Not LOST, just delayed

Last Fall the producers of Lost said that they would wrap up the second island plot by the end of the mini-season. Instead they ended on a cliff-hanger. What happened?

I think that the bosses at ABC decided that they wanted to start their new series early. They must have had high hopes for it. So they cut Lost's Fall season short one episode and moved it to the Winter.

Bad move. After a three month gap some of the plot points were a little hard to follow. I have a great memory for plot details but when Alex popped out of brush my first reaction was, "Oh yeah, she's here, too." It's been close to six months since Karl made his first and only appearance so he was even more obscure.

So, now we are at a fairly good point for a break. Kate, Sawyer, and Karl are on their way back to the main island. Jack's fate is on hold for a while. There is enough of a break in the minute to minute continuity to stop for a breath but still enough to pull you back.

Except they showed it at the wrong end of the break.

Also, this was the first time one of the Others had a flashback. The flashbacks in the mini-season were all for people who have already had multiple flashbacks. Including Juliet's flashback would have helped with the staleness I complained about recently.

So the producers erred by focusing too much on Jack, Kate, and Sawyer and ABC erred by being too eager to premier a show that flopped.

BTW, the rig they had Karl in was reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. In this movie, a violent, antisocial gang leader is given a special treatment to make him incapable of further violence or violent sex. He is strapped down with his eyes clamped open and forced to watch clips of violent movies while being given a drug that makes him feel sick. The idea was to build an association so that further violence made him sick. The character's name was Alex which is probably a coincidence.

Presumably we will learn something from Karl about what they were doing to him and why. It looked like they were trying to force good citizenship on him.

So Alex is Ben's daughter. As far as we know, she is also Danielle's daughter. In the 9 o'clock clip show they reminded us that Danielle claimed that she had never seen the Others, only heard them. Was she lying?

And what was a fertility specialist doing on the island?