Lost Discussion Group: Emergency Strike Edition

I would rather wait. No season is better than an unsatisfying half of a season. This past Lost season, when they aired the first few episodes and then took a big ol' long break, it didn't work at all. People were unsatisfied with the partial story arcs and We the Fans were left feeling royally screwed over. At least that's how I felt

Wow...talk about your Sophie's Choices. Do I take a half-finished version of the next season of the show that I love, knowing that it will not probably resolve neatly and will undoubtably leave a ton of questions unanswered, just because I miss it so much? Or do I hold out for the full vision, 16-episode season, even if it means waiting longer past the already delayed start date for this show?

Damn, James....not a pretty choice.

I think I'd wait. I want to see this the way Cuse and Lindelhof have envisioned it - and that means 3 16-episode seasons, airing consecutively without repeats. Getting 8 episodes (without a satisfying resolution episode to the "season" that would leave me thinking for 8 months until the show returned) wouldn't be quite as satisfying, if you ask me.

(Speaking of Lost...any chance that ABC, in the event of a writer's strike, starts airing season 3 repeats - in an effort to get viewers caught up in case the strike ends and a full season 4 can be filmed for viewers as currently planned?)

@chaddogg:

Certainly ABC could, but I wouldn't bet on it. Serial shows don't rerun well.

Keep in mind that the Lost season is intended to run without interruption and end at the end of May sweeps. Delaying the season so that ABC can run 8 eps in April-May and the final 8 in the summer (if that's what you're getting at) means running the last half of the season at a time of lower TV viewership, that doesn't count toward full-season ratings and for which advertisers will pay much less.

Just my guess, but I think they'd prefer to run the final 8 in the regular season---say, next fall--rather than leave the ad money on the table.

@James: In that case, push the whole 16 episode season to next (2008) fall - 16 episodes wrapping by November sweeps. Take a break, then come back with the next 16 episode season February 2009.

Then, finish the show as planned in 2010. ABC would dominate sweeps for the 2008-2009 TV season (thanks to Lost), but we wouldn't have any half-seasons...

Or, here's an option - pay the writers! Honestly, no one wants a flood of reality programming...except, perhaps, Johnny Fairplay and the Miz. And I think we're all better off without them in our lives.

Postpone it. ABC has already gone above and beyond to try and kill LOST and they haven't succeeded. The least they could do would be to respect what's left of their pissed off audience and play the season together next fall.

But that's what *I* think is common sense. Clearly TPTB are genetically deficient in this area.

Definitely postpone the season. Casual Lost fans who will "give up" on the series were probably lost (pun completely intended) anyway after the S3 debacle. So give the people who are sticking around the satisfaction of our promised uninterrupted 16 episode season.

I wish the nets would just run reruns of some of their more popular shows instead of throwing us crap reality and "news" magazine shows. There are entire seasons of shows that I've never seen due to scheduling choices. Maybe they'd gain a few people instead of losing all of us.

At least Sunday night football won't be canceled by a writer's strike.

I'm with the group. If the original idea is to run them uninterrupted, I don't want to see half of what they've shot. Sell more DVDs, hype the return of the show for a year, then hit us with the full season.

@chaddogg: Nice idea about the back-to-back seasons. 32 brand-new episodes of Lost in one year!

I like chaddog's back-2-back season idea too - I'd definitely be willing to wait for something like that. And I think that with something like that to look forward to, most hardcore fans will be willing to wait (with only a reasonable amount of grumbling), while the more casual fans have probably already been dropping like flies after the situation last season. ABC ought to be showing more re-runs in the meantime to keep interest going and re-catch viewers who wandered off last year, and give us a superseason starting next fall.

Out of sight, out of mind. I'm going to buck the crowd and tentatively schedule the eight during April and May.

Since they are producing early, if the strike gets settled quickly (by the end of January) they would be able to move the start date back to February and produce the back half in time to meet the original schedule. Worst case scenario is that they air the back 8 during fall of '08 sweeps and we essentially get a normal 24 episode season in '08- hardly the end of the world.

The alternatives just don't work. Airing any of the 07 episodes during the summer is a fiscal disaster. Having a 32 episode 2008 season doesn't work either - thats 7 and a half months of uninterrupted viewing. With the usual December break, they'd have to start airing at the end of August, long before the rest of the schedule is ready (especially since under this scenario there are definite strike delays).

Going back to two 24 episode seasons is the least worst other option, but it brings with it the issues of having the usual "8 episodes-9 week break-16 episodes" scheduling headaches, as well as the "season break" cliffhangers will be badly scheduled. Not to mention that we are talking about a 16-month break between new episodes, with the show now also going up against new 2008 series (as well as any surviving 2007 series) - that is just too long a break, with too much competition waiting for it when it gets back, for the execs to contemplate.

On the other hand, any fears that ABC will cancel it early are groundless. Their contracts might as well be written in stone; see them paying for Drew Carey episodes essentially going straight to syndication.

For a non-US Lost fan who's not particularly clued in on the whole strike business - could anybody post a brief summary of this issue?

Is there really an actual danger that the production of Lost episodes could be halted? I honestly don't think I could take having to wait longer than February...

James -

Sorry, but there is nowhere else to put this. From your corporate sibling EW.com, two portions of the never seen, "reboot" pilot episode of Veronica Mars' fourth season.

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/10/veronica-mars-s.html#more

Honestly, the CW couldn't find room for this? Hell, CBS could have found room for this!

@Tom Shaw - the solution to the 32 episodes problem is to make some of the episodes 2-hour broadcasts, something that Lost fans would CLEARLY line up for - the pilot was a two-hour episode, as was the now classic "Thru the Looking Glass" season finale last year. I'm sure ABC, in order to completely dominate an ENTIRE year of television, would be happy to have a couple 2 hour nights of Lost.

Thus you'd do season 4's 16 episodes from end of August/beginning of September thru November (12 weeks, meaning your opener, closer, and two other episodes are 2 hours long....maybe less).

Then, season 5 would air as planned (16 straight episodes) over spring of 2009.

James, as an aside, I know the doom and gloom is centered on the broadcast nets, but how would the strike affect the cable networks? I would assume that FX has this season of Nip/Tuck basically done by this point, but what about the rest of the shows on their drama rotation? I assume USA is ruing their L&O:CI pickup, but what about the rest of USA/TNT's shows? I don't watch any of them but am just curious from a business point of view.

Similarly, are their any syndicated shows left? Or are they all just Canadian productions that are unfazed by an American strike?

@Tom: I can't possibly detail how many episodes individual shows have in the can. But as a rule, cable networks will be in better shape (for a while) than networks shows since in general they produce their shows farther in advance. The Wire is in the can, as (I think) is the next season of The Tudors and Dirt, e.g.

Likewise *most* animated shows (which have to produce well in advance).

NBC (for an example) could snatch or rerun shows from sister nets (Bravo, USA, Sci Fi, e.g.), but as Variety points out, it ends up further eroding the distinction between network and cable. (Which may well be another unintended byproduct of a strike.)

For my own personal sanity I want to strongly advocate for ABC to just air whatever they have in Feb. '08 if that means the season won't wrap until the summer or Fall '08 so be it. I can barely make it through this fall TV season without LOST on air, the hiatus is killing me. (Okay, enough dramatics). Also though, while the 6-episode pod last season didn't go well that doesn't mean the first 8 eps they air in a few months won't be good. After all last season was before they knew they only had three more season of 16 eps. to go and didn't have the luxury of planning the storytelling accordingly rather than drawing it out. So hopefully even in the first half of season 4, the storytelling will be going at a decent clip, getting right to the meaty story lines. That said I realize cutting the season in half wasn't planned and ending in the middle might further torture fans, but it's not like season enders of yore haven't left the fans drooling for more and cursing the inevitable hiatus.

On the other hand the two seasons back to back idea for the '08-'09 season would be AWESOME. The only problem is we'd have to get through a crazy hiatus (though the reward would be sweet) and spoilers would probably be rampant, not to mention the showrunners would have zero feedback on s4 before working on s5 which could be problematic. So it would be cool to have 32 episodes next year, but I'm selfish and do not want to wait that long. Plus I think it would put fans increasingly out of touch with the show to it's detriment.

Best solution: PAY THE WRITERS! NO STRIKE! RUN ALL 16 EPS OF S4 ALLLLL THE WAY THROUGH. PRETTY PLEASE?

Run it! Even though I'd love to see the season in its entirety I believe that the prounouncement of a true end date has brought some people back onto the Lost bandwagon. The new bandwagon jumpers need to be able to catch some episodes this year in order to stay with the program. Diehards like us will watch new seasons even if it took five years of waiting to get them. I think ABC will be looking out for the casual fans more than us when they make their decision. Also, more people watching Lost, the better. More funds to make sweet episodes and the water cooler conversation will be better than ever. After all, isn't that one of the greatest benefits of Lost?

I say, wait till they can show it at a stretch. I'd love to see Chaddogg's 2 season's back to back thing, but if they want to keep the casual Lost viewer in mind they might just split it.

Wasn't something said last time about producers still being able to work? Couldn't the the two big dogs just write the remainder themselves? Is there any chance that they banged out all 16 eps before the strike? If they're already written they can still film them yes?

Otherwise I vote for chaddog's plan.

Today, everyone is saying that they would rather wait. And yess 32 episodes over a 35 week season next year would be pretty cool. But I don't know if I can wait that long. Hopefully, the strike will only last for a month or less so lost will be okay. Does anyone else wonder why Lost didn't begin production when all the other shows did. Instead they waited until mid to late August. Didn't they know about the writers were going to go on strike? That's a sarcastic question when considering that Carlton Cuse is on the WGA negotiating committee.

Just air the eight! We need our Lost fix- without it we'll all go insane!! We know the strike won't last forever, and we'll then get the other eight. Nice comprimise