One is on top of the world. One struggles to get better ratings than basic cable. Both rely on complicated backstory and require viewers to have memories like steel traps. Both had their 3rd-season premieres this week. It's Lost and Veronica Mars.

Here's Piz, the new kid — not played by Zac Effron, though you could've fooled me.

I could not have been more excited about the Veronica Mars premiere. Here was the show's big chance! Riding on the coattails on Gilmore Girls, avoiding the competition from House, starting fresh at college. And the episode was great — Veronica was funny, Dick was weirdly sympathetic (?!), the new guy asked the questions all the new viewers wanted answered. So what happened? It got pretty much exactly the same crappy ratings it got before.

This doesn't make sense to me. There's one fewer broadcast network now; shouldn't the numbers go up slightly, just for that reason? It makes me start to suspect a conspiracy. I mean, have you ever actually known anyone with a Nielsen box in their house? I haven't. So they can't be taking a large enough sample, right? RIGHT? 

And then there's the juggernaut, Lost. Equally (if not more) complicated, and definitely less satisfying — I mean, we know that Aaron Echolls killed Lilly, and we're never going to know what the hell's going on with all these people on the island. Ratings aren't announced yet for yesterday, but I have no doubt that they were spectacular.

And the episode? It was fine. I know this goes against the show's whole concept, but I thought the flashbacks were more unnecessary than usual this week, and it would've been more interesting without them. And the new girl (host of the most hostile * ever) bugged me. If she's supposed to be sympathetic, why won't she just explain herself to Jack? If she's evil, why bother trying to make her sympathetic? Is it because Henry "Ben" Gale is running a pyscho-sexual cult? Where they raise supersmart polar bears? And train sentient violent whisps of smoke? I give up.

*Kyle thinks it's The Stand by Stephen King. I haven't read it, but it certainly sounds like it would be perfect. I can't be bothered to check and see what the rest of the internet thinks.