New List!: Some Things LOST Can Do To Improve

I'm not sure if Lost is a great show or not. I know at the very least it is a really good show that has some great moments. But like everything else heeding my advice can make it better. So, as we stand at the eve of the new season here is a list of things Lost can do to improve:

- Unless they're vital to the outcome of the show in some sort of spirit animal/anime type way, stop it with the animals references. They were interesting for a while but they became a cliche somewhere in the middle of the second season. Kate's horse, Sawyer's boar, the Hurley bird, Sayid's cat, and so on and so on. Enough already.

- More cliches: Jin is only an asshole when its a Sun or Jin-centric episode. Either he's a dick or he's not, but be consistent. Also, Sawyer is cocky but he's bad at poker and he's bad at ping-pong. We get it, so make him either a bad ass or less cocky, but not both.

- Limit Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Locke to 1 Flashback per season apiece. There are a lot of characters out there who are far more interesting who can use the attention, and whose pasts can be mined.

- Kill kill kill! Eko was one of my favorite characters and although I was pissed when he died it re-solidified Lost as a show worth watching. The writers missed a golden opportunity at the end of Season 3 to knock off a few characters - Sawyer obviously isn't going to die, Jin will probably stay on through the end, but killing off Bernard would have gone a long way toward making Rose more interesting. Even if no one died you could've ramped up the suspense factor by having their lives hang in the balance until the beginning of this season. Killing Charlie was nice - props to the writers for offing a character I never liked while making me actually care about him. And c'mon, finish off Rousseau, please.

- Keep fucking with our heads. Desmond's de ja vu episode was the best of the season and one of the best of the entire series. The season 3 flash-forward finale was great. Congrats on having the balls to not stick to the structure. Keep it up and keep us on our toes.

- Let Jack Bender direct every episode.

- Not all of Hurley's episodes need to feel good. In fact, I'd love the next one to be a real fucking downer. On the same note, it's time for the resolution of Libby's storyline (and Bea Clugh's, too).

- No more well known special guests.

- During season 1 I bet my brother the show would jump the shark when there was either a birthday episode or a holiday episode. Lost went through Thanksgiving with only the briefest of mentions, but as season 4 is starting just before their Christmas Eve, I'm a little nervous.

- I have always felt the producers knew what the final outcome was to be, but they weren't entirely sure how they were going to get there. When ABC announced the series would end after the 6th season, I felt this was the best thing that can happen to the show. With a definitive ending in sight the creators can map out exactly how they want us to reach the destination. I know there are a lot of fairweather fans - probably as many as there are die-hard fans who claim the show is flawless - but I'm willing to stick out to the end to see what has been cooking up. I don't claim to know what's coming and I'm sure there's a good possibility I might not like how it ends, but knowing that it has an end makes it that much more intriguing. X-Files and Twin Peaks has nothing on Lost.