I haven't commented on the TV show "Lost" in awhile. It seems stupid to try to explain it, since there just aren't enough dots to work with. But a framework to consider connecting them apparently is to be found in Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, which I've never read, but is supposedly thought by Lost producers and lots of other people to be a work of genius.
The stewardess Cindy's comment to Jack about "watching" in this week's episode would seem to reinforce this. Lost is not an attempt to adapt Moore's story as the film "V for Vendetta" was an adaptation of another of his novels. But clearly several element in Watchmen shed light on what the writers are trying to do with Lost. The business of Hurley's numbers and the Valenzetti Equation suggest that the Dharma project layer of the Lost story trajectory is about an apparently failed attempt to forestall the destruction of the earth. And so it occurs to me now that the Island is a staging area for a kind of Noah's ark--or is the ark itself. This would explain in part the reason for their interest in certain children and in Juliet's skills in embryology. The polar bear and the cages designed for animals would also support this idea--but where are all the other animals?
If it's true that the larger dramatic trajectory of the series has to do with the Dharma project goal of saving humanity, it remains to be seen how the individual stories of the Lost characters and the Others connect with that larger narrative. Their stories matter, and the theme of judgment/redemption is clearly an important layer. Perhaps it's a question of who gets a ticket onto the ark, whatever the ark's nature might be. And while any idea of the Island being the traditional "purgatory" is unlikely--I no longer think that the survivors are "sixth-sense" dead or that the Others are agents of divine judgment--it still seems that the writers are exploring ideas that reality comprises dimensions that exceed what we perceive in normal states of consciousness. The Australian connection coupled with the various visionary experiences suggests a "dream-time" explanation for a lot of what's going on. But what precisely their ideas are about that and the future destiny of humanity remains to be seen. I still don't think the Others, even Ben, have been proven to be evil.
But this is probably (never say never) the last time I'm going to comment on this show. There are tons of other places where people are more informed and more obsessed with understanding what's going on. But this show and "House" are the two that I won't miss each week.