To be completely honest with you all, while I've enjoyed all of the season 4 LOST episodes, I have to say that I'm feeling a little underwhelmed. Sure, all of the episodes have been written, directed, and acted well, but I feel as if the show is losing a little bit of its magic.

I remember feeling this way during the early stages of season 3, so I'm holding out hope that the show will regain some of its mystique. I mean, we've had a Sayid episode, a Hurley episode, and an episode about the 4 new LOSTies. We haven't even had a Desmond, Locke, or Jack episode yet. I'll hold off judgment until we see where their storylines are going.

The good:

- Seeing Ben in the future significantly decreases the possibility that it was Ben in the coffin during the season 3 finale. Sure there's still a possibility, but Ben seems to still be a dramatic force to be reckoned with in the flash forwards.

- I like the idea that Sayid is doing whatever it takes to help his friends (on the island? off the island?), even if that means killing and going against his moral code. It seems to me that these early episodes are setting it up so that some people are still stuck on the island and that the ones who got off the island were told to keep their mouth shut.

- The opening scene on the golf cart was bad ass. The sprinklers coming on was a nice touch.

- The time experiment that revealed that the island was 31 minutes behind the real world. I theorize that the longer you're on the island, the more that time increases. Not sure if that's possible considering that Ben and Daniel are interacting with one another on the island...we'll see.

- I like that we still don't know if Ben's a bad or good guy. I still bet that he's ultimately a good guy, but is going about things in an evil way.

The Bad:

- I feel that the writing has gotten a tad bit sloppy. Things that used to be implied through subtext are being said out in the open now. For example, Jack says that Locke won't hurt anyone because Sawyer wouldn't let that happen. I think that in previous seasons, this would have gone unsaid. Or when Ben says that Locke is "waiting for someone to tell him what to do." I know Ben's trying to frak with John, but still...seems *too* obvious a line to me.

- Speaking of John...haven't we been down this whole "waiting for someone to tell me what to do" thing? Season 3 ended with the belief that John was well on his way to figuring stuff out...and season 1 Locke was all about having the answers...Where is *that* Locke? I want the Locke that's solving the island's mysteries, not the one that's beating his head against the wall because he doesn't know what's going on. I just saw a clip from the next episode and you'd swear that it was taken word for word from a season 2 episode.

- How much longer do we have to put up with the "they're coming to kill us" line without getting the payoff? We've been getting a lot of buildup (dating back to the last few episodes of season 3), but so far have had absolutely zero delivery of that promise. Even if they're going to dispel that notion, they need to get on it.

- I have no doubt that the writers know where they're going, but I'm getting a little frustrated. We have 45 episodes left. Do they really need that many? It seems like they're still dragging us along.

I'm holding out hope. The writers have said that these first few episodes were designed as a build-up. I'll be interested to see if they start delivering.

- I felt they cheated a little bit with Ben in this episode. Sayid was talking to this deep voice...even the voice of the person working on him in the Vets office had a deep voice, but then as soon as it was revealed to be Ben, his voice went back to normal Ben voice. I felt that was a bit of a cheat. How about introducing a new character who would make us say "Who the frak is that?" I think I would have preferred that.

Overall, a good episode. I rank it a 7.5 out of 10.

- Matthew