As first reported by Daily Variety's Michael Schneider, then confirmed by ABC, "Lost" will be back on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 9 p.m. with a two-hour premiere for the sixth and final season. The regular timeslot will be Tuesdays from 9-10.Several reasons to applaud this move:
1)There is nothing on Tuesdays at 9 that I care about (though "Scrubs" and "Better Off Ted" will be airing there in between the end of "Dancing with the Stars" and the return of "Lost").
2)It means ABC didn't feel the need to hold the return until after the Winter Olympics (which run from Feb. 12-28), or, worse, to air the season in two chunks, one before the Vancouver Games, one after. Not everybody wants to watch bobsledding, but network executives seem to live in fear of the Olympics, even now that they're less popular than they used to be.
3)This is more a personal interest, but it means the episodes (other than the two-hour premiere and finale) will be done airing at 10. The periods when "Lost" has aired from 10-11 have been a killer for me in terms of staying up to write about it. Plus, it means you'll get to read said reviews earlier.
Finally, a reminder about the No Spoilers portion of the commenting rules. Cuse and Lindelof have been pretty stringent about protecting info for this final season, not even letting ABC show any footage of the season before it airs, and I don't want to see any discussion in the comments about spoilers you've read on message boards, or things you've heard from your cousin's best friend who just came back from a Hawaiian vacation, or whatever messages have been transmitted directly into your brain via Walt Lloyd. Got it?