With Six-Minute Maneuver, Fox's Gain Is ABC's 'Lost'

The heralded return of ABC's "Lost" attracted the show's smallest season-debut audience ever: 11.4 million viewers this week.

In honor of the return of "Lost" -- a heavily serialized drama that requires you to remain chained to your seat because if you miss a minute, you will never figure out what's going on -- Fox wanted its own prime-time lineup to be all that it could be that night. Upon closer inspection, Fox discovered that the night's Louisville auditions episode of its "American Idol" was so very rich in material that it needed to run three minutes long. That's also known as The First Three Minutes of the "Lost" Season Debut.

Fox's love of its "American Idol" episodes is like a rash that breaks out periodically. Mysteriously, it often seems to coincide with the return of an important franchise on the ABC lineup.

Two years ago, for instance, Fox fell so in love with an episode of "Idol" -- in which Gwen Stefani graciously agreed to mentor the Idolettes, so long as they did not touch her or make direct eye contact -- it decided that the episode cried out for an additional seven minutes of airtime, which, sadly, meant it would overlap with seven minutes' worth of the first result show that season of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars."

ABC, feeling that Fox's gesture deserved some recognition, decided to start the dancing-competition's results show four minutes late. It's wonderful, the collegiality that exists among broadcast-network suits out there in Los Angeles. Really, a lesson to the world: If only people behaved more like broadcast-network execs, this would be a better place.

Sensing a three-minute homage to the return of "Lost" just wasn't enough, Fox decided to pay further tribute to the convoluted ABC series by also extending the unveiling of its new, totally-not-like-"The Mentalist" procedural drama -- "Lie to Me" -- an additional three minutes to bring to six minutes the additional time its series would be able to swim alongside the ABC island drama, like a dolphin.

Unfortunately, Fox does not program the 10-11 p.m. hour, so it could not do more.

And yes, "Lie to Me" wound up luring 12.4 million viewers away from "Lost," but that cloud was not without its silver lining.

Fox will tell you -- or maybe not -- the great news: that the "Lie to Me" opening audience is the second biggest ever for a drama-series unveiling out of an "Idol" episode. Because 12.4 million of you watched, it ranks behind only last year's "New Amsterdam" kickoff, which 13.5 million of you caught in the time slot last March.

Too bad "New Amsterdam" only lasted about eight more episodes. Turns out, there isn't such a big market in this country for series about a 17th-century soldier who, thanks to some Native American chick, can't age until he finds his true love and decides that hanging out in New York is the best way to avoid finding her. It's a strategy that had served him well for 400 years.

The opening of the totally-not-like-"The Mentalist" drama "Lie to Me" is the season's second biggest new-series launch, behind only -- oh, look -- "The Mentalist"!

"The Mentalist," a procedural crime drama -- about an unconventional guy who uses his talent for reading people's gestures, tics and body language to help authorities solve crimes -- copped 15.6 million viewers in its first broadcast, last fall.

Although "Lie to Me" is totally not like "The Mentalist," according to "Lie's" cast and creator -- "Lie" is about an unconventional guy who uses his talent for reading people's gestures, tics and body language to help authorities solve crimes and unearth potential political sex scandals -- Fox suits saw how well "The Mentalist" was doing this season and decided to change plans for "Lie to Me." Fox gave it the best time slot in TV, in the mistaken belief the shows were similar.

Meanwhile, ABC asks that we be sure to tell you that while last January's "Lost" season debut in fact attracted a substantially larger crowd -- more than 16 million viewers -- it opened in the teeth of the writers' strike against considerably less stiff competition, which included repeat programming on CBS and an "Idol"-free Fox.

That is like asking us to stand up on the Metro to give our seat to an old lady: We're only too happy to offer concessions to ABC, but it does diminish "Lost's" hipness factor by about 23 percent.

Until this week, last January's season debut of "Lost" had been its least-viewed opener.

And, of course, Wednesday's "Lost" episode also came in shy of the other "Lost" season debuts, when there was no writers' strike. But it's the fate of all heavily serialized, mythology-saturated dramas to open big -- if they're lucky -- and then lose viewers over the course of their lives. It's like being the hippest nightclub in Hollywood. As opposed to, say "The Mentalist" which you can enter anytime and feel welcome -- like going to your neighborhood bar for a drink.