First Impressions: Heroes

There is a good chance that I was the last person to see Heroes. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones that got to see it at Comic-Con (on account that I wasn’t there at all) nor did I get the special code to view it a month early on iTunes. Then this past Monday I was too busy with the Veronica Mars Press Conference (see Chatting with Rob Thomas and Tina Majorino) to watch the premiere. Then Tuesday is my massively long class so I didn’t get to see the rebroadcast. And I have much better thing to do than watch the Sci-Fi channel on Friday night when they showed it once again. So instead I watched it this weekend on NBC’s streaming site which doesn’t have any cool name like other channels.

Now I can explain the characters and their abilities but I won’t for two reasons, there a good chance you already know and secondly, Ain’t it Cool News gave a better description than I could ever com up with:

The guy from Tokyo discovers he can teleport himself, just like Nightcrawler. A cheerleader discovers she can heal herself, just like Wolverine. A cop discovers he can read minds, just like Professor X. A nurse thinks he might be able to fly, just like Storm. An artist thinks he can see the future, just like Destiny. The stripper can kill people by summoning a dark psychic force, just like Phoenix.

Yep, on the surface, the show seems like a blatant rip-off of the X-Men, whom the Asian dude even name drops, but without the cool costumes and more importantly without any archvillains (or are there some). And X-Men may not be the only “inspiration” as the main characters crossing paths even though some are in different time zones has a very Lost during flashbacks feel to it. And didn’t Surface center around a cast that didn’t actually know each other when the show started? And what happened to that show? Of course when I first heard about the show my first thought was the short lived Courtney Cox show (that I had to search imdb to find) Misfits of Science. But you know something’s obscure if they don’t even cover it on any of the I Love the 80’s.

But what hurts the show is the characters in the massive cast are poorly written and are executed even worse by the actors. Aside from the Asian dude, none of the characters are worth caring about or at all entertaining. And the Asian dude can get old real quick if he doesn’t learn English soon. I watch television to avoid reading. The poor casting is highlighted Milo Ventimiglia who single handedly ruined America Dreams as well as headlining The Bedford Diaries. Seriously, how bad do you have to be to only get a half a season on The WB? Then there is Ali Larter, who is best known for bringing the world the whip-cream bikini, so she is excused for her very dry performance and a webcam stripper. The cast is rounded out by the bland Hayden Panettiere (Bring it On 3, yes there up to three of them, don't ask when the second one actually happened) as the bland cheerleader and two ethnic guys who I have yet to be able to tell apart yet. Then there is Greg Grunberg who gets most of his work because he knows J.J. Abrams has yet to show up yet.

But among the bad writing and acting, the biggest crime against humanity for Heroes is that they relegated Shaft to just a dude in a coma without any lines. C’mon, this is Shaft, he should be out having sex with white woman and being an all around bad mother… well maybe I should just shut my mouth. But Shaft should be denigrated like this.

Verdict: After seeing the episode and all the reviews that are extremely hot or cold with very little in the middle, I understand the deviation. The positive reviews are coming from comic-book nerds while the negative one comes from fans of television. So figuring out which side of the fence you reside on will most likely dictate whether you will watch or not. Maybe it was because Heroes was disappointing and Runaway was much better than I expected, but Runaway (see my First Impressions) may be the better new show. Heroes airs Mondays on NBC at 9:00 and you can stream the latest episode on the NBC website or buy it on iTunes (see below).