The Tail Section

One of the most interesting aspects of Lost is how it inspires its viewers to swap thoughts, theories, and speculation about where the series is headed.  We all become amateur physicists as we try to make sense of the time discrepancies on the island, or armchair psychologists as we analyze which man would truly make Kate happy.  Lost inspires us to think outside the box, and practically demands that we share those crazy thoughts with other people.

Thanks to a new contest in USA Today, you can now win a chance to run your theories by the masterminds behind Lost, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.  If your entry is chosen, the executive producers will tell you whether your ideas are right, wrong, or spectacularly wrong.

The toughest part about this contest is that you have to whittle your hypothesis down to 200 words or less. That’s not an easy task, especially since the goal is for each entry to offer an explanation to one of Lost’s many mysteries.  Good luck on making sense of the island, The Others, The Dharma Initiative, or Desmond’s time travel in just a couple of paragraphs.

After composing your masterpiece, you need to e-mail it to jdeerwes@usatoday.com by Wednesday, April 16 at 5pm ET.  Include your full name, city, phone number, and use the subject line "Lost theory."  The best entries will be published by USA Today, both online and in print, and then a handful will be sent off to Lindelof and Cuse for evaluation.  They’ll judge them on originality, completeness, and logic.  Though they will let you know how plausible your theory is, they promise not to spoil any future episodes.

For more information about the contest, check out USAToday.com.  I hope you’ve been wearing protective gear while doing radiation experiments on your pet rat, because this is going to require serious brain power.