"Lost" Season Finale Caps Broadcast's Strangest Year

The strangeness surrounding the strikecompromised 200708 broadcast season just won39t stop even at this late date Case in point The seasonfinale of Lost a threehour extravaganza that qualifies as one of the television events of the year will be telecast on ABC tonight eight days after the end of the quottraditionalquot broadcast seasonAs they do every year at this time questions about Lost abound Will Locke quotmovequot the island Why are members of the Oceanic 6 lying about their island experiences What will happen to the rest of the survivors How does Ben get off the island He isn39t one of the Oceanic 6 but we know from flash forwards that he returns home seeking revenge for the murder of his daughter What39s up with Jack39s quotdeadquot dad and his half sister Claire What happened to the other island where the Others are based Those are some of the new questions Many old ones remain such as What is the smoke monster and the everpopular What the heck is going on hereTechnically the quottraditionalquot broadcast season ended on Wednesday May 21 a great night for television by the way thanks to the twohour season finale of American Idol The still formidable Idol proved that even after an iffy season it could rally and produce one of those outsized events that only a broadcast network can deliver But bigticket original programming continued the following night as ABC39s Grey39s Anatomy ended its season with an extended event of its own that proved to be as entertaining as any two hours of scripted broadcast television had been all season For me Grey39s had lost creative focus many months ago its characters suddenly so irritating and immature that they were painful to listen to though still nice to look at Last week39s show won me back in a big wayLike Idol39s resurgence the night before Grey39s creative comeback was thrilling to experience Unlike Idol though its grand season finale was scheduled outside the quottraditionalquot 200708 broadcast season not to mention the allimportant May sweeps period Indeed the Grey39s finale started a mere 22 hours after the season ended To quote Maxwell Smart a beloved television character of yesteryear who may reenter the zeitgeist if the upcoming feature film remake of Get Smart starring Steve Carrel is a hit Grey39s quotmissed it by that muchquotWhich brings me back to tonight39s twohour season finale of Lost part of a three hour event if you count the repeat of the May 15 episode that will run just before the finale at 8 pm ET In quottraditionalquot TV terms this muchanticipated wrap of Lost39s fourth season has been banished to the broadcast equivalent of Siberia a victim like Grey39s and Ugly Betty which also had its season finale last Thursday of the scheduling havoc wreaked by the WGA strike Is this any way to treat a series that has undergone a spectacular creative rebirth this year and proved to be a lifeline for fans of quality scripted television a few months ago when network lineups had been largely ravaged by strikeinterruptus Eight fresh episodes of Lost ran in February and MarchOnce upon a time I might have answered quotYou bet it ain39tquot But these days what does it matter Yes the ratings for Lost39s muchhyped seasonender won39t help ABC39s inseason or insweep performance and yes those same ratings might be suppressed by a possible loss of viewer momentum during the last two weeks But given the way people now consume television it isn39t as if fans of the show aren39t going to see it sooner or later via DVR DVD download or streaming video The availability of the Lost season finale like that of Grey39s merely begins with its network debut which plays to ABC39s signature message Start HerePerhaps we can look at this unusual scheduling of the Lost season finale not as a delayed ending to the quottraditionalquot broadcast season but as the start of ABC39s summer All of the broadcasters have scheduled an unprecedented amount of original programming over the next three months some of it scripted fare CBS39 Swingtown NBC39s Fear Itself most of it unscripted They know they can no longer afford to treat summer as unimportant and allow cable to steal the spotlight between Memorial Day and Labor Day as it did last year with a number of high quality scripted series and many irresistible reality shows That39s why Fox loaded the season finale of American Idol with dancers from its summer series So You Think You Can Dance which debuted the following night Surely tonight39s presentation of Lost will be an excellent promotional platform for the many ABC series slated to premiere in the weeks ahead

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"Lost" Season Finale Caps Broadcast's Strangest Year

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Ed Martin

The Ad Council, Huntsman Mental Health Foundation and Amazon Announce “The Mind Set” to Support Mental Health - Ad Council InSites

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"Lost" Season Finale Caps Broadcast's Strangest Year

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