ABC says departing Abrams won't leave 'Lost' stranded
By Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff July 19, 2006

PASADENA, Calif. -- ABC president of entertainment Stephen McPherson yesterday sought to convince TV critics that J.J. Abrams , co-creator of the hit show ``Lost," will still be heavily involved with that show and two others on ABC's fall lineup, even though Abrams left Disney last week and moved his TV production company to Warner Bros.

``He will continue to be full- time on the shows," McPherson said at the Television Critics Association summer conference here. ``He's directing episodes of `Lost.' . . . It's a shame to lose him at the studio. My reaction is -- thank you for all your work."
Besides running ``Lost," one of ABC's crown jewels in recent seasons, Abrams' s production company Bad Robot is launching a much-anticipated new drama called ``Six Degrees" on the network this fall. ``What About Brian," another Abrams offering, also returns.
Over the weekend, Abrams -- who directed ``Mission: Impossible III" -- inked movie and TV production deals with Paramount and Warner Bros. reportedly worth $55 million. He'd previously been affiliated with Touchstone Television, which, like ABC, is owned by the Walt Disney Co .

McPherson said Abrams' s involvement with the ABC shows in the 2007-08 season is less certain. ``We'll have to deal with that next year. . . . His deal, as we understand it, is he's not rendering development services this year at all at Warner Bros. and he's just going to be working full time on our series. After that, we're expecting and hoping that he will be able to render services on our shows. We just don't know."

But could Abrams simply walk away? ``I don't think he ever will do that because he's just not that kind of guy," McPherson said. ``He feels very strongly about the stuff that his name is on. I think it's just going to be a question of how does he work it out with Warner Bros. to be as active as can be but still deliver on their deal."

ABC announced yesterday that ``Lost" will return for its third season on Oct. 4 and run uninterrupted for six weeks. After a break to allow time for production to catch up, the show will return in February and run straight through for an additional 16 episodes.
Last season, the show, about a group of survivors of a plane crash who are stranded on a mysterious island, was criticized heavily because multiple repeats made its story lines slow to unfold.

``We listened to the viewers," said McPherson.

But why not just run 22 episodes in a row, beginning in January, like Fox does with the hit series ``24"? ``That seemed like a long time to be off the air," McPherson said. ``We'll see how it works." ABC will have to spend ``a fair amount of money" to reintroduce ``Lost" to viewers in February, he said.

McPherson was defensive about his decision to cancel another serialized mystery show last season, ``Invasion." The series aired after ``Lost" but wasn't able to retain the same audience levels.

``We really liked the show," he said. ``It had brilliant performances. The story lines got better and better." Canceling it was a difficult decision, he said, because ``you can't point to any flaws in the show. I thought it was well done and deserved to be on . . . But the fall off [of audience share from `Lost'] was dramatic and continued to erode."

Critics asked whether ABC would be willing to produce a wrap-up episode of ``Invasion," even if it was only downloadable from the Internet.

``Given the revenue stream, how do you produce a $4 million per episode show" for the Internet? McPherson said.

He added that ABC has mapped out the story arc for the first season of ``The Nine," which follows the aftermath of nine survivors of a violent bank robbery. Likewise, the first 13 episodes of ``Day Break" are also plotted out, he said. In that show, starring Taye Diggs , a police officer will keep waking up to the same day (a la ``Groundhog Day") as he tries to figure out who framed him for murder. (source: boston.com)