You're kind of close. They would fluff the seasons to get the episode count to 100 as soon as possible. 100 episodes was the magic number to qualifying for syndication. Syndication is where the money used to be made on content. Ask Jerry Seinfeild or the cast from Friends. Syndication is no longer the holy grail. You are making your content for the syndication platforms from the beginning now. This has allowed for the freedom to use enough episodes to tell your story correctly, and then getting out of the way. No more bottle episodes.
I got burned once by Lost when I was much younger, and hope to not make that mistake again.
I might not have been the target audience though. People often go nuts for JJ Abrams and I’ve honestly hated almost everything of his I’ve watched. So I’m likely just not the kind of person he is targeting.
But maybe it was because I was young, and the format was new to me, but the first season did capture my interest.
Battlestar Galactica on the other hand? Cylons had a plan my ass.
[ EDIT: d'oh, I meant to write this in reverse, as "fluff padding is much less bad than .... oh well. ]
I prefer stories to be told that already have a beginning, middle and end at their outset, not just some fingers-crossed "we might get 5 seasons, we can decide how it unfolds once we get to season 3" stuff that has dominated way too much TV.
Granted, the purely episodic shows (e.g. Star Trek, LA Law and the like) are immune to this, mostly.
But give me more True Detective, where the story ending is known before they even start filming, and the only question is "do we get to try another story?"