I've seen some other claimers to the throne, so it's about time I made this official. I'm the world's biggest J. J. Abrams fan.

Super 8 was my super favorite movie of all time. In it, a small town is torn apart by something weird. Cloverfield was a close second. In it, a big city is torn apart by something weird. What other writer/director has that kind of range? True to its name, though, Lost lost me. So many details! If his fans were good with following plot lines, we wouldn't watch movies that are guaranteed to end with the line, "Whatever it was, I hope it never comes back."

J. J. Abrams completely reinvented the Mystery genre. Before him, they suffered from a fatal flaw: they were either too easy or too difficult to solve.

On the easy end is Murder She Wrote. Anybody with have half a brain realized that for 14 straight seasons the killer was the special guest star. Robert Goulet making an appearance this week? Well, you know, stars of that particular caliber don't sign onto projects just to be suspects. They're not spending four hours in makeup for one little scene:

JESSICA FLETCHER: What exactly were you doing when Colonel Parker was clubbed with a brass candlestick at Shady Penguin Cove?

SPECIAL GUEST STAR: I . . . I . . . I was selling postcards in my little souvenir shop. I didn't hear anything!

JESSICA FLETCHER: Oh. Okay. You're clear.

On the other end of the spectrum is Arthur Conan Doyle. He's a reasonably fun read, but he punishes those of us who have short attention spans. See, when I finish a book, odds are a year or two have passed since I started it. Seasons have come and gone; hell, my pets have come and gone. When I get to the end of Sherlock Holmes, rather than feeling a sense of relief, I'm pretty thoroughly annoyed:

SHERLOCK: The murderer is . . . Mr. Carstairs!

(MR. CARSTAIRS runs for the French doors, but a pair of burly policemen emerge from behind the curtains and grab him.)

MR. CARSTAIRS: Drat!

Maybe some folks will proclaim, "Mr. Carstairs! Of course!" but personally I'm saying, "Who?" I forgot who Mr. Carstairs was about eighteen kittens ago. Here's how Mr. Abrams would solve the problem:

SHERLOCK: The murderer is . . . a teleporting unicorn!

(A GIANT TWINKLING UNICORN materializes in the center of the room, where it hangs in midair.)

MR. CARSTAIRS: Well, fuck me with a rock!

I don't know why nobody thought of this before. It neatly solves the Mystery flaw: there's no way we can guess the culprit, and we don't feel any pressure to try. We can enjoy the spectacle, knowing that while we're watching New York City being destroyed by an oversized alien, no smartypants is going to leap up and proclaim, "I KNOW! I KNOW! IT'S A LEPRECHAUN FROM THE TWELFTH DIMENSION!"

Needless to say, I'm totally loving Abrams' new Alcatraz. Just before the island-prison closes for good, 300 residents mysterious disappear. Flash-forward fifty years later and they're back -- without having aged a day! This is classic Abrams: we get to watch supernatural entities rip shit up, and there's no chance in hell some brainiac will figure out why.

In closing, I'd like to address the idea that Mr. Abrams' work is sheer escapism. On the contrary, it helped shape my philosophy of life.

You never know when a time-traveling pony is going to get you, but you can be pretty sure one will.