Heroes

I tried watching Heroes on NBC when it first aired. I had gotten ahold of a screener of the original pilot and was thoroughly unimpressed⎯shoddy writing, bad acting, and some terribly wirework, plus a fairly limp plot. Good ideas in a bad framework.  So, when the (at this point) modified pilot aired, I gave it another shot, hoping they'd tighten it up.

They didn't.

The first three episodes are pretty uniformly terribly. The fourth starts to perk up, particularly with an awesome ending, but was still pretty bad.

So I gave up.

But a lot of people were calling it great. Friends of mine, whose opinions, I trust recommended it to me. And I remained curious. Curious enough to buy the whole season on iTunes, but not to watch it.

Until this weekend.

I'm into Episode 9 (I think), called "Six Months Earlier."

And Heroes is a pretty good show.

The first four episodes are just as terrible as I remember. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. But the writers seem to have realized it themselves, and started pulling their shit together. Mohinder still drives me nuts, and the dialogue can still fall flat, but the simple feat of making Peter Petrelli interesting and likeable (!) deserves recognition.

So I'm into it. I'm not hooked, and, at least at this point, it hasn't reached the "must watch" status of Battlestar Galactica, or even Lost or previous seasons of 24. But I am liking it, and provided I finish Season 1 by the premiere two weeks from Monday, I'll be watching Season 2.

Any of you fans or haters? I'm curious what other opinions are...