I disagree with bo. I lost interest in Lost during the second season when I watched it from television. There were two or three episodes which didn't seem to take the story anywhere. But third season is different. I've watched it in faster cycle from internet downloads. In the third season every episode takes the story further. In third season there has been only one episode which didn't take the story anywhere. IMO the fact that there are same people on that island trough the whole serie can't be the reason why the Lost sucks because then ALL tv-series would suck. Let's face it, in every tv-serie there the same main characters which you have to follow from the beginning to the end. Those people usually work in same hospital (ER), same police station (NYPD Blue), live in same building (Friends) or in same small town (Simpsons/Twin Peaks/Northern Exposure/3rd Rock from the Sun/etc.). In Lost there are considerable amount of people, I think there are more people than tv-series have in general and new characters are getting there all the time. Striking thing is that main characters seem to die during the show or then they just go away. So it gives a feeling that you really never know what's going to happen. I read from some magazine an interview of one of the actors of Lost and he said that even the actors don't know when they are going to die/go away from the serie. They are allowed to see the scripts of only few episodes ahead.

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! If you haven't yet seen the third season of Lost, don't look further because there are spoilers ahead.

When I've watched the Lost I've first time got this feeling that tv-serie tries to say something more. I feel like it tries give some message which is bigger than tv-series normally have. I may be wrong but when I watch the story and see where it's going, I feel like it tries to solve some big mystery behind of mankind. In the end of third season (haven't seen the final episode yet) it's clear that the mystery of the 'others' is just the beginning. The others don't know why that island has such healing powers, etc, they don't seem to know much about anything. It has been stated that all passengers of that Oceanic flight 815 have already died in the world from which they left from. Their bodies and planewreck have been found from the bottom of the ocean. The others have come to the island with submarine. So - it raises questions. Is that island on the face of the earth? Or under it? Is it some kind of Atlantis? Or is it hell? Are all those people already dead in real life and they are on their way to heaven/hell/whatever?

When you think you got explanationg to everything, you find that it just doesn't cover all the mysteries.

I find it intriguing.

I really hope though that the final solution isn't the one which has been suggested in one episode of the second season. In that episode it suggested that everything on that island aren't really happening, they are just some ideas in Hurley's head while he is in coma in some mental institute. It would really suck if that was the explanationg to everything. In that case I would hate myself that I spend so many hours with the show.