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By James Hibberd Fri May 9, 1:34 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - ABC has found more hours for the final two seasons of "Lost." The 2009 and 2010 editions of the hit drama will be 17 hours each -- not 16, as previously planned.

ABC has added two hours to the show's production plan because the Writers Guild of America strike knocked three hours out of the current season. To partly compensate, the network recently added an additional hour to Part 2 of the season finale that airs May 29.

All told, the changes will wrap up the show with the same number of episodes that producers and ABC negotiated last year.

"We were supposed to do 16-16-16," "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof said. "But we ended up doing 14 this season, so we owe two."

Lindelof, however, ruled out the idea that the show might extend beyond the remaining 34-episode order.

According to Ask Ausiello, Team Dalton is in negotiations with ABC to produce an additional hour of Lost this season. This is not close to a done deal, but the possibility is very exciting!! There are plenty of scheduling conflicts that could sideline this proposal before it gets off the ground. The schedule is set for Lost to start on April 24th and end with a night of finales of Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy. So would this postpone the season finale one week or do the put it on a different night. Could we get two hours in one week!! This could get us closer to the original idea they had for this season and give us a more complete season 4. We will update you here at SWLS as this story develops.

Go, Joe!  Fresh on the heels of the very popular Transformers movie and with Iron Man poised at the gate, it would seem that our old toys and comic books have become the new breeding ground for big special effects and even bigger budgets.  Although, when Strawberry Shortcake versus Rainbow Brite hits the big screen I am sure it will be a sign of the coming apocalypse!

The latest Lost alum to find his way into the limelight, our very own Nigerian drug lord turned fake priest, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje, has landed a role in the new G.I. Joe motion picture set to open in August of 2009.  The film also stars Dennis Quaid as General Hawk; Channing Tatum, fresh from the current film Stop Loss, as GI Joe team leader, Duke; Rachel Nichols, from Alias and the new Star Trek movie, as Shana "Scarlett" O'Hara and Marlon Wayans as Ripcord.

On May 9, Matthew Fox will star in the cartoon classic Speed Racer. Larry and Andy Wachowski, of The Matrix trilogy fame, direct the story of Speed Racer and the mysterious Racer X. This promises to be a stylistic and revolutionary visual live action movie. Speed Racer must team with Racer X to win the difficult cross-country race called The Crucible. This is the same race the killed Speed Racer's older brother, Rex Racer. Matthew Fox (Racer X) is joined in the movie by Emile Hirsch (Speed Racer), Susan Sarandon (Mom Racer), John Goodman (Pops Racer) and Christina Ricci (Trixie). You can see the trailer at www.speedracerthemovie.warnerbros.com.

The only good thing about the upcoming hiatus, is that we have March Madness to fill the void! We're inviting all SWLS members to join us once again this year in a friendly brackets competition. Pick your teams, fill out the online bracket manager, and see how you do against other SWLS members. The winner takes home bragging rights, but mostly, it's all about having a lot of fun and enjoying the games with other friends for SWLS. If you'd like to participate, instructions on how to sign up can be found here. Good luck to everyone! The deadline for submitting your brackets is 11 AM EST on Thursday prior to the start of Round 1 games.

"Eggtown" turned in the lowest numbers of the season in SWLS episode ratings, and segment ratings. Does this mean we're getting tired of Kate and her story? Or were viewers just wanting a little more Lostian action and mystery? "Eggtown" (not my favorite episode title), was had a fairly strong story, but was also pretty straightforward. Of course, that is because they were trying their hardest to set us up at the end, when we thought we'd see mini-Sawyer in the crib, only to find out it was devil-baby, Aaron. Other than that, there weren't a lot of twists, hidden eggs, or mysteries for us to consider.

I'm betting ratings will improve with tonight's "The Constant". A lot of people are wondering what happened to Lawnmower Man, Desmond and Sayid when they coptered off the island, and hopefully, tonight we get that answer. The Desmond-centric episodes usually deliver, so lets hope that trend continues with episode 4x05, "The Constant". Given the apparent time-distortion phenomena we've seen in this season already, what can we expect from a Desmond McFly centric episode? I can't wait!

Last week on Lost we learned that Sayid was one of the Oceanic 6, but since being rescued and returned to normal life, he's taken on quite a new and interesting career choice...as Ben Linus' henchmen, apparently hunting down and killing people who Ben claims are a danger to the others. Whether he meant the other Oceanic 5, the rest of the 815 survivors still on the island, or both is still unknown. Or is Ben, once again, lying and bending the truth in order to meet his own needs? This probably has us all wondering what could possibly have convinced Sayid to trust Ben.

Ratings for last week's episode were down slightly, although it still finished in 4th place for the week with 13.8 million viewers. The episode did air on Valentine's Day, which could have accounted for a loss of some viewers.

The remainder of this article may include some mild spoilers. More after the jump.

LOST certainly gave us a few answers in last weeks "Confirmed Dead", but not without raising a heck of a lot of new questions. Like the Dharma polar bear in the Tunisian desert. Or why the not-penny's-boat people want Ben. And, who exactly are these people, and how do they know so much about the truth of Flight 815 and the island? One thing is certain, tonight's episode, "The Economist", is sure to give us more mysteries to ponder (or maybe even a few answers). The fourth season of LOST has been off to a great start, and we hope the trend continues tonight in Sayid's centric episode.

The remainder of this article may include some mild spoilers. More after the jump.

Executive producer Carlton Cuse has revealed the plans for extending Season 4 of LOST past the eight completed episodes now that the writers' strike has ended. In an interview with Michael Ausiello at TV Guide, Cuse explains:

Damon [Lindelof] and I are going to try to make five more episodes before the end of May, which is ambitious. But we've found ourselves in a situation where we had eight episodes of story planned, and we're going to try to fit that into five hours of the show. Even though it's going to be very hard to execute, we felt like any less would be doing a disservice to the story we had planned. We really want to give the fans the best possible experience and ending... to Season 4.

That leaves three missing episodes that will be... lost. Although those three Season 4 episodes will be gone forever, Cuse says they remain committed to delivering the number of episodes planned. That means we'll likely see those three episodes (no longer Season 4 storyline) added to Seasons 5 and 6. Cuse also says there will be a four week break this season (rumored to be after episode 8, but some say it may come after episode 7, and lump 8 in with the five new episodes). There is also a rumor out there that the second half of the season will see LOST move to a 10PM slot on ABC, after Grey's Anatomy.

As reported earlier this week by Juggy, the strike has officially ended (See the WGA letter here). I was talking to my buddy, DocArzt, today about how the end of the strike will effect the current season of LOST. Inside sources are telling him we will get 3-6 new episodes, but not the full eight the season is currently lacking. To accommodate this, it is likely the fall TV season will be pushed back to the end of June, meaning there will be a short hiatus of a month or less. No news yet on what will happen with Season 4 episodes that won't be produced for this season. With the fifth season scheduled to begin production in July, there has not been any word on whether or not will see an expanded fifth and/or sixth season, or if the missing episodes will be dropped (or rolled into some other medium). You can read more from DocArzt himself right here.