Lost season 4 to go on for a little longer than we thought ?
By fred | April 10, 2008
As we all know, the number of episodes of Lost left to come is already known, by the network, by the producers, and by us. It was announced a while ago, that the show would have three more seasons (including the current one), each of them made out of 16 episodes that would air uninterruptedly, à la 24.
That was the plan before the writers’ strike, and then it became a real mess. In the end ABC decided to air the only 8 episodes completed at that time, without knowing if they would be able to add any more to this season. As you may know, I was strongly against that move, and while I’m glad we got to see those 8 episodes I really would have hated it if Meet Kevin Johnson had been the season finale. It may have been a good episode, but it was no season finale.
But thank God the strike ended, and Lost went back into production. Then, the plan became to add 5 more episodes, bringing it to a total of 13 episodes, the “remaining” three being added to the following seasons. This was the plan, but this might be about to change, we might be getting more Lost than that this season !
As it has been reported by TV Guide’s Michael Ausiello and confirmed by other sources then, including E! Online’s Kristin Dos Santos, the producers have asked ABC if they could add one more episode to this season of the show, bringing it to a total of 14 episodes (and 6 more to air). This would mean that the show would get a two-hour season finale, something they’ve been doing for a while now so that couldn’t possibly be a bad thing.
The other good news is that according to inside sources, the network isn’t opposed to giving them the extra hour, quite the contrary. It is said to be “highly likely” that it will happen, although details about scheduling have yet to be determined, of course. (Lost is planned to return on Thursdays at 10.00 after new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy).
Now this would obviously be a great news, and not only because we’d get another hour of our favorite shows. Because after the strike, Lindelof and Cuse said that they had a plan, pre-strike, of what would happen during season four and where it would go, how it would end. And they also said that while they would have less time to get there that they had originally thought, they intended to end the season the same.
In other words, things would have to be cut out, others would have to happen faster, but the season would end in the same way as it was first intended. Knowing this, it’s only logical to assume that if they’re asking for an extra hour this season, it is not to write a filler episodes about Jack’s tattoos or anything like that, but because they realized that for them to get where they want to go, to bring the show where they want it to be by the end of the season, they need more time.
Otherwise, one can suspect that they would have to cut too much out, or to completely re-think the way the season would end, something they did not want to do (as they have a bigger plan in mind, with things meant to occur during each of the remaining seasons), or they would have to go faster through things which would result in more confusion and less enjoyment from our side, as things could appear to be have been rushed - which they kinda would have been.
Producers know exactly what they want to do with their show, starting with where to go and how to end current season, and since ABC execs seems to be in favor of letting them do it, we can only hope that they’ll be able to work out the scheduling issue they may have. I would imagine that it shouldn’t be that much of a problem, since they put Lost at 10.00 and that’s a stupid thing to do for a show like this.
More than once ABC did not go by the producers wishes, when they decided to air the 8 episodes not knowing if more could be added this season, or when they decided to air episode 8 before the break, while producers wanted to keep it to open the new batch of episodes.
It’s now time to “make up” for this, and grant them, and us, an extra hour so that we can have our two-hour season finale ! Like any Lost fans, I’ll be crossing my fingers that this extra episode becomes a reality.
