Lost, "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead", and I Wished I Was

I love Lost. I've seen countless posts in various forums by people expressing their dislike of episodes. I have never agreed with any of them. Every episode contained enough of interest to keep me enjoying the show. But tonight's episode was deadly.

The Hurley flashback , although slightly interesting for the appearance of Cheech Marin, told us nothing new. It has been drummed into our heads for two years now that Hurley believed, and had reason to believe, that he has been cursed since he won the lottery. Now we can chalk up another incident of that type.

The pseudo-psychologists want us to believe that Hurley is fat because his father, who fed him candy, later abandoned him. Not convincing.

Back on the island, Hurley discovers the VW Microbus. He fixates on it and, we are expected to believe, gets it jump started with gasoline that is god knows how old. Will this be anything than a toy for Hurley and have anything to do with the future twists of the plot? I doubt it.

The only movement of the plot tonight was Kate and Sawyer's return to the group and Kate's attempt to enlistment Rouseau in her search for the Others' home base. Kate may have just figured out that the girl Alex is probably Rouseau's daughter, but we've known that for a year and a half.

It is like the producers decided to run in place for sweeps week. After all, people tune in to a given episode based on their interest in preceding episodes, not based on their expectations for the new episode. I'm beginning to think that episodes written with no involvement by Cuse, Lindeloff and Abrams are considered less important by them and are likely to be so.

The only good news is that Cuse and Lindeloff wrote next week's episode, "Enter 77".