Heroes This Week

Best episode yet. Which at this point is damning with faint praise. But it does seem like they might finally be on the right track, they've moved most of the characters into more interesting places and the scope of the dual threats (which are no doubt related somehow) is pretty good.

Another week with no Maya/Alejandro, yay!

Another week with no Veronica Mars with Lightning Action, boo!

Hiro finally back from Japan, yay!

Suresh again has boomerang plot-driven characterization, boo!

Terrific scenes of Peter in the future and the amnesia story is finally dead! Yay!

Still don't give a crap about West, and I'm increasingly fed up with Claire. Boo!

Basically, it does seem like they could have gotten to this same place in, say, two or three episodes instead of six. Cut out West and the Black Oil twins and you've shaved at least one episode entirely, cut down the Hiro/Kensei arc to two episodes and you've saved another. And that's without eliminating any of the other pointless stuff, like amnesiac Irish Peter for four episodes. And all of this stretching out was clearly to keep us guessing, so that when the shock reveals of this episode hit, we'd all go "Wow, they've really been planning it."

Except that the reveals were so painfully predictable that we all knew they were coming from much earlier on. Adam's true identity? Guessed the second Kensei's powers were revealed, which incidentally should have been a first episode reveal. Hiro is Kensei? Actual guess from the first episode we met the "real" Kensei. And all this stuff with the Company is so much more interesting than almost anything from the first three episodes... shame they didn't lead with that.

At any rate, with Tim Kring and the rest of the writers on the strike lines, it's probably irrelevant that the show has made a minor comeback. And even though it is a comeback, I'm still uncertain about whether the show can be all that good with four episodes or so of pointless filler in its backstory and West, Maya and Alejandro still lurking in the wings, waiting to suck the life out of the show at any minute. But this was a better episode, and I felt less like I had wasted an hour of my life in watching it.

Of course, I watched it on Tuesday, and watched Chuck on Monday. Chuck is actually getting better with each episode after starting fairly strong, which puts it way out ahead of Heroes. And indeed, ahead of most of the Fall season, except for Pushing Daisies, which is terrific.

Again, though, with the strike, I think getting attached to any of the new shows this season is probably foolish. We're no doubt going to lose a few that might have stuck around in a different situation.

Heroes: OK, Who Still Cares?

I don't know how these little recaps of mine turned into a weekly thing, or how many people are actually reading them. At this point, it's more like venting my anger at a good (and potentially great) show that has become not just weak, but actually bad. If I hadn't invested a seasons' worth of interest already, if this were a new show, I would have given up a couple of episodes ago. As is, I think I've got one, maybe two more episodes like the ones we've been given before I give up anyway.

So I won't have a lot to say this time because honestly, the show isn't really worth that much time. I'll just say this:

*Kristen Bell introduced one week, then she doesn't show up next week so we can get more time-traveling Hiro (in a predictable, and predictably weakly shot and scripted development in his painfully extended time travel detour), more Maya/Alejandro (seriously, if Sylar doesn't kill one of them soon, I'm just going to start fast forwarding through their sequences) and more Claire/West high school drama. Also missing? The only interesting story, about the murders of the supers of the past, and thus any glimpse of Parkman and Petrelli. So basically, extra doses of the three irritating new characters, no glimpse of the three most interesting characters and no check-in at all on the plot I actually care about. Bleh.

*I was out of town, so I was watching the show live, not on Tivo. I fell asleep for about 10-15 minutes there. When I woke up, I didn't feel as if I'd missed anything. Not a good sign.

*Cool to say HRG being all badass, but it's in service to a lame story about some "forgotten" paintings by Isaac, another repetitive element from last season. Also repetitive, the big reveal at the end of the episode and the promise of an "alternate future" episode next week. I'm beginning to suspect they took the scripts from last season and just gave them a touch-up, rather than creating a whole new season.

*Does anyone give a shit whether Clare is a cheerleader or not? Anyone? Just checking. Because I sure don't. They need to get her the hell away from high school and the hell away from dreamy annoying boyfriend dude.

The show is spending all its time exploring questions I don't care about the answers to, and letting the few interesting questions they've managed to accidentally raise linger and die a slow, unattended death. This show needs major surgery, and soon.

Heroes Episode 5: Still Better, Still Not Great

This was the best episode of Heroes Season Two so far. It actually has me legitimately excited to come back next week and see what happens next. It doesn't hurt that Maya, Alejandro and stalker boyfriend West were entirely absent, that Kristen Bell was entirely present, and that the Matt Parkman/Nathan Petrelli and Monica/Micah teams are probably the most interesting ones on the show. Hell, even the Hiro subplot, while still boring and contrived (with his time travel/teleportation powers, why can't they go *past* the army, instead of through it?), was watchable. Still, here come the gripes (and a few kudos):

*When one of your producers can't spell "lightning" and instead spells it either "lightening" (that'd be making it lighter) or "lighting" (that'd be making it brighter)? Yeah, that doesn't look so good.

*Also, lightning hands? Cool power. Introducing that power by having the girl talk to herself and fire a few sparks at a nearby cargo shipping container? Laaaaammme. Jeez, reveal the power when she fries a member of the Lucky Charms gang, at least that would have been cool.

*Kristen Bell is doing good stuff with what little they've given her, though. Some of that Veronica Mars sass in the hands of a much more wicked girl. I *loved* her "Yeah, OK I killed him" conversation with "Daddy" and I'm dying to know who "Daddy" is. Easily the best new character of the season. No shock there. No pun intended.

*Second best new character, though, is definitely Monica. She and Micah have a great rapport (and the kid who plays Micah is one of the best kid actors on TV), she has a cool power and I like that they're instantly going into "What do we do now" mode rather than having her spend three episodes denying her powers.

*Unlike, say, Peter, who is still pissing about in Ireland, with the writers' mistakenly believing we give a shit if they kill any (or indeed all) of the gangster/bar owner characters they've introduced this season.

*Parkman's dad? Great stuff. I was totally buying his act until the second he was revealed, and I thought the reveal of what was going on with Matt Parkman and Nathan Petrelli and the mindgames was very well shot.

*Also digging the stuff with The Company, with Stephen Tobolowsky being great as always, and I loved Mohinder and Nikki interacting, if only briefly.

Overall, while it's worth noting (as EW did) that at this point in the last season, we got that kickass, electrifying moment in the subway between future Hiro and Peter, and thus Heroes Season Two is still too slow and disappointing, this was a promising upturn. The real grade is probably still a C or a C-, but if you grade on a curve against the rest of the season, this was a B, maybe a B+ episode. Here's hoping it continues to improve, and faster, each week.

Heroes: Better, But...

The fourth episode of Heroes was the strongest one this season. A big part of that is that two of the stupidest, least interesting plotlines (Hiro in Feudal Japan and Peter in Ireland) were entirely absent. Another part was that they finally, *finally* introduced a new character I didn't immediately want to throttle. And another part is that they seem to have hit upon a main story that actually seems potentially as interesting as the Sylar/Lenderman mysteries of season one. Now if only they can focus in on that and ditch all the extraneous garbage.

The new character and her family are cliched in the extreme, with a cringe-worthy inclusion of a "topical" Hurricane Katrina story. However, the new actress (Dana Davis) is quite good in a cliched role, and her powers (Taskmaster-esque photographic reflexes) are pretty cool, and well done. I'm finding it really, really hard to believe Tim Kring's assertion that he doesn't read comics... if that's the case, he has the super-power of accidentally ripping them off in every episode. Which is fine, just... acknowledge your influences, don't try to pretend you're one of the cool kids who doesn't read superhero comics when you're trading on the cool factor of the genre to shore up your B-list writing.

Was that harsh? No harsher than the feelings I continue to have for Maya, Alejandro and West, the three new characters whom I would like to see die in a huge fireball. Or a quiet gas leak. Really, whatever gets rid of them the fastest. I was actually stunned by the stupidity of coincidence that Sylar stumbled into the path of Maya and Alejandro, but that whole story gained a 50% boost in charisma with Zachary Quinto's arrival, and even better, maybe it means Sylar will kill Maya and Alejandro and we can be done with the whole stupid subplot. I confess, I didn't think bringing back Sylar was a great idea, but I don't really know exactly what his motivations/goals are at this point, nor do I know what's up with the cockroaches left at the scene of the crime, and I'm actually interested in both those mysteries.

The main mystery, which is actually interesting, is about "The Company" and how it relates to the original band of not-so-heroes. Sure, Parkman and Suresh are in a hilarious superhero version of My Two Gay Dads (surely the writers see this, right?), but I like where they've taken the characters, and I liked Parkman interacting with Petrelli. In fact, seeing some of these characters cross paths reminded me of the biggest misstep the show made in season two, which is splitting them all up again, when just building on the relationships and going forward would have been *so* much more interesting. Hopefully the connections will come faster from here on in, and we won't have to wait until midseason (or longer) before the various plots are connecting and I don't find myself wanting to fast forward through large chunks of the story.

Seriously, every time West is on screen, I keep hoping for him to either spontaneously combust or be revealed as a devious bad guy who's manipulating Claire. Because if this great boyfriend act is meant to be sincere, it's a little too saccharine for me.

At any rate, seeing Kristen Bell in the teasers gave me hope, as she shines in just the few seconds of screen time there, and if she can bring Peter back from his stupid, contrived Irish mis-adventure, so much the better.

Even though the show was better tonight, it was still weaker than pretty much any of the episodes from last season. And there were some weak, weak episodes last season. I'm still watching, but my finger's on the "Cancel Season Pass" button, and I won't be recommending to my two friends who've given up that they come back at this point.