asterisk8 said:

CP3S said:

Some of its biggest stumbles along the way seems to have been from trying to cater to fans (Jack's tattoo episode, etc.)

Jack's tattoo episode had nothing to do with catering to fans. They wrote that episode because they were spinning their wheels waiting for ABC to allow them a definitive end date. In season 3, you can tell they were dragging their feet because they didn't know if they had 3 more seasons or 6 to tell their story.

Lindelof called up the powers that be at ABC and said, basically, "Look, if you don't let us have an end date to the series, you're going to get more episodes about Jack's tattoo. This show can't go on forever."

Yeah, another example is Whatever the Case May Be from season 1. ABC just added a few more episodes to the season so they had to come up with some filler, and it's just really obvious and really poorly done. And then all of a sudden the show just takes off in the middle of season 3 once they have everything decided. Obvious.

Network pressure has resulted in things the like season 2 jump shark of Twin Peaks, the rearrangement of season 1 of Firefly, season 3's format change of Veronica Mars, etc. No matter how good a show is or how talented everyone is who's involved in it, to the network, the bottom dollar is the bottom line, and that's all that matters.