'Lost' Will Last Until 2010

The series that began in 2004 when Oceanic Flight 815 crashed into the Pacific Ocean on to a desert island has now found an end in sight. Will they be rescued or are they merely in purgatory? All your questions will be answered by Spring 2010. ABC announced Monday that there will only be three more season's left for the hit TV series 'Lost'. ABC also announced that each season would include 16 episodes that will air consecutively unlike this year.

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, two of the show's executive producers announced that they wanted the network to set an end date in a January meeting of Television Critics Association. This even shocked the ABC staff attending the meeting. The producer's of the hit show 'Lost' wanted ABC to select an end date to prevent the show from losing viewers. The way so many shows do when the network sucks every last dime they can out of the success of the show at the detriment of the story line.

"We have always envisioned 'Lost' as a show with a beginning, middle and end," Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said in a statement released to The Hollywood Reporter over the weekend and to the rest of the news media on Monday. "By officially announcing exactly when that ending will be, the audience will now have the security of knowing that the story will play out as we've intended."

The show has suffered a loss of viewers this season in part to the interrupted season. In an attempt to eliminate reruns the season began in October airing 6 episodes and then to a three-month break before returning in February to air the remaining ten episodes straight through till the end. The show lost more viewers when in February's return it moved to the ten o'clock slot. Each year the show has fallen back one time slot. In 2004 it aired at the 8 pm time slot and in the second season it fell back to the 9 pm time slot.

ABC is hoping to bring viewers back with the promise of an ending to the sometimes-confusing story line. They also are hoping that running the episodes back to back for the next three seasons will keep the viewers that they have.

The creator's of the show had originally intended the show to last 100 episodes. With the show scheduled for 3 more season and 16 episodes each, by the finale in spring 2010 it will have aired 117 original episodes.
(www.nytimes.com)