And thus ends the first season of "Heroes."

Okay, I admit it -- I watched all 23 episodes of freshman NBC show Heroes this year, despite it being a pretty damn stupid show. How stupid?

"Hi. I'm evil. How can you tell? I wear horn-rimmed glasses!"

"Hi. I'm a hot woman who's also a serial killer. Because dudes love hot women who are also serial killers!"

"Hi! I am non-threatening Asian stereotype! My voice high and squeaky to not upset American rednecks!"

Yeah, pretty fucking stupid a lot of the time, is what I'm trying to get at. That said, though, the show does have some things going for it, which is why I ended up watching the entire season...

--The pacing of the plot is amazing -- easily one of the fastest-moving action shows in the history of television.

--Not to mention, they were able to create enough plot to keep the show moving that fast in the first place, something that would probably give the producers of "Lost" an apoplectic attack.

--They hired actual well-known comic-book artists to create all the cartoony visuals associated with the show. Even better, they worked an interesting element into the plot that explains why several different artists were all painting the same scenes over the course of the season. (See, the cartoons are actually visual interpretations of futurist visions; and over the course of the season, three different characters ended up with the ability to foresee the future, each of whom made their own paintings of upcoming events that were slightly different than the others'.)

--They actually finished season 1's storyline by the end of the final episode, something else it wouldn't hurt the producers of "Lost" to pay attention to. And man, it's hard to beat that teaser for season 2 they added to the end of the finale, too.

So anyway, my congratulations to the cast and crew of "Heroes," for actually making it to the end of the season without getting canceled; if I've got my numbers correct, in fact, this makes the show the very first one to last an entire season, out of the 12 or so "We want a weirdo nerdy hit like 'Lost' too" shows that the American networks have put on the air over the last couple of years. Now, will you please hire some better fucking writers over the summer?!