Tricky devils, those writers.

Let's face it, no one should be surprised that Shannon is the one who died in tonight's episode. I don't read the message boards, I converse with some fans at work but not in overwhelming detail, and still even I figured that Shannon was a good candidate for extinction.

Yes, I liked the Claire theory, which was tantalizing because it would make everyone else bring up baby, and the show certainly hinted that in Locke's paternal moments. (Gosh, how good is Terry O'Quinn?). And they did play effectively tonight with the idea that Sawyer's time was up.

But they also telegraphed Shannon's demise pretty thoroughly in the flashbacks. Her place in the "Lost" universe reminded me of where Gary was on "thirtysomething" just before they killed him — so apart from the core characters, so marginalized from the real action that each could be dispatched without excessive disruption of the show's universe. The show tried to make it seem that the death had great impact, but it wasn't a bold stroke; taking out Nancy would have been the daring, risky move.

But back to "Lost": Even Shannon's moment of emotional redemption felt like a farewell. "She is so dead," I said to my wife.

But, as I said, those "Lost" guys are tricky. Having Shannon's end come as a result of friendly fire was the sort of thing that makes you walk away with a gasp and a grin. The show seemed to be going in an obvious direction. (Indeed, while there were some little points of interest, the episode for the most part felt like a very long wait for the death scene.) Then, bam, they once again say that you should never relax. And that they're bound to have something else interesting in a week.

Nice one tonight. I get so caught up in the questions about the story, I sometimes forget that "Lost" can also be quite touching. It certainly was tonight, by putting Hurley at the center; as even one of the characters acknowledged, he's probably the best-liked character on the show. Even his flaws are benign. So having his crisis over the food lead to a moment of collective joy — well, it was nice. Not entirely believable, of course; in a group that large you have to figure a couple of killjoys would demand either outright rationing or at least an equitable distribution of the goods — not some handing out of gifts like "Night of the Meek."

But even as that moment was being cherished, we got the even better revelation about Rose's husband — one that defied a lot of speculation about who her husband was, based almost exclusively on race. "Lost" can make us guess a lot. And it can make us feel. And tonight, it also made us think.

Last week I griped about the season's second episode, which felt like a time-filler after the season premiere. So I am obliged to admit that Wednesday's episode was a great improvement, getting us back into an ongoing narrative and actually telling us things about the island and its environs.

Not that I am at all sure what it's telling us. I'm more than a little paranoid about the information provided in thrillers and so am unwilling to take something like the Dharma film strip at face value. And I am more than willing to believe that the new people encountered are not the Others, but — for want of a better term — other Others, whose agenda is not clear.

The whole issue of the different cultures on the island keeps making me think of H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine," or maybe just the movie version starring Rod Taylor, with the above ground/below ground societies, only in "Lost" they've been turned upside down.

And I like the idea that maybe this is a grand psychology experiment, where people are put in dire circumstances to see what it takes to get them to perform an act to prevent consequences entirely of their own imagining. If my admittedly hazy memory of Skinnerian psychology is correct, that puts the whole fact-vs.-faith argument in a hat because what you do is important — not what you think while you do it.

And at this point, I am probably over-thinking the whole thing, which is what the makers of "Lost" want us to do. They want us to think they are deviously clever and detailed. And they probably are. They want us to seek clues, to freeze-frame images to see the title of a book or what's written on a blackboard in a flashback.

They want us to wonder. OK, I'm wondering. I'll be back, gleeful, in a week.

And from my reading of my freeze frame, Locke was in an anger-management class. You could figure that out from the dialogue, too. But I wanted to know what's on the board.

This is my half of several conversations this morning:

"I haven't seen it yet."

"I haven't seen it yet."

"I HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET!"

Because of some obligations on Wednesday night, I had to let the DVR handle "Lost" and a bunch of other shows. This morning before I went to the office I was looking at some things for my DVD column. (Get the first season of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," in stores Tuesday.) So, when I got to my office, co-workers eager to talk "Lost" had to discuss among themselves.

This afternoon I finally caught up. And wondered why I had rushed even that much.

We know Michael's relationship with Walt is complicated, that Walt has issues about basically abandoning Walt. Wednesday's flashbacks just told us that in a more emphatic way, in between shots of guys hanging onto disintegrating rafts.

We already knew a lot about what was in the hatch. Telling us again from a different character's point of view feels like flawed storytelling — stretching out something that a better writer would have handled in a single hour.

And OK, we saw the Others. Either that or an outtake from "Night of the Living Dead." I'm not sure. But it was a long wait for a glimpse.

This comes back to one of the fundamental problems with U.S. television compared to the Brits. In England, if a show has enough ideas for six or seven episodes, then a season is six or seven, and the show goes away until a writer thinks up another six or seven.

Here a hit network show starts a season knowing it's going to need 22 episodes, possibly a couple of more than that. That's a lot to ask for (and at that, it's less than shows used to have to concoct). I think it was Dick Wolf who said that with 22 episodes, you can figure about a third are going to be good, a third OK and third below par. Those figures are probably even more optimistic with a serialized show, since you have to keep a story going but not too fast; think of all the narrative dead spots in "24."

"Lost" sets the bar so high when it's good — as it was in the season premiere a week ago — that I should be understanding when an episode disappoints. But I didn't expect disappointment in just the second episode of the season. It already has me thinking about waiting for the second-season DVD.