A few months ago, ABC Entertainment announced that Lost - the company's top-rated show - will remain on the airwaves until 2010, when it will end with what
the network's president Stephen McPherson says is a 'highly anticipated and shocking finale'.
The news - like so much about the TV series - is controversial and has fired up the myriad blogs whose sole purpose is to dissect every minor detail on the show.
For many hardcore fans, the show should end well before then, going out on a high instead of when viewers are sick of it. For those who have already begun to tire of it, the news is wearying: how can it remain fresh for another three years?
That's a question many viewers have been asking since Lost first appeared on screens in the US in September 2004. The concept may not have been strikingly original -
40 survivors of a plane crash find themselves on a deserted island - but the telling of the back stories helped the series to become one of the hits of the year.
But by season two, even the most loyal fans were beginning to wither. The narrative was moving in a zillion different directions, situations came up that were never resolved or even referred to again. At times it even seemed like the executive producers of Lost, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, were making it up as they went along.
