Heroes: He's my Hiro

"Studio 60" coming late this morning, most likely, as I chose sleep over Sorkin last night. Spoilers for "Heroes" just as soon as I binge on some aspirin...

Whole lotta plot in the latest episode: Niki regains control of her body long enough to turn herself into the law (not that I expect a jail cell to hold Jessica for very long), Claire's dad sics The Haitian on her brother and best friend (and despite what HRG told her about things he did that he wasn't proud of, Claire doesn't connect the dots until The Haitian visits her, speaks for the first time, and disobeys HRG for the sake of the world), Isaac meets Hiro and discovers he can draw the future without shooting up, Eden tries to kill Sylar and instead has to blow her own brains out to keep him from stealing her power as he escapes from his lame prison, Peter and Matt have dueling telepathy (Ding-a-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding), and Peter's dream power shows him that he's the one who's going to blow up New York.

And yet what I found myself discussing with Marian when the show ended was how important Hiro is to my enjoyment of the show. So let me turn that around to the rest of you. It's obvious that, to most viewers, Hiro is their favorite character, but how watchable would "Heroes" as a whole be without the guy? How much does his enthusiasm and humor counterbalance the pretentious characters like Peter and Mohinder?

Some more specific questions:

• At what point is it going to occur to D.L. to just stay phased through a fight except for when he wants to throw a punch?
• Is the show's FX budget high enough to show Hiro's prophesied battle with the dinosaur/dragon, or will this take place off-screen?
• If Isaac wrote and drew the 9th Wonder comic book -- even while high -- why is he so surprised when Hiro tells him about events that appear in the book?
• Does HRG know that The Haitian can talk? And, outside of mind-wiping and power-dampening, can he do anything else?
• Does it seem to anyone else like more than two weeks have passed since the pilot? I suppose that makes sense given the length of Hiro and Ando's road trip and all the cliffhangers, but I've never felt like this was happening over such a compressed period.
  
• Getting back to the issue of how much Hiro adds to the show, is there any regular character who adds less than Simone?

Take it away, folks.