On average, Lost‘s viewer numbers have surged by 13% (11% in the first season, 22% in the second–wow, 13% in the third, 7% for the fourth, that aired after a week break and outside of May sweeps) from the penultimate episode to the double-length finale. 113% of 4.0 (the demo rating for this season’s penultimate episode) is 4.5, so your prediction is actually extremely valid.

Season finale looks EPIC! Though I seriously hope they don’t change the past/future… I just don’t see the point in it, and firmly believe in Faraday’s ‘Whatever Happened, Happened’ rule.

Yeah, but…who cares, really? It’s not like fans are dependent on the finale ratings for closure or anything. Those who wanted to see it did see it. Those who didn’t can watch it online. It was a very good finale, but I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the “Frasier” finale, which was extremely good and infinitely better than the “Friends” one that same year which was much more hyped. It was also better than the finale of its parent “Cheers.”

LOL, i guess you watched a different episode than i did.

Sad numbers. I expected at least a 3. for the Best-Comedy-show-Finale-Ever.

My own personal opinion: I think FOX will give the show just a half season to see how it performs on its own without the benefit of Idol support. That has to happen eventually anyway, I think they’ll do so sooner rather than later.

8p: 2.0/6, 2.1/7, 5.245 million
8:30p: 2.2/6, 2.3/8, 5.056

(it might not completely tally with the numbers in the table above for Wednesday which are the national finals, but I only saw half hourly data for the preliminary numbers)

Scrubs has a very colorful history. The first season ran after the 9th Season of “Frasier” (not one of that show’s better seasons, by any means) and performed decently. Moved after “Friends” for Season 2–but let’s not forget that it was the first success in the post-”Friends” slot after a long, long string of duds. Season 3 moved back to Tuesdays after the final season of “Frasier” (which was excellent). Performance was similar to Season 1, but slightly down. Season 4, without “Friends” or “Frasier” on the air anymore, had a generous 25-episode order, but numbers went down significantly. The peacock was really high on the show at that point, promoting it endlessly during the Athens Olympics. NBC started it a half-hour earlier (still on Tuesdays), and jokes began to be made about how often NBC had juked it around the schedule. It had changed timeslots every season, with only seasons 1 and 3 being the same slot. There was a core fanbase by that point, though. Season 5 was ordered with no schedule slot announced for the fall. A midseason experiment was made, with a lot of two-episode pairs, similar to what ABC did with it this year. That season had some success, with episodes such as the Wizard of Oz one, but viewership was still down. The long break may have had something to do with it. The show became part of the new Thursday comedy block in Seasons 6 and 7 and certainly had some success there, especially in Season 6 (which featured the legendary musical episode). It ran during the entire season again. Season 6 had a significant bump in ratings from Season 5, averaging about the same as Season 4. Season 7 was aborted by the strike. Ratings were lukewarm and NBC refused to give Bill Lawrence five measly episodes to wrap things up. Given the show’s past performance for the network and the endless time-slot juking, that was an ultimate show of disrespect, although NBC were not always the big villains–the renewals for seasons 5 and 6 were actually miracles (7 less so, as NBC had no reason not to give the show a proper finale given the Thursday ratings uptick with NBC down in general from the “Friends” glory days). Their refusal to give Lawrence a mere five episodes was puzzling in the least, since it was still a little less than the original pre-strike order. So the now-venerable show could have ended with the very average Princess episode, which was out of order and by no means “finale-like.” But NBC’s snub was actually a blessing in disguise, as in five episodes, Lawrence would not have brought J.D. and Elliot together and we would have been deprived of a lot of other good stuff in the final ABC season. Yeah, we know that ABC was wanting to boost their syndication profits with the 18-episode order, but I choose to also believe that they wanted to give Bill Lawrence the ending he deserved. So it worked out beautifully in the end.

A checkered, but wonderful history for a show. Let’s not drag it out more, ABC. We don’t want anything like that “7th Heaven” season. A “reboot” would probably have an “AfterMash” effect. There was only one “Frasier,” after all, and no spinoff will EVER have that kind of success again.

Renew Samantha Who? instead, ABC.

I wished now that the finale drew 10m + wud have been a better send off

Lie to Me chances of getting renewed just got higher but I wonder whether it will remain in that slot.

“LOST fandom has been distilled down to its core audience.”

Oh, I dunno. I still watch, but without a great deal of enthusiasm. Am I part of this distillate? Speaking to my mother (who is well beyond the 18-49 demo) last night, I was surprised and amused to find that she really digs the show but likens it to a regular daytime soap, meaning that the “plot” is such a repetitive blizzard of @#$% that it really doesn’t matter if an episode is missed here or there–she’s just in it for the characters. Part of the “distilled” “core audience”?

They should have ended with that

Because it was sandwiched in between Friends and Will&Grace.

Lie to Me is back at 8M and has 2.7 in 18-49 its good!

Lost should be back at 10M viewers can’t believe how American Idol is killing the show without its devoted fans like me Lost will be lost.

WED 10PM timeslot of ABC is not good because of its lead-in, Lost is not a good lead-in

PS i wish the old fans would have tuned in for the finale, it was just awesome, one of the best ever on tv and I mean that!!!

Also can someone maybe Robert Seidman tell me a reason as to why scrubs was so successful in seasons 1-3, particularly season 2 averaging near 16m viewers?

Whats so different that it lost that amount of its fan base?

Once LOST ends JJ should transfer a couple of cast members over to FRINGE.