from the hollywood reporter
'Lost' adds hours
ABC extends final two seasons
By James Hibberd
ABC has found more hours for the final two seasons of "Lost."
The 2009 and 2010 editions of the hit drama will be 17 hours each --
not 16 as previously planned.
ABC has added two hours to the show's production plan because the WGA
strike knocked three hours out of the current season. To partly
compensate, the network recently added an additional hour to Part 2 of
the season finale that airs May 29.
All told, the changes will wrap up the show with the same number of
episodes that producers and ABC negotiated last year.
"We were supposed to do 16-16-16," "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof
said. "But we ended up doing 14 this season, so we owe two."
Lindelof, however, ruled out the show extending beyond the remaining
34-episode order.
"(Executive producer) Carlton Cuse and I worked so hard to get the
show to end that I think to suddenly say, 'Oh, I think we got another
season in us' would be a betrayal to everybody involved in the show --
but most of all the audience," he said. "It's better to retire your
number at the top of your game."
For the upcoming season finale, Lindelof promised a more action-driven
cliffhanger instead of the mind-bending flash-forward time shift that
stunned fans last season.
"The finale this year will not be as tricky as last year," he said.
"Hopefully, this year it's a little bit more of a straightforward
action-adventure narrative. But the ending of the episode will
hopefully engage and intrigue people looking forward to the next
season of the show."
Lindelof declined to say whether the flash forwards will continue, but
did leave open the possibility of the show's main story line on the
island catching up with the flash forwards that have taken place on
the mainland this season.
"It's very exciting that the audience is going to be wondering when is
the present going to be (next season)," he said. "We've moved backward
in time, now we've moved forward in time. The present of the show has
always been on the island -- that may not necessarily be the case in
the future."
When it comes time to air the series finale in 2010, Lindelof said he
and Cuse plan to "go into hiding for many, many months" at an
"undisclosed location."
"David Chase set a great example when he went off to Paris after 'The
Sopranos' ending, which is great because all these people are going to
be asking, 'What does it mean? What is it?' " he said. "The fact that
there's no one really around to answer that question, it forces people
to come up with what they think it means. We can guarantee our show
will not end with a cut to black, it will be more clear than that. But
whenever anything you love ends ... there's a certain disappointment."
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