It’s Official : Lost Season 4, One More Hour, Three-Hour Season Finale
By fred | April 12, 2008
A few days ago, I mentioned how the creative minds behind Lost where asking ABC for one more hour for this season, and it seemed that ABC was willing to grant them such extra-hour. Evidently, they were asking for such an additional hour this season because they needed it to tell everything they had to tell, so ABC had to grant them this hour.
Good news : they did! It has been confirmed that it’s been signed, the current season four of Lost will have one extra hour this season, bringing its total to 14 episodes, that’s 6 more to air. Not only that, but we will have a three-hour season finale !!
Bad news : the three-hour finale will be split, and we will have to wait two weeks between the first and the other two parts of the finale.
First, let’s go over the good news one more time. The producers had already explained that they intended to end this season the same way they originally wanted to, despite having lost hours of story due to the writers’ strike. We’ve also heard that the first 8 episodes we’ve seen we’re setting up things for what was to come next. And apparently, there are so many big reveals they wanted to deliver this season that the writers’ draft for the second hour of the finale was no less than 80 pages long, which led them to realize that some of the stories had to be told sooner, that they needed an additional hour for their finale.
Not only that, but they also convinced ABC president Steve McPherson that the final two hours of the season had to air back to back, they couldn’t put one week (or one day) in between.
McPherson was willing to grant them the extra hour, and the two episodes back to back, and so it was going to be a matter of scheduling : how and when to put all those episodes on the air.
The solution found by ABC was this : Since they were going to air two episodes of Lost back to back, they created a hole on a Thursday night at 10.00, and now thanks to Lost another show will have one additional hour this season : Grey’s Anatomy will have a two-hour season finale on May 22.
The bad news, for us Lost addicts, is that it’s us and not Grey’s fans that will have to wait two weeks before episodes : The first part of Lost season finale will air on May 15 at 10.00 after a new Grey’s Anatomy, as originally planned. On May 22 there will be no Lost, but a 2-hour season finale for Grey’s Anatomy, and finally on May 29 we will have the two last hours for the three-hour season finale of this season of Lost at 9.00, the first hour (originally aired on May 15) being repeated at 8.00
Still, producers got what they wanted, and that’s what matters the most. As Carlton Cuse said, they are really happy this could be worked out : “We are very excited and grateful to [ABC president] Steve McPherson for working out the scheduling difficulties to allow us to make the second part of our finale two hours. Damon [Lindelof] and I were working on the script and we just couldn’t get it all done in one hour without shortchanging the story. Now the finale will have all the sweep and emotional completeness we wanted it to have - along with, of course, answering who’s in the coffin.”
If you want to mark your calendars, here’s how it goes :
May 15
8.00 - Ugly Betty
9.00 - Grey’s Anatomy
10.00 - Lost (season finale, part 1/3)
May 22
8.00 - Ugly Betty (season finale)
9.00 - Grey’s Anatomy (two-hour season finale)
May 29
8.00 - Lost (R) (season finale, part 1/3)
9.00 - Lost (season finale, part 2/3 and 3/3)
Needless to say, while I would have liked it better had we not to wait two weeks to get the last hours of the season, at least we will have the additional hour producers wanted, and the two hours they they felt were required to air back to back will indeed air that way, so in the end we’re all winners. And, it sure sounds like all of the six episodes left this season are going to be spectacular, and I can’t wait !!
Especially after what the first 8 episodes of this season were, I think this is even more exciting than the show came back after Through The Looking Glass, this is even more exciting than when season four premiered, I can’t wait for April 24, the day Lost comes back on the air.
Posted in News
Shows: Grey's Anatomy, Lost
