Lost isn't a soap opera. It is episodic television.
Soap operas, by definition, are episodic television shows that appeal mostly to
women (though there are exceptions to the "mostly women" part). When soap operas began, they were on during the daytime during an early television (and/or radio) age when most women stayed at home, cleaning men's socks, cooking dinner, and managing families of rug rats, yard apes, and listening to the pitter-patter of tiny feet), so the sponsors of those programs were soap companies who wanted women to see the commericials and tell their husbands (who had all the money) that they NEEDED these products to run the household effectively.
Hence, those programs came to be known as "soap operas."
Of course, you all knew that. I'm just restating the obvious.
Dallas, Melrose Place and other shows like them were basically upgraded versions of daytime soap operas shown during primetime television with better production values, better writing, and women that men could get excited about. Most men who watched these primetime soap operas only did so because their wives or girlfriends wanted to watch them and the men had no choice but to watch them with their significant others (OR ELSE!). No one wants to irritate their wives or girlfriends, do they?
We didn't have TIVO or DVR back in those days.
Now we do.
Just because a show continues from one week to another doesn't make it a soap opera, by any means.
I'm lost with this episode of LOST.
I figure that Pam is probably dreaming while Bobby is in the shower.
..