Getting Lost

TV execs are worried and rightly so. More shows are being downloaded, legally and illegally and the digital video recorder is changing the way people are watching television.

The biggest way it is changing, especially for me, is how easy it is to skip commercials. We started watching Prison Break tonight about 15 minutes into the hour and were able to fast forward past all of the ads. This is what the execs worry about.

Then along comes Lost to help show them the way. Next month the show will launch a mystery game that will require fans to email each other, call phone numbers and to check out sites, billboards and TV commercials. Mmmm, can you smell the synergy?

The writers and producers are involved in the game, linking it to the twists and turns of the series and is not solely a marketing adventure. "We wanted to tell stories in a nontraditional way," said Lost writer and executive producer Carlton Cuse, "and there were certain stories that Damon [Lindeloff] and I were interested in telling that don't exactly fit into the television show."

"We purposely design the show with a big amount of ambiguity so people can theorize about what a certain scene means," Cuse said. "This allows the fans to participate in the process of discovery."

But just in case you think that this is being done just to add to the storyline, Cuse has one more hint to help you play the game: "Watch the May 3 episode very carefully. You can TiVo it, but don't skip the commercials.”

Not that there is anything wrong with that.