All hail the statue of the four-toed foot!

Allow me to explain.

After a break necessitated by the writers' strike, "Lost" returns 9 p.m. Thursday on WLS-Ch. 7 to close out its fourth season ("Ugly Betty" and "Grey's Anatomy" return also, at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., respectively).

On April 17, "Lost" executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof had a telephone conference call with reporters, and talked about some of the things that will be coming up Season 4's final six hours (new episodes of "Lost" air for four weeks, and then after a two-hour "Grey's" finale on May 22, "Lost" has a two-hour season closer May 29).

So what does a mythical foot have to do with anything? Two seasons ago, some castaways got a glimpse of a giant statue of a four-toed foot, the presence of which on the "Lost" island has never been explained.

A month or so ago, Lindelof told a funny story at an event at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles. He told an audience that ABC had thought the four-toed statue the writers had dreamed up was "too weird" and wanted it to be a six-toed statue. That's network logic for you. (By the way, there's an entertaining account of the Paley foot kerfuffle at Alan Sepinwall's site.)

Some fans wondered if the tussle over the toes meant the statue was gone from the show for good, but that's not the case, Lindelof and Cuse said. They assured the press that the freaky sculpture will be back at some point, but they didn't say when.

OK, enough about old Four Toes, let's get to the good stuff. The items below are excerpts and factoids gleaned from the conference call with Lindelof and Cuse. I didn't transcribe everything, and please note that I removed most "you knows" and "sort ofs."

Regarding spoilers: The first set of items, in Part 1, are not spoilery. In Part 2, there are mild-to-medium spoilers about upcoming developments (and you'll get a warning before you arrive at that section). More heavy-duty spoilers will come in Part 3, after a heavy-duty warning.

Part 1: Non-spoilery stuff

• On why the finale is two hours long: "We had an eight-hour story plan that got condensed down to five [hours] initially, as a result of the strike, and in trying to cram all that story in … the finale, the rubber hit the road. And we realized that it all felt rushed and we were shortchanging our emotional moments, our character moments. We read the 80-page first draft of [the last hour] and looked at each other and said, 'There's no way we're going to be able to cut this down.' Why don't we expand it to 100 pages?" Lindelof said.
• On whether they know what will happen in the last scene and what the final line of dialogue will be: "The last line of dialogue, we need a little bit of wiggle room, but the last scene has definitely been determined. There would have to be some major shift in both our mindsets to back off that. That's what we've been working toward for a couple years, even before the [2010] end date was announced," Lindelof said.
• On the pressure of creating a "historic" "Lost" finale: "It's tough. You can't think … 'How do we outdo ourselves [compared to] last year?' Last year was a one-time only opportunity to present a flash-forward as a flash back. I think people will be watching this year, on the edge of their couches, trying to figure out if we're up to any shenanigans. And therefore we purposely presented this story in a more accessible way so that it's more about what happens than about some sort of smoke and mirrors that we're trying to employ. …As far as comparing it to season finales past, it's going to be a much different animal, but we're really excited about what we've done," Lindelof said.
  
• On whether there would ever be a spinoff: They weren't fans of that idea; a spinoff would "lessen the impact of the franchise," Lindelof said. "It's our hope to nail the proverbial coffin shut with the final episode."
• On how many episodes are left after this season ends: 34. It's not known yet how those hours will be divvied up between Seasons 5 and 6.
• On whether the show will air on Wednesdays or Thursdays next season: They don't know, that depends to an extent on how well the show does in its new time slot after "Grey's."
• On when the next season will begin: "Our guess is that they will be launching around the last week of January" of 2009, Lindelof said.
• On what got pushed to next season due to the season being shortened by the strike: Some of the stories of the freighter folk got deferred to Season 5, they said.
• On whether they regret having to finish off the show in 34 more episodes: No way. "We've been lobbying for the end of the show since the first season of the show. And it has not at all been [a case of,] 'Be careful what you wish for.' Our mindset at the beginning of Season 3 as the characters were all locked in cages, versus the end of Season 3 where we began to answer questions, was so radically different. The feeling we have is one of lightness as we work toward the inevitable end point… Anything is possible, but if Carlton and I ever say to you, 'We're starting to regret an end date,' it means we've been replaced by cyborgs or zombies or something," Lindelof said.
• On what surprised them most this season (aside from the strike): "I would say for me, [it's] just how much we've loved the freighter folk. I mean, Jeremy Davies, we really feel like the people that we added to the show this year really completely brought it, Rebecca Mader and Jeff Fahey and Ken Leung -- all of them worked completely as we envisioned them in our minds' eye. It's been a little frustrating that we haven't had a chance to do more with them, but we were really excited with how they realized our vision for those characters," Cuse said.
  
• On what books "Lost" fans should be reading to prepare for the next two seasons: "Continue reading the Bible," Cuse said.

Part Two: Mild-to-medium spoilers.

The next two sections contains spoilers, so exit now if you don't want to know any upcoming plot points.

• On the title of the finale: It is "There's No Place Like Home."
• On the second half of the season, generally speaking and how it might be more "epic" than the first half: "The first half of [a given] season is setting up the dilemmas for the characters, and then in the second half, we try to pay those off. The thing that was frustrating about the writers' strike was that we has just done the setup part of the season then we had to stop for 100 days. But then when we came back, we got the chance to fulfill all of our narrative desires and so all the stuff we set up in the first half of the season is going to pay off. Obviously we're missing a lot of pieces between that flash forward we saw at the end of last season -- how the Oceanic Six got off the island and what connects [up] to that event and we also are going to move forward from that point in time," Cuse said.
• On whether there will be any deaths any time soon: They wouldn't address that in any specific way, but Cuse did say that "there are definitely some very large and seismic events that will happen to our castaways between now and the end of the season. By the end of the season some people's fates will be clear and others will not be so clear."
• More on that darn statue: "If that's what you read [that the statue had been banned by ABC] that was incorrect. It hasn't been deemed too weird to be on the show, we just haven't gotten to it. … It will definitely be back at some point in the future," Cuse said. "We are going to be revisiting the rest of that statue, where it came from, who built it and why it has four toes," Lindelof said. Alrighty then!
• On whether we'll see more of Danielle Rousseau: "The good thing about 'Lost' is that oftentimes, being dead leads to more work on the show. … If in fact Rousseau does prove to be dead [Mo here: Say what??], that doesn't have much bearing on us telling her story. We think that the whole back story of Rousseau and her science team and the ship that came to the island [before] is pretty interesting and we'd love to tell that story at some point," Cuse said.
• On what happens next with the (yawn) Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle: "All we can say is, Sawyer is not one of the Oceanic Six, and Jack and Kate are, and obviously there will be a huge focus in these final three hours of the [season regarding] … how that series of events transpire, and ultimately what happens to Sawyer [is addressed] and it's all on the axis of the love triangle. So we think that both fans of Sawyer and Kate, otherwise known as the Skaters, so I'm told, and Jack and Kate, the Jaters, will have a bounty of interesting romantic scenes," Lindelof said.
• On what will happen with Jack and Juliet: "Jack and Juliet kissed in the sixth episode this year and we will be revisiting the emotional idea of that" in the May 1 episode, Lindelof said.
  
• On when Alan Dale, who's played the sketchy billionaire on about five different shows now (and done it well), will be back as the enigmatic Charles Widmore: "There are certain characters on 'Lost' - characters' importance can change over time. Without saying too much, that'll be very much true for Alan Dale," Cuse said. "You'll probably be seeing him sooner rather than later," Lindelof added. "And more of him than you have seen. The story moves forward and 'Lost' is moving toward an ending and that character's definitely a part of the narrative and will be a bigger part."
• On whether we'll see more of Penny and Desmond and whether that couple's love story turned out have more of an impact than they planned or envisioned: "We introduced Penny in the second-season finale, you had never really seen her before. … It was certainly our intention to make that an epic love story, … one of the central love stories in the show. Because the chemistry between [Henry] Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger worked so well, it was a well we wanted to return to again and again and it obviously became pivotal in Charlie's death. And we feel that some of the best episodes the show has ever done aren't because they're weird time-travel stories, it's because it's so focused on that love story between Penny and Desmond. We will certainly be returning to it. Unfortunately Sonya is a very in-demand actor and [is filming] 'Tell Me You Love Me' right now for HBO, so it has been challenging for us to procure her services, but when she becomes available we will hopefully be using her again," Lindelof said.

Part Three: Spiciest spoilers! Possibly. Your mileage may vary.

• Other mysterious things that will be back soon: Smokey the smoke monster "will be in the first episode back," and there will also be "a healthy dose of Jacob" before the end of the season, Cuse said.
• A reporter from the U.K. asked about rumors of the show filming in Britain, but Cuse and Lindelof wouldn't comment on that. "We can't say anything about it right now, we will when we can," Cuse said.
• On whether Emilie de Ravin (who plays Claire) will be back next season (there are rumors saying her character may die): "We don't really want to comment any particular character's fate, because we feel like that would spoil what happens on the show between now and the end of the season. Suffice to say there's some very compelling events involving Claire's character between now and the season finale," Cuse said.
• On the whole time issue and flash-forwards and flash backs in general, and whether the those timelines will meet up: "We sort of view the show as a mosaic and … we're putting tiles in all over the mosaic and when the mosaic is complete, 'Lost' will be complete. Obviously we put tiles in in the present and in the past and then with the flash-forwards, now we're putting them in the future. But it's entirely possible as we move into future seasons that that notion of what is the past, what is the future and what is the present on the show could change. In other words, it's somewhat dependent on, from what point of view are we telling the stories? I don't think we have any hard and fast rules on what we must or must not do. In fact, I think we approach it and say, 'This is the narrative we're going to be telling in this season of the show, what is the best storytelling method to tell that story?'" Cuse said.
  
• Fleshing out what he said to Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen in a recent article, Lindelof said: "There might come a time in the show where the word 'flash' becomes irrelevant. If you think about what we've done this year, there is the story on the island, which we perceive to be the present, then the story of the Oceanic Six, which is happening off the island in the future. But if we were to switch perspective … and suddenly we were off the island, focusing on the Oceanic Six trying to get back [to the island], that would be the present. And what was happening back on the island would be either a parallel present, possibly a future, possibly a past, who knows. So when you hear that 'whoosh' noise [that indicates a time change], the question becomes, where does it take you? And so hopefully, if we do our jobs right in the finale, in the eight months in between the season finale and the season premiere next year, the audience will once again be asking, 'What the hell are they going to do in the season premiere?'"