ABC's "Lost" is being forced to halt filming on its fourth season because of the Writers Guild of America strike.

The series will run out of completed scripts as a result of the writers' strike, an ABC publicist said.

Filming on O'ahu had been ongoing. The filming will halt on completion of the eighth episode, out of 16 planned for the fourth season. The episode is expected to wind up no later than Nov. 30.

The network still expects to kick off the new season in February, as planned, and to run the series without interruption, ABC said. However, circumstances could change, depending on the outcome of the writers' walkout.

The writers' strike is also affecting other Hawai'i events connected to ABC/Disney. A third-season DVD launch party for "Lost," set for Nov. 30, and a DVD launch for Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," set for Dec. 1, have been canceled, according to ABC's home-entertainment operations. Both events, with invited media from the Mainland, were to be held at a resort on Lana'i.

Fans of "Lost" have some consolation, however: A series of short-story segments is being posted online at ABC.com.

The 13 two- to three-minute segments, called "Lost: Missing Pieces," are new content that ties into "Lost."

The online segments are from the same creative team responsible for the series, ABC says on its Web site. The New York Times reported Monday that the writers and actors featured in the webisodes were paid specifically for the online work. Writers' demands to be paid for online use of their material is a key sticking point in the strike.

Reach Wayne Harada at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com.