'Lost' Creators: We Know Where We're Going

The producers of "Lost" are looking to set a precise end-date for ABC's Emmy-winning thriller, which some critics say has lost its way this season.

A time line would help the show's creative team plot out the final story arcs of the marooned plane-crash survivors, executive producer Carlton Cuse told reporters Sunday.

"It's time for us now to find an end point for this show," Cuse said during ABC's portion of the Television Critics Assn. winter press tour in Pasadena. "It's always been discussed that the show would have a beginning, middle and end."

Cuse, who executive produces with Damon Lindelof, said there seemed to be "an underlying anxiety (among fans) that ... we don't know what we're doing."

He noted that "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling has said her series will end after the next book, "which gives everybody a sort of feeling of certainty that that story is driving toward a conclusion."

Some critics have blasted ABC's decision to launch the third season of "Lost" in the fall for seven weeks and then rest it for four months. It returns to ABC's schedule next month. ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson said they might be right, and next year he wants to go the route Fox does with "24," running all 20-something episodes consecutively with no repeats.

The success of "Lost" in its 2004 debut led the way for a parade of heavily serialized dramas. Like clockwork, the major networks dived head-first into serial territory this past season -- but with few successes. ABC misfired this fall with two cliffhanger-driven shows, "The Nine" and "Daybreak."

"The shows were incredibly well-produced," McPherson said. "We loved the shows creatively . . . It may have just been the timing."

He said both "Nine" and the poorly-rated freshman drama "Six Degrees" still have a chance to return to the schedule this spring despite being pulled. "Degrees," in fact, is in production to finish out its original 13-episode order.

In fact, many of ABC's rookie series have struggled to find their footing. That includes the comedy "The Knights of Prosperity," a half-hour built around the antics of an oddball group of New Yorkers who set their sights on robbing Mick Jagger. But McPherson said he was committed to comedy.

"The great thing is that people are taking chances," he said. "I mean, for us, taking chances is what redefined us ... We hope we can get a bigger audience for (comedies). But I also don't think that the sitcom is dead ... I believe that comedy is due to kind of explode."