At moments like this, I wish I were a hornist.

Stop working on your "Lost" scrapbooks right now, because Titan Books has done it for you. Subtitled "The Best of Lost: The Official Magazine" (where do I subscribe?), it's lushly illustrated, as they say, and actually quite heavy.

Masterminds Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are disarmingly honest about the origins and direction of the show. (Example: Will we find out the story of the Black Rock? Not sure!) At any rate, it will tide you over for a while.

Sample chapters:

THE SWAN REVEALED: "We take you deeper into the hatch than you've ever been before."

BETWEEN A ROCKER AND A HARD PLACE: "An interview with Dominic Monaghan and Emilie De Ravin."

FLIGHT PLAN: "Original concept art for Oceanic Flight 815's wreckage."

SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE: "Interviews with the actors behind The Others."

CREATURE FEATURES: "The island's mysterious 'Monster.'"

It would make a nice gift.

Four stars

By Paige Wiser, TV Critic
pwiser@suntimes.com

Over the five seasons of "Lost," loyal viewers have surrendered to the addictive, maddening mystery. Yes, we have questions - What does the smoke monster want? Is Richard wearing eyeliner? - but we gave up hope for answers long ago. There's no way, in the course of just one more season, that the producers could possibly tie up all loose ends, explain their theory of time travel, or even tell us who the good guys are.

They as much as acknowledged it last night, with one character asserting, "We are the good guys." Jeff Fahey's pilot Lapidus responds, "In my experience, the guys who go out of their way to tell you they're the good guys are the bad guys."

Exactly.

No, I do not have any time travel theories. I just go with the flow where the scientific stuff is concerned.

AMAZING episode, marred only by two real-life intrusions:

*I remembered that Jeremy Davies once played Charles Manson. Last night, he was very Mansonesque. (Fun fact: Davies' real last name is "Boring.")

*I learned that Henry Ian Cusick, who plays my dreamboat Desmond, is being sued for sexual harassment.

Other thoughts, in no particular order:

*I would think Daniel Faraday is tough to buy gifts for.

*I'm thinking how efficient life would be if we all had our names and functions printed on our clothes, like the Dharma folk. "Paige Wiser, TV Sherpa."

My favorite Daniel-related quotes of the night:

"I'm from the future." Aren't you just dying to say that to someone? I fear I never will.

(Regarding the guns...) "Do you have something for a beginner?" -- Daniel

"I just got shot by a physicist!" -- Radzinski

"I've studied relativistic physics my entire life." This one I'm going to work into conversation, even if it kills me.

Kate and Sawyer discover their attraction while distressed two years ago on "Lost."

If you thought the tortured tropical romance between Sawyer and Kate was over, you might be surprised by a future episode of "Lost," according to Evangeline Lilly, who stars as Kate on the ABC thriller.

"There is a reunion of sorts" awaiting the pair, says Lilly. Never mind that Kate seems to have escaped that mystical island while Sawyer, the handsome rogue played by Josh Holloway, was staying put.

Instead of geeking out with a lot of hand-wringing analysis of tonight's "Lost" season-five premiere, allow me to simply post a song that may or may not have some meaning to fellow fans of the show, especially now ...

Jack (Matthew Fox) ponders the enormity of his task in the season premiere of "Lost." (ABC)

"Lost" is found again Wednesday night -- a recap special at 7 p.m., then the two-hour fifth season premiere at 8 p.m. on ABC (WLS-Channel 7).

Here's our review of the premiere -- time-traveling madness! -- plus some other goodies:

We posted a couple of sneak peek scenes from the premiere here. And here are six more ... watch only if spoiling is not an issue!

The NYTimes has an interesting profile of Gregg Nations, the script supervisor for the show. He's the one who has to keep track of every crazy reveal, every plot twist, even the hairs on Jack's chest. And he keeps it all in one enormous text file. And he'd better be planning to publish it someday.

Part of what he has to keep track of are the various flash-forwards that have taken place thus far -- which a blogger at Chicago's branch of The Examiner compiled yesterday in a handy timeline.

One of the Honolulu papers (on the island where "Lost" is filmed) rounds up some new details and rumors, including reports that people did indeed see Michelle Rodriguez (the late Ana Lucia) filming on the set. Further proof that dying does not end your career on "Lost."

Almost a month before new "Lost" episodes return (Jan. 21 on ABC)! The inevitable sneak-peek videos are beginning to crop up ...

Jack and Ben have a moment of shared jealousy about who Locke loved more.

More after the jump ...

Didn't know this had been out there for so long — it's footage from the orientation video for The Orchid station ... a lot more footage than we and Locke saw last night.

Does this mean ...

So they answered who's in the coffin, but "Lost" has never gotten back to the question that's burning in my overwrought little brain: what the hell's up with the four-toed statue?

Some more thoughts and theories after opening last night's coffin ...

As revealed this morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," the production of "Lost" filmed three different endings to last night's Season Four finale — as a means of confounding any spoilers and sneak peeks.

Basically, it was the same final scene, but with three different people shown in the coffin ...

This will take some processing. But here are a few immediate thoughts following the big Season Four finale tonight of "Lost":

Namely — the name Jeremy Bentham. It's yet another moniker on this show borrowed from real life. Bentham was a philosopher (a contemporary of the real John Locke...yikes) who, according to this early but dead-on "Lost" theory, proposed the idea for the Panopticon, a type of prison:

"The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a 'sentiment of an invisible omniscience.' In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as 'a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.' "

Discuss.

"A place where miracles happen"

More scenes from tonight's big finish...

We are, too. And trying to get straight in our heads all the new information that was laid out in this truncated but still action-packed Season Four of ABC's maddening and marvelous drama.

Wade in the water: Jack remains all wet in tonight's Season Four finale of "Lost." (ABC)

Entertainment Weekly has laid out a helpful gallery of Season Four's best moments.

Speculation seems to be leaning toward tonight's finale shedding some light on just who is in the coffin we saw in the first series of flash-forwards — at the funeral only Jack attended.

So they're just going to ... move the island. OK. No problem. How do you pack for that?

Locke goes back to visit some old friends in last night's episode of "Lost," from YouTube

But if you were thinking during last night's episode of "Lost," "Gosh, I hope we can have a few more hours of this madness before we ind out what the hell's going on!" — you're in luck.

The show is still wrapping up in 2010, but ABC has decided to add a few extra hours to the story, including an extra hour to this month's season finale.