The science experiment

THE saucers are gone. Their big lights have stopped flashing. Any sea monsters emerging from the deep have long since returned there.

The brief science-fiction flare-up of the 2005-06 network TV season is over.

Inspired by the success of the serialized ABC mystery “Lost,” each big network started its own expensive, effects-laden new serial last fall, one of them even taking up the slot immediately after “Lost.”

None survived the season.

“Threshold” on CBS left first, making way for a move of one of the network’s reliable crime procedural series, “Close to Home,” before disappearing permanently. Then NBC’s “Surface” made a run at attracting an audience to a creatures-from-the-deep saga before it too had a premature season end.

Only ABC’s “Invasion” was allowed to play out the season, increasing the presence of its invaders, who liked to arrive during hurricanes in Florida.

Other shows that played up the spooky and supernatural didn’t last the season, including ABC’s “Night Stalker” -- an update of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” -- which was one of the first dramas pulled last fall.

One exception occurred on the smaller WB network, where “Supernatural” has survived to move with a few of that network’s other most popular shows to the CW, the network that will result from a merger with UPN.

The failure of others to emulate the success of “Lost,” which ended its season Wednesday, doesn’t necessarily mean the public has lost its appetite for science fiction.

But it might indicate that audiences can only pay attention to so many serialized dramas at once, flying saucers or not.

The fate of “Threshold,” which averaged 7.8 million viewers weekly, was clear because it was yanked in November after nine episodes. But “Invasion” lasted a full season, reaching its season finale May 17 with its 22nd episode. Like “Surface,” which closed its abbreviated 15-episode season in February with a finale, its second-season fate was undecided until NBC finalized its fall schedule.

ABC Entertainment chief Steven McPherson called the failure of “Invasion,” which averaged 9.2 million viewers weekly, a “frustration and disappointment.” And NBC entertainment chief Kevin Reilly said that ending a story before its conclusion could upset viewers who become attached to a show. “I can’t get those fans off my e-mail,” Reilly said last week of “Surface,” which also averaged about 9.2 million viewers weekly.

Still, a couple of sci-fi serials made it onto the fall schedules. “Jericho,” on CBS, is a saga about what happens to a small Kansas town after a nuclear terrorist attack. It stars Skeet Ulrich, Gerald McRaney and Pamela Reed. “Heroes,” on NBC, is about ordinary people all over the world who discover they have super powers. Its cast includes Milo Ventimiglia and Adrian Pasdar.

And “Lost” will continue, no matter what happened in Wednesday’s two-hour finale.

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Roger Catlin is television critic at the Hartford Courant, a Tribune company.