The WGA strike is officially over. The 48 hour formal vote ended today with a 92.5% mandate. See industry source Daily Variety for full details.In immediate fallout, Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse met with his bosses at ABC about continuing Season 4, and reported the results of that meeting with TV Guide's Ausiello in an exclusive interview.
The two main points from that interview:
1) The aim is to produce FIVE more episodes of Season 4. This is three fewer than the eight scheduled before the strike occurred; the season's total will be 13 eps.
2) The entire order of 48 episodes for Seasons 4-5-6 will still be delivered-- that leaves 35 episodes to be split between Seasons 5-6.
In other words:
Season 4 is to be re-written to end with the same storyline elements as previously written, but in only 5 episodes. The three "lost" Lost episodes will somehow fill in the story arc of the remaining last two seasons.
Another lesser point is that there will be at least a 4 week hiatus between the broadcast of 4x08 and the new 4x09. Note that this may push the final episode of the season beyond the end of the Nielsen May sweeps period, so we may have been lucky to get even five eps. Read the rest of this fascinating interview here.
