It's "The Beginning of the End" as LOST returns tonight

In the Season 3 finale of Lost, ABC's hit show about the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, something loomed for the castaways that never, ever happened with Gilligan's Island: the promise of real rescue.

But as everyone who watched the mind-blowing "Through the Looking Glass" knows by now, that may not necessarily turn out to be a good thing.

Eight months later, and the Lost Season 3 finale is still one that has folks reeling in disbelief.

And now, tonight, Lost is back.

Season 4 kicks off with "The Beginning of the End", which is said to be a Hurley-centric episode (so the season premieres in their order have gone pilot episode, Jack, Jack... now Hurley?! Ooh-kay...).

This is the first of eight episodes that were finished before the Writers Guild of America strike. From here on until Lost's sixth and final season, there are supposed to be sixteen episodes per season. I've heard rumors that if the strike ends soon, that they might still get their quota in for this season, which would be good. If not, might as well enjoy Lost while we got it.

And from the looks of it, this is promising to be an amazing season from the getgo. Check out the picture on the right: that's Jeremy Davies who's now one of the new faces in the main cast. You might know Davies from Saving Private Ryan and Solaris (I first remember him from Twister). He's playing Daniel Faraday: apparently one of the people who are arriving from Naomi's boat. Also coming to the Island are Rebecca Mader, Jeff Fahey (if you ever saw The Lawnmower Man then you'll know this guy), Ken Leung (who's appeared in everything from Rush Hour to The Sopranos), and in continuing with the strange affinity that Lost has for hiring actors from HBO's prison drama Oz, Lance Reddick will be playing the sinisterly-named Matthew Abbadon ("Destruction" in Hebrew).

By the way, if you haven't already, you might want to check out the Lost: Missing Pieces "mobisodes". These are short vignettes from the Lost story that ABC has been releasing on cellphones (and then on the web) for the past three months or so. The final one that came out a few days ago, "So It Begins", is a very startling bit of Lost lore if you've been watching from the beginning. And judging by the cast list, it may or may not have some relevance for tonight's episode.

"The Beginning of the End", the Season 4 premiere of Lost, starts at 9 p.m. EST tonight on ABC.