It's always like that, when you're watching the first season everything is new and the producers make some efforts to keep you in front of your TV (when you litteraly forget to eat what you had brought to spend a quiet evening) because the success of that season will determine the future of the project.
The 25th episode cliffhanger proved it
Obviously it worked but they still don't know how many seasons will be filmed so they're going in many directions in order to have enough stuff for 4 or 5 seasons.
Then the first season here was aired at a rate of 3 episodes/week (on saturday night last summer) so many Lost-addicts here are disappointed by the US system (up to a month between two episodes) :roll: