I love the show Lost and have considered no other show it’s equal since it arrived on ABC over 2 years ago. I just happened to have the television on ABC when the premiere first aired, and I haven’t missed an episode since. Recently, several folks have urged me to check out the new NBC show Heroes. I wrote a while back about several shows that I was watching this year, but Heroes had not made the list. At least one of those - The Nine - I’ve grown tired of already. I just don’t care what happened or will happen to these people. Another, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, has not gotten a lot of good press lately, but I’m still with it for now. I like it, although not as much as I thought I would have. Jericho is actually my favorite of the new ones I’ve been watching. It’s held my interest more than the others and I still look forward to a new episode every week. It’s not Lost, but nothing else is, either. Lost has been the champion of the last 2.5 years for me, hands down.

Suddenly, a new contender emerges. As of this past week, 10 episodes of Heroes had aired, so I was way behind. Fortunately, the SciFi channels re-airs the newest episode each week on Friday (after the NBC premiere airs on Monday.) That wouldn’t really help, except that this past week they showed a marathon of the first 6 episodes. I set my DVR, recorded them all, and over the last few days have watched all 10 episodes - 7 from SciFi (episodes 1-6 plus episode 10, which I got Friday night), and 3 (episodes 7-9) via iTunes. Tomorrow night will be the “fall finale”, the final episode until the after the new year.

The wikipedia article on Hereos does a decent job of describing the show. I found it intereseting that, to some degree at least, the creator has the show mapped out for five seasons. That’s a recent criticism of Lost, that they really have no direction or plan and are just making it up as they go along (as seen in the SNL skit last night with host Matthew Fox.)

The only problem I have now is that, after tomorrow night I will have seen the first 11 episodes in 4 days. Then I’ll have to wait about 7 weeks before the next one, and only be able to watch one per week. That may be a little frustrating after having seen so much in such a short period of time. I guess it’s easier with shows like Lost and others because I watched those from the beginning, always only one episode per week.

But I’m sure I’ll adjust. I’m just thrilled to be caught up on the show, and look forward to the rest of the season. If you’re not watching Heroes, you should be. If you can’t find someone who has them recorded, they’re all available on iTunes. I’ve heard/read several fellow Lost fans say that this show has now passed Lost on their favorites list. I’m not sure I’m ready to go that far yet, but it might be a close race depending on how the rest of the season shakes out for both. Either way, I’m now a die-hard Heroes fan as well.

Update: All episodes to date are now avaliable at NBC.com.