ABC's Lost - Is Jacob a jailer?

Each week on Sci Fi Wire I've been keeping a list of Lost's questions and answers. Because my editor wants this to be a weekly column, I've had to watch the ABC show closer than I would normally and it's gotten me thinking.

The producers have promised to answer questions during this final season, and I think they are for the most part. A couple of key things have happened, mainly regarding the Man In Black/Smoke Monster/Locke-ness Monster/Old Smokey character. The character is now played by either Terry O'Quinn (who is a wonderful actor) or black smoke (which doesn't emote quite enough for me, but is fairly kick-ass).

Old Smokey, in the form of Locke, has said he's "trapped" and he wants to "go home". To me it's becoming clear that "what's going on here" is that Jacob is Old Smokey's jailer and the island is the jail. So Jacob is not protecting the island, but rather protecting the world from Old Smokey.

It's a theory and I'm not the first on to come up with it, especially as more "answers" from the show seem to support this. It seems to make sense that Jacob started looking for candidates to take over his job when he realized he wasn't going to live forever. The candidates then are Jack, Hurley, etc.

The problem with all this is that we only met the Man in Black and Jacob at the end of last season. Yes, invisible Jacob had been hanging around causing trouble, mainly with Ben. However, you have to wonder if this is going to be a satisfying way for the story to go out. We have 12 or so episodes left before the story ends, and I guess that's as good a way for this to end as any... with a classic battle between good and evil, Jacob being good and Smokey being evil.

However, if this were any other show would they get away with Ghosts, Time Travel, Teleportation, Alternate Universes AND Mystical Shape-Shifting Good and Evil Beings duking it out with the Survivors lives just chess pieces caught in the middle of it all?

I love the show, but I'm beginning to wonder if throwing Jacob and Smokey in as aliens might not be on the plate too!

I'm going to be talking to two of the Lost executive producers tomorrow for my column in Sci Fi Magazine. They won't tell me any real goodies, cause they never do. However, I might ask them about all these fantastic elements coming together to tell this story.

What's your Lost theory? Are you happy with the way the show is going?