'Lost' finally finds a home: Thursdays

ABC wants you to get lost.

Well, the folks at the network certainly hope you watch "Lost" when it returns at the end of January on a new night — Thursdays.

ABC announced that the fourth-season premiere of "Lost" will air Thursday, Jan. 31, at 8 p.m. That has been, over the past couple of seasons, one of the toughest time slots on television, but original episodes of "Lost" will be going up against repeats of CBS's "CSI," which will be out of new episodes by then because of the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America.

It's not as if "Lost" itself is untouched by the strike. Only eight of the 16 episodes planned for this season have been completed, and we'll be left with a cliffhanger when Episode 8 airs in March. But even if the strike were to end immediately and the show went back into production in time to complete the other eight episodes, we'd still end the season with a cliffhanger.

In case you missed it, ABC announced back in May that there would be three more seasons of "Lost" — each one consisting of 16 episodes — at which time the series would come to an end. As a matter of fact, the title of the episode scheduled to air Jan. 31 is "The Beginning of the End."

(Of course, those plans will have to be adjusted a bit in light of the strike.)

Placing "Lost" on Thursdays at 8 p.m. quite obviously means that "Grey's Anatomy" will be off the schedule. But it's but one of many series that has run out of original episodes anyway.

(And, no doubt, episodes of "Grey's" will show up in time slots ABC has reserved for drama repeats.)

The return of "Lost" is just one of a number of changes ABC has announced for the first three months of 2008, including the return of shows people actually care about (such as "Dancing With the Stars") and shows it's hard to imagine anyone cares about (such as "According to Jim").

Here's what to expect:

• "Eli Stone," a new hourlong drama about a lawyer who either has discovered a higher purpose ... or maybe it's just the aneurysm in his brain, will begin airing Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Jan. 31 — right after "Lost."

It comes to us from executive producer Greg Berlanti, who already has two shows on ABC's schedule ("Brothers & Sisters" and "Dirty Sexy Money") and who was also responsible for late, lamented, made-in-Utah "Everwood."

(The three remaining, unaired episodes of the canceled "Big Shots" will air Thursdays at 9 p.m. in January.)