Heroes and the Telepathic Super-Shark

Culture Vulture reviews the Heroes premiere:

All in all, though, while this was a perfectly serviceable episode of a superhero-based TV show, we had a hard time getting as worked up about Heroes as we surely were last spring. It's hard to get excited about the shocking! return! of characters whose shocking returns you've already read about and seen in promos. (That's why the appearance of Sylar, seemingly sunning himself in Puerto Vallarta, in the preview of next week's episode wasn't as exciting as NBC probably thought it was.) It's too early to panic, but it's worth asking: Has the shine come off Heroes? And if Heroes jumps the shark, will the shark at least be some kind of telepathic super-shark, with a frickin' laser beam attached to its head?

Heh.

Heroes 2.1

I'm out.

The premier of Heroes last night was bad on every possible level (and probably a few I haven't thought of yet). It wasn't just the bad writing, weak direction, and lazy acting, but now we have NBC selling the show out with god-awful product placement.

All in all there were too many storylines, too little suspense regarding the assassination plot and the new big bad, and the actors seemed to be parodying their performances from last year.

The Good:

• Sark the Samauri

The Bad:

• Bearded Petrelli
• 17th Century Japan seeming a lot like one of those "funny" episodes of Xena
• The obviousness of the Hiro and Swordsmith's daughter storyline
  
• Claire and the cheerleaders from Bring It On
• Claire and the new boyfriend (who is secretly Clark of Smallville)
  
• The fake Irish guys awful accent
• Peter in a box
  

The Wretched

• The whole Mexico storyline
  
• They killed George Takei

'Nuff said

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Listening to: Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Fucked Up Kid
via FoxyTunes

Heroes of the Left

Salon tries to sell the Heroes finale as a "love is the answer" left-wing response to 24's "pain is the answer" right-wing approach. But I'm not buying it.

If there's a political theme in Heroes it's about finding a way to get the average people to look beyond their personal lives to see the bigger picture. Get past their own desires and comforts. But that's not what the show was about, and having Peter receive the message of love and sacrifice in a dream sequence in the final episode didn't work for me.

It also didn't play dramatically which was why there was so much dissatisfaction from the fans. You can't switch horses in midstream and you can't go high-concept in the middle of an action sequence.

What did work in the early parts of the season 1 were relationships and the most important relationships in the first season revolved around the family. The Petrellis, the Bennets, Parkman and wife, Hiro and his father's company, Sylar and his mother, the Doctors Suresh, the fractured family of Micah, DL, and Nikki. There wasn't a single romance or boundary-crossing friendship. The characters only fell into the overall bomb plotline as they were pursuing smaller goals that related to their own family's self-interest and survival. The suspense/mystery aspect of the show was to see how these relationships played themselves out.

The heroism in Heroes is having the imagination to step outside of one's self and take on the quest to save the world. You saw that in Hiro, Peter, and occasionally Claire. That ability. more than their super powers, made them black sheep and outsiders; heroes in the vein of the uncanny X-Men. But they weren't outsiders and black sheep to society. They weren't being hunted down except in the false future (and it never was made clear what Linderman and the Company wanted with Ted and Parkman). Instead they were rebelling against their families. Stepping outside those smaller social norms set by parental and paternalistic expectations.

In other words, its a coming of age tale and an after school special. Super powers as a metaphor for puberty, teen angst, and youthful exuberance. If you want to make a social observation, it's that many of the characters were much too old for this sort of thing. Or that adolescence is extended for some folks well into their twenties and thirties. Interestingly the older characters like Parkman and HRG were always most heroic when they were rebelling against their bosses at work.

So that's what makes the show interesting to its younger audience. It's a theme it borrows from Buffy season 1: What if I had superpowers? And what would I tell my mom?

Heroes - "How to Stop an Exploding Man"

Let's face it, the show peaked with the flash forward episode. That was the episode where all the character arcs really converged and the various storylines paid off. Perhaps they should have just stopped there. Since then they've wasted time and wasted their best characters, either leeching the show of drama, undermining the show's premise, or setting things up for season 2.

The worst part of the entire finale was the big showdown in Kirby Plaza. In a word, it was just awful: Sylar can stop bullets but he can't stop a sword. Peter can instantly borrow Niki/Jessica's super strength but he can't re-borrow Nathan's ability to fly. Sylar can control the nuclear ability but Peter can't. We saved the cheerleader so she can blubber and not shoot a gun. The whole world converges on Kirby Plaza but noone notices Sylar crawling into the suddenly convenient manhole. And poor Nathan. He desperately needed a character moment where he could sacrifice himself for the greater good, but the circumstances didn't warrant his sacrifice.

Overall, Heroes is a good show and with the upcoming Heroes origins show they'll have a fantastic opportunity to expand the Heroes universe. But I think at this point they have sacrificed the drama for comic book longevity. Moving forward nothing is going to have the impact of discovery that we saw in season 1. The twists and turns of HRG and Claire's family drama. The slow emergence of Sylar as a super-villain. The quixotic wanderings of Hiro and Ando.

Hiro is now in 17th century Japan which is both an "oh cool!" and an "oh, please". It's like the last five minutes of Evil Dead 2. It's just a goof. Completely meaningless. It has nothing to do with the premise of the show. Nothing to do with ordinary people living through the anxieties of extraordinary times. That was the post 9/11 mood that the show tapped into. The comic book stuff was just a way into the deeper story. Now it's an end in itself. Season 2 promises that Heroes will be just another blockbuster entertainment like Spider-man, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Shrek. Big, loud, fun-like without actually being fun. Ultimately hollow.

If they'd really wanted to blow us away here's how I would have ended it: Realizing that Peter is about to explode, Hiro embraces him and they teleport away from New York. Now they are both in feudal Japan and Peter's going to explode. How can he save the past and learn to control his powers before it's too late. Save the Samurai, save the world!

Monday Mundane Meh

News in brief:

• Red Wings lose at home on two unlucky goals. Backs are against the wall.
• Heroes finale tonight - will we learn how to stop an exploding man?
• "Mirrored" by Battles looks like the next must have.

Heroes - "Landslide"

After twenty episodes of effortless storytelling, Heroes continues to struggle to find its way toward the big finale. Perhaps the set-up was too big, and now that they have to maneuver all the characters into their spots, it's proven to be more stage management than cinema.

From one scene to the next all we get are plot contrivances and coincidences rather than the character driven stories we've grown accustomed to:

• Peter and Claire just happen to run into HRG, Parkman, and Ted in Kirby Square.
• Sylar just happens to be listening in.
• HRG's incredibly lame escape plan for Claire.
• Peter forgets to use his cloak of invisibility until after the FBI have surrounded Ted.
• The police wagon that takes Ted apparently takes hours to get to its destination, travels without guard, and on a route that allows Sylar to intercept it without witnesses.
• So basically Ted's only reason for coming to NYC was so he could have his abilities stolen twice.
• Peter and Claire decide to drive from Manhattan to Nebraska along a route that just happens to lead them straight to the crash site of the police wagon. Where in New York is that supposed to be?
• Meanwhile, Ando and Hiro find a listing for Ancient Samurai Sword Repair in the Yellow Pages!
• And Hiro's dad just happens to be there, and he has the amazing ability to give Hiro samurai powers after just one lesson!
• But Ando takes a sword so he can go fight Sylar alone?
• Meanwhile back in Kirby Coincidence square, Parkman is really lame at sneaking past the guards, but luckily he spots DL and Nikki/Jessica.
• And HRG just happens to know where everyone is located in the building (who needs the Walker System when HRG is around?)
• And HRG knows how Thompson will sneak up on Parkman, but he doesn't know that Suresh will sneak up on Parkman, or that the Walker System is a little girl.
• Nor does he seem to care.
  

It just goes on and on. One stupid thing after another. There were, however, some highlights:

• The scene between Linderman and Heidi Petrelli, where he gave her his gift returned us to the effortlessness of earlier episodes. It was a surprising intersection between characters that made perfect sense once you thought about it. Also, since we knew what was happening but Heidi did not, we got to appreciate her transformation and dawning realization of the "miracle".
• It's kind of fun to think about how massively fat and disgustingly hideous illusion girl must look with all the hints that keep being dropped between her and Micah.
  
• The high body count at least kept you on the edge of your seat: Ted, Thompson, Linderman, DL (maybe). Parkman gets knocked cold during the mexican standoff between Suresh, HRG, and the little girl. Ando seems doomed.
• George Takei as Hiro's father was just superb.

Onward to the final chapter of volume 1! Please, just be decent. No musical montages, no Dylan songs, no hugging, no resurrections. Just keep to the promises you've been making all season long: ordinary people with extraordinary abilities.

Heroes - "The Hard Part"

What do you expect after last week's amazing episode? This one was a bit of a let-down. To be fair, this is the first part of the three part finale, so they're really just trying to give us Act I. But you could really feel the show straining and groaning under the weight of its own mythology. So much to set up and tie together and connect and resolve -- and so little time. And as a result it all rang a little false.

The good:

• Suresh realizing he was meant to be the cure for whatever was wrong with his sister.
• Sylar's crisis of conscience when he realizes that he is the exploding man.
  
• Micah's foiled escape attempt.
  

The meh:

• Claire and the Petrellis. For goodness sake, just go to Paris already!
  
• The little girl as the people finder. Is this supposed to set-up some moral conflict between saving the "specials" and killing a little girl? Good luck with that HRG.
  
• Micah got dragged to NYC for what exactly?
• HRG, Parkman, and radioactive man. Worst road trip ever.

The bad:

• Sylar and his mom issues.
• Sylar and the magic killer scissors.
• Sylar and the snow globe routine.
• Hiro and his worthless battle skills.
• Hiro and Ando lurking outside the window like a really bad version of A Christmas Carol.

This is the first episode that I thought was really sub-par. I have high hopes for the finale, though I can't think of how they'll wrap up this storyline in a truly satisfying way.

Heroes - "Five Years Gone"

BEST. EPISODE. EVER.

Unbelievable! This episode absolutely gave me goosebumps. Again with the amazing twists and turns, another mind-blowing surprise reveal, and an added emotional slam of post-9/11 relevance. If the future is going to be changed anyway, it was hard to see how they were going to make this one suspenseful, but they pulled it off. Even the future is not what it seems.

Everyone was great, playing versions of themselves pushed past the limit. and the Matrix-y ending with Peter as Neo was pure geek heaven.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a finer hour of sci-fi TV since Buffy ended.

Heroes - ".07%"

I forgot that Heroes is on at 8 mountain and not 9, so I missed the first twenty minutes last week. That sort of threw off my whole reaction to the episode, so I decided not to comment on it until I could grab it from iTunes and watch the whole thing uninterrupted.

That worked out well, because on second viewing, I have a much deeper appreciation for the show. There's something in the craftsmanship of this show that elevates it above Lost and Battlestar Galactica. Yes, it's in the same genre of sci-fi serial drama, but one gets the sense that the people behind Heroes are old pros compared to the young mavericks elsewhere. In some ways it reminds me of some of the good shows from the 80s like Hill Street Blues or St. Elsewhere. Each scene is so skillfully crafted that it sort of clicks into place like a gear catching, each piece fitting with the next.

Here's the good:

• We learned a little more about Linderman, and we learned a little more about mother Petrelli.
• More clever use of shape changing girl - first with Claire when you thought HRG was dreaming, and then with Jessica which was a much nastier trick to play on Micah and Jessica. Anyway, I was fooled.
  
• The fact that it was Claire who figured out that Peter wasn't really dead. Both in the method (since we'd seen her "die" in the same way) and the way it balanced the relationship with her new uncle.
• The way Linderman played his scene with Micah like some sort of diabolical Santa Claus.
• The way Nathan played his scene with Claire as if he was channeling his mother -- or was it his mother? (Is she the original shape-changing girl?)
• Parkman making fun of HRG for not knowing about Linderman.
  

Knit-picking:

• HRG's escape with the dufus-duo was a little lame.
• The plan for HRG to go to New York, also a little lame.
  
• Linderman's power was a little cliche - haven't we seen the flower springing to life before?
• Peter's death - come on! Who was fooled?

Questions:

• What is mother Petrelli's power?
• Why was Isaac so confident that he was dying a hero?
• Hiro vs. Future Hiro?
• What fiendish plans does Linderman have for Micah?
• When will D.L. be given something useful to do?
  

Heroes - "Parasite"

Now this is how you write an entertaining TV show.

Every episode of Heroes is like watching the season finale of any other show. There were plot twists, revelations, reversals of fortune, double reversals, and surprises. And nearly every plot point and storyline was touched on and moved forward.

I won't waste time cataloging all the fun but here are my favorites:

• Illusion Girl was a brilliant device for adding some unexpected twists to both the Isaac and Simone storyline and the HRG storyline.
• HRG getting up to speed on Claire so quickly. Any other show would have milked that for weeks.
  
• Hiro was great in every scene as usual. I never get tired of him throwing his arms in the air in excitement. I never get tired of "Flying Man!".
• Nathan. Who knew he was so likable? This may have been his breakout episode as a character.
• Suresh proving he's a pretty smart guy... and Sylar proving he's even more evil than you thought.
• Mother Petrelli. 'Nuff said.
• Linderman. Double-'Nuff said.

Quibbles:

• Matt didn't get to do anything! Somebody give this guy a decent storyline.
• Linderman thinks people only eat when they're happy. What an idiot. This very basic misunderstanding of human nature MUST be the key to his downfall.
• Now that we know that ALL of the parents of the heroes are interlocked in some big conspiracy, can it ever add up to anything? Too much like X-Files and Lost.
  

Predictions:

• I think we now know why future-Hiro commented on Peter's scar.
• Hiro is not stuck in the future and is nowhere near the point where he has a soul patch and American accent.
• Nathan will eventually step up as the leader of the Heroes.
• Nikki and Jessica will be split into two people. The mirror stuff has worn out its welcome.
• Sylar is future exploding man.