Are the seasons of Lost worth picking up?

[Adam_ME]

It's worth watching, but it's hard to rank it among the best TV shows since it still has one season to go. For me so far the seasons break down this way:

Season 1 - Starts off very strong, loses steam about 2/3 of the way through, and then ends with a weak finale.

Season 2 - Starts off fairly strong, but loses steam quickly and meanders til about the last 1/3 and then picks up again.

Season 3 - Starts off horribly, picks up a little bit in the middle 1/3 and then kicks ass for the last few episodes culminating in a mindblowing finale with a series-changing twist.

Season 4 - Kicked ass from beginning to end, all the more impressive considering the writers strike that nearly torpedoed the 2nd half.

Season 5 - I don't know what to make of this season. It was good TV, certainly watchable, but confusing as hell. I felt it fell back into the Season 1 & 2 trend of raising more questions than it answered.

I should point out that around halfway through Season 3, the writers and producers decided that the show would end after the 6th season and even knew exactly how many episodes were remaining. So it's no coincidence that things picked up late in the 3rd season and haven't slowed down since.