I completely disagree with this review as the author believes the success of Heroes is unwarranted and the utter failure of Friday Night Lights is an injustice.
Heroes is cleverly written. The writers give the audience enough to want more while slowly developing several major characters. Much of what we've seen in the show so far has been exposition. To maintain this much of an audience through an extended period of exposition takes fairly decent writing. Hopefully, as the plot is fleshed out, it won't become trite and cliche.
Friday Night Lights, on the other hand, is all plot with very little character. The writers have taken a great expose piece (the original book) and turned it into a fairly horrible night-time soap opera. I could be wrong about FNLs; I haven't seen very much of it, but what I have seen makes me wish for the return of 90210 or Dawson's Creek, which is a pretty frightening prospect.
This article affirms what everybody pretty much knows already: whether or not a show is perceived as worthy of attention depends mostly on the disposition and preferences of the individual viewer. I love Heroes—obviously; otherwise I would not have started this group. But even if I didn't, I would still consider this article to be more of the same tired ranting against a successful show out of frustration that one's preferred choice is not enjoying similar popularity. Welcome back to the grade-school playground in the arena of television criticism, where lots of petulant and jealous critics are flinging insults at Heroes because it's more watched than their beloved Friday Night Lights or whatever. I not only disagree with the author, I find it impossible to take his article seriously since it's so overly condescending.
Heroes is standard comic-book fare written for television. Most of its characters are one-dimensional, its "save the cheerleader, save the world" mantra is a cliche, and nothing happens. Each week I find it harder to justify watching this show, because they just aren't offering anything new, much less any substance. It's a 30's-style serial with 70's-era comic book story lines.
I think the only reason I still watch the show is to see whether the show will eventually surprise me or not. Each week I find it more difficult to watch Heroes. (I haven't even watched this week's episode.) Jericho is suffering the same problem, but between the two, Jericho has become the better show. (And I think Jericho is still bad, just not as terrible as it was.)
Still, some of my favorite shows were horrible in their first two or three seasons, so I still hold out hope. Heroes definitely has potential, but it is certainly not realizing that potential yet.