http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/05/07/television.lost.reut/index.html
Whaddya think? Good news or bad? Will they really bring the show to a satisfying conclusion? Can they?
I missed this earlier thread. Check it out: Lost has a planned lifetime - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
Hasn’t the line from the creators always been that they knew where they were going to start and where they were going to end, it was just how they were going to get from A to B that was the stumper? If that’s true then having a definite number of episodes would have to be very helpful. I’d been growing rather sick of Lost over the course of this season and watched it more out of inertia than anything else. The last few episodes have gotten me back into it because, you know, things like happened. I’m hoping that this “things happening” trend will continue for the remainder of the season and the series.
Some from column A, some from column B. 48 episodes would normally be 2 seasons. Breaking it up for 3 seasons seems to drag things out more than I’d like, but there’s something to be said for shorter quicker seasons - less burn out for one.
Still, I think having an end point set is mostly a good thing, so I’m going to focus on the good.
I’m not going to comment on how the show will play out as a whole - that remains to be seen. As long as I’m reasonably entertained while it’s happening, I’m in.
The troubling paragraph is the one that says that they “envisioned the endpoint for Lost around episode 100”. Since they have agreed to produce 120 total that would seem to indicate we have a lot of filler to look foward to. I guess Hugo will discover more broken down cars to get running.
That is what I fear.
After the hiatus and dropping viewship, I think they might have suspected that they only have one more season and really picked up the pace as a consequence. More things happening and questions being answered.
Now that they have another 48 episodes to fill, things might slow down again into a more leisurely pace. And drive me crazy with frustration.
This doesn’t really bother me at all. You pick the worst example of a “filler” episode, but many have been quite interesting (“Dave” from season 2 and the chilling death of Nicki and Paulo from this season). And in some cases, I believe a “filler” piece from previous seasons can produce wonderful possibilities for the future (we wouldn’t have gotten last week’s fantastic episode without a filler from Season 1 explaining how Sawyer got his name; c’mon, did anyone here believe in season 1 that Sawyer would meet the man who conned his parents in the island?).
The fillers serve a purpose of fleshing out characters to provide dramatic possibilities later in the series. Plus, sometimes episodes are added to drama simply for their self-contained beauty. Not everything has to lie on the straight line, and everyone knows that side trips are often the most memorable part of getting to a destination.
I love an occasional filler episode! I really enjoyed the VW bus one and now can’t stop listening to Shambala by Three Dog Night. The one with Nikki and Paola was more than filler; it showed some of what we already know from a different perspective which is helpful.
But anyway, I guess I’m glad there’s an end in sight, but like with Harry Potter, I feel a little sick about it too. Yes, I was among the frustrated for a long time, but I decided to sit back and enjoy the ride and it’s been great ever since.
Three 16 episode seasons (or two full seasons) sounds good to me.
They’ve got a lot of characters stories to wrap up and most major characters deserve more than 1 episode to wrap up. I would even be game for some back story on some of the other Others.
Now that they can take their index cards of plot points, twists, events, etc. spread them out over 48 episodes, and build/fill in around them with detail and purpose I think they can craft some highly polished gems of shows.
So after a couple more shows this month that would put us 3/5 of the way through the series. That’s a good place to be.
I still say that this is all just going to turn out to be that the kid form St. Elsewhere got a new snow globe… :eek:
Or perhaps some additional people will get conned?
Or Bob Newhart had another very strange dream.
Count on it!
Or they could have someone get conned. 
I was hoping they would go ahead and define the endpoint, because otherwise they’ll end up getting cancelled with a lot of mysteries left to resolve (see Carnivale), or dragging it out far longer than anybody cares (see The X-Files). I wish they’d do it in two seasons–maybe four 12-episode runs.
It’s probably a good thing they announced an endpoint. Otherwise I (and viewers like me) might have abandoned the series on the cynical assumption that they were going to pointlessly drag out the show as long as it could sell ad space.
I was really hoping they’d end this season with another nifty cliffhanger and then explore all the mysteries and the conclusion in season 4. There just doesn’t seem to be any more places to go with it. I’m not sure how much more I can take of people not asking the Others obvious questions or the castaways discovering new stuff on the island. You’d think they’d have covered and explored and mapped the whole thing by now, what with it being an island and all.
It seems to be a very large and, well, complicated island.
With all due respect, I think you and I have different definitions of the word “filler”.
You refer to the “side trips” as filler. I suppose you’re technically correct since those episode don’t really advance the story arc. But I’ve actually enjoyed some of these side trips more than the main story itself.
My fear of filler which I noted early in this thread refers to pace. For example, I think the first six episodes of season three could easily have fit into two episodes. This problem was noted and corrected by the writers, so the post-hiatus episodes haven’t had this problem.
My fear is that they’re going to stretch things out and go back to a more languid pace.
One thing that really slows down the pace is when the writers split the groups up and you need several episodes just to advance each group by the typical 3 day interval between episodes. Still, like last week’s episodes, this doesn’t necessarily mean “boring”-- most people seem to think that episode was quite good.
Another problem I see with a 3 year extension is the inability to maintain the same cast, and to have to invent ways to explain away the disappearance of certain characters. Or, like Rose and Bernard, you just stop showing the altogether.
I think this is on the whole a good idea, though. If they just let it play out as long as ratings held up, you’d probably see it decline into a sorry state and then just get canceled abruptly. I assume with the 16 continuous episodes, they’ll essentially be repeating what they did this season, except just lop off the first 6 episodes in the fall-- running the show from Feb thru May.