"Lost" end in sight. If only Gilligan's Island had planned it this way

It's an unprecedented but necessary decision: ABC announced that Lost is coming back next season and plans for a firm ending in sight.

• The show will run for 3 more seasons.
• Each season to run 16 episodes, rather than the normal 22-24 episodes most shows do in a season, for a total of 48 episodes.
• Each 16 episode "season" will run uninterrupted, followed by a hiatus of some length. (Likely, new episodes January-May non-stop, similar to what we've seen the second half of this season.)
• Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse both get hearty paydays and development deals. No word on casting commitments, but I wouldn't trust them anyway. 48 more episodes is plenty of time to kill off characters. Who's going to be left standing at the end at this rate?

This season has suffered from lowered ratings and uneven writing. The ambitious scheduling plan of airing the first six episodes in a row, followed by twelve weeks with no episodes at all, and continuing consecutively with the next sixteen episodes, failed to capitalize on the show's momentum. Fans complained that the first six episodes spent too much time away from the beach cast, and kept everyone apart for too long. Also unpopular was the amount of time spent amongst The Others with no terribly compelling reveals, and the untimely end of the popular Mr. Eko (the actor chose this time to leave the show).

Since the break, I've been enjoying some great acting from Yunjin Kim as Sun and Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond. I love any scene with Terry O'Quinn as Locke (despite his Gilligan-like tendency to screw up escape plans) and Michael Emerson as Ben, and Josh Holloway as Sawyer acted the hell out of his scenes last week. Desmond's "unstuck in time" episode stands out as a favourite. Even Kate's last flashback wasn't half as annoying as her previous ones.

Now with a firm schedule leading to the end, the producers can nail down a timeline and plan everything out. ALOTT5MA pointed out that this will take the show up to 120 episodes, and if we follow the show's average "1 episode covers 3 days of Island time" formula, that will take us to about a year of Island Time for the castaways.

BTW: Anyone else worried about Sawyer being added to The Island mortality rate? He's accomplished his life's ambition, he's in love, and he's had sex on The Island. Surely these are all very bad signs based on what we've seen of Libby and Shannon. Plus he's helped out Locke, something that certainly helped shorten Eko and Boone's lifespan.

This week's episode centres around Ben's flashback.