For me, the first season had ups and downs. The beginning was a bit slow, I remember enjoying the Pilot but the following episodes were a bit slow-paced, which may be the reason why a lot of people said it had "bad writing", though I don't agree.

I mean, a lot of shows have a premise like that and take a while to explain... in LOST, the true reason for the plane crash was only explained towards the end of season 2!! Either way, they already revealed why the power went out, but people dropped it in the beginning.... if I dropped shows because of the premise, I would have missed many of my favourite ones.

I'm not saying that it's perfect, it does have a lot of flaws and some details that I don't like, but like I was saying, it had its ups and downs along the season, I liked the parallel stories (specially when they were about Neville, great Giancarlo Esposito :P) and it got way more interesting in the second half. I had mixed feelings about the finale, though.. the whole Randall thing was weird.. and I refuse to believe what Neville has accomplished in the last two episodes. (Plus, can't Monroe be reached by bullets or what?? That was impossible.. I know it's for the sake of the plot, but those guys suck at aiming :S)