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Perrineau returns to ABC’s ‘Lost’ this fall

LOS ANGELES - Michael Dawson isn’t permanently lost, after all.

ABC announced (somewhat reluctantly) Wednesday that Harold Perrineau will return to “Lost” in the upcoming season. His character, Michael, was gone during this past year. During that stretch Perrineau was cast in five movies, include “28 Weeks Later.”

The original plan was to announce Perrineau’s return during a fan convention Thursday. Pressured by the Television Critics Association, however, ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson went with it a day earlier.

McPherson says the key decision involving “Lost” was the one giving it a definite life span. That came during contract negotiations, to make sure co-creator Damon Lindelof would stay for the full run of the show; it was decided to do three more seasons, each with 16 episodes on consecutive weeks. “He really wanted the end-point,” McPherson says. “He wanted to retro-fit over that.”

In other news Wednesday, McPherson says:

•A “Dancing With the Stars” spin-off is in the works. “Dance Acts” will have two teams competing. So far, he isn’t sure if it would have a separate time slot or take over when “Dancing With the Stars” is off the air.

•Nathan Fillion will have “a great arc” on “Desperate Housewives.” Fillion — star of “Firefly” and the short-lived “Drive” — joins the show, at least temporarily, along with Dana Delany.

• “Grey’s Anatomy” might not be quite as unrelenting this fall. “There was a lot of really difficult emotional stuff going on with a number of characters,” McPherson says. Early this season, that might lighten up a little.

•Two of the higher-profile pilots for this season are definitely dead. “Football Wives” was based on a British hit, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” on a movie hit. There had been rumors of trying them again, but McPherson says that won’t happen.

•The offbeat “Cavemen” will be reworked before its start Oct. 2. The pilot film was roundly panned by some critics.

•ABC’s summer shows generally failed. There were some that McPherson liked (including “Shaq’s Big Challenge”), some he was disappointed with (including “Traveler”) and one that he feels is uneven-but-interesting (the “Masters of Science Fiction” anthology, which airs at 10 p.m. Aug. 4). The only ratings success has been the hidden-camera “Just For Laughs.” It’s currently at 8 p.m. Tuesdays and might keep popping on and off the schedule for years, in the style of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

For the fall, however, McPherson will keep taking chances. He had a surprise hit this season with the offbeat “Ugly Betty”; he’ll try for the same thing this fall with “Pushing Daisies” airing at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3. The pilot film combines an offbeat premise — a crime-solver can wake the dead and ask questions but only for one minute — with a lyrical, fable-style look crafted by Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of “Men in Black,” “The Addams Family,” “Get Shorty” and more.

“With ‘Ugly Betty’ last year and ‘Pushing Daisies’ this year, we’ve got to keep looking for the next thing,” McPherson said.

ABC will debut “Private Practice,” its “Grey’s Anatomy” spin-off, on Sept. 27. All of its other new dramas have unusual looks and tones.

- “Dirty Sexy Money” (debuting Sept. 26) has Peter Krause as an honest soul, lured into being the lawyer for a family that is both wildly rich and wildly dysfunctional. “Big Shots” (Sept. 27) has four CEO’s who are skilled at everything except dealing with women. “Women’s Murder Club” (Oct. 12) is based on the James Patterson novels about women from several fields secretly pooling their talents to solve crimes. “Cashmere Mafia” (waiting until Nov. 27) has four high-powered, type-A women, sometimes at war with their mates and colleagues.

The new comedies are also fairly unusual. “Cavemen” and “Carpoolers” (entwining lives of four mismatched men) debut Oct. 2. Debuting Oct. 15 is the bizarre — and,sometimes, hilarious — “Samantha Who?” Samantha (Christina Applegate) wakes up from a coma, remembering nothing; she soon learns she wasn’t a very nice person.