Lost is back. And so are some of its fans.
Thursday night's season premiere averaged 16.1 million viewers, up nearly 2.5 million viewers over its third-season average, according to Nielsen Media Research estimates.
As ABC's competition can attest, the performance was also Lost's least watched premiere ever, down nearly 3 million viewers from its third-season opener.
So, to recap: The show was up and down.
But, really, it was up.
After 18.8 million tuned in for Lost's third-season premiere in the fall of 2006, the show slumped. Last May's cliffhanger finale, which was well-received and viewed as a sign the show was creatively back on track, averaged 13.9 million; for the season, the show averaged 13.8 million, an all-time low.
Thursday's episode came after cocreator J.J. Abrams' crew assured fans that they did, too, know how the mysterious saga of airplane crash survivors was going and, indeed, where it will end. They even gave a date: 2010.
In what was billed as another sop to fans, ABC delayed Lost's premiere until the winter to let the fourth season run week in, week out through May (and to allow the network to order only 16, not 22, episodes). Then came the writers' strike, and only eight completed episodes, but still...
With Thursday's opener filling in the picture on the "Oceanic Six," the castaways we're told who made it back to the mainland, the series has the blogosphere squarely in its corner again.
- "The return of Lost was worth a nine-month wait," Remote Access said.
- "The episode was pretty much a masterpiece," said BuddyTV.
- "I loved the premiere," went a user comment on TVSquad. "I wished it was really two hours instead of the fake advertising by ABC making it seem like it was a two-hour premiere."
Yes, about that two-hour premiere...
It was a two-hour premiere night, with a recap episode airing at 8 p.m. and the real thing airing at 9 p.m.
The plan worked for ABC, which scored 13.1 million viewers for the recap—a number that last week would have placed the clip show in the top 10.
All of the goodwill for Lost rubbed off, to a degree, on Eli Stone.
The new fantasy series about a lawyer who develops a conscience won its 10-11 p.m. time slot, averaging 11.6 million viewers. The stats would look more impressive if Eli Stone hadn't (a) squandered more than 25 percent of its Lost lead-in and (b) started almost exactly where The Nine started last season.
Just so you know, for ratings purposes, it's better to be compared to the Oceanic Six than The Nine.