Help! I'm "Lost!"

I am completely hooked on the tv series, "Lost." Completely and totally hooked, worse than the biggest cokehead....I love it. I got the DVD set of season 1 of the hit show for my birthday two weeks ago, and I've found the time to watch seven episodes. It is my new addiction.

For those of you who live in a bubble and have not heard of the show, it is a story of 47 (at least to this point- remember, I'm virtually clueless as to spoilers for the show) survivors of a plane crash who are stranded on a mysterious island. That in itself is a neat scenario, IMO, since I am a huge fan of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" and the Tom Hanks film "Castaway." I even loved "Swiss Family Robinson" when I was a kid, and my brother and I used to draw up blueprints for the largest treehouse in the world like they had in the movie. The only problem was we had no money, no wood, and no trees capable of supporting our dream mansion.

The real appeal for "Lost" to me is the oddities that surround their crash- big mysterious creatures roaming the island, scrapes with wild boars and polar bears (yes, polar bears on a tropical island), strange repeating messages over 16 years old spoken by a French woman who speaks of "The Others" being all dead.....it is crazy.

The characters are great- each of their stories are told via flashback...the mythology of this show is incredible. No wonder its ratings are unbelievably high. It has a massive following that makes it truly one of this decade's biggest television phenomena.

The writing is superb- JJ Abrams is brilliant, Damon Lindelof (who is now writing the extremely cool WOLVERINE vs HULK comic series), and Paul Dini (who wrote the entire BATMAN animated series) have crafted a tale of vast complexity that leaves me begging for more at the end of each episode.

Therein lies the problem. This show is SO Big that people are talking about it EVERYWHERE- except, typically enough, at the high school where I teach, where the fuel gauge of pop culture awareness is bouncing on 'E.' I can't listen to anything on the radio on Thursdays without radio hosts giving away spoilers for the show. I had to scream at the top of my lungs and turn the channel 10 times during the Super Bowl because of the "Lost" ads, and even on ESPN they made a reference to a con that Sawyer pulled. But I didn't know about the con that Sawyer pulled, I don't WANT to know about the con that Sawyer pulled, and if any of you tell me what con that Sawyer pulled was, I will drive to your house, beat down your door, tie you up, and make you watch "The Dukes of Hazzard" ten times in a row. Now that movie is crap. But that's for another rant.

I know a little bit about how the first season ends, but please don't tell me anything else. Or...well, see the preceding sentences for the punishment.

By the way, aren't DVD sets of our favorite shows wonderful? I don't have cable or a satellite- it's $45 a month that I haven't been able to convince my wife Natalie to spend, though she may be weakening (right, sweetie?) But thanks to DVD's I've been able to watch shows like Deadwood, Smallville (seasons 1-4), That 70s Show, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Babylon 5......and many others, on my own watch. And with baby Audrey on the way, the ability to watch shows when I want instead of randomly (some would say angrily) chosen times has really made me happy.

By the way, if I was ever stranded on a tropical island with giant monsters, polar bears, and wild boars, I'd find a volleyball, name it "Mortimer," and put on a one man rendition of "The Dukes of Hazzard."