Embarrassingly, I'm currently well into season 3 of this abomination of a science fiction series. Yes I know, Lost (as it is aptly named) absolutely bites - plot holes like Swiss cheese, painfully excessive melodrama, stupid characters, deception on tap and unashamed devices to reel you into the next episode. Like any other person of reasonable intelligence, I really should just stop watching this 'shite' and do something more constructive with my time. And this may happen in the not too distant future as the show spirals downwards into a haze of obscurity. But until then I think I'll just have a little rant.

Lost treats it's audience as if they were mushrooms - the show keeps you in the dark and feeds you shit. Nice camera work and high production values keeps the wool over your eyes as you tune in week after week to yet more questions and never any answers. Maybe we as an audience would be getting some form of closure over time if we were not subject to the show's relentless use of flashbacks. What takes the duration of one episode unfortunately takes two. The time would really be better spent towards meaningful dialogue. For some reason, the main characters never like asking too many questions to other cast members who come to discover something about the islands mystery. One time, when the group is attacked by the island's monster, Jack and Kate ask the French woman what it actually is (as she appears to know). She vaguely replies it is an alarm system to protect the island. Jack and Kate look at each other melodramatically (Koreans cinema would love this stuff) and decide well, that's just about enough question asking 'cause that response there seems to be right on the money. I myself would have preferred a more detailed physical description - is it a crazy meat-loving robot, a Godzilla-like monster or, as we now know, a cloud of killer black smoke? Obviously.

Plot holes, inconsistency and stupidity rain supreme atop the show's long list of shortcomings. Basically, the script is poo. Lost is nothing more than a series of twists and turns used to dazzle the audience, but as soon as you piece it together it just doesn't make any sense. Take for example 'The Others' - seemingly invincible woodman baddies one day, suburbanite layman the next. They love to say that "not everything is as it seems", that they're not the bad guys nor are they killers. Yet, they don't mind engaging in theft, assault, mass kidnapping, torture, and the occasional murder. Season 3 opens with a dramatic scene showing 'The Others' witnessing the original plane violently breaking in two over the island. The presumed leader, Ben, then orders two of his henchmen to go to find survivors, integrate with them and bring back lists of their names. Now, I wasn't ever great at physics, but I'm pretty sure that if I saw a plane take a nosedive after splitting in half hundreds of metres in the air, I wouldn't be counting on there being many survivors.

No doubt Lost season 3 is pushing the envelope of idiocy. The first few episodes are spent following the season 2 cliffhanger involving Locke (a former cripple who unrealistically knows everything, but in the end always makes the wrong decisions) and Mr Eko (a big badass priest-killer). Locke and Mr Eko, after being at the epicentre of a massive electromagnetic explosion or implosion, naturally wake up unharmed in the jungle. But Eko shortly succumbs to a polar bear's penchant for kidnapping and is soon dragged across the jungle into a cave. Luckily, he only sustains, what appears to be, a nasty concussion and some light scratches. The story then takes us to Locke who not only is rendered temporarily mute but, in a drug-induced vision, is then told by the island to save Eko. He does so after some brilliant work fending off the polar bear with an aerosol powered mini flamethrower. Eko returns to camp saved. Unfortunately he is then killed the next day by the island's black smoke security monster. So 1) what was the point of Locke saving Eko in the first place if the island was just going to kill him anyway and 2) how does a polar bear drag a 120+kg man across the jungle without ripping in him into pieces - actually, how can a polar bear drag anything, they don't have opposing thumbs!

This style of story telling can only be described as criminal. I could go on and on with a long list of other faults but instead I'll leave you with just a few more:

• The crazy French woman lives 16 years alone in the jungle yet does not loose her ability to talk fluently in her second language
• The corpse of Jack's father is missing from his coffin (as well as being seen walking around occasionally drinking scotch on the rocks) early in season 1 and is never talked about since
• The deaths of main characters are mourned heavily, while those of minor characters are turned into comic relief
• Most life saving medicine can be found in a plane wreckage

I first started watching this series when it aired in London last year. After two episodes I correctly concluded that it was nothing more than sugar coated donut - have one bite and you'll relish in its moreish qualities, ultimately begging for more. I stopped watching it before it got hold of my soul. When I returned to Sydney I bought the series to watch in French (listening practice). Strangely enough, it wasn't so painful in a foreign language - still ridiculous though. But after 2 seasons of following a shamelessly never-ending story, I think it's time to move on.