It would have been better if the people behind the show had made it clearer that this wasn't just Earth with funny names for people. More development of the social structures and government system. True, we see the government wanting the castaways captured, but that could just be basic paranoia. What do you think our government would do if there was evidence of extraterrestrial infiltration of the US? They'd want to assess the threat (if any), which can only happen through capture. (BTW, in the second season, they got lazy and everyone on the title planet had American names.)