ABC Mimics Sopranos Fan Film

The great news is that "Lost" returns on ABC for eight episodes, starting on January 31st. And to help remind you of the events of the previous three seasons, ABC has put together an 8 minute 15 second video summarizing some of the key story points of the show.

"Catch Up On Lost!", created by ABC

And if the format of this retrospective seems familiar, it should. The ABC team borrowed the format of their clip from Paul Gulyas and Joe Sablas' fan film, "7 Minute Sopranos," which summed up "The Sopranos" previous six and a half seasons.

"7 Minute Sopranos," by Paul Gulyas and Joe Sabla

With the similar stylistic elements of the fast talking narrator, extremely quick clips, interspersed with a line of dialogue to punctuate a plot point or to get a laugh, as well as occasional sarcastic remarks by the narrator, we have ourselves a new 'retrospective' genre, essentially created by Gulyas and Sabla.

The Future of Television

The great folks over at The AVClub have a great article about the future of the American television seasons. Noel Murray and Scott Tobias have a fantastic in-depth discussion about 1hr dramas , 1/2 hour comedies, 13-episode seasons, 24-episode seasons, and more.

Personally, I think that quality network dramas (i.e. "Lost") would benefit significantly from switching to a 13-episode season. Yes, this means less money for the studio, but creatively it would mean significantly less 'filler' episodes, you know, episodes that do not forward the main mythology of the series. More meat, less fluff.

In its waining years, "The X-Files" had far too many 'filler' episodes. I mean, those last three years were all 'filler,' weren't they?

• Is the American TV Season Outmoded? (The AVClub)