Lost To Finally End In 2010 = Bad Decision

With fears of losing further audience numbers to “Never-Ending Mystery Syndrome”, the producers of Lost have selected a figure for a finite number of episodes, allowing them to craft an overall story arc instead of plodding (or should I say “plotting”?) from season to season. After the current season ends, there will be 48 more episodes of ABC’s hit show Lost broadcast.

Although I personally think that 48 more episodes is WAY too many to conclude this story and finally get the answer to the mysteries of the island, at least putting a solid number on this is a good thing. Of course, leave it up to the studio execs to “improve” the producers’ decision with a totally dumb idea.

Instead of just running for two more 24 episode seasons, the brilliant minds over at ABC have decided “Hey, why don’t we squeeze three seasons out of two seasons worth of episodes!!!!”

So instead of two more years of Lost, we’ll be getting three more years, but with only 16 episodes per season and eight months between seasons!

[Creators]Lindelof and Cuse had wanted Lost to end after two more seasons. They’re essentially still getting their wish: The 48 episodes they’ll produce over the next three years is the same number the show produced during its first two seasons.

ABC execs, however, came up with a way to keep Lost on its sked for three more seasons. What’s more, the 16-episode arcs will run without repeats (a la 24), allowing the Alphabet to make the show more of an event.

Is it just me, or is this a really, really stupid idea?

Sure, they plan to show the 16 episodes uninterrupted, that is to say all in a row with no repeats, but what is the advantage to stretching it out for three years? Same number of episodes, same number of advertising dollars, but you risk losing the fanbase. I mean what the hell…. why not just stretch it out for 8 years and do one two hour movie per year (crap, I should retract that… they may think it’s an even better idea).

Originally, the plan was for the show to last 8 years, but fears of an X-Files-type audience loss got the producers scrambling to move the story forward a bit faster than that. This latest news works out to the show lasting five 24-episode seasons, a far cry from the close to 200 episodes they had planned. I’m glad they’re cutting it short, I just don’t think they’re going about it the right way. I don’t think I’m a big enough fan of the show to hang around for three more years with only 16 episodes per year and I think they’ll see their audience numbers erode even further over time.

Source: Variety