AICN.COM says:

“Lost” showrunner Carlton Cuse says the fourth season of his acclaimed sci-fi drama will be no more than 13 episodes this season, cut down from an order of 16 due to the writers’ strike expected to end today.

Eight episodes were scripted before the strike. Cuse hopes to produce five more to air this spring.

It sounds like Cuse and the rest of the “Lost” writing staff will end the fourth season at the same story point they always intended, cramming eight episodes of plot into the season’s final five installments.

“We will have to condense some stories,” Cuse tells The Hollywood Reporter.

The third episode of the fourth season airs this Thursday. Sources say all 13 fourth-season episodes could conceivably run between now and the end of the season without a break.