Paradise "Lost"

Puzzling out the actual number of hours spent watching the show "Lost" along with the time spent searching online sites to determine just what the heck is going on in any episode may lead you to decide to find a better way to spend your time.

Fortunately, once you've seen a few basic episodes, you can leave the actual viewing of most any show to folks who do have time, and they can recap it all for you to read in less than one-fourth the time of an hour-long episode. And they even write up the recaps complete with the snarky comments one might make about any odd episodic elements.

Here's a wee bit of the recap from last week's "Lost" which sort of captures how much fun the writers at Television Without Pity can have:

"Sawyer has his brow furrowed in confusion and consternation. He asks, "Locke is dead because you threw him out a window?" Bad Dad says that he didn't die from being thrown out a window; he died when his plane crashed in the middle of the Pacific. Sawyer looks relieved. He says he was on that plane too, and he's not dead. Bad Dad fills him in on the fact that they found the plane's wreckage and all the bodies. Sawyer refuses to believe that he's dead, because he's standing on an Island. Bad Dad asks again if Sawyer is sure it's an Island. Sawyer punts by asking, if it's not an Island, what is it? Bad Dad laughs that it's a little hot for heaven. Sawyer rolls his eyes, but Bad Dad says, "One minute I'm in a car wreck, the next I'm in a pirate ship in the middle of the jungle. If it's not hell, friend, where are we?" I think that was supposed to mirror Charlie's line from the first episode ever, but I don't really have the energy to parse it out, because during the last five minutes of the show, I have wandered over to my bedroom and slammed the closet door on my head about twelve times."

The full recap is here. And if you are a devoted follower of most any show, they've got dozens of forums for you to debate "what it all means."