Or you could do like I said couple of pages ago - skip the first three seasons and go immediately for season 4.
As good an idea as that will probably turn out to be, I can't do that. If I'm going to watch a show at all, I have to watch all of it. Skipping seasons, or even just a few episodes is inconceivable to me. I don't see the point of watching a show if you're going to skip parts of it.
Even if there's no real characterization aside from the basic "hero with a big heart and the funny sidekick"? It's more like A-Team and CSI - very episodic, and caricature-like.
Only the later seasons do an attempt at more serialization where past stories affect the new ones.
For a thematic series with continuing characterization, where watching every episode of it is actually sensible, I'd recommend Xena. Alas, it too gets better later, but at least there's a thematic goal and sense of purpose in that series from day one.
Of course, you can just wait for the Xena trilogy in Hercules season 1 (first appears in episode 9, then 12 and 13, which is also the season finale) and then go to Xena.