“Lost” Revised Season 4 Plan

I reported a few days ago that Matthew Fox was saying 4 to 6 of the 8 remaining planned Lost episodes would get made now that the strike has officially ended (Matthew Fox Says 4 More “Lostâ€Â? Episodes). Thanks to A Mike Life and the Ausiello Report I can now report what the actual plan is straight from the mouth of Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse.

It seems that the original plan of eight episodes has been narrowed down to compromise of five. All of the major plot points that were planned for the eight episodes will somehow be squeezed into these five episodes. Production will begin immediately, but there will be a four week gap between the last of the first eight episodes (which we’re watching now) and the five new episodes.

As a fan, I am understandably concerned by this as I find it hard to believe they will be able to squeeze eight hours worth of information into a mere five hours of television time. Cuse mentions in the interview that some guest actors (characters) may have to be sacrificed to make it work. To me that means they will be sacrificing the quality of the storyline as well.

Concerning the “lost” three episodes that were a part of the original deal when they extended Lost we get a bit of good news. Cuse says:

Damon and I remain committed to producing the 40 additional hours of the show that we promised. We haven’t figured out exactly when we’ll put those other three on, but we’re not eliminating them from the show. You will get those three episodes downstream.

So it looks like we’ll still get the same amount of Lost over time, but not for this season. It remains to be seen how that will affect the story this season and over the long haul.

In the meantime, we’re only two episodes into the first eight which means we have six more to go with five more to come after that so at least we’ll be enjoying much more Lost this season…and that’s good news no matter how you look at it.