Final two 'Lost' seasons get extra hour

[sofien72tu]

The final two seasons of Lost will each be an hour longer than previously planned, it has been announced.

ABC, the show's US home, has upped its order for 2009 and 2010 to compensate for two hours dropped from this year's run due to the writers' strike.

Co-creator Damon Lindelof said: "We were supposed to do 16-16-16. But we ended up doing 14 this season, so we owe two."

Lindelof also ruled out an extension past 2010 and revealed plans for this season's upcoming final episode.

"Carlton Cuse (executive producer) and I worked so hard to get the show to end that I think to suddenly say, 'Oh, I think we got another season in us' would be a betrayal to everybody involved in the show - but most of all the audience."

He added: "The finale this year will not be as tricky as last year. 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."

Lindelof also offered some cryptic comments on the role of the show's flash-forward scenes, and where and when upcoming seasons would be set.

"It's very exciting that the audience is going to be wondering when is the present going to be," 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."

Before 2010's final episode, Lindelof added, he and Cuse would run off to an "undisclosed location" so they cannot be grilled on "What does it mean?": "The fact that there's no one really around to answer that question, it forces people to come up with what they think it means. We can guarantee our show will not end with a cut to black, it will be more clear than that."