Unraveling Lost's mysteries

I'm not seeing much in the way of riveting comics-related news this morning, so I'll feed my other current interest/obsession: ABC's Lost.

USA Today focuses on watercooler speculation over the many mysteries of the show, which averages more than 17 million viewers each week:

Details get viewers buzzing. For example, what was the significance of bad boy Sawyer reading the book Watership Down? And what is the connection between the polar bear in the comic youngster Walt was reading and the polar bear found on the island?

The focus on minutiae is all part of the larger question: What's really going on? Viewers know an airplane left Sydney bound for Los Angeles, got off course and crashed on a tropical island. But where are they, and how can some of the strange things be explained?

Some fans think it's a giant "ant farm" being observed by aliens; other suggest it's a government project; still others figure it must be a Jurassic Park type of scientific compound, although show co-creator Damon Lindelof has said the unseen monster on the island is "not a dinosaur."

Meanwhile, a Knight-Ridder Newspapers article looks at the series' diverse casting that resulted in a mix of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and even physical types:

Besides the African-American father and son, the show's core cast includes an Arab character (played by Naveen Andrews, a British actor of Indian descent) and a Korean couple, all stranded together on an island after a flight from Australia crashes. Plus, there's actor Jorge Garcia, whose character, Hurley, may not be Latino but certainly adds some diversity of his own as one of the larger characters on TV.

Finally, the New York Daily News chats with Dominic Monaghan, who plays rock musician Charlie on Lost:

"It's great to be in a show that people actually watch. My friends watch it. And it's great because they're not tuning in to a piece of sh-- show just to see me. They watch it because they want to watch it."

Lost airs tonight at 8 Eastern on ABC.