To me, the first season was that good. It was surprisingly fresh, captivating and exciting. Not the best show ever, but one of those great single-season stories. It was like watching Alias or 24 the first season: just thrilling.
I feel much the same way about season 1 and have been VERY disappointed with the junk they have come up with ever since. It would have helped to have some sort of direction or plan on where they were going, like Lost has done so well, yet it just keeps going all over the map.
I wrote to one of the show writers and he said that Claire's blood was brought up in the writers' room meetings. He didn't say why it was rejected (at least for the moment).
Disappointing finale, which indicated the direction the series would take. Good enough setup with lots of interesting characters, and then they blew it; then compounded the problem trying to "save" the show.
According to NBC cuts fall season in two - Variety.com the shortened season is indeed the case. We'll just get Heroes in the fall at 8 PM. Chuck will replace it at mid-season.
after how terminator season 1 was done, and dollhouse this year, and just watching 4400 on dvd, i actually enjoy half 11-13 seasons more than i do full 22 seasons. seems like stuff is tighter and just flows better. for serial 1 hour shows i'd rather see this be the norm.
For what it's worth, I (mostly) enjoyed Villains way more than Fugitives. Villains started out great, and I only started having problems with it when they got to their eclipse episode. (The episode actually called "Villains" was their best episode of the season--from either volume--in my opinion.) Whereas the beginning of Fugitives felt too much like an X-Men retread to me, but got interesting again in the last few episodes. If I had to ditch one of those volumes, I'm keeping Villains. But that's just me. Overall I still enjoyed both, I don't regret watching them.