USAToday has reported that LOST will end in 2010 after three more sixteen episode seasons. And yes, to answer the first question that came to your mind, this does mean longer hiatuses. Here comes the details.
The end is in sight for ABC’s acclaimed island mystery Lost, but fans will have to wait until 2010 for all the answers.
In a highly unusual move, the network announces plans today to end the show after three more shortened seasons of 16 episodes each. The episodes will air consecutively, repeat-free, from February to May.
While the news will no doubt brings days of kvetching from the enormous internet community that LOST has cultivated, the news can only be good in the long run. Up until this point, LOST’s creative staff has worked on a season to season basis, careful to reveal the secrets of the underlying plot with fear prematurely exposing too much of the story only to be forced to find ludicrous ways to slow it down through an infinite cycle of renewals.
Were LOST handled like any other show, it’s end would not be told until the show was canceled, which ironically enough would probably come at the end of a long run of frustrating fans.
To some extent LOST has already wrestled with that very issue, trying to find a cycle that mixed bursts of mythology related to the “big picture” with purely character driven or otherwise diversionary episodes. The frequent stretches of info-lite LOST episodes brought outrage from some fans and was beginning to galvanize the reputation of the show as a staller.
Now, LOST’s creative team has a canvas of forty-eight episodes at their disposal to tell a single story, and not a single moment need go to waste. Of course, some might consider the fact that the shows new schedule, February to May with eight months between seasons, will make for grueling waits, but fear not. The producers promise to make each of the three final chapters of LOST events on the level of a Harry Potter or Star Wars installment. If fans can make it three years between those installments for just a few hours of storyline, what is eight months for sixteen hours of LOST that is nothing but answers? Sounds like a worthwhile trade off to me.
– Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
