Not to reveal too much of my inner nerd, but I will be watching the season premiere of Lost although probably not tonight and definitely not with the usual twenty minutes of commercials. (Age of the DVR, kids.) Where most network series lose me after an episode or three—I'm thinking Heroes and 24—Lost has sustained itself in my dim imagination through a combination of underlying cleverness, location (thank God for anything not shot in LA), and a demonstrated determination on the part of the writers to revive its suspension of disbelief when it had clearly fallen into the languors familiar to any show getting orders to string itself out for two, three years beyond what would seem necessary to achieve its narrative duties. Put more simply, Lost redeemed itself last year just when I was about to abandon hope.

It is no secret that few, if any, TV dramas are launched with the final episode remotely imagined. David Chase is lying if he ever says he knew how he was going to end The Sopranos back in seasons one or two.

The average producer is so thrilled to get the go-ahead for a pilot, it's everything he/she can handle just to keep the catering trucks arriving on time. With most hour-long dramas dying a quick death well before the end of season one, there's no upside, much less physical time, to spend carefully plotting out second and third acts for every story line you introduce in episodes one through five.

Good examples of a clever series tanking as its success obligated it to play on well past the limits of imagination are Twin Peaks, which should have called it a wrap after the eighth episode, and The X-Files, which didn't need anything after season six and even by then had lost all hope of resolving its spiraling conspiracies.

I vividly remember interviewing X-Files creator Cris Carter in his bungalow on the FOX lot back around the time of season four or five and being struck by his lack of interest in whether various plot elements  being obsessively discussed by the show's fans were ever going to be tied up and properly resolved. Job number one for Carter was delivering another twenty-two episodes for the next season, then twenty-two more after that, and on, and on as long as he and his team could go. Where they ended up, not so important.

There is another X-Files movie, sans alien-conspiracy mythology, in production.

Anyway, it seems as though the Lost team has taken to heart complaints fans have made about other obsessively analyzed shows and recommitted themselves to pulling the dozen or so rogue subplots back into some kind of dramatic cohesion by the time the series concludes business in 2010. Last season's finale, with its very effective, slowly dawning awareness that what we were watching was a flash-FORWARD, was, as I say, an example of the show's fundamental cleverness and audacity. By exploiting every opportunity available to it via its concept, Lost has been able to deliver a steady series of far-better-than-average twists and mysteries. But now it has to demonstrate that all this clever convolution is leading—even throughout two more years—to a coherent denouement.

Newsweek likes what it has seen in tonight's (7 p.m.) opener.

The Houston Chronicle's critic goes gaga.

That said, here are five good questions I'd like to see the Lost writers get cracking on right away. (Eight episodes of this fourth season are in the can. Anything after that awaits resolution of the current writers' strike.)

As suggested by the headline, I will be watching Hillary Clinton, she of the fearsome and mighty "Clinton machine" all the pundit/hysterics have been shrieking about, as she tries to stave off the once-every-two-generations charisma of Barack Obama. With my guy Edwards bowing out (and I'm betting already cooking a deal with Obama), and with the Republicans' most electable candidate, John McCain now establishing himself as a front-runner, this debate—in Hollywood no less—has acquired a substantially tightened focus. Battle savvy or coalition-building inspirational? What's your poison?

By the way, for everyone else who doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the overwrought—and hysterical—hyperbole the press is tossing around about Bill Clinton's "volcanic" temper, McCain's "anger issues" and even super-ultra-oily Mitt Romney's "eruptions," check out this Jon Stewart clip from a week ago. Do these high-profile, sophisticated, been-everywhere-seen-everything journalists know the difference between someone expressing mild annoyance and "volcanic" anger? Or are they just paid not to?

A full report tomorrow, after catching up on two hours of Lost over morning coffee.