Halfway There?

The return of Lost and its run of sixteen non-stop all-new episodes is still a month away, but ABC is already discussing how to schedule Lost next year, as well as when the series will end.

Stephen McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment, told a meeting of television writers here on Sunday that after the experience of several failed or mediocre new serials this year — including “Day Break,” “The Nine” and “Six Degrees” — the network has fewer of those types of shows in development.

And for “Lost,” the biggest of the ABC serials, the network is now discussing with the producers how and when to end the series, Mr. McPherson said.

Damon Lindelof, one of the executive producers of “Lost,” said that the show’s creators had always viewed it as lasting about 100 episodes, and that he still believes that will be the case. Fifty-three episodes have been broadcast so far, with the show in its third season, meaning that it is likely that the fifth season will be the last.

“We’re no longer going up the hill,” Mr. Lindelof said. “We’re starting to come down now.”

Mr. Lindelof also said that while ABC has the ability to extend the series as long as it wants, with different producers and even different stars, he believes that the network is unlikely to do so.

“We don’t want to produce those episodes of ‘Lost,’ and we are not going to,” Mr. Lindelof said. He cautioned against such a move, pointing out that as series like “The X-Files” and “Alias” extended their runs by making dubious creative decisions, their ratings suffered greatly as fans abandoned the shows in droves.

He said the network and the producers would announce the decision soon after it is made, to make sure that fans understand that the show has a definite endpoint, and that outstanding questions about the mysteries of the island will be answered.

...Mr. McPherson said he believes that the next season will run for 22 consecutive weeks, either in the fall of 2007 or the spring of 2008. Production requirements and scheduling necessities caused ABC to break up the series this season, he said.