Flash Forward sounds like an interesting twist. Personally, I love Lost - but many find it terribly frustrating with most of the episodes ending in questions with few answers. It has really captured an audience of young men in high school. My son has a whole group of guys who watch it religiously and compare their theories.

Julie, when I step back and look at the landscape of scripted TV programming, one of the things that is so different than just ten years and certainly twenty years ago is the popularity of 'serialized' shows -- series that aren't 'case-of-the-week' like Law & Order, but series that have a long narrative arc extending from one episode to the next. The CW used to be that TV viewers didn't have the patience or interest in those type shows, what if they missed some episodes, or the first season, how could you lure them in, etc.

Perhaps with the advent of all these services like iTunes and Hulu, which allow users to catch up on old episodes or watch episodes whenever they can, makes it easier to sell serialized series. But I suspect, too, that the type shows offer a complex and rich story universe in which viewers can immerse themselves -- and that is certainly a draw if, as Lost does, the writers create a fascinating, mysterious world.