I'll be the one to rise in defense of Fringe. It is ridiculous, but I find myself laughing with it, not at it. In both Alias and Lost, there's this giddy sillyness at the macroscopic plot level, but deadly seriousness at the small scale things. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.
And I have to think the production staff is regreting the decision to go with those floating 3D titles to tell us where we are.
The thing that really irritates me about Heroes is the marketing. It makes me question if there actually is a huge rabid fanbase or just some massive media hoax. They had a red carpet premiere for the new season? Can't they just let the show be? If we try hard enough, we just might be able to create a new catch phrase. There is some stuff I really like in the show (haven't seen the new episode yet) but all too often things start out interesting, but then don't really work out. I kinda like the idea that a character would spend a large chunk of the season in feudal Japan. Did it work? No.