By Tim Parks
Columnista SDUN

ABC’s “Lost” will end its six-season run May 23 in a 2½-hour finale appropriately entitled “The End,” and thus it’s buh-bye to another show that changed the landscape of television forever.

Upon arrival, we got to know the passengers of the ill-fated Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 as they had crashed onto what was a seemingly deserted tropical island nest. They had no phone, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury – much like Robinson Crusoe, it was as primitive as can be. Hold up! That was from the end-credit theme song for “Gilligan’s Island” – guess it is just stuck in my brain, like so much other pop culture flotsam and jetsam.

And we’re back to our regularly scheduled program already in progress…

Be forewarned, I know that I am going to go back-and-forth with all of the seasons, but that has been part of the hook with “Lost.”

We got to learn, via flashbacks (not of the “Whoa! I’m trippin’ variety”) about how many of the characters were as interconnected as a game of “Connect Four.” Remember that one? It was like checkers with a twist, and as the brother said to his sibling in the commercial, “Pretty sneaky, sis!”

You could say the same about “Lost” and its creators, who crafted a mind-warping phenomenon of a series with more hairpin turns than a Prius attempting to brake going downhill. So J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse must think they’re very crafty in their storytelling abilities, now doncha? Doncha? Answer me! Yeah, like they are reading this!

Well, if you are, shame on you for killing Boone (Ian Somerhalder) that first year, but thanks for bringing him back as a flashback in season two, a literal dream in season three, and part of the this-would-have-happened-if-the-characters-had-landed-safely-at-LAX plotline of this season. During the show’s sophomore season they also tricked me into liking Shannon (Maggie Grace) and then killed her in the same episode. Nice one!
Subsequently over the past six seasons, we had flash forwards, time travel times two and the aforementioned sideways storyline of this final year.

Time traveling back to 2004, I knew I would love “Lost” the instant the plane engine sucked a man into it and exploded – talk about must-see TV! And I had to know what was knocking the trees around in the jungle – was it a dinosaur or just Kirstie Alley in search of an acting job?

Of course, we eventually found out what was what with the island, which has been as central of a character to the show as Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lily) or Sawyer (Josh Holloway) has been, and it was the getting there that made the show interesting.

Season one’s only snags came in the form of feeding the public’s need for new episodes, and I am still not sure why I had to see the pilot episode ad infinitum during the series’ hiatus. Granted, it’s one of the best pilot episodes for any show ever, but still, I could have been watching the in-the-same-time-slot/train-wreck competition that was “Hawaii.” On second thought, thanks, “Lost”!

In season two the upswing was the introduction of Henry Gale, who was later exposed as Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson), the leader of “The Others,” and was initially slated for a three-episode story arc. Emerson is/was so good as Ben that he even received an Emmy for his work as the complicated man. Plus we discovered, kinda, what “The Dharma Initiative” was about.

However, there was way too much time spent in the damn hatch, which was a mystery up until the end credits came up during the season one finale – with its patented booming sound at episodes’ end – as deafening as the explosion that caught Sawyer (Holloway), Michael (Harold Perrineau) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) off-guard and set their raft on fire, as “The Others” kidnapped Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), who was only seen in spurts in that second season. Talking about spurts, he had one hell of a growth one when they showed him down the road, a few years later, when he was being visited by John Locke (Terry O’Quinn).

We also got to know “The Tailies,” who were also stranded when the plane went kaboom in the sky, which gave Hurley (Jorge Garcia) a love story with Libby (Cynthia Watros). Eventually we got to meet Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) and that caused a four-way love triangle with Sawyer, Jack and Kate as the remaining three members of that equation – sounds kinky! Then she died at the beginning of this year; it’s just like “The Wizard of Oz” quote, “My, people come and go so quickly here.”

An added bonus is akin to something ole’ Hermie Munster AKA Fred Gwynne said in “Pet Sematary” that “sometimes dead is better.” What I mean by that is that even though beloved characters like Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), the already discussed Carlyle kids (Boone and Shannon…pay attention!), Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje), Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez), Juliet (Mitchell) and even the new-and-not-improved version of Locke can all rise from the grave and be seen again on “Lost,” it’s not a complete wash if a favorite person ends up biting the big one. Must stay strong!

SPOILER ALERT! It was certainly a shocker when Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin were all killed last week. However, rumor has it that they will make appearances in the sideways story arc during the finale. See? Dead ain’t dead on “Lost,” y’all. Too bad it doesn’t work that way on some celebrities’ careers! You know who you are, David Hasselhoff!

And I’m so glad I didn’t give up on the show during the first part of the third year, after its initial slump, when it hit full steam ahead and never got boring again. Yes, I’m referring to the snooze-fest story of Kate and Sawyer locked in a cage for the better part of a season, looking like human rejects from “Planet of the Apes.” I’m surprised no one uttered, “Speak, bright eyes, speak,” to either captive.

What I love about “Lost” is that the hard-hitting questions from seasons ago do eventually get answered, unlike “The X-Files.” I’m still unclear on all of the vast conspiracy theories that show had, and what was up with the black goo?

But it takes a lot of brainpower to remember that a situation being addressed in recent episodes actually happened five years ago. I am getting up there in age, so it’s hard to remember what I did yesterday, let alone a complicated plotline to a series, which got even worse when they started making the show begin in January through May in the fourth season. And that’s why I am lost (at times) on “Lost.”

The creators of the show have promised all questions will be answered. I have some personal ones I have pondered that need to be resolved, stat!

Okay, then, why has no one talked about the, umm, elephant in the room? Too mean? Well, it’s me! How did Hurley never lose any weight while on the island? Yes, I know that there was a cache of food at times during the show’s run, but still – he’s a big boy, is all I’m sayin’.

Also, who decided Sawyer should have his shirt on so much in the past few years? I bet his fan base of women and men alike were none too pleased by that decision. I know I wasn’t!

And what is Kate’s beauty secret? She always manages to look refreshed and flawless for the most part in a majority of the episodes, whereas Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan) lived on the island for years and ended up looking like a present-day Lindsay Lohan!

Guess Claire got the Rousseau treatment, as her hair was a rats’ nest this year – just put some water in it, girl. Speaking of make-up tips, where does Richard (Nestor Carbonell) buy his guy liner? And I know the tropics brings out the curl in naturally curly hair, but Sayid always looks like he’s just applied a generous amount of Jeri Curl to his luxurious locks.

Semantics aside, I do applaud what the creative minds are trying to do by not letting the show jump the shark, as it were.

With the finale looming large on the horizon, I hope you’ve enjoyed this rearview mirror look at a truly unique show, as it gets smaller (although, objects in mirror are closer than they appear, as the saying goes) until it is yet another faded memory of a show gone by. Besides, we’ll always have reruns, even if they’re on G4 and SyFy.

And that’s entertainment!