You might just be missing the point of the show, my friend!

Let's add to your list the fact that one character was in a wheelchair until the crash, at which point he could suddenly walk. Later, when he wasn't accomplishing a task quickly enough, his legs began to fail again, until another character died, at which point the first character was restored. "A sacrifice the island demanded?"

That's pure fantasy, semi-supernatural nonsense, or maybe there's something more to the story.

By the way, that same character was latter pulled underground by "black smoke," which is even more mysterious than a "mysterious force."

Don't forget the pregnant character who had a psychic put her on that plane specifically after warning her that her baby would be a great danger if she didn't raise it herself. And of course, that same character was later kidnapped by people who apparently wanted the baby.

Or the character who seems to have some strange effect on animals, and now appears as a soaking wet illusions speaking gibberish even though he disappeared in the middle of the ocean.

I guess what I'm saying is, the survival of the plane crash is hardly the most significant bit of oddness on the show. :-)

While I enjoy the mysteries, the addition of an entirely new cast bores me to tears.

An "entirely new cast" which amounts to four people!

Think about it: Eko, Ana-Lucia, Bernard, and the psychologist are the only ones that made it. Surely after having killed off a couple and lost one more on a raft, we can handle four new ones?

Heck, I'm just happy to have Michelle Rodriguez on the cast, truth be told. The more my wife says she hates Ana Lucia, the more I love Michelle Rodriguez.

Thank you all for the comments. Philip, I agree, and I know there are other anomalies such as the black smoke, Locke losing and regaining the use of his legs. Surviving the plane crash is probably the most, well, straightforward bit of weirdness, yes, but it's also the hardest to accept.

At some point, I hope an explanation of The Others comes forward. I'm getting impatient with them as well. Have they killed everyone they kidnapped? The one who joined in with the "Tailies", only to be killed by Michelle Rodriquez, he seemed to be of sound mind and body. The scene where they appear and kidnap, what, nine of the Tailies, was rather absurd as well. And this is where the whole Ethan thing doesn't wash with me either. Was he with The Others? Why didn't Charlie and Said backtrack to find Ethan's hq?

For that matter, whyinhell haven't they walked the outside of the entire island?

I know, it's only TV!! And yes, I still like Lost, and I do like Michelle Rodriguez too.

I keep watching Lost because I don't want to miss the punchline. For instance, Hurley celebrated his lottery win a bit too much, and the whole show so far has been his cheese poisoning hallucinations? (plenty of exercise and a fish and berries diet should really make someone his size lose a lot of weight - why hasn't it?)

It's going to end badly, like the X-Files did - that turned out to be nothing more than a work-a-day man's search for god wrap-up. How disappointing was that.