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Lost Plots Endgame
There are plans afoot to permanently shut the hatch on Lost.
Producers of ABC's hugely successful sci-fi thriller serial announced Sunday that they had begun talks with the network on how much longer to keep the Oceanic Flight 815 castaways stuck on Mystery Island.
Speaking during a panel session at the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, show runners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof admitted that they were upset by dwindling ratings (while still a hit show, viewership is down by 14 percent so far this third season), fielded the usual questions about the Others, the Numbers, the Losties and the show's other unsolved puzzles, and then dropped the bombshell: They were discussing with their network bosses a timeline to wrap up those loose ends.
But the exact end date remains as mysterious as the smoke monster.
"Once we figure out when that will be, a lot of the questions will go away," said Cuse, adding that he didn't want Lost to burn viewers' goodwill and fail to adequately resolve the storylines, à la The X-Files.
"That was a great show that probably ran two seasons too long," Cuse said. "That is a cautionary tale for us."
Cuse and Lindeloff said that setting a specific timeline seemed to work well for sustaining interest in such serial fiction as the Harry Potter series. (However, the Lost brain trust did point out that J.K. Rowling had storyboarded the seven-book concept from the outset, whereas Lost, cocreated by JJ Abrams, like most network drama, was designed to run as long as it still pulled in the viewers and the top advertising dollars.)
While Cuse said it would be "disrespectful" right now to announce when and how the show might end, Lindelof said he initially conceived it to run about 100 episodes, or about five season, but now "the most honest answer we can give [is] as long as it's good."
Lindelof then waxed philosophical about the meaning of Lost:
"This show is about people who are metaphorically lost in their lives, who get on an airplane and crash on an island and become physically lost on the planet Earth. And once they are able to metaphorically find themselves again, they will be able to physically find themselves in the world again. When you look at the entire show, that's what it's always been about."
Well that clears things up.
Meanwhile, ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson, who has criticized this season's six-episode prologue as focusing too much on the Others, Jack, Kate and Sawyer at the expense of the other characters, told reporters he had not had any specific discussions with the producers about ending the show.
What we do know is that when Lost returns Feb. 7, after its long midseason hiatus, the 16 new episodes will air uninterrupted through May to mollify those who complained about reruns making it even harder to follow the plot. Lost will also be airing later Wednesdays, at 10 p.m., where it will no longer have to face off against Fox's American Idol.
As for the fourth season, the plan is to run all 22 episodes consecutively, in the style of Fox's 24.
Lindelof said they want their fans back but fretted, "If we write towards getting them back, we may alienate the audience we already have."
Sounds like he's still got plenty of questions of his own to work out.
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