LOST BREAKDOWN: Lost Momentum (pun totally intended)

The reviews are mixed, the feedback is mixed, and now my head is mixed...up.
I think I liked this episode. I want to like this episode. In fact, I believe the episode will be vindicated when it is viewed in the greater context of the season, but as a stand-alone, it was a bit of a buzz kill.

The first four episodes have been building some serious momentum. The freighter folk have landed on the island, the camps are split, we know they are here for Ben, and we know that one way or the other - 6 815 passengers were 'rescued' off the island. We know that Ben is off too, and Aaron is with Kate now. We are still two 'Oceanic 6' members short, so it was tough to sit through an episode that breaks from the 'conspiracy and rescue' plot line to go back to the 'supernatural what the f*ck' plot lines.

Let me try to break those down very simply:

CONSPIRACY-RESCUE PLOT:
-Plane Crashes on mystery island containing 'Others' and 'Dharma Initiative'
-Whats up with Others, Dharma, and more island goings-on (black rock, etc..)
-Survivors trying to stay alive, fighting amongst selves for leadership
-Survivors waiting to get rescued
-Penny looking for Desmond who crashed on island
-Who is Ben Linus?
-Who are the freighter folk?
-Why did only 6 people get rescued / who rescued them?
-Where is everyone else?
-Why is Jack crazy?
-Who is in the coffin?
-Why does Claire have Aaron?
-Who else might be off the island too?
and much, much more....

SUPERNATURAL WTF PLOT:
-smoke monster
-Locke walking again
-Jacob
-That eye-patch guy who never seems to die
-all the weird coincidences that tie the people to the island
-time/space issues (30 minutes behind or more)
-Desmond's time travel
-mothers unable to give birth on island if conceived on island
-and a lot more I can't think of right now

This episode was from the latter plot line which is fine, its just that maybe the timing was off since we get so few episodes this year as it is and we are still waiting on the remaining Oceanic 6 folks to be ID'd.

So regarding the 'main' plot line, what did we learn that is of value to us?
-Desmond FINALLY reaches Penny. That was an awesome moment and should really help to move the show ahead in terms of her trying to rescue him. They have now spoken -- remember, this is a BIG DEAL and we have been waiting a long time for this moment. I thought it was really well done.
-They made it to the freighter -- so we can now move forward with figuring out who these people are and what their story is.

And...scene.

The rest of the episode was very well done, very well written, very well acted, and Lost continues to surprise and impress me every week -- but we did have a lot of the WTF moments...

-So Faraday wrote in his journal 8 years ago that Desmond is his constant, which means his time travel really did happen. Even though Farraday doesn't recognize Desmond when he first meets him (which in theory he should since he told Desmond you don't change the future). To be honest, I don't do well in time travel scenarios ever since Back to the Future 2 really screwed me up, so I am going to leave this one to you dear reader(s).

-Here is one thing that does bug me though. Jack and team said they hadn't heard from the chopper in a whole day. The freighter folk said it should have been only 20 minutes but there is a time issue (which they did not explain of course). So lets say it took them an hour with the bad weather and Jack thought it was a day. Might that mean that the island folks have only been there for 100 hours in the 'real world' and not 100 days? At first I thought yes!!!! Then I realized that Des called Penny on Christmas Eve 2004, about 90 days after they crashed -- so the timing is actually the same, or about the same....anyone? anyone?

Score for this week...
Stand-alone episode: A
Timing of episode: C+
How it fits into the big picture: N/A

Sometimes I wish I had the pleasure of watching this show on DVD as a whole season. In this case, I would have stayed up to watch the next one...can't wait until next week.