LOST yet found

There's been wide speculation that ABC's announcement during the upfronts that LOST would end after 3 more shortended seasons would enable the LOST creative team to tighten their story arcs and explain the LOST mythology as they work toward the series's definitive resolution. (See Washington Post Article). Now that the execs have inked an end date, hopefully the fans won't have to put up with the crap (Niki and Paulo? Libby? Dave? The Big Foot?) that's little more than filler (and ill advised filler at that).

If the season finale is any kind of portent of what's to come, then come 2008 we're in for one heckuva VW Camper Van ride.

Season Finale thoughts:
When did you figure out we were flashing forward to Jack's post-rescue life? The cell phone on the bridge tipped me off, but I knew for sure when Jack's ex wife showed up.

As far as next year's possibilities--
Jack has always been a character motivated by a sense of duty and horribly affected by guilt when he feels he's failed. So, taking into account his horribly peturbed state during the flash forwards and his final conversation with Kate, his desperate desire to find the island again, I'm on board with the idea that the losties inland near the communication tower get rescued while Sayid, Sawyer, Hurley, Juliet, and those back at the beach get left behind.

I'm among those who think it would be an interesting move to tell next season's stories from the future perspective wherein the losties' remaining days on the Island are the episodes' flashbacks.

I have no clue whose funeral-- Ben's?

I have no clue who the "him" is Kate is sneaking away from to meet Jack.


I do have a continuity question I'd like resolved
Babies can't be born on the island. Mothers and babies die in childbirth.
Alex is Rousseau's daughter. Alex was presumably conceived off island. Who knows what the real story is with Rousseau and Ben.

Other than the children from the plane crash and Claire's baby, Alex and her boyfriend Karl are the youngest people on the island. Where'd Karl come from?
If all the Dharma iniative folk, other than Ben, were gassed is Karl one of the non-aging island "natives"

What am I looking most forward to over the next 48 episodes...
the multiple Sawyer explanation.