Science-Fiction has rarely appealed to me on the big or little screens precisely because the genre has always invoked more visual fantasy than great storytelling.

My opinion. Feel free to start booing.

Robots talking, heroines in body armor with colored hair, set designs on faraway planets, dialogue that sounds more like b-grade porn -- it all just turns me off to no end.

My friend J nailed it one afternoon on the porch. She said that I prefer entertainment that has a foothold in reality, and I would stretch that to include storytelling that invokes emotion, a mastery of the written word and some semblance of mysticism.

Could be a book, a podcast, movie or television show.

In the 1990s, Carl Sagan's story was brought to cinema in the form of "Contact," which got mixed reviews among the sci-fi hoi polloi. Some found it to be a cheap, subpar execution of a brilliant man's vision. Others thought it was thoughtful and approachable by the masses who don't necessarily care for science-fiction.

I liked it quite a bit because of its simple premise, which if I remember right was that our perceptions of the universe and what waits for us once we die are all a bit true inasmuch as we're willing to pursue truth -- truth in the generic "as we see it" sense.

Not to go off on some Platonic rant, but I appreciated the openness to an individual's pursuit of truth expressed by Sagan and the movie.

On the other hand, I never said I wasn't open to being entertained.

It was on a lark, a whim, but I recorded NBC's Heroes last week and finally watched it this week, recording the subsequent second episode on Monday.

Didn't know what it was about, except that apparently these people across the world discovered they had superpowers, supernatural abilities -- something -- that made them special. Didn't know what, why, how.

After watching the first two episodes, I still don't know exactly where this show is going, except that I'm hooked. And, I'll be damned, but this is sci-fi, too.

I'll avoid the typical television-review type of piece and just note that I've always truly believed in supernatural powers. While I don't think we're necessarily capable of levitation or being able to injure ourselves without physical repercussion, I think we're all capable of some level of psychic ability.

A sixth sense, if you will. Deja vu. Dreams foretelling certain vague aspects of our future. Gut hunches.

Furthermore, I'd like to think that if we were actually capable of using more than the 10 percent of our brains afforded us, we might actually be able to do more. As poetic and tragic as our limitations as humans can be, I'd like to think we'd also use any gifts for good.

Like Superman. The Justice League. But, without the costumes.

That's where "Heroes" takes us -- on a journey with ordinary folks around the world, blessedly cursed with abilities they can't fathom. Characters like Issac Mendez deal with his curse, if you will, by indulging in pain-numbing substance abuse. Others like Hiro Nakamura embrace it with joy -- to a point.

That the show's producers have chosen not to give its audience too much of a hint as to where it's going adds to its buzz. Heck, it's quite the surprise hit so far for NBC, and it's outperforming its 9 p.m. successor, "Studio 60 ..."

My buddy T complimented me on my openness to a sci-fi show, one that he had been looking forward to for some time. Heck, I didn't realize it was sci-fi until about halfway through my first on-DVR episode, at which time I rushed back to the network to record the last 38 minutes of Episode 2.

Thank God for the Sci-Fi Channel, which is rebroadcasting episodes of "Heroes" each week at 6 p.m. on Fridays.

I can't believe I'm saying that. THANK GOD FOR THE SCI-FI CHANNEL?

Network television has taken a turn for the positive and inspirational with shows like "My Name Is Earl," which deals in karma, and "Ugly Betty," which is founded upon our desire to root for ultimate social underdogs. Likewise, "Heroes," as a title, serves its show and its characters appropriately.

It's also dark, which I appreciate immensely. Heck, a garbage-disposal maker (Emerson) is suing the show's makers for showing its product while one of the show's characters, a cheerleader, experiments with putting her hand in the garbage disposal only to see her limb mangled and then healed mystically.

There is an irony somewhere in the fact that a corporation can't see the forest for the trees, as this is merely a television show. I hardly think anybody really noticed that the garbage disposal in question was made by their company.

We know it now, though.

I probably identify with the cheerleader as much as any character in the show in that if I were to have a superpower, I would probably start obsessing over it and experimenting with it.

"I'm Claire Bennet, and this is my sixth attempt," she said after falling from some apparatus, breaking some bones and then getting up to pop it all back into place.

I damn near came off the couch, it was so bad-ass. Not bad-ass in that her character was able to do physically what she did, but that her character dealt with it so stoically.

Now, I could also appreciate Hiro's move to teleport himself into the women's restroom at a club in Japan. Hey, what heterosexual guy wouldn't do the same thing? The beauty about Hiro is that his character is clearly set up to be an everyman, a loser -- if you will -- who finally achieves something, although we know he's going to have to deal with some s*** soon.

But, I digress.

That the show is truly global, and respectfully so, in its scope is a breath of fresh air. The show's premise seems to be set on this Human Genome Project, which was apparently the workings of a professor in India who came to New York, became a taxicab driver and was killed because of his work.

The scenes in Japan featured actors speaking Japanese, without any typically American stereotypes (note: I still love "Lost In Translation"). While the Indian professor's son did become a cab driver, it's not nearly as bad as if he had become a convenience-store owner.

My high praise for "Heroes" doesn't mean I'll start renting "Star Wars" movies or attend "Star Trek" conventions or rent from the sci-fi aisle at Blockbuster. However, this is an acknowledgment for anybody who refuses to watch this new NBC show on the basis that it is sci-fi to visit nbc.com, watch the first couple of episodes and keep an open mind.

It's truly brilliant, and I hope it continues at the same level of high-art from which it's started.

On the other hand, NBC's Friday Night Lights is right up my alley.

Football in Texas. High-school football.

Having covered prep sports in those parts for a couple of years, I came to know the sociological test tube that is small-town football.

And, having watched the movie by the same name, I wasn't really planning on watching the series. Don't get me wrong; the movie was fine -- good but not great.

However, a New York Times review of the show's premiere caused me to DVR it tonight, to give it a shot.

Damn, it's brilliant, too. However, I'm not sure that "Friday Night Lights" is ready to appeal to the viewer who hates sports the way that "Heroes" is to appeal to the the viewer who loathes sci-fi.

First, the stereotypes are way over the top. Many are true, such as all the community input given to the local coach. However, the teenage soap opera feel of the show, the kids' lives as something more akin to "Laguna Beach" than a regular high school is a tad much.

What the show has going for it is its direction, first and foremost. It's shot like a movie, without a narrator for the most part, except toward the end, when the coach says a few words. The show's soundtrack is stellar, and the on-the-field football action is as real as I've ever seen.

Even if the plot is a bit too television-ish for real, small-town Texas, it is pretty much a dead-on sociological study into the disproportionate importance given to athletics.

It's smart, discussion-provoking and every bit as well done as "Heroes," strictly in terms of television.

The big difference for me, though, is that the world conveyed by "Friday Night Lights" is the one I'd like to escape from at times, and the world embodied by "Heroes," even if it goes hellishly bad, is one I'd like to escape to each week.

And, perhaps, that is why I was so impressed with it to begin with ... It channels my inner optimist.

Bottom line is that reality television should probably take heed because with new shows like these, not to mention "Ugly Betty," "Studio 60," and several others that have critical worth behind them, Hollywood's class of writers, actors and directors are making a serious comeback on television.

The beneficiaries are we the viewers.