Three more seasons of LOST

LOS ANGELES - ABC is trying to rescue once-hot Lost - about plane-crash survivors on a surreal island - by ending the show ... in 2010.

The series will play out in three shorter and uninterrupted seasons until its "shocking finale" in the 2009-10 season, ABC said Monday.

Lost, which saw its ratings drop this season amid complaints about scheduling, an increasingly meandering plot and unpopular new characters, still must prove itself to survive.

"We knew [the series] would require an end date to keep the integrity and strength of the show consistent throughout and to give the audience the payoff they deserve," ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson said in a statement.

Typically, networks milk a series until the ratings plummet and then drop the ax. But last January, Lost producers said they were talking with the network about setting an end date.

Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse plan to remain with the show, now in its third season, through the end, ABC said. Lindelof created the show with J.J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber.

"We always envisioned Lost as a show with a beginning, middle and end," Lindelof and Cuse said in a statement. "By officially announcing exactly when that ending will be, the audience will now have the security of knowing that the story will play out as we've intended."

Over each of the next three seasons, 16 episodes will air without a break.

That scenario will counter a multitude of viewer complaints about reruns that left them dangling.

ABC's effort to make this a two-part season for Lost by pausing midway to make room for another show, the canceled Day Break, proved to be a flop.

Serial dramas with complex plots, like Lost or CBS' Jericho, have found it difficult to regain viewers after a break.

The average number of episodes for a series is 22, which isn't enough to stretch through an entire season without reruns or a hiatus.

Lost once drew an impressive 20 million-plus viewers as it helped raise ABC from the ratings basement and won the 2005 Emmy for best drama.

But now Lost has taken a nosedive, with recent episodes drawing 12 million or fewer viewers. A time-slot change, to 9 p.m. Wednesday against CBS' CSI: NY, was a factor.

Viewership numbers don't reflect how many people save the shows on their digital video recorders to watch more than 24 hours later, and Lost gains viewers when the DVR audience is taken into account.

The ensemble cast includes Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly among the survivors of Oceanic Air flight 815 and Michael Emerson as the leader of the dangerous "Others" who live on the island.

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