The List: #21 Heroes

#21
Number of Seasons (To Date): 2
Years Active: 2006 - Present
Network: NBC

Heroes, like LOST, took the world by storm. Here was a genre show that by all accounts should have received a modest audience and survived relatively undetected for a few years at best (sort of like Angel), or died a quick and sad death (like Firefly). Instead, Heroes took off, and while it never reached the popularity or acclaim of LOST, it became one of NBC's most bankable new shows.

The show is almost a comic book come to life; the series is broken up into volumes (the first volume makes up the first season, and the second volume was supposed to be the first half of the second season, but due to the writers' strike, the first half of Season 2 became the entire Season 2), which tell complete stories. But there are plenty of smaller stories told across three or four episodes within the volumes. The cast is large and is spread across the world, but the events that occur in one area of world affect characters in other parts of the world.

The first season acted as an origin story for many heroes-to-be, though not all of them had superpowers. But as the season progressed, we learned that a shadowy organization meant to "study" the super-powered individuals has been around for a long time.

There are times when the plotlines are poorly written or repetitive (let's not talk about the second season), but overall, Heroes is an extremely fun show. Most of the characters are very watchable (from a story point of view, I love Mr. Bennett, Nathan Petrelli and Matt Parkman), the plots are usually great to follow, and the Season 1 episode ending cliffhangers are incredible.

Up next: #20...