Losties Closer to Being Found? *UPDATE*

May 7th - It was made official today, Lost will finish up after another 48 episodes spread over 3 seasons, with an expected end-date of 2010. Do the math and you'll see that each season will be roughly 2/3 of a normal season order. My guess is this is due to some sort of compromise between the producers and the network that will allow the producers to get out around 120 eps and the network to milk the Lost cash-cow for as long as possible. More detail can be found here.

May 4th - Big news today from sources at E!Online. Looks like the suits at ABC might be set to announce a series end for Lost. Notice I said "end" rather than "end-date". Apparently there is no word as to how much longer the castaways will be stranded. Conventional wisdom seems to say two more seasons, however the producers have been quoted as saying they always saw it as a about a 100 episode show. If that's the case, then after this season there might only be around 35 new episodes before we find out what Smokey the Monster is all about (in a recent podcast the producers stated that that is one mystery that won't be solved 'til series end).

Even though Lost is my favorite show right now, I think this is great news, and as I've written before, this could possibly lead to a sea-change in how networks develop shows. Just think of all those great series whose excellence was diminished by having stayed on the air just a little too long. I truly believe that after a bumpy transition, green-lighting certain shows with defined ends in sight could really be a money maker for the networks. Read my earlier post for reasons why.

The announcement is expected sometime in the next week. In the meantime we can all relish in what a great episode "The Brig" was this week and look forward to what by all accounts sounds like an awesome season finale.