I’m sure I had plans for this weekend, plans involving getting a haircut, possibly going for a walk around the Oxford Botanic Garden (if only so I could discover what a Botanic actually is), perhaps sitting in expensive cafés and quaffing pots of tea whilst discussing Parisian Beatnik poetry with anybody nearby. I was toying with the idea of investing in a new scarf or some kind of donkey jacket, but all of these plans were ruined when I woke up on Saturday morning and found I had a giant, stinking cold.

I’ve never had a cold sneak up on me like that before, I normally have a warning a day or so in advance to allow me to stock up on Lemsip Max Direct, orange juice and curries, but this time it caught me completely unprepared — I only had one curry in stock, only half a carton of orange juice and only three sachets of paracetamol-powered sherbet to hand. This was going to be a difficult weekend, that much was clear. Luckily, I had the internet, and that combined with a propensity to stockpile and a further propensity to binge meant that my Saturday would not be spent in Oxford’s Famous Oxford, but instead would be spent watching 12 episodes of Lost in a row.

Lost was another series, like Battlestar Galactica, that I’d not really been interested in but had heard good things about and had acquired an episode or two out of curiosity. It had sounded crap, really — I was imagining some sort of fictional Survivor, a poor-man’s, sanitised take on Lord of the Flies with lots of Americans Overcoming Adversity and Going on a Voyage of Self-Discovery. There would probably be such as hugging and high-fives and accountants declaring their love for one another. There would almost certainly be an annoying cute child and some sort of pet — a dog or a cat or something — and both child and pet would get into all sorts of dangerous scrapes.

The first episode opens with a dog, and some dazed accountant in a suit. It wasn’t looking good.

But then I was found.

The series revolves around a group of approximately 50 survivors of a plane crash on a tropical island, with little chance of being rescued. The island appears to have dangerous man-eating things on it, though so far the really big ones that push over trees have yet to be seen. It’s turned out to be just as addictive and compelling as Battlestar. The characters haven’t turned out to be impossibly annoying (and what more can you ask for in a TV series these days?) and some of the choices have been surprisingly brave; a former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard as a sympathetic character (played by Naveen Andrews), for instance, and a Korean who speaks no English (played well by jobbing actor Daniel Dae Kim, formerly of Angel and Enterprise amongst other things), leading to a heavy use of subtitles. Also standing out are Dominic “Merry from Lord of the Rings” Monaghan as Charlie, Jorge Garcia as Hurley and Terry O’Quinn as survivalist John Locke (yes, a philosophical reference there). The dazed accountant mentioned earlier turned out to be a doctor, and as the WASPy American reluctant leader/hero character doesn’t really stand out. Plus, I think he wants to be Ben Affleck when he grows up. Oh, and the dog’s alright — hasn’t turned out to be some sort of heroic Lassie just yet.

A big part of the show isn’t what they’re doing on the island but how they got there. These stories are told via flashbacks, and it’s not unusual to see the same scene played out several times from different perspectives. It’s played out well, and spotting glimpses of other, seemingly-unrelated characters in the background — for instance, spotting Hurley on a television playing in the background during a Korean flashback — makes the whole thing more interesting. It turns out that most of the main characters all have Dark and Secret Pasts, but they’re at least vaguely interesting Dark and Secret Pasts. Particularly Hurley’s, as it seems as if it might be related to their presence on the island in the first place, but I won’t spoil it.

It’s not all about the flashbacks, though, there’s plenty of interest on the island as well in the form of previous survivors, existing occupants and possibly some ghosts as well. It’s the sort of remote and isolated tropical island that’s really buzzing with neat plot-related stuff.

Line and sinker.

I’m hooked on Lost; it combines great performances and a convincing, compelling cast with a dozen different mysteries and intertwining plot threads. It’s entirely my sort of TV, so I fully expect it to be cancelled soon. Mind you, Battlestar has managed a second series so there’s hope yet.