I've never seen the show, so I recommend you watch it in the following order:

Season Three, Season Two, Season Four, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Season One, any episode of the 1960s Batman series.

If anything, a marathon would be even MORE maddening than watching it live. The plot holes, forgotten details, etc. would just be much more noticeable. Seriously, as the series went on, it was like the writers weren't even watching their own show.

I'm in the "all downhill after S1" camp, but...I mean, if you're really that interested and you can see them for really cheap/free, you may as well at least give it a shot and judge for yourself.

Don't do it. If you love season one stop there because the rest of the series will break your heart.

Season Two is as bad as Season One is good. Ruined the show for me and bailed early in Season Three. Now I cringe just thinking about the show.

It's funny how the creators put out articles saying, "We know the show sucks. Don't worry, we're gonna fix it and make it awesome again." But it just kept getting worse.

I rarely drop a show, but I dropped this show midway through season three.

I gave S2 the benefit of the doubt due to the writer's strike, but by season three, I was forcing myself to watch the show. So I dropped it.

Now whenever anyone mentions Heroes, I just get bitter.

I found Heroes first season to be over-praised, but it showed a lot of potential.

I wasn't satisfied with the ending, though... I was expecting

The later seasons are so bad that it's like the writers were trying to sabotage each other:

Hey, Bob is setting up something with this character! I'm going to kill her off in my episode! Fuck you, Bob!

Fred is setting up a redemption arc for this villain. I'm going to tank that in my episode when he starts killing people again!

Since this thread got me thinking about the show I realized I didn't have a strong grasp of the plot lines, probably because there were many characters and overlapping story lines, plus they hit the reset button so many times. To help me out I focused on individual characters and what happened to them after season 1 and it reminded me how all of them basically went to shit, even the ones that started out likable and/or compelling.

As far as rewatching the show, I can see how S1 might be boring because, like Lost, a lot of the enjoyment comes from not knowing what's going to happen next or exactly why things are happening.

What state are y'all from?

Thanks guys, you've saved me some time and money. Won't be touching S2 with a ten foot pole.

It's onto Pippi Longstocking boxset after this

I thought the first season was freakin' brilliant. Some of the best stuff I'd ever seen on TV. But yes, the season finale is pretty weak considering how great the rest of the season was, and the show loses its focus after that and becomes a sad joke.

Stop after the first season, its a good wrap up to that season, and the remaining seasons are just really bad

Season one was indeed excellent but in hindsight, the season one finale foreshadowed the next 3 years. All build up with zero payoff. I can see in your enthusiasm what you are expecting in the finale, a showdown between all these heroes in some kick ass battle. Hate to break it to you, it doesn't happen and never does for four years. All the cool shit you want to see, happens off screen or behind closed doors. By the time they finally decide to show two of these people fighting (season 4 finale) it's two characters shoving dirt back and forth. It exactly as thrilling as it sounds.

Smallville packed more action into a single episode than Heroes managed in 4 years.

Good choice. There are porn movies with better plots that Heroes S2-S4.

I mean that's what I've been told

I agree. In comparison to the rest of the run, season 1 was gold, but watching it week to week I was frustrated by the plodding storyline until somewhere in the middle, after all the introductions were done and they started to move on the main plot. I actually kinda liked season 2, at least in the beginning. And I kept going until the last season, had about 5 episodes left on my DVR, and never watched them... after the show was officially canceled, I never went back either. Those Target prices tempt me every time, but I have the first season on HD DVD and the second on Blu...

^ I thought season 1 started off pretty slow and awkward. I even considered dropping it because it just seemed cheesy to me, but the show started to really build and build until it was finally reaching the end of the season and I began to see that this show was really developing into something special. I went from forcing myself to watch to genuinely looking forward to seeing what would happen. Then came the anti-climactic finale. Eh, I brushed it off because I thought I could see the direction the show was going. The sad thing was it never really got there - or anywhere close. I never understood the need to have so many separate storylines in future seasons when the first season seemed so much to be about bringing people together. It didn't help that later seasons would feature so many reboots and inconsistencies.

I stuck with it to the bitter end, and I do mean bitter. It became a chore to watch, and I regret my purchase of season 1 on HD-DVD. It's just hard to look at season 1 the same way knowing just how far the show would eventually fall.

To the OP, if you can watch them for free, you might give some episodes a try, but I wouldn't recommend a blind-buy unless you're a real completist.

Part of it was that the first season had a couple of uber-villain (Sylar and the main bad guy) and a bunch of inexperienced people with no idea how or why to use their powers. But Peter and Hiro were way, way too powerful by the end of season 1, so they regressed them and they had to continue to regress them or preoccupy them, and then they made Sylar a conflicted bad guy and finally a semi-good guy.

Yep, another vote to stop after Season 1. That show was just wasted potential after that.

the 20th episode of S1 was the pinnacle of the series. All downhill from there.

Watch the Wire instead.

You should really stop at the penultimate episode before the finale of season one. That first season was amazing, one of the best seasons in television history for a fantasy/sci-fi show, but there are significant clues in that season finale that whatever deal with the devil Tim Kring had made was officially over.

The rest of the seasons are completely unwatchable, as if scripts were randomly put together by monkeys.

That's one of the funniest things I have ever read on this forum.

Wouldn't it be more fatiguing to watch a bunch of episodes in a short amount of time rather than watching it as it airs?

Doesn't really matter as this thread shows a roughly 50-1 favor in quitting after season 1. That's a decent sample group.