Through the whole last season I felt the side flashes were silly, distracting and annoying. I still feel that way. The things I would've been really interested to see explained (what is the island, what's with the light, who gets to make all these crazy rules etc) were mostly ignored, and in deciding to ignore the explanations I think some of the things they put in just got a little silly (Oh look the heart of the island...we use a cork to keep that in check). I also have some more specific plot line questions but I'll leave those for later discussion if anyone's actually still interested in lost.