It's good to see that they're realizing that shorter, tighter seasons provide for a much better series. Some of the best shows on TV right now are the ones that are doing this. Dexter, everything on HBO, Breaking Bad, etc. are all much better series for eliminating much of the "filler episode" garbage that (mostly) major network programming has. I like the mentioning of Heroes above because that's definitely a show that only suffered because of the long, drawn out seasons.
Around half way through 24's original run, season 4-6ish, they had lost me completely but seasons 7 and 8 were both fantastic so I'm looking forward to seeing the next step they'll take.