With Doctor Who returning to TV with its midseason premiere and Chuck entering its final season, we're guaranteed some staple nerd fodder on TV this season; but, as usual, all eyes are on the fresh crop of pilots from the harvest. Though we're still mourning what's been chucked and shucked (Locke and Key would have been amazing, wouldn't it?), we must now set our sights on the spread on the table before us.

Nobody at the Brattle applauded for the credits. The party host, attired in the manner of a Dharma Initiative scientist, who'd been dispensing raffle and trivia prizes during the commercial breaks, strongly advised everyone not to stick around for the (terrible) Jimmy Kimmel post-show, and go home. The mood felt rather glum, and I knew why.

^{Freud visits the Island}

Turns out, the cheap thrill of seeing C.J. "The Jackal" Cregg bludgeon Jacob's mom to death with a rock wasn't enough to keep legions of Lost fans from moaning about how much last week's episode sucked. But for me, "Across the Sea" -- which explored the relationship between Jacob and the (still-unnamed) Man In Black/Smokey -- was one of the high points of the season so far -- which is saying something, considering that we're only one episode away from Sunday's hugenormous two-part finale.

^{Jacob, before he started playing cosmic backgammon with Smokey}

Last week, around 9:45 pm, the tubes of the internet reverberated with the blood-curdling shrieks of Lost fans everywhere, as episode 15 -- "The Candidate" -- let loose an almost unprecedented blitzkrieg of carnage. Our weekly chatjam was no exception -- one of our regular chatters, in a frenzy of agonized rage, punched right through his television screen and broke his hand.

Everybody recovered from the punishing, brain-bending wallop that was last week's two-part Lost premiere spectacular? Ready to get back to the Island, even if it's full of talking dead people and smoke-monsters-made-flesh, and cast-resurrecting alternate universes? Good. Then we hope you can join us for another installment of our live Lost chatjam.

So here we are: Tonight's the night we Lost fans have so feverishly been waiting for: the premiere of the show's final season, which will hopefully answer some of our most burning Lost questions. What is the smoke monster? Who are the Others? Why is Walt doing ads for Tyson chicken nuggets?

Join the Phoenix's crack team of Lost pundits, as we testily and fanboyishly dissect Season 6.

Excuse me, miss: Can I see your birth certificate?

Like any good reporter on an election night, I stayed home and watched a remake of a bad '80s sci-fi television miniseries.

We figured ABC was cynically getting a jump start on the 2012 hysteria. Silly us. Turns out they've got high-minded policy goals.