The trouble with Lost is this: you can’t build a long-running show upon the conceit that the viewers will be told nothing of consequence, because those viewers will eventually get bored of being strung along. With six episodes of the third season now down, I’ve finally reached that point.

I first evangelised about Lost back in March, 2005, and back then I found it to be thrilling stuff, compelling and completely addictive. The entire first season seemed tightly paced, carefully measured, each episode ending on a cliffhanger so tense that you had to — had to — keep watching. The mystery of the hatch in the ground, the mystery of The Others, the mystery of the forever-unseen monster in the jungle, the polar bears, the 50-year-old ‘Adam and Eve’ corpses, the French transmission…there was always something to keep you thinking, to keep you guessing.

It wasn’t just about the mysteries, but the characters as well. Getting to know them, not just from their island lives but from the glimpses shown to us via an effective flashback mechanism, was all part of the show’s appeal. Characters who appeared to be sinister — who can forget the episode that closed with a close-up of Locke, staring intently at Walt, the one child on the island — were revealed to be likeable, solid individuals, while those who seemed ok to begin with — Charlie, for instance — turned out to be weasley little gits.

The show was full of memorable moments; the chilling moment when the French transmission is translated; Boone briefly getting in touch with those who would later be revealed as survivors from the tail-end of the plane; Locke shouting into the hatch in desperation, only to have a light switch on below him — it was, basically, damn good television.

But that was then. This is now.

I no longer look forward to watching Lost, and when I do watch it, I don’t feel compelled to watch any further. If the show was cancelled tomorrow, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Why? Because the writers have demonstrated that there’s no real story here: for every minor mystery that’s cleared up, another five are found to take its place. Because if they revealed everything, there wouldn’t be any show left — having made the show about the mystery, they’ve backed themselves into a corner, only able to provide further mystery to keep people watching.

Furthermore, the characters are now just mostly irritating. Having learnt all we really needed to know back in the first season, the flashback mechanism to reveal their pasts has now been massively overused — it’s not unusual for half an episode to be nothing but flashback, often to a part of that character’s life that has never been hinted at and will never be mentioned again, just so the show can make one small point about someone’s personality. As dead characters are resurrected via other people’s flashbacks, and some flashbacks are actually flashbacks to other flashbacks, they’ve become incredibly contrived.

“They’re making it up as they go along,” is what I keep thinking to myself as I watch each episode. By opening up so many unrelated mysteries to start with, by not planning ahead, by refusing to explain events so as to keep me enthralled, Lost has lost me.