All Lost viewers live in fear of The Others. No, not the violent dinner theater troupe from the other side of Fakebeard Island — I refer to the dreaded other episodes, the reruns that fill the substantial gaps in the show’s 35-week schedule.
Well, fear not, fanimals. You won’t have to wait for new episodes ever again. Or rather, your waiting will be consolidated. Lost will air in two chunks next year: a seven-episode arc in the fall, followed by a 13-week break, then a straight consecutive airing of the remaining episodes. (The hiatus will be filled by Day Break, a Groundhog Day-meets-24 suspense series starring Taye Diggs.)
Whaddaya think? Is this setup preferable? It pretty much mandates a major mid-season cliffhanger, which isn’t such a bad idea (as Battlestar Galactica has demonstrated).
Of course, the other option is downloading new episodes directly into your brain as they’re written. They’re telling me it’s (mostly) safe in rats, and I haven’t had brain surgery since I had "J’Cuse!" tattooed in coquettish calligraphy down my medulla oblongata. (This was after a particularly opaque Lost podcast, and I’d been drinking.) Anyway… I’m due, baby!
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Hmmm…taking the reverse Prison Break approach (7 and 13 episodes as opposed to 13 and 9). I’d say this is a better schedule. It’s a bit irritating, but I’d rather have a big hiatus than one or two episodes playing and then cutting the show off for five weeks. That’s really annoying.
i like it.
I like it better than the current method. I prefer the way ABC showed NYPD Blue and Alias one year: start in January and run through may with no reruns and no breaks.
If we can wait a two years for the sopranos a year for LOST is not too much to ask..
terrible plan. a 13 week gap! great way to lose momentum.
why dont they just do a “non-stop” season like 24…i would prefer delaying the start of the season and running 20 straight weeks than a 13 week gap
Thirteen weeks seems like a long time, but I guess it won’t seem as bad over the holidays. It’s too bad there wasn’t a way to break it into three chunks to break up the big break. I think it’ll be better for continuity than an episode or two every three weeks. I guess we’ll see…
I hate this idea. I’d rather have repeats to watch of this brilliant show than have no Lost at all as it goes on hiatus.
Anything to fix up the mess that was this seasons schedule. I hated that they would air 2 or 3 episodes then have a 3 week break. When it was announced that Prison Break would do the hiatus route I wasn’t too fond of it, but it ended up working out. I think this will be better for Lost.
Have to agree with Jon. I prefer the 24 model of an uninterrupted season. I’d rather wait and savor each week as it comes than be constantly disappointed with interruptions and reruns and clip-fests.
Eh, it’s better than the current model.
But 13 week hiatus? BAH!
It’s okay for Battlestar, a show I put on the lower tier of my favorite shows, but I can’t wait that long for new episodes of LOST when a new season starts.
It’s better than what they had, but 13 weeks is a long time to lose momentum! Oh hell, at least it’s in no danger of being canceled!
yeah a nonstop season would be great, but unfortunately FOX has a different business model than ABC. FOX has year-long programming where ABC is still running their traditional September – May schedule. If this is the alternative….it’ll work for me.
lostaddicts208.blogspot.com
That 13-week hiatus is way too long. The should do 8 on, 4 off, 8 on, 4 off, 8 on.
don’t like it. that’s way way way too long to wait.
I’m not crazy about a 13 week break (!) but I’ll hang in there for Lost. I wouldn’t for any other show, but I’ve watched Lost since the beginning and I’ll keep watching to the end.
The 13 week break is way too long. The 8 on, 4 off idea is sort of reasonable, depending on when the season starts (if the 4 off come in DEcember, its a good idea b/c people are doing other things for the holidays). Better would be to split the season directly in half so that the last new episode is right around the end of November. December is reruns, then the rest of the season.
The 24 viewing model would work best for the viewing pleaure of LOST fans. But I don’t think the Lost producers have enough faith in themselves to a full season of drama with out the mealy mouthed feedback of overly obsessed fan to niggle at them. (See http://www.thefuselage.com for many examples of fans who all think they influence the production of LOST.) Lost is still done well enough to be called “good TV”, I totally hope that season three won’t sink the island. But when the ex-producers on their podcast of the show, put the listeners down so much that they already joke about the “Zombie” season….how can anyone who might have been interested in Lost as a TV show before, take anything seriously from this point on.
I don’t watch Lost but am a little concerned with that schedule. 13 weeks is, uuuh, let me do the math…..almost 5 months! Can a show remain highly rated wtih that kind of schedule? I watch Desperate Housewives and if they went away for that long, I defenitly would go somewhere else.
Though anything to cut down on reruns is good, I have to say a 13 week break sounds a little long.
I think I’d prefer it if ABC did the same thing they did with “Alias” during its fourth season and not start the show until January. Instead of splitting up the season, simply run “Day Break” straight through to end in the winter, then start “Lost” after that.
Another idea that I think networks should look at is splitting the time slot throughout the year, with each show airing bi-weekly. So “Lost” would air one week, the next week would be “Day Break”, then the next would be “Lost” again and so on. It’s not a perfect idea, but neither is a 13 week hiatus.
Whoa Ed, try again – 13 weeks is actually just over 3 months, which I can handle for the best show on TV. I would much rather have this type of schedule for LOST than having one new episode, two weeks of reruns, another new episode followed by three weeks of reruns. All the repeats were getting frustrating and the writers will now write the third season around this new schedule. Which means we will most likely have a big cliffhanger mid-way and then all new episodes every week until May. Sounds great to me! Thanks ABC!
Why don’t they just make the season longer? there is no reason why there should be ANY reruns or break (with the exception of Christmas/New Years on any of the shows. they make money off advertising anyways and it would make viewers a lot happier as well if they extended the number of shows.
Could care less.
This is stupid. Set us up for 7 then drop it like its hot for three months? No, look what happened when they did that for Alias. Just run them consecutively from January to May. It works for American Idol and 24
Any series that is a “continuation” from week to week…Should be aired straight through. They do themselves no favors with re-runs. They have 12 Months to shoot 4 months worth of episodes. Air them straight through — and then move on.
That is stupid run them consecutively like 24, the suspense grows bigger from week to week and you get to keep all the fans, you could skip out maybe one week or two by some special broadcast event like “The new alien martian landing” or “New Discovery the Ten commandments” or something. Damn that is a really bad idea what they are suggesting. They did they same thing to Prison Break and look what happened to that. If this happens this is one fan who will be “Lost” from this show forever.
How come everybody is all up in arms about Lost taking a 13 week break in the middle of the season? Summer hiatus is a lot longer than 13 weeks, yet we all manage to survive!
I’m not interested in a Jan-May straight run. That means the show’s off longer than it’s on. And a break during the season doesn’t bother me – as an avid fan who listens to two Lost podcasts. Time to digest and pull theories together.
Start first week of October with eight straight. Take December off. Go Jan and Feb. March off. Finish with seven or eight in April or May.
I don’t understand how the 9 on, 13 off, 13 on would work. The show would have to miss either the November or February sweeps. If they’re willing to miss a sweeps period, they should just start the show in January and run without break through May. They can then run their new 13-episode series from September through November and reserve December for holiday specials.
I didn’t like it when they pulled Prison Break for a “hiatus” and I won’t like it with Lost. I have to endure waiting until January for new 24 episodes, so I could do the same for Lost, as long as it ran straight through till May.
I’m not crazy about a 13 week layoff either. That said, I don’t think a straight run starting in January would work either. Unlike 24, in which plot lines get resolved at the end of each season, Lost has cliffhangers at the end of each of its seasons. The idea of waiting eight months between seasons is absolutely crazy. Also, with a show like Lost the network has to hit all of the sweeps periods in November, February and May to be economicaly viable. It made sense for Fox to do a straight run starting in January because it’s core demographic, men ages 18-40, would be lost in that time slot to Moday Night Football during the fall.
I, personally, was fine with the old schedule. I never minded the long break between Thanksgiving and New Year’s because I hardly have time to watch tv during that time anyway. The other times there were 2-3 weeks of reruns were frustrating but much easier to swallow than 13 weeks without Lost.
This move was done solely to appease all of the fan compaints this year of too many reruns between episodes. I know it’s cliche, but be careful what you wish for because you just may get it.