"Lost" gets additional hours in final two seasons

That nasty ol’ WGA Strike can’t keep a good thing down. And Lost is a good thing.

Because of the strike and the success of Lost, ABC has decided to extend the next two seasons to 17 episodes, instead of the 16 originally agreed upon.

That makes up for the two hours we’ll be missing out on this year, even though they did just recently add an hour to the finale on May 29th.

It makes me feel better that the Lost producers WANT those final two hours, because it seems like every episode matters and is important to them.

Yahoo.com reported this story, but also had some tidbits about the finale this year and other upcoming stuff.

The first thing is that the finale may not be as much as a “twist” as we’re used to seeing.

“The finale this year will not be as tricky as last year,” he said. “Hopefully, this year it’s a little bit more of a straightforward action-adventure narrative. But the ending of the episode will hopefully engage and intrigue people looking forward to the next season of the show.”

Will the current time on the Island (the present?) ever catch up with the flash-forwards and give us a new “present?”

“It’s very exciting that the audience is going to be wondering when is the present going to be (next season),” he said. “We’ve moved backward in time, now we’ve moved forward in time. The present of the show has always been on the island — that may not necessarily be the case in the future.”

And something great for us, in my opinion, there appears to be ZERO chance that the mess this up by somehow extending it another season out of nowhere.

“(Executive producer) Carlton Cuse and I worked so hard to get the show to end that I think to suddenly say, ‘Oh, I think we’ve got another season in us’ would be a betrayal to everybody involved in the show — but most of all the audience,” he said. “It’s better to retire your number at the top of your game.”