I'm lost when it comes to "Lost" ...

OK, I admit it. I just don't get what the big deal is about "Lost."

Can anyone explain it to me? Seriously. I mean, I've seen the show on several occasions in the first season. I watched the first two or three or so because of all the hype it was getting. People were talking about it as if it were the second coming of "CSI."

But I just couldn't get into it — not the way that everyone else seemed to get into it. It was a phenomenon that just wasn't all that phenomenal to me. I mean, for some folks that's the ONLY show the watch during the week, and it's all they can do to hold in their excitement before the next episode. They buy Season 1 on DVD to look for clues they've missed, to get behind-the-scenes info. They join or create fan clubs and "Lost" specific blogs. They go through Web site after Web site hoping to get clues about upcoming episodes ... as long as it doesn't SPOIL anything. Some just like the show, but others are totally OBSESSED.

I see that it's different. But really, the concept isn't really all that new. Remember Robinson Crusoe? Same concept, but with a ship and fewer survivors — cast away on a deserted island, far from any hope of rescue, trying to survive in strange and unusual surroundings, having to find shelter, food, etc.

The more modern equivalent, of course, is "Gilligan's Island." There you had multiple castaways trying to get by on a remote tropical island with no seeming hope for rescue. But, of course, "Lost" is no "Gilligan's Island." First of all, it's a drama, instead of a comedy. Second of all, there will never be two hotter castaways than Ginger and Mary Ann.

Of course, "Lost" is more than just a drama about people on a deserted island (and seeming a VERY large island to not be charted or known ... I mean, this is the 21st century, not the 18th) ... it's also a complex character study of a diverse bunch of folks and their former lives BEFORE they crashed, thanks to the overuse of gratuitous amounts of flashbacks meant to draw out the storyline further ...

And "diverse" is the key. It's not just Gilligan, the Skipper too; the millionaire and his wife; the movie star ... the professor and Mary Ann ... it goes WAY beyond that.

We have: the doctor, the fugitive woman, the con-man stud, the fat and slovenly latino multi-millionaire, the rich boy (now dead) and his spoiled brat sister, the ex-superstar musician druggie, the korean mafia couple, the Iraqi Republican Guardsman, the bald paraplegic who can suddenly walk again, the pregnant woman fleeing a cult (now a mom) ... not to mention the pirates, strangers already on the island, including a FRENCH chick.

Let's not forget the "monsters" that turned out to be wild pigs, the polar bears (really? polar bears?), other assorted unknown beasts, possibly dinosaurs and other crap. Oh yes, then you have the extensive tunnel system, fake plants and secret passages, parts of old planes crashed in the jungle canopy, massive underground computer system with a number sequence that has to be entered continuously, some kind of government secret experiment/plot ... etc.

Did I leave anything out? Proof of alien visitors? The remains of Marshall, Will and Holly from "The Land of the Lost" (still the best TV show EVER with the word "lost" in it), or a Sleestak, perhaps? Maybe the "Survivor" cast is on the other side of the island?

I guess I can kind of see the appeal ... I just don't feel it. Maybe it's because I'm just more into crime dramas and forensic kind of stuff. I dunno ... but for now, and likely forever, I will never be lost without "Lost."

Let the drubbing and comments calling me crazy and unappreciative of television genius begin!!

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• If there were any southern Chamorro boys who survived the plane crash on "Lost," there would have been a shelter up by the end of Day 1, and there would be a steady supply of fish, shellfish, eel, etc. for the table.