Lost Back In February, But Is That A Good Thing?

In the space of the last minute I have breathed a sigh of relief and then immediately tensed up again. Despite complaints from series writers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, ABC has decided to air the fourth season of Lost beginning in February, as originally planned. With only eight episodes completed before the writers' strike began, and the strike showing no signs of ending any time soon, those episodes will likely be the last we see of Lost before early 2009.

Lindelof is clearly unhappy with the decision. "An eight-episode season is an incomplete season, and I am not going to try to spin it any other way," he told E!'s Kristin. He and Cuse made it clear earlier that they did not write with the strike in mind, and the eighth episode specifically ends on a cliffhanger that offers no season-ending wrap-up. It's as much of a conclusion as, say, Ana-Lucia and Libby getting shot. [...] And you'd be, like, oh my god, I can't believe I have to wait another year and two months for episode nine of this season."

Not only that, but Lost creators recently struck a deal with ABC to have three more 16-episode seasons before wrapping the whole thing up in 2010. It was a risky and frustrating move for Lost fans, leaving such a huge hiatus between seasons; Cuse and Lindelof both assured us fans that it would be a leap of faith worth taking. Now? "I can't look the fans in the eye and tell them that we're executing the original plan anymore."

As glad as I am that I won't be completely without Lost for another year, I'm honestly concerned that this move is going to destroy the show. The six-episode run last fall was a complete disaster, leaving many fans discouraged and vowing not to even bother with the show when it picked back up in the spring. Granted, they threw some pretty terrible episodes at us then, but the disjointed time frame was frustrating. The 16-episode springtime runs were intended to avoid that, to give Lost a solid run with no repeats and wrap up each season tightly. Now the entire thing is a mess, and I wonder if it will ever be able to recover it's momentum. How many of us will get to this dreaded episode 8 and be so frustrated with the clifhanger that we just shut off the TV for good?

Next February is looking to be a dismal time for television, so by then I know we'll all be glad to have something original to watch (since even 24 won't be around). But the disappointment we'll feel around the end of March, when Lost goes away again, will be palpable. With all the good shows on television right now being disrupted, will we look back on this so-called "golden age of television" and realize the writers' strike threw it completely off the rails? When the writers come back they had better be aware enough to earn their hard-won money and keep their shows at the quality we have expected and enjoyed from them for so long.

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