I'll guess probably 5. I know the show's been dipping a bit in the ratings, but strangely, I like this season much more than the last. The overall mystery and plot about the island itself has become a little stagnant, but I feel the show has become more character-driven: the dynamics between Sawyer and Kate, Kate and Jack, Jack and the new chick (forgot her name)...., and even Desmond's background.... everyone seems more interesting to me this year than the last. But... the overall viewing audience is still probably expecting major sci-fi plot-twists and such from this show.... and are getting turned away when they realize it's become a little...... different.

Lost still does really well in the 18-49 demo.

I have no doubt Lost will go 5 seasons. Which means we're just barely halfway through the Lost story.

I'm sure we will continue to have viewers that complain the show isn't anwering enough questions but still continue to watch every episode.

I think it will go a full fourth season, with a shortened half-season for season 5 to wrap up the big mysteries. If the producers really did want to listen to the fans, they could easily wrap it up on the 108th hour of the show. 25 hours (Season 1) + 24 hours (Season 2) + 23 hours (Season 3) + 23 hours (Season 4) + 13 hours (shortened Season 5) = 108 hours of LOST. It will go down as a great wink to the fans and to the numbers.

If you get rid of the fillers, probably a single box set would do

One of the major hurdles Lost will face if it continues to lose steam is the fact that it is very expensive to produce since it is shot on location in Hawaii and has such a large cast. This story was cited on Wikipedia. It talks about the expense of shooting in Hawaii. The thing is that this story is two years old. Two years ago, the ratings were still very good and the show had crazy buzz, and ABC was already talking of finding a new place to shoot. If things don't pick up, I can't imagine they'll continue to shoot in Hawaii.

If I look back on all the episodes of LOST, there are only one or two episodes a season that I could really define as "filler", which isn't very much in a season that runs 22-25 episodes like LOST. It's funny because many other series are guilty of adding in far more often than what LOST does, yet LOST cops all this flak for it. The episodes I consider to be filler are 1.12 "Whatever The Case May Be", 1.21 "The Greater Good", 2.12 "Fire + Water", 2.19 "S.O.S", 3.10 "Tricia Tanaka Is Dead", 3.14 "Expose". All the other episodes either developed the overall plot or a character in a decent sort of way.

I also call a full fourth season and a shortened fifth season (12-22 hours/episodes). I'd also like to see the number 108 figure into as well.

Regarding syndication, I don't think "syndication" is the same powerhouse it used to be. Rights are now generally bought up by cable networks (X-Files on SciFi), or the shows are replayed on a subsidiary of the parent company (Buffy on F/X). Selling syndication packages to local stations doesn't seem like it's much of a priority anymore. So the need to have a minimum of 100 hours probably doesn't apply anymore.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Lost is an in-house Buena Vista production (meaning the parent company, Disney owns the show and the ABC network) so that's a little more incentive for them to keep the show around despite sagging ratings. They will reap all profits from DVD sales and cable/syndication deals.

off topic....

when Lost is finally over and wrapped up, who thinks there will be major plotholes in the series and a number of unanswered questions?
Lost fans will be picking apart the show and posting hundreds of topics on this for months IMO.

I feel there will be some big unanswered questions, yes (the Numbers is one that I'm absolutely sure will be left hanging; "Adam and Eve" is another). But by the end we will have received the majority of the answers we were seeking, and we will have a really emotional series finale that will satsfy fans regardless of a few dangling questions.

i hope it ends next year

If ratings keep dropping each week, its going to be too expensive to produce.

'Lost' Takes Costly Tumble In Ratings
Loses half a million viewers, according to overnights

By MICHAEL HINMAN
Source: Zap2it
Mar-29-2007

Right now, "Lost" on ABC is trying to hold its own against "CSI: NY" on CBS in its Wednesday 10 p.m. ET timeslot. But soon, it might be trying to fight to stay out of last place with "Medium" on NBC after "Lost" posted one of its lowest overnight ratings yet, a 6.8 rating/12 share according to Fast Nationals from Nielsen Media Research.

That was more than half a million viewers compared to who tuned in the previous week to see how John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) ended up in a wheelchair. It also was about the same number less than who decided to watch a rerun of CSI instead, which picked up a 7.2/12. However, Zap2it reports that "Lost" had more total viewers.

ABC's luck with Wednesday night isn't helping "Lost" at all. Its immediate lead-in, "According to Jim" and "In Case of Emergency," had an average that was less than "Lost's" total audience -- a 3.0/5. In the 8 p.m. timeslow, with no "American Idol" on Fox, ABC did even worse, its "Great American Dream Vote" getting far less viewers than "America's Next Top Model" on The CW, which earned a 3.4/6.

ABC certainly felt it overall. The Disney network finished fourth for the night with a 4.3/7 behind Fox (9.5/16), CBS (6.6/11) and NBC (4.6/8).

Fast Nationals usually provide a snapshot of what Americans are watching by pulling numbers from the top urban markets that includes both live viewing and same-day timeshifted viewing. A rating point generally represents more than 1.1 million households while the share indicates the percentage of televisions turned on that was tuned to the specific program. These numbers typically shift when final ratings are issued.

The ironic thing is that the show may end up being as long as the creators/writers wanted it to be, but for the wrong reasons. IIRC, they originally figured 4/5 seasons would be ideal, but ABC execs wanted them to uncover things more slowly so the show would run longer.

ABC got greedy and it back fired. I think I remember reading recently that they had renewed the show for something like 5 more years and extended Littleoff and Cuse's contracts for the show even though the show was already dipping in the ratings.
Did they really think that moving the story slower would actually make more people tune in and keep the ones already watching happy? And they make how much a year???

The numbers was explained during the online game doing the off-season. Of course millions of casual viewers don't know about this.

If it's not explained on the show, then it's not explained. I don't want to have to do tons of research to understand a big plot point on the show.

Yeah I know where you are coming from.

All the online stuff rewards the hardcore fans, but the casual viewer (which probably represents the majority of the viewers) will be missing out.

What was the explanation? I couldn't find anything about it.

http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Numbers

"It has been revealed in The Lost Experience that these six numbers are the core values of the Valenzetti Equation, a mathematical formula designed to predict the end of humanity. The purpose of the DHARMA Initiative is to change the factors leading to humanity's demise, which will be indicated by an alteration in at least one of these numbers."

The casual viewer will probably not care about the numbers. And yes, my insistence that the numbers will be a mystery left unanswered is because they were already adressed in the LOST experience.

I'm not a casual fan, but I also don't have the time or inclination to chase down a bunch of clues and hunt for hidden websites all over the internet. I'm sorry, but if it's important to the mythology of the series it needs to be dealt with in the series.

Also, I'm not nearly as peeved at Heroes for doing the online comic books that fill in gaps in the storyline or do parallel plotlines (like they're doing now, with a six parter centering on what the "Wireless" character is up to) since they're easy to find right on the website and I can download them easily to my hard drive.

Schedule for ABC’s Lost Changing Again?

This season ABC’s acclaimed series "Lost" is on at 10 p.m. instead of 9, and the decision to push the series forward an hour to a later timeslot for a more mature audience hasn’t really paid off in any significant way. Then, the decision came to go on hiatus for three straight months and come back to a nonstop spring season in February. And, the second half running forward with no repeats is refreshing, especially when some networks (FOX and The CW, for example) are running one or two new episodes followed by three weeks of repeats or some other kind of vexing programus interruptus.

According to Sci Fi Wire, "Lost" star Naveen Andrews said that he believes "Lost" may be heading in the direction of just starting the season in January and foregoing the hiatus and rerun speedbumps all together.

"Lost" going nonstop is a good idea, but it’s a borrowed one. FOX’s "24" went nonstop from January because the show was such a runaway success and the real time format lent itself all too well to a schedule that was blissfully free of interruptions. While "24" did it because the show gets better every season, "Lost" may be implementing the same strategy to keep ratings from getting worse.

Fans don’t seem to be the only ones looking to the earlier episodes of the series to recall its brilliance. Andrews said this, which sounds as optimistic for the show’s beginnings as it does ambiguous for the show’s future; "I loved the first season. Now I'm really proud of it, and I put it up there with the work that I'm most proud of, and we'll always have it. They can't ever take it away. It'll always be there. And, you know, I'm not a writer. It's their choice to do what they want to with that show, and they will."

The show has gone downhill since the beginning half of the second season, and where last year there may have been one great episode to every four mediocre episodes, this season seems to have one great episode to every six or seven. The ratio is dropping out of the show’s favor, and altering the schedule for a serial show in favor of a regular pace and constant momentum to keep stories and characters flowing is only half the battle, because the plot has to flow too. As do the answers, I might add.


MOVIESONLINE.ca

That's just another media report jumping on the bash LOST bandwagon. I'm surprised they too didn't try and use the show's title in some sort of pun (Here's a suggestion -- "ABC's 'Lost' needs to 'find' its place in the primetime schedule" ...or "ABC's Wednesday night dominance is all but 'Lost'" )

They can go fuck off ... The third season of LOST is far better than the second and creeping up there towards the first.

Agreed...I think most people would also agree that these past 4 or 5 episodes have been really good, and if it continues S3 will definitely be better than S2 and about on par with S1 (on a whole...S1 the first handful of eps were incredible).

Because you pretty much have to watch most if not all the preceeding episodes to understand what is going on in the current episode. It's not like seinfeld, King of Queens, or Law and order where you can have missed any of the preceeding episodes and still follow what is going on. This is why their ratings are going the way they are. Veiewers that were watching it from the begining have given up on it and it's not picking up many new viewers because they would have to watch all the DVD's from the other seasons to catch up and understand what is happining.

makes me long for the days when Lost was on at 8pm

FWIW, I am enjoying most of the episodes of Season 3 that actually serve the move the story forward, the others not at all. I guess I disagree with the majority here in thinking season 1 was so fantastic. It was good don't get me wrong but I almost gave up on the show after that Season Finale where they FINALLY got the hatch opened but made us wait until the season premier to see what was inside. That was perhaps one of the most irritating moments in TV history for me.