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One mystery solved: 'Lost' to end in 2010

The end is in sight for ABC's acclaimed island mystery Lost, but fans will have to wait until 2010 for all the answers.

In a highly unusual move, the network announces plans today to end the show after three more shortened seasons of 16 episodes each. The episodes will air consecutively, repeat-free, from February to May.

ABC's bold step marks a response to the show's producers, who have been eager to set a finish line to better plot out their convoluted mystery of plane-crash survivors and to placate fans who are frustrated that the show seemed to be vamping its way to a conclusion.

"Among fans there was an unease that they were making an investment in a show that's complicated without any sense of where that's going to lead them," co-creator Damon Lindelof said in an exclusive interview. "From the very beginning, fans and even critics have been saying, 'Are you making it up as you go along?' " which was "a legitimate question."

Now, with a still far-away ending in sight, Lindelof says he and executive producer Carlton Cuse have "specific designs for ending the next two seasons" and promises that with the answer-filled season finale May 23, viewers "will begin to get an idea of what that design will be, and it will not be at all what they expect."

The finale completed filming in Hawaii on Saturday, a day after Lindelof and Cuse signed new contracts that will keep them working on Lost exclusively for the duration. With 48 more episodes due, the show will have completed 60% of its planned six-season run.

"It's practically unprecedented in network TV to announce the end of a show this far out," Cuse says.

ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson says the unusual long-term commitment is "a unique situation" he would be unlikely to repeat for other series. "It's one of the best shows that's ever been on," he says. "It's got brilliant storytelling, incredible character work, and takes chances beyond anything that's on the air now."

With Desperate Housewives, Lost re-energized ABC in fall 2004 and became a top 10 series. But after two time-slot switches, interruptions for low-rated repeats and a mystery that tried the patience of some fans, Lost has lost some steam. Ratings are down about 14% this season, though Lost still ranks highly among young adults and is the most heavily recorded show on DVRs.

McPherson concedes that splitting the current third season in two "was not the best for the show" and says the network also is discussing a return to an earlier time slot to draw more family viewership.

Shorter seasons will allow plots to be more tightly constructed and "will make it a real event," Lindelof says. "We won't have to do episodes where people are standing on the beach looking at the water and wondering what's going to happen next."

Will Lost risk losing fans' interest with an eight-month lag? "People wait longer than eight months for the next books and films in the Harry Potter story and they don't seem to lose interest," Cuse says. "We have faith that our audience, knowing exactly how much of the story we have left, is going to be with us for the rest of the ride."

But, Lindelof says, "the last five minutes of (this month's) finale are going to seal our fate.", By Gary Levin, USA TODAY

Season finale frenzy: 'Lost'

(Warning for our timeshifting friends: if you haven't watched the finale of ABC's Lost yet, come back when you have.)

Rating: * * * * (out of four)

If all you care about is the destination, you miss all the joy of the ride.

And come on: Even if last night's Lost finale didn't provide many final answers, that was a fabulous, fun two hours of TV that masterfully propelled the story forward. It was, in turns, exciting, shocking, maddening, gorgeous, humorous — and ultimately heartbreaking, as Sawyer lost Juliet and yet another chance at love. Well-earned surprises are few and far between in series TV, and yet after all these years, Lost can still keep us puzzled over what's coming next and where our allegiances are supposed to lie.

We thought they were supposed to be with Locke on his determined hunt to kill the island's master, Jacob, until we learned that wasn't Locke at all. The real Locke was apparently dead, just as Ben and Richard kept telling us he had to be.

We thought Juliet was dead as well, when she was dragged into the electromagnetic pit, until she perked up and set off the hydrogen bomb. Which is where the show came to its startling conclusion, with a cliffhanger explosion that, typical of Lost's habit of twisting TV conventions, faded to white rather than black.

The plot was driven by Jack's determination to cap the electromagnetic leakage that crashed their plane by short-circuiting it with that bomb — a hunt that led to some 24-style shootouts. But the show also had one more, very important back story to tell: Jacob's. We time-traveled with him as he visited Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, Locke, Jin, Sun, Jack and Hurley, interfering at crucial points in their lives, including giving Hurley that mysterious guitar.

And then, thanks to machinations of the enemy occupying Locke's body, we saw Jacob murdered by a jilted, jealous Ben. Because on Lost, fate bows to free will and momentous events are often sparked by petty motivations.

Best of all, though, the episode was a welcome reminder that amid all the discussions of time travel and smoke monsters and electromagnetism, the key to the show's success is its characters, played by one of the strongest ensembles around. (And surely this episode is going to boost Josh Holloway's shot at an Emmy nomination.)

We're committed to them — and that includes infrequent visitors such as Rose, Bernard and Vincent, who returned for one brief, sweet, amusing scene. It was worth bringing them back just for Rose's classic reaction to Kate's plan to stop Jack and the bomb: "It's always something with you people."

As for what happens next or how the show finally ends, this TV season has at least provided Lost with two templates it would be wise to avoid. There's the wrap-up approach adopted by Battlestar Galactica, which used the get-out-of-jail-free card of divine intervention. And then there's Life on Mars, which dropped the British's original's vague alternative/afterlife answer for a more down to earth, or out in space, explanation: It was, literally, life on mars.

Whether Lost's own eventual solution proves satisfying, we won't know until we hear it. But it's worth remembering that providing an all-encompassing, rational, straightforward answer to every problem posed is not the be-all and end-all goal of fantasy fiction. After all, the Life on Mars finale made sense. It was also insipid, pedestrian and completely devoid of beauty, ambiguity and poetry. You have to assume Lost has higher ambitions.

You'll have to wait another year to find out, of course. And that's fine. As Jacob said in the beginning, no matter how many times a story starts or repeats, "it only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."

Sometimes, progress is more than enough.By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY