Let me take you now, dear reader, to a time when the world was younger and we were not so jaded. In other words, about five years ago.

You remember the TV show “Lost,” don’t you? The one that captivated and annoyed a lot of us for about five years in the mid 2000s? Well, critic Alan Sepinwall, whose blog recaps of the show’s episodes I used to link to while the show was on, has just published a book, and one of the chapters is about “Lost” and its origins. Even better, the book is being serialized at Grantland, and the first excerpt is that chapter.