FROM THE TV CRITICS TOUR.

`LOST' KEYS: Just as ``Lost'' prepares for the midseason premiere of its third year on the air on Feb. 7, its brain trust is already beginning to envision the end.

``One of the things we're in discussions with the network about right now is picking an end point to the show,'' revealed executive producer Carlton Cuse on Sunday at the semiannual TV press tour in Pasadena.

``I think that once we do that, a lot of the anxiety and a lot of these questions, like, `We're not getting answers,' a lot of those will go away,'' he continued, admitting, ``They really represent, I think, an underlying anxiety that this is not going to end well or that we don't know what we're doing. It's time for us now to find an end point for this show. It's always been discussed that the show would have a beginning, middle and end. Once we figure out exactly when that is going to be, I think a lot of these concerns will go away.''

As for how long the show might continue, co-creator Damon Lindelof said, ``The most honest answer we can give you is, for as long as it's good. I think I speak for everybody when I say none of us want to be doing a show that is the stalling show, that is ... not evolving.

``Otherwise,'' he added, ``it will seem reactionary to suddenly say, now that we're six episodes into one season too long, and then say, `Oh, this is the one where we always planned to end the show.' No one would believe us, and you couldn't blame them.''

``Lost'' has suffered what many a pop-culture phenomenon does -- the burden of weighty fan expectations. It hasn't always met them, with some fans complaining the show is spinning its narrative wheels. The series has lost about

5 million viewers from last season.

``What size audience does `Lost' deserve to have?'' Cuse pondered. ``No one expected the show to work. No one expected it to have a huge audience. There is a natural attrition due to the fact that this show requires vigilant maintenance. You have to keep up with it.

``And I think that there are people who fall away because it does require you to really keep up on the episodes. It's a complicated show. It's hard to drop in and out. I think we still have a very large audience, and we are happy with the audience we have,'' Cuse added.

``We want those viewers back,'' Lindelof said. ``We think we are producing episodes -- this next burst of episodes ... is in many ways a return to season one, more character-centric storytelling that is not as mythologically driven until we pick up the next story line.''

Cuse suggested that the media and rabid pockets of fans are more obsessed with the show's complex mythology than the overall fan base.

``We don't allow the characters to focus primarily on the mythology,'' he said. ``We want the characters to focus primarily on their relationships with each other. We view the show as a character show with a mythology frosting over the top. When we sit down and work on the stories, we're primarily spending most of our time talking about these characters and how they interact. If the characters focused on the mythology, a lot of people would drop out.

``There's a much larger audience that's much more interested in who Kate is going to choose than who Alvar Honso is.''

OK, then, so Evangeline Lilly, who stars as Kate, was asked, who would she prefer her character end up with -- Jack (Matthew Fox) or Sawyer (Josh Holloway)?

``Who do I want to end up with? Who do you want me to end up with?'' she replied. ``The obvious answer is whatever serves the story, and (Disney president) Bob Iger mentioned the other day to us that, at the end of `Moonlighting,' the show ended because the two main characters were brought together. So writers have a very tricky job in dealing with the romance on the show and when to bring them together and break them apart. I wouldn't claim to be smart enough to figure out what the best answer is for that.''

-- David Kronke

SIDESTEP: ``Dancing With the Stars'' will return March 19, but ABC has thoughtfully moved its time slot so that it won't be competing with ``American Idol.''

It will, however, be competing with ``Heroes,'' ``24'' and ``House.''

Entertainment president Stephen McPherson explained Sunday at the semiannual TV press tour in Pasadena why ``Dancing'' is sashaying to 8 p.m. Mondays and 9 p.m. Tuesdays.

``We wanted people not to have to choose between `Idol' and `Dancing,''' he said. ``The show's proven it can go different places and succeed. Our fans and `Idol' fans would've been upset if we just put them head to head. -- and there's room for them both on the schedule.''

The executive offered a postmortem on the spate of serialized programs that were kicked to the curb by audiences -- and subsequently the networks -- this season.

``We're all in hindsight right now, looking and saying, `How much stuff with that kind of a commitment can an audience make to an overall schedule?' '' McPherson said. ``There's so much good drama on right now that you're asking a lot of the audience. As we go into development this year, we have more stuff that is procedural or closed-ended in that sense.

``Shows that were big disappointments for us obviously were ``The Nine'' and ``Day Break,'' but the shows were incredibly well-produced,'' he continued. ``I don't look back and say, `Boy we should have done this differently and that differently.' It may have just been (bad) timing.''

He detected a trend that might suggest what viewers will see next season. ``If you look at all three of the hit new shows -- ``Heroes,'' ``Ugly Betty'' and ``Brothers & Sisters'' -- in their own way, they have escapism. I think ``The Nine'' -- it's a great show, but there is a dour nature and a hard edge to it. And I think that there is an escapism out there -- you'll see a little bit of an adjustment toward that.''

And ABC's continued inability to develop sitcoms that can attract audiences -- a malady currently affecting all the networks, actually -- remains vexing to McPherson.

``We have to stick with it,'' he declared. ``People say comedy's broken, but the great thing is that people are taking chances.''

-- D.K.

HIS `HEART' IS AT HBO: Now that Dick Wolf, the mastermind behind one of the most lucrative broadcast network franchises in history 7/8 ``Law & Order'' and its spinoffs 7/8 has tasted the HBO Kool-Aid, the network stuff has begun to taste a little thin.

``I'd do anything that HBO wants me to,'' Wolf said Friday afternoon at the semiannual TV press tour in Pasadena. ``I'd love to send some network people in there to intern there for a while.''

Wolf was on hand to promote his first project for HBO, an adaptation of Dee Brown's ``Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.''

``The attention to detail at every level at HBO is so much greater,'' Wolf exulted. ``Of course, the networks have 22 hours of programming to fill every week, and HBO doesn't have that. It was wonderful to work with people whose only aim is to get the best possible film they can on the screen. Networks are in the numbers game, which leads to decisions that aren't necessarily the best.''

``Bury My Heart'' concerns the American expansion toward the West and the devastating affects it had on American Indians. Adam Beach stars as Charles Eastman, a Sioux forced to assimilate into white culture.

``I definitely have a sense of responsibility in what I do in this industry,'' said Beach, a member of the Ojibwa Nation. ``I want to reflect a different perspective of who we are. Hollywood has left a stereotype that is wrong.

``There's a lot that needs to be told about American history, and it starts here,'' Beach continued. ``They were trying to make kids civilized, but they were trying to get rid of this whole culture of people.''

``This film is important; it may give viewers pause to think about the other things this country gets involved with,'' Wolf said. ``When any society says to another group -- that our way of life will be better for you and we have a better plan than you do, then you get in trouble. What works here isn't necessarily what will work there.''

HBO also brought out David Milch, late of ``Deadwood,'' apparently to mess with critics' minds. Milch's new project, ``John From Cincinnati,'' explores the surfing world on the San Diego-Tijuana border, or at least that's what the footage suggests. Milch averred that what the show really deals with is the nature of reality itself.

``Surfing is the door you work through, but there's more when you end up on the other side,'' Milch said.

If that's not cryptic enough, consider that, in a lengthy discourse, Milch cited both String Theory and William James, then said:

``To my mind, reality is a shifting and elusive condition. It redefines itself constantly. My actors find that one of my most endearing qualities, after they have conveyed the exact nature of their characters, is that I ask, `Can you simultaneously suggest exactly the opposite?' This takes place on the margins of things. Any attempt to identify the coordinates of reality is a problematic and conditional effort.''

Cast member Bruce Greenwood, asked how working with Milch differed from other writers and directors he'd collaborated with in the past, deadpanned: ``I think you've probably witnessed the difference in the past 20 minutes.''

Queen Latifah also offered a lengthy soliloquy, but at least hers was reasonably easy to follow. The star and executive producer of ``Life Support,'' about a wife and mother coping with HIV after contracting it from her drug-abusing husband, said she related to her character.

``I grew up in this area, experiencing some of the same things in some of the same places,'' she said. ``A lot of the character was not very far from me. I lost relatives to AIDS. I've lost friends to AIDS, high-school friends who never made it to their 21st birthday.

``The problem with AIDS is, we looked at it as a gay man's disease, and then we let everyone else catch it,'' she continued. ``AIDS is a disease out to kill all of us, to live in each of our bodies, and we're here to keep it out. You can't run from it. You have to be informed.''

Queen Latifah recalled the first time she tested for AIDS. ``It took two weeks to get the answer back,'' she recalled. ``I nearly lost my mind.''

Finally, documentarian Alexandra Pelosi shared a different insight on HBO. Pelosi, daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and writer/director/producer of ``Friends of God,'' a look at American evangelical Christianity, said that churches weren't wary of granting her access due to her mother's reputation as a liberal.

``It was a lot harder to walk into these churches and say `HBO' rather than mention my mother,'' Pelosi said. ``They call it `Hell's Box Office.'''

-- D.K.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) LILLY: Prisoner of love 

(2) QUEEN LATIFAH: Supporting `Life'