It really does get better. I was right there with you Greyform. There are actual character arcs and shit. There are ACTUAL moral choices. It's not nearly so 1 dimensional as those first episodes would have you believe.
They probably had to sell it as those easy cookie cutter archetypes that you see in the first 3-4 episodes. I suspect that once they felt secure in their funding they decided to actually write something more daring than the exposition for a teenage romance novel. I guess maybe they had to prove their chops, or maybe they didn't think anyone would bite on the show. From what I understand, just making pilots for consideration, not even for being funded, is something of a business unto itself.
The "bad guys" in the first few episodes start to get some character treatment and are shown not to be cartoonish villains. And the "good guys" get the same. Honestly it's refreshing to see in a series like this. Not that it's perfect, it's not, but it is a stripe above most network drivel.