I've been asked about how Lost is going to be affected by the Writers Guild strike from a bunch of people - and about the strike itself from a slightly smaller number of people - so I'm finally writing the definitive explanation. Just keep in mind that it's hard to be "definitive" because there might possibly be good news on the horizon: the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) finally agreed to go back to the bargaining table starting tomorrow at 10:00 am. Knock on wood, everybody.

For over two weeks now, the Writers Guild of America has been on strike. There are many terms that they're looking for, but the two most significant are these:

• Back when the DVD was still an experimental, expensive new technology, the WGA and the AMPTP signed a contract that entitled a writer to 4 cents for every DVD sold of a movie that they've written. That amount has remained fixed even though producers and studios have gone on to reap the benefits of DVDs, which have proven to be cheap to produce and enormously profitable. The writers are now asking for 8 cents.
  

• While a very select few writers make in the seven-figure range per movie project, the vast majority of writers pay the mortgage with the help of residuals (getting paid for your work whenever it airs, each time it's rerun, etc.). There are two areas where deals for residuals haven't been ironed out yet: the Internet (streaming video, downloading, etc.) and new media (Blu-ray, HD-DVD, etc.). Writers want good rates for residuals in these areas now so that what happened with DVDs won't happen again.

The day before the strike started two weeks ago, a 10-hour marathon session of negotiations was taking place that ultimately proved unsuccessful simply because they ran out of time: late at night, word came that the WGA East had already started striking, and both sides walked out. However, progress was being made in that session. The writers had taken their DVD proposal off the table in exchange for concessions from the AMPTP including compensation for streaming video.

But then the strike began. Writers everywhere walked out of what they were doing. Many shows stopped production immediately - The Office, 30 Rock, more. Future blockbuster movies like Angels & Demons were forced to be pushed back. All late-night comedy shows went dark immediately. The crew on many shows - notably dozens of workers on SNL - were laid off. And if the strike continues, in a couple of weeks all shows will run out of new episodes, and TV will be in Rerun and Reality Hell.

Which brings us to Lost. Quite coincidentally, one of the WGA negotiators at that ill-fated session was none other than Carlton Cuse, best known as Lost's co-showrunner along with Damon Lindelof. A few days after the strike began, Entertainment Weekly, one of the show's biggest supporters (with four cover stories and counting, I believe), talked to Cuse:

ABC will soon have eight episodes in the can that it can begin airing after the first of the year (ABC has yet to announce a start date, though it seems likely the show will return in February). If the strike is prolonged and the scribes can't get back to work writing the rest of the episodes, fans are going to be stuck with the kind of stunted season they were forced to endure last year. "It will feel like buying a Harry Potter book, reading half of it, and then having to put it down for many months," explains Cuse. "There is a cliffhanger at the end of the eighth episode. It will only be frustrating [for viewers] to have to step away from the show and not see the second half of the season. ... The first half of the season, like a good novel, sets all the events of the show in motion and the second half deals with the consequences," Cuse continued. "We're very proud of the first eight but it feels weird to have to stop literally mid-stream."

Cuse later clarified some of his comments to TV Guide:

"Damon and my concern about running the [eight] episodes we will have made is that it will feel a little like reading half a Harry Potter novel, then having to put it down. There is a mini-cliff-hanger at the end of Episode 8, but it's like the end of an exciting book chapter; it's not the end of the novel. [...] No one was happy with the six-episode run last season."

So in a nutshell, eight episodes - half of the planned sixteen-episode season - are in the can. If the strike lasts long enough, it's possible that they could save the final eight for Fall 2008 to air before the sixteen-episode fifth season of early 2009 - essentially crafting a full 24-episode season out of the last half of season four and all of season five. Of course, then the arc of the show would be royally screwed up - we'd be getting a season finale in December and a season premiere a few weeks later. And heaven forbid the strike extend into 2008, the summer, or beyond...

Which is why I'm really hoping some progress is made at the negotiating table tomorrow. We're still operating in a small window of time right now - a few weeks to a month, maybe - in which Lost wouldn't have to be interrupted at all and could air February through May as if the strike never happened. Let's hope. I'm just mildly curious after the events of the Season 3 finale...