PASADENA, Calif. -- ABC's "Lost" begins its final season Feb. 2, but producers are keeping a tight lid on where the story goes and what trajectory the series takes in its final 18 hours.

The season premiere picks up immediately after the explosive May cliffhanger where Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) detonated a bomb in an effort to change the past, illuminating the screen in a white flash.

"We don't want to give away what the show will be this season," said executive producer Carlton Cuse, but he did suggest that Jack's (Matthew Fox) theory of resetting the clock and preventing Oceanic Flight 815 from crashing on the island might not hold. "Something else happens maybe."

Actor Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Jin, says the new season is "again changing the narrative style for the show," and several cast members said the new season hearkens back to the show's first year.

"For us there's an inherent process when ending something to be thinking about beginnings," said executive producer Damon Lindelof. "One thing we're trying to do is show the audience the 'before' so they have some sense of what [the characters] used to be and who they are now so you get a sense of how far this person's come."

Many characters from the show's past will return for the new season, including Boone (Ian Somerhalder), Claire (Emilie de Ravin), Michael (Harold Perrineau) and Libby (Cynthia Watros).

As for the show's May series finale, Cuse said the final image has been in producers' minds for many years but getting there remains a work in progress. The two-hour finale has not yet been written.

"If we just tried to answer questions, it would be very pedantic," Cuse said, adding that the series won't wrap up its mysteries "down to every last little Midi-chlorian," a reference to a universally derided explanation used in the "Star Wars" saga.

"All we can do is put our best foot forward," Lindelof said. "We do feel like the worst ending we could possibly provide everyone is the safe ending. At the same time we can't take a risk just to take a risk. That's a betrayal in and of itself. Fortunately for us, we've been talking about the ending and we really have no excuse to say anything other than this is the ending we want to do on the terms we wanted to do it."

He doesn't expect universal love for the finale because "Lost" has always drawn strong reactions, positive and negative.

"It wouldn't be 'Lost' if there wasn't an ongoing and active debate amongst people who watch the show as to whether or not it was a good ending," Lindelof said. "There's people who will say it's the worst ending in the history of television and to balance them out there's my mom, who will say it's the best ending -- although she doesn't understand the show and hasn't in some time."

A Fox executive says they'll wait until after the new season of "24" launches next week before huddling with producers to decide if this eighth season will be Jack Bauer's final bad day.

"This has been one of the greatest gifts of my life, the ability to do '24,' " star Kiefer Sutherland said. "For me it's something that's absolutely open. ... Right now my focus is on finishing season eight."

The new season of "24," debuting Sunday at 9 p.m., begins with Jack Bauer playing with his granddaughter. He even cracks a smile.

"It felt weird to do it," Sutherland acknowledged. The last time Jack smiled? "In season three when he captured Nina and was flying back on a cargo plane and had her in handcuffs, he looked at her and smiled. And that was about four episodes before he got to shoot her."

"Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution," filmed in Huntington, W.Va., will premiere at 9 p.m. March 26. In the series, the British TV chef travels to what has been called "the unhealthiest city in America," per ABC, and tries to encourage better eating habits.

ABC renewed "Modern Family," "Cougar Town" and low-rated "The Middle" for the 2010-11 TV season. ... A new edition of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" begins March 22. ... That didn't last long: Peters native Ashley Elmore was eliminated Monday in the second episode of the new season of "The Bachelor." ... Lifetime has canceled its second-season sitcom "Rita Rocks."

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