'24' is off, 'Lost' is on

Strike one, and "24" is out. "Lost," on other hand, is still on deck.

What with the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, Fox has announced that the new season of "24" will not premiere in January as scheduled. It hasn't been canceled and will return to production when the strike finally ends, but network programmers — quite correctly — have decided that it would make no sense to go ahead and air the episodes that have already been produced when it doesn't know when the full complement of 24 hours will be completed.

Fans might be disappointed, but it would be nothing compared to their disappointment if, midway through the season, they had to wait who-knows-how-long for the action to continue.

ABC, on the other hand, is still planning to premiere the fourth season of "Lost" in February (day and time TBA), even though only eight of the 16 episodes planned for this season have been completed.

The eighth episode ends with a cliffhanger and ABC is betting viewers will come back to see it resolved. Eventually.

"Lost" and "24" aren't in exactly the same situation. While each "24" season is self-contained with a Big Finale in Episode 24, "Lost" continues from season to season. ABC has already announced the show will conclude at the end of Season 6 (after three 16-episode seasons), so even if there was no strike, Season 4 would end with a cliffhanger.

So maybe ABC isn't taking such a big chance after all.

There is some precedent in all of this. The last time the writers went out on strike — way back in 1980 — viewers had to wait eight months to find out who shot J.R. on "Dallas." That episode was the most-watched of any in television history at the time; 27 years later it's still No. 2 on the list (trailing only the finale of "M*A*S*H").

However, "Dallas" was the No. 1 show on television back in 1980 with a viewership that dwarfs anything on TV today. And in 1980, cable was still in its infancy, DVDs were nonexistent and the Internet was in the realm of science fiction for most Americans.

The big fear is that whoever "wins" in the battle between the Writers Guild of America and the producers, it will be a pyrrhic victory — that television as we know it will never be the same.

FOX HAS ANNOUNCED a new schedule for early 2008 that assumes that the strike won't be resolved soon:

• Friday nights will be filled with "Bones" (7 p.m.) and "House" (8 p.m.) repeats beginning Jan. 4.