After little more than a month of thrills and twists that have some fans feeling that the show is at its best ever, “Lost†is disappearing into the wilderness.
After tonight’s episode, only the sixth of the still-young fall television season, ABC will take “Lost†off the air for 13 weeks. The show will return on Feb. 7 for a run of 16 or 17 new episodes that will carry viewers into late May.
But the midyear split season is a scheduling gambit that could have enormous consequences not only for ABC, but also for the entire genre of serialized television drama, testing whether audiences are loyal enough to expensive, complex shows to weather long midseason interruptions.
Lengthy delays between seasons is a characteristic common to HBO and other premium channels, which have put popular series like “The Sopranos†on extended breaks to accommodate the plotting, script writing, filming and production schedules required to produce such cinematic shows.
But it is highly unusual for broadcast television, which still mostly adheres to a September-to-May season, to remove a show entirely from the schedule for three months in midyear.
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