Actually, we can thank DC for the 1790 storyline being done during the first season. Most of the writers believed as you do, mscbryk, that the first season should have stuck to the present day storyline - but DC absolutely insisted that 1790 had to be covered as well. And we all know that when DC insisted...
As the for the storytelling being rushed, I think that's actually a hard call given the realities of TV in the past few decades. Yes, it's totally true that a huge amount of story - basically an entire year's worth on the daytime show - was condensed into 13 hours - practically a month's worth of story per hour. And quite sadly, a lot of the original plotting had to be jettisoned along the way to manage it. And more than anyone, fans of the daytime DS are the ones who notice the difference. However, as has been discussed on the forum before, the luxury of daytime pacing that DS originally enjoyed will never be duplicated again - not even if DS was to ever be revived as a daytime show. TV and audiences have changed drastically since the '60s, particularly in primetime. Most members of today's primetime audience demand quick pacing, and that was the type of audience NBC and DC were going after. The world that embraced the pacing of DS' heyday is gone - and it's been gone for decades. Would that it wasn't the case, but it's a reality - one that has provoked countless articles in the entertainment trades and magazines, one that countless producers, directors, writers and actors have lamented over, and one that is oh so evident if anyone checks out the blogs and message boards devoted to any of today's hit dramas. As big a fan of the '91 series as I am, do I sometimes wish it had moved at least a bit slower? Yes. I wish a lot of what was never included in the '91 series had been. But again, I'm a fan of the daytime DS, and original fans or even people who became fans of the original were not the audience NBC and DC were going for with the show. (I'm also someone who wholeheartedly believes that when it comes to a show like
Lost. it's not about the answers, it's all about the journey it takes to get to the answers, and I love sitting back and taking that journey much more than I need to get answers. But millions of
Lost fans completely disagree with me. Those of us who think that way are a dying breed in this day and age. It's basically me, TV Guide's Matt Roush, Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker, and possibly many of the people who post here and on other '60s (and earlier) classic TV boards because we grew up with storytelling at a slower pace and/or we have an appreciation for it.) The interesting thing, though, is that for the most part, DS fans whose first exposure to DS was the primetime series rarely if ever complain that it was too fast paced or rushed - not even after they've come to appreciate the original. If anything, many of them seem to think the original was all too often paced too slowly...