'Twas the Night Before Season 4

Less than 20 hours now. 20 hours until we catch back up with the characters we know and love. 20 hours before we get that much closer to finding out who was in the coffin, and what the folks on that freighter are really up to. 20 hours before Lost, after a seven-month break, returns.

Not that I'm obsessing or anything. (19 hours, 44 minutes to go.)

With the Season 4 premiere, entitled "The Beginning of the End," so close to air time, coverage is beginning to flood in from those lucky few who've seen it. Among the clues as to what we can expect, from USA Today:

This is Lost on a fan-friendly fast-forward, offering a tense, emotional outing in which secrets are revealed, questions are answered — and yes, inevitably, new questions are raised.
We're back on the island, but it's an island (and a show) that is substantially changed. The castaways are in contact with their maybe rescuers, but we know everything won't go as planned, thanks to the series-shifting finale that sent us forward to a time when Jack and Kate are off the island and contemplating a return. The ramifications of this ingenious stroke are immediately apparent in tonight's shocking opening scene.

As far as the opening scene goes - Season 2's opener was brilliant and Season 3's followed almost the exact same structure to pitch-perfect effect. Can we expect another rehash, perhaps this time introducing us to a member of Naomi's mysterious freighter?

And how about this, from Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen:

In the season premiere, titled ''The Beginning of the End,'' you will meet a man who gets some bad news. His best friend has just died. The tragedy hits him hard, so hard that it threatens to imperil the meaning of his hard-fought survivor's life. But he makes a choice — a choice to live a life worthy of his friend's sacrifice. This will prove very difficult, maybe even impossible, and it will invite many unforeseen consequences. But it doesn't make his conviction any less true or the choice any less correct. If I didn't like this guy before, I love him to pieces now. He's a dude after my own heart.

Well, it's pretty obvious he's talking about Hurley here, since the late, great Charlie was his best friend and he has a well-known tendency to say "dude." But I have to admit that with all the attention paid to the Charlie/Claire love story, I didn't even bother thinking about how the death might affect Hurley. That's the great part about Lost - as intriguing as the mysteries of the island are, the characters are still the stars of the show.

EW also reveals one line of dialogue, spoken at some point in the episode by an unspecified character: "I'm thinking of growing a beard."

Make of that what you will. Just don't miss it - an 8-9 pm clip show, and then the actual episode at 9 pm on ABC. Hey, it's only 19 hours, 23 minutes away.

TAGS: 2008, Premiere, Season4
POST TOOLS: