They did 2 things well (from an economic perspective) in my vaguely shit memory:

• built of the success of castaway a few years earlier and survivor
• marketed the absolute hell out of it pre-release. I remember hundreds of ads showing in the months leading to to it.

It paved the way for a lot of long running, high budget tv shows like heroes, supernatural etc…

I also severely disliked it.

Jimijett obvs. What more sauce do you want?!?!?1