I'm still hoping they tie everything back into a semi-plausible, practical explanation, not just a hand-waving "the Island wants it" mumbo jumbo explanation. I don't expect anything to be scientifically sound or anything, but I won't be particularly satisfied if it all boils down to mysticism. As such, there needs to be a functional difference between those that time travel and those that don't, beyond "supposed to".

Yes, it was a production error. They happen.

And sorry GD... Crashed 9/22/04. Ben, Desmond, & O6 left Island 12/30/04.

Just checked Lostpedia. Best guesstimate is 316 crashed sometime in January 2008.

Who said anything about mystical mumbo-jumbo? I just said that they were not supposed to leave.

Yes, but "not supposed to" isn't enough to explain why the flash didn't cause them to time travel. There has to be a physical difference between them and those that do time travel. Specifically, a physical difference that they both share, and that happened to Locke some time between the time he was on the island before and when he got back (since he USED to travel in time with the flashes). Leaving the island by turning the wheel fits the bill perfectly.

I'm sure that having turned the wheel has something to do with it; but perhaps there is an intelligence at work in this. We still do not know who (or what) Jacob is, and how much control over what happens on (and off) the Island that he has.

There must be. The points in time they would jump to with each flash seem a little more than random. It's almost like Lock or someone else in the group needed to be in some of those points in time for some purpose and that the island (or some intelligence as you say) put them there.

If the series ends with "It all happened because the Island/some intelligent entity wanted it to happen like that" without some explanation of a mechanism as to HOW said intelligence accomplished it, I will be displeased.

Unfortunately I think there are some questions we're just not going to get answers to. The smoke monster being one of them.

We know Smokey is a security system and is somehow tied to the temple. We may even get more information about the origin, purpose, who or what is controlling it, etc. But I doubt we'll ever know exactly what it is. It's just magic smoke that makes a mechanical noise and I don't think it's ever going to be explained as anything more than that.

The donkey wheel. How does it work and what's with the freezing environment?

I don't think the numbers or the true purpose of entering them every 108 minutes will ever be revealed in any more detail than we already have.

J.J. Abrams has made it known that he likes unopened boxes of mystery. He got the ball rolling in that direction.

I don't expect, or want, every question answered. As long as we're left with some semblance of a sensible universe that this happened in that allows for us viewers to fill in the blanks ourselves, and not just a bunch of "It was fate to happen" hand waving.