I’m addicted to television. This essentially reduces me to a cross between a kitten and Homer Simpson. If the tube is on and I walk by it I’m, like, “Mmmm, pretty moving pictures…” (Swat, swish, purrrrr.)

It took great willpower, but I resolved that this year I would not watch Lost anymore. I had reached my threshold for confused frustration last year; and as much as I crave all things fantastical, I was really tired of allowing this show to raise my expectations, only to leave me with some hokey ambiguity at the end of every episode—and, finally, the season.

But I read a bunch of articles by critics I usually agree with, and they assured me that this year Lost was gonna rock us hard with mysterious sleights of hand—and reveal at last some of this island’s core mysteries. So with heart on sleeve, I fired up the DVR Wednesday nights…and Thursday mornings when I get on my elliptical cross-trainer, I’d get Lost. I’m gullible, and I believed Mr. Commercial Announcerman when he promised that this winter’s nonstop season was going to answer all my questions and take me to my happy place.

Maybe the guys in the writers’ room even think they’re doing that. But I guess they don’t realize that the rest of us don’t have the benefit of their double-, triple-secret-secret past/future expository data. Now that we’re in “Othersland,” they’ve introduced even more characters, who have even more backstories, and that means even more of those stupid flashbacks that are really good at slowing down the plot momentum and fogging up our focus.

I am certain that I’m not the only one who had a very hard time last year keeping up with where the show was supposed to be going. They’d get one thread cooking real good and then they’d shift to another with different characters—which meant we all had to be bored by hearing another set of life histories, because the structure of the show is: character X has a storyline, so character X has a flashback of his life before the island that mirrors the theme of this week’s story, mmm-kay?

First, we had the crash survivors, then the “Tailies,” then Desmond and his story, and now The Others—of whom there seem to be a never-ending supply. And each and every character that gets major screen time inflicts his life story upon us. Sometimes I even get reeled in by this. But I can always be sure that once I’m good and sold, Lost will fling me into the midst of some other dude’s crap—in which I may even invest, until he, too, is abandoned for just the amount of time it takes for me to start not giving a shit about him, either.

Now, I know that the object of this game is to stretch the saga of people who get stranded on an extra-super-remote, unfindable island into a hundred episodes or so, and the creators do deserve big ups for a rather inventive format that sustains an apparently limited premise fairly impressively. But if they don’t start telling me soon what is really happening, my brain is going to explode and I predict that this will not be an isolated phenomenon. Hey, Damon Lindeloff, I’m pretty sure headless humanoids don’t add much to a show’s Nielsen stats!

What the frak is up at that Other’s compound already!!!??? Yeah, it’s creepy to see Jack wake up in the bear cage with a cluster of cheerful onlookers who then announce they’re there “to watch.” And when Jack understandably yells at them for it, they (ever so cryptically) look all hurt and surprised. Oooh, mysterious. Gives me shivers. Makes me go, Mmmm. But not for long.

I am so, SO sick of this show dropping little creepy crumbs, and then leaving them to rot. I’m SO sick of these multitudinous threads that take endless time to—well, I can’t say resolve, because many never do…but I can’t wait through any more infinite intervals to find out what the good goddam these cryptic dances mean.

J’accuse!!! J’accuse, I say! I honestly do not think these people know where their show is going. And if they DO, then they greatly overestimate the patience and tolerance of mere mortals. I WANT TO KNOW WHO THE F**K THESE OTHERS ARE! I don’t care about the soap-operatic emotional convolutions between Charlie Pace and Claire Littleton or Sawyer and Kate. I don’t care if the island is really Hell and everyone is really dead, or some sh*t. I took Mr Announcerman at his word, and if the completely incredible behavior of these annoying, sadistic, powermongering cultish Others isn’t justified soon, I’m done. D-O-N-E, done! It’s not fun anymore. It’s just frustrating. I don’t get it, and my incentive to try is increasingly waning. Because when the show does deign to give us a clue, it’s always a morsel, never a meal.

What started out as a rabid, stalker-like crush on this show has devolved into a dysfunctional marriage. I didn’t want to admit this, Lost, but there’s a new hottie on the block and I’ve been cheating on you. And she’s been giving me what you can’t—satisfaction, on a weekly basis. She’s a little blond cheerleader named Claire Bennet, and like you, she lives in magical land. They call the place where she lives Heroes. And every time you travel there, you find something mysterious. But you also find something the Beings on your planet haven’t discovered yet. That something is a little thing I like to call “answers.”

Yes, Heroes is a show similar in many ways to Lost, but it has learned how to avoid outsmarting itself. And all you have to do to accomplish that, is to STOP trying to outsmart your audience. There’s a difference between mystifying and entertaining. Suspense is only fun up to a point. After all, is there anyone who wants her climaxes interrupted ad infinitum—ad nauseum? Hey, blue balls anyone? Show of hands…?

So, Lost, you’re on notice. I don’t get you, and I’ve Lost faith. I’m still willing to consider couples counseling. But if you can’t commit soon, I’m leaving you and plighting my troth with the cheerleader. At least with her I can still believe I’m going to find out how to save the world.

Kisskiss.