Lost: Booking Its Return Flight?

I opened my mail this morning and found a DVD of the first episode of Lost after its hiatus, which tells me--actually, let's linger on that point a minute. I have the new Lost. I have the new Lost. I got the new Lo-o-o-ost, and you ain't got none, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah...

OK, now that I've got it out of my system: I rarely get advance episodes of Lost, partly because I write for a magazine, which has a longer "lead time" before publication than newspapers, and partly because the show's spoiler-averse makers don't send out many. Which tells me that ABC is getting nervous, given that this fall more viewers preferred to watch Mandy Patinkin solve grisly murders, without benefit of Sondheim music, on Criminal Minds.

There were a couple bits of Lost news that came out of the TCA press tour this week. First, the producers say they are in talks with ABC to set a definite ending date, so that the show doesn't drag out interminably without resolution. Good idea if they actually do it, although the producers have talked about wanting to do this before, the final call is ABC's, and as Lisa deMoraes notes in the Washington Post, The Sopranos was at one point supposed to end two seasons ago.

The bigger news is that Lost may run in one uninterrupted 22-episode stretch next season. This is long overdue: it would have avoided the arbitrary, frustrating cutoff after six episodes that lost the series momentum this fall. It's not, after all, as if going away for eight months hurts 24, which returns with the hoopla of a movie premiere and posted some of its biggest numbers ever Sunday. (By the way, I suppose I should post at some point about last night's immolation of Tarzana--the other thing I was forbidden to tell you about--but I don't know I'd have much to add beyond, "Holy crap!") Yes, Lost is more serial, but honestly: four months, eight months, potato, potahto.

In summation: I have the new Lost, and you don't. Nyah, nyah, etc.