Hey Mike,
Thanks for reposting and sorry to have lost the original comment. We have updated the CMS several times recently and are still ironing out the kinks.
It's really interesting that you brought up "Something Nice Back Home" now. Re-reading my review I can see I expressed the same emotional reaction as "The Substitute" - a disconnect from what I was seeing. It's a peculiar reaction of mine to Lost. In both cases I thought the story being told was excellent and should elicit emotions from me. I had no complaints about the presentation and yet I didn't feel it.
I think this is something which exposes a rigidness in my own ability to enjoy a story. In the case of Jack and Kate's relationship my mind was definitely affected by knowing that these events were in the future and therefore showing making the events of the present seem less consequential.
I guess I would have felt it more poignantly if perhaps on the island Jack and Kate were getting together. Perhaps seeing their hope contrasted with how it was going to get crushed would have made me really feel it.
I did try to capture in my review that I was impressed that the writing took the story in this direction. Something so different and daring from average network TV. And I was a huge fan of Matthew Fox' acting in that episode. Particularly the scene where he changes the smoke alarm and sees Christian. I was blown away by the realism of that.
