PAIN AND SUFFERING

“ In life as in the dance, grace glides on blistered feet.. ”
— Alice Abrams 

The ability of a drama to convey the sense of danger and personal perseverance is key to a complete story.

 One of the strange issues with the LOST story was the apparent lack of pain and suffering the characters went through during the series. Granted, there were a few characters who showed real pain from their injuries, such as the Marshal, Boone's fall, and the various gunshot wounds. But all in all, there was very little physical pain or suffering shown on the show.

For example, we never saw the survivors collapsing due to dehydration or lack of water.
We never saw the survivors starving or having the painful symptoms of malnutrition.  
We never saw the survivors catch serious tropical illnesses, exhibit high fevers or infections from
animal bites that would be present in long term tropical environments.
In fact, the harsh setting of an isolated island did little physical harm to the characters. In fact, the fourth wall was brought down when someone asked why Hurley was not losing any weight after weeks on the island with limited resources.

The pain and suffering was mostly emotional stress and psychological manipulation. 

There is a gap between expected physical wear and tear on the characters and the actual scenes in the series. Yes, it was a television show on regular sets and the cast was not subject to the real rigors of being stranded on a tropical island. But one would have thought that common sense drama would have been more front and center in show, especially when it was actually discussed in the original writer's guide.

Was it the island itself, with its unstated (but selective) healing properties that kept the pain and suffering down to a minimum. Did the candidates get special immunization just by being candidates? Or was it a conscious choice by the producers not to have the "downer" scripts too long to the PSA's about starving children in Africa that run during local late night TV commercial breaks. It was probably the latter.