatro network amped up the cool factor 100 times, with chessboard motifs and Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place”.

Here’s Cuatro’s promo for Perdidos (that’s Spanish for Lost, ya know):

By the way, here’s (yawwwwn) ABC’s promo:

Is Jack thinking, 'This bomb is Da Bomb?'

Now that’s how you end a season!

The Lost writers have done it again, crafting an emotionally compelling finale that had it all – great reveals (Jacob is a stubbly-faced hot guy!); tender moments (Awww, Jack wants a do-over with Kate!) and a gripping ending (Juliet makes the hydrogen bomb go BOOM!) while also making fans curse the fact that we have to wait eight looooong months before we know if Jack’s back to the future plan worked and if history was changed.

Like in many X-Files episodes, questions were answered, but even more were raised. Yeah, I know this always frustrates some fans. But it’s part of the package with Lost. Deal with it.

The finale worked on so many levels. For starters, it was another game-changer that beautifully sets up the final season. It was also nice finally meeting Jacob, who didn’t look or sound anything like I thought he would. I’m not really sure how I thought Jacob would look or sound. But the way Ben kinda portrayed him and feared him, you halfway expected, oh, I dunno, a cross between Yoda and Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Instead, Jacob turns out to be a soft-spoken, good-looking sort who we learn has appeared before Locke, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Sayid, Sun and Jin at pivotal points in their lives and with a kind word or some sage advice. Kinda like he was preparing them for their future on Freaky Island in some way.

One of the best moments in the finale is when Ben finally meets Jacob after doing his bidding for so long. Ben can’t understand why Locke is The Chosen One and why the man of destiny gets an audience with the all-powerful Jacob when he never could. As Ben says, he had to wait patiently while Locke “gets marched straight up as if he were Moses. What about me?” Not impressed, Jacob gives Ben his best blank stare, poker face look and simply says, “What about you?”

Ouch. You could almost see all the life drain from Ben’s face right before he stabs Jacob.

Here are a few more memorable moments…

The conversation on the beach: It’s the 19th century, two guys, sitting on a beach, watching a ship come in to shore. One’s in white (an angel?), the other’s in black (the devil?) Ah, The Puppermasters. They say good morning to each other and wonder how the ship found the island. “You have to ask them when they get here,” says Man No. 1. “I don’t have to ask,” Man No. 2 responds. “You led them here.”

They go on talking about destruction and corruption and progress. Man No. 2 mentions how desperately he wants to kill Man No. 1 and that he’ll eventually find a “loophole” to do it.

Pause.

“Always nice talking to you Jacob,” Man No. 2 says.

“Nice talking to you, too,” Jacob says.

Nice!

Talk about a great way to finally introduce us to a man/thing who has played a pivotal role on Freaky Island. I sure didn’t see that one coming. Which is why Lost is such a great show. Whenever you expect it to zig, it zags. And when you expect it to zag, it, well, goes back in time 30 years and confuses – and entertains – you even more.

Locke isn’t Locke: Ah-ha! That explains all of Locke’s recent actions, like wanting to kill Jacob and strutting around the beach like he’s some tough dictator. The real Locke is still dead as we saw when Ilana showed his pasty-faced body to Richard. Locke is actually Man No. 2, the guy on the beach who appears to have a pretty sinister agenda and who found his “loophole” in Locke’s body. Lost has stolen from so many movies and TV shows – The Twilight Zone, Planet of the Apes, Raiders of the Lost Ark, to name a few – you can now add Invasion of the Body Snatchers to that list.

The sappy Lifetime movie moments: Despite its dense mythology and jungle weirdness, Lost has always been about people. If we don’t emotionally invest in the characters, the other stuff doesn’t matter. The writers know how to tug at your heartstrings (Sawyer kissing Kate and jumping out the helicopter comes to mind), but I must say it got a little sappy last night after we learned Jack is going through desperate measures to erase the past ‘cause…he wants another shot with Kate! The reason was a little tough to swallow. And then there was Juliet mouthing such Lifetime-ish movie lines to Sawyer like, “If I never meet you, I never have to leave you.” C’mon writers, you’re better than that.

Bernard and Rose return: They have always been two of my favorite characters. What a treat seeing them last night, living in peace for three years like they’re in the Bahamas, or something. When they’re told Jack has a bomb, Rose shrugs, “Who cares?” You know the old saying? Misery loves company? Rose and Bernard aren’t having any of it. They found their happy place and they’re not gonna let anyone ruin it, dammit! Besides, who doesn’t want to live in a place near the ocean?

Sawyer and Jack duke it out: Poor Jack. You get the sense he’d always come in second to everything when it comes to Sawyer. Sitting in the jungle, Sawyer attempts to talk some sense into Jack and convince him to ditch the idea of blowing up the island so everyone can start from scratch. Sawyer tells Jack the story of when he was eight and how his father killed his mother and then himself after his dad lost everything he had to a con man. Living in the past, Sawyer could’ve stopped this tragic event from happening, but didn’t. Jack wants to know why. “What’s done is done,” Sawyer says, dryly. Not visibly moved, Jack says he want to go back for another shot at Kate. Sawyer reminds him, however, that if history is erased, she won’t even know him. Jack doesn’t care. Love makes you feel that way sometimes.

After realizing he won’t get Jack to change his mind, Sawyer decides to beat and choke the living crap out of him instead. Just as he’s about to kill Jack or put him in a long coma, here comes Juliet, saying Jack was right and that they should go back. Sawyer is like, WTF? What happened, Sawyer wants to know? “I changed my mind,” Juliet says. Women, after all, do have that constitutional right.

The final moments: If you weren’t sitting on the edge of your seat after Jack dropped the bomb down the hatch you may want to check your pulse to see if you’re still alive. As much as Jack wants to hit the rewind button for his life, even he’s not sure if he’s doing the right thing. It’s not until Kate, the one who got away, gives him a teary-eyed nod of the head to do it, that he does.

And when he does The Gap Band thing (You Dropped A Bomb On Me, baby!) …nothing happens. No explosion, no nothing. But then you hear humming as The Incident commences. Jack gets knocked in the head with a toolbox. Phil is harpooned. And Juliet is dragged down the hatch where Sawyer desperately tries to save her. But she falls. How she doesn’t die, only the writers know for sure. Juliet sees the bomb. Picks up a rock and hits it. Again and again. “Come on, you son of a b—h!” she screams. Then a flash. The screen goes white. Where did everyone go? Will they be strangers? Did they all make it? What language was Richard speaking? (Latin, I’m guessing.) What does “DS” stand for on the ring Sun found? What’s the name of Man No. 2 on the island? Does your head hurt?

To be continued…in eight months.

When it comes to mysterious characters, no one holds a candle to Michael Emerson’s devious Ben Linus on ABC’s Lost.

While Wednesday’s season finale hints at the undoing of the fateful Oceanic Airlines crash and everything that followed, Emerson spills a few details that might surprise fans — including information on the elusive Jacob.

Going mano-a-mano with Benjamin Linus
“I like Ben the way he’s been imagined all along, and I don’t think his character is going to alter much. But I do expect that new challenges will be thrown at him in Season 6. I have a feeling that we’re going to have a shake-up up in the landscape of the show and the set of problems that the characters are faced with. New alliances and new missions are going to evolve.”

Think you know Lost? Take the quiz!

Those eyes, that voice…
“With every character I play, I have to think about how they live in their bodies and how they speak. I thought Ben needed a quality and it’s a quality that’s non-committal, a little bit flat, clinical and cool. He is in a cool palette where other characters are much warmer. That’s definitely what sets him apart.”

See photos of the Top 10 Hottest Stars of Lost

Enough is enough. Who is Jacob?
“When you talk about someone like Jacob, the much awaited secret power behind the curtain, I’m not sure you even need a Jacob so much as you feel his presence. There’s going to be a number of characters who’s presence will be felt in the finale, who have by virtue of their power the ability to change the course of events.”

Making friends with the enemy
“Even though I’m at odds with most of the characters on-screen, I have a really good relationship with my castmates. Because I spend most of my screen time with Terry O’Quinn, he and I hang out quite a lot and we get along famously. He and I are of a similar age and we have similar philosophies about the craft of acting and we approach the work the same. We both have similar senses of humor and a similar sense of both the seriousness and the fun of what we do, so I’m always happy spending time with him.

Read: Michael Emerson Admits Lost Even Confuses Him

Ben and Juliet’s unrequited love saga
“Elizabeth Mitchell and I are Lost classmates. We were the ones who were freshman when everyone else was a sophomore. I will be forever linked to her that way. I like the way she works. She’s a theater actress, and we always have a good time and a lot of crackle in our scenes.”

Lost‘s ultimate ending, May 2010
“I feel a great sense of anticipation, but just like everyone else, I’m just so curious to see what it’s going to be. How are they going to do it, and how can they do it in 17 hours? They know how the series ends. They have an outline in their minds, but the exact sequence of events, the trail of dialogue that leads us there, the details of it and who does what to whom, will be worked out during the course of the season. But yes, they know how it ends.