As many have observed, there are two levels on which Lost is analyzed - what happens within the story, and how the story is being told. I'll start with the latter.
I just finished re-watching the 3rd season finale, which aired last night. As with The Sopranos, which is wrapping up in 2 weeks, its exciting to be able to analyze these programs with a bunch of other people online as they unfold . Its significant that we're not analyzing it after it aired (as with a movie), but rather while the story is unfolding. The writers can observe our reactions, our speculations, and learn from those reactions and speculations. This allows for a new kind of storytelling, in which the authors become more and more adept at being able to guide the emotions and speculations of the audience by observing how they react to various twists and turns.
Though its possible that Lost is written in this manner, its also possible that the major, underlying story was written some time ago, and we're just being let in on elements of the story, pieces of the puzzle, in a drawn-out, non-linear fashion. To use an aquatic metaphor, the audience observes what appear to be unconnected islands on the surface of the sea only to learn that they are parts of one, pre-established, unified structure that lies underneath the sea. The writers had decided long ago what the ultimate reality of the show was. The only part that they are making up as they go is how they will reveal that reality.
Another possibility is that they are making it up as they go along, but doing it in a surprisingly clever fashion which makes it appear as though they had planned things all along. If you leave a story sufficiently open while writing it, including many mysteries and gaps that can be filled in later (and lord knows, Lost has plenty of those), you allow yourself the leeway to do this. A prototypical example of this method of storytelling is Mulholland Drive, which was made as an open-ended TV pilot in 1999, and then re-made, with some additional footage, into a standalone film in 2001. According to interviews with David Lynch (and by virtue of the fact that the original was intended to be an ongoing serial plot), the decision as to what the ultimate reality of the story was - that it was all the fever-dream of a suicidal wannabe starlet - was not conceived of until after the bulk of the story was written and filmed.
What is miraculous about Mulholland Drive is that it does not appear this way (at least to me. Opinions vary, of course). It seems to possess a coherent unity, with foreshadowing and callbacks to elements or themes that pervade the text. This need for unity is most pronounced for mysteries, though unity of themes and intricately woven plots are the marks most commonly associated with quality by all critics of all texts. Even though it is certain that Lynch was "making it up as he went along," the text was open enough (and he was clever and careful enough) to make it appear as though he planned it all along. To me, this kind of retroactive unity is more impressive and pleasurable than the pre-established unity of a written-all-at-once text. Its almost like watching a magic trick.
As for the episode itself, the narration seemed unusually deceptive in its depiction of Jack's future life after he has escaped from the island. The camera featured a few close-ups and we heard the trademark whooshing sound that had accompanied flashbacks in previous episodes, and yet these were not flashbacks. I think audiences are cool with characters lying to us, as long as they are lying to other characters (though this has its limits, which Lost seems to be pushing), but to have the narration deceive us in this way is the kind of abuse of the internal rules of narration established by the show that drives viewers away.
As far as the content goes, here's what I can piece together (without having consulted other theories online): the apparently indigenous people - the "hostiles" - were being protective of the mysterious spirits (e.g. Jacob, Walt, possibly the big black cloud) that have always been on the island. Thus, they murdered all the members of the Dharma Initiative save for one - Ben - who decided to join up with them. Locke, having felt the healing powers of the island, is sympathetic towards this group, and thus wanted to keep it a secret from the corrupting forces of the outside world, namely whomever is on that boat waiting to rescue them. After Jack and Kate (and perhaps others) are brought back to civilization, they are told (by the military, the govt, the scientists) never to speak of the island to anyone. Perhaps the person in the coffin violated this non-disclosure agreement.
So the basic question of the show might be: if you discover some amazingly powerful force, do you keep it a secret, or do you allow scientists or governments to get a hold of it?
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