Heroes (2006)

Watchseries; I just watched this today (recorded it from last night) and quite honestly, I'm pleasantly surprised. I was convinced the hype machine would kill this show, building up expectations so high they could never be met, but Heroes has measured up nicely, hitting on all marks in my book. I'm as a huge a 24 and House fan as is out there, but Heroes may have just taken TV's top billing in one night.

I must admit, shows now-a-days tend to go down hill after the pilot, but NBC's latest offering seems to have set itself up with a concept and tone that could carry on strong, at least for a season. My initial reaction was that we would either see clichéd super hero garb or some awkward NBC drama soaked in hero juice. What we got instead was a surprisingly good pilot that brought enough "hero material" to live up to its name, but not too much as to make us think we were watching an X-men ripoff.

The writing and the interweaving plot and characters is compelling and interesting, nothing dumbed down, but nothing contrived either. The direction fits the concept perfectly, it grabs you as much as it should, without being distracting. The acting is most surprising in that it's actually good. Masi Oka, who plays "Hiro Nakamura", is quite possibly the best of the cast, though he never speaks a word of English (unless you count "Spock"). Overall the cast is nothing big on paper, but they all manage to hit their marks well.

Last but not least, there were some pop culture references and nods to comic book lore that just made me smile. There seems to be a very cool hero/comic book hip feel that makes you trust the writers on this one.

Again, shows have been known to start strong and fall off soon after, but in this case, Heroes has made a strong enough showing that everyone should check this out.

I just watched this today (recorded it from last night) and quite honestly, I'm pleasantly surprised. I was convinced the hype machine would kill this show, building up expectations so high they could never be met, but Heroes has measured up nicely, hitting on all marks in my book. I'm as a huge a 24 and House fan as is out there, but Heroes may have just taken TV's top billing in one night.

I must admit, shows now-a-days tend to go down hill after the pilot, but NBC's latest offering seems to have set itself up with a concept and tone that could carry on strong, at least for a season. My initial reaction was that we would either see clichéd super hero garb or some awkward NBC drama soaked in hero juice. What we got instead was a surprisingly good pilot that brought enough "hero material" to live up to its name, but not too much as to make us think we were watching an X-men ripoff.

The writing and the interweaving plot and characters is compelling and interesting, nothing dumbed down, but nothing contrived either. The direction fits the concept perfectly, it grabs you as much as it should, without being distracting. The acting is most surprising in that it's actually good. Masi Oka, who plays "Hiro Nakamura", is quite possibly the best of the cast, though he never speaks a word of English (unless you count "Spock"). Overall the cast is nothing big on paper, but they all manage to hit their marks well.

Last but not least, there were some pop culture references and nods to comic book lore that just made me smile. There seems to be a very cool hero/comic book hip feel that makes you trust the writers on this one.

Again, shows have been known to start strong and fall off soon after, but in this case, Heroes has made a strong enough showing that everyone should check this out.

Heroes watchseries. I first saw the teaser commercial for Heroes at the end of Medium's last season and started salivating. And now that I've tuned in I'm hooked. The premise of super-humans has been done before and most recently in Mutant X. And I've been around to check these shows out. The misfit one with Courtney Cox was an old favorite. But none of these shows garnished the pure mystery that Heroes had going for it all the way to the end of the pilot. Plus a killer cast should make it a surefire hit.

I've loved Adrian Pasdar since he chewed up the screen in Profit and while he seems to be playing a similar role here, he is balanced by Milo Ventimigilia as his kid brother with a more human heart and dreams he can fly.

But the real scene stealing of the show belongs to the ladies. Ali Larter creates a believable single mother with serious money problems. Her strange gift is actual scary and has yet to have been fleshed out. The sequence where she awakes to find things have gone horribly wrong in her favor are chill inducing.

And on the flip side Hayden Panettiere's discovery of her gift is grueling, bloody, and refreshingly ironic as a modern day Supergirl. All her stunt work in a cheerleader's outfit made me smile. And by the show's end a revelation comes about her family life that made the show even more interesting.

With a painter who creates art that sees into the future and a comedic turn by Masi Oka and his abilities it's hard not to enjoy heroes. It twists and turns in only an hour and keeps you grounded to the characters and the situations they fall into. The previews for upcoming episodes made me actually want more. If your not tuning in on Monday nights, you might be missing something spectacular.

The concept of this show is about people with special powers similar to mutants in the Marvel universe. And how the characters cope with it and what they decide to do with it. The main drive of this show isn't necessarily the the superpowers, but the subconscious and the philosophical aspects that revolve around power. Unfortunately this is one of those shows that has a very captivating and entertaining first season, but goes downhill from there. It probably has to do with the fact that after the first season it was first planned to introduce new characters with brand new main characters with just Suresh (who is sort of the Beast character from the Marvel universe without the furriness). Which didn't go into effect because they wanted to keep the main cast that become dis-likable and annoying as the seasons drags on. The writer strike could have been a big factor why the show started to go downhill after season 1. I think season 2 was the most boring season of all. Season 3 it sort of picks up, but just about everything is so inconsistent with the story and the character that it takes away a lot form the experience. The 4th season revolves around a mutant carnival and they just seemed to drag that on way too much. And the constant love, hate relationship between Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) and Noah Bennet (Jack Coleman) gets really really annoying...Like super annoying and irritating. As a matter of fact most of the chemistry that starts out strong in the first season goes downhill. The story gets poorly written for each season after one that even the characters decisions and motives makes no sense sometimes. Especially the villains in the shows, including Sylar. And to increase the running time of the show, it has multiple story arcs that doesn't go anywhere. One of the most disappointing part about the show is the showdown between Peter and Sylar. The constant plot-holes and tons of time paradoxes when it comes to time travel doesn't make things better. Overall this is a show that has a good start but gets worse and worse with each installment. Who knows, maybe just maybe the fifth season could have been a boost with the world knowing about super humans and might go in the direction like "True Blood" except people with super powers going out into the public. And Sylar's redemption might have been cool to watch. To sum it up it's one of those shows that soars skyward with the first season and spirals downward. I give this show a 6.4/10 because I found some of the philosophical aspects to be intriguing.

6.4/10

Heroes is one of the most controversial shows of the decade, but not for the reasons you may think. When Heroes premiered, it was one of the most popular shows on television. Fanboys were created around the world, but disaster struck: Heroes, for reasons unknown, started to suck after a wonderful first volume. Fanboys were in denial everywhere: Was their precious Heroes really going down the drain, or was it just a hiccup? People expected old Heroes to come back when volume three came to us, and.... Heroes was awful. People stopped watching, but as they stopped, the old Heroes we loved slowly came back in volume four. Now the show is in volume five, and did the show returned to form? Read on...

VOLUME ONE: GENESIS - Here's the thing about Heroes: Instead of having "seasons" like normal TV shows, it has "volumes" to be more like comic books. Volume One is where everything starts. In it the Heroes must stop a nuclear bomb from exploding in NYC, but all of the Heroes are scattered around the world and none of them except one knows about it. We're introduced to the main cast that has remained with us up until recently. The best part about superhero stories has often been said to be the "discovery" phase, and the whole first season is devoted to that. As the volume progressed, the characters become more accustomed to their powers, showing the natural stages of average Joe to superman. The magic of real people having superpowers captivated the world. The only major downside to this volume was the average finale. People expected a grand finish for the volume, but one wasn't delivered. Maybe I wasn't disappointed because I watched this volume after the fact, but fans were just plain angry. Despite the sub par finale, expectations still soared for volume two...

VOLUME TWO: GENERATIONS - Volume Two dealt with heroes from the past, and the heroes also had to stop a virus from being released. Sounds exciting... at least on paper. In execution however, this volume was horrible. Nothing happened in the first 4 episodes. It was BORING. These people have superpowers, but they aren't doing anything. Things started to pick up, but none of it seemed to be planned out. As the volume started to be interesting, the volume was cut short due to the writer's strike. What we're left with is a boring mess that made fans want to tare their hair out. Tim Kring apologized for the show's 180 degree turn in quality. Fans laid the blame on the writer's strike, so expectations soared yet again for volume three...

VOLUME THREE: VILLAINS - Volume three had the heroes trying to stop a formula which gives normal people superpowers from being mass produced, and would therefore destroy the world. This season started out by introducing new characters to us and created exciting new twists that should have been awesome. After the premier though, things started to suck. Instead of things being too slow now, they were too fast. Random things were happening left and right, the plot was spinning out of control, and fans everywhere gave up on the show. Thankfully, this volume was only half the season, and Heroes then segued into volume four...

VOLUME FOUR: FUGITIVES - After the events in volume three, the show rightfully decided to ignore most of volumes two and three. This volume had the heroes on the run from the US government. After the madness of the last two volumes, people had given up on the show. Something happened which I started calling the "Heroes effect". The

This must by far be the worst butchering of a TV series ever. It is almost impressive how they totally trash a tremendous show along the way until only a burning wreck remains. The writers responsible should quit their jobs and live in shame for the rest of their lives. This is a painful display of inconsistency and incompetent writing. I was actually excited when I heard about "heroes reborn" but now that I have just finished s4 I am not so sure anymore. Maybe I will watch it out of pure curiosity and I am telling myself that it can not get any worse. This show desperately needs Hiro to go back to the start of s2 and bitchslap everyone around the writingtable.

I loved the first series - innovative, good story, slick cgi, great cliff-hangers. Sadly season 2 seemed to lose it's way (story wise), and it all started to get messy - worse still it was full of moments when you say "what the... why would you do that?!!!?!" for example, you've had a major fight within your arch nemesis & for once he's on the floor unconscious - now is your chance -finally! - so what do you do - would you a) pick up the gun on the floor and take the 2 seconds to shoot that person, or b) leave & then come back later..... let me see now...

Let me give you another example - you are a Dr, and the former most dangerous man in the world, who you know murdered countless people & almost brought the city to the edge of destruction, comes to visit - but you find out he's lost all his powers. He "thinks" you can help him get these powers back with an injection, do you a) give him the injection - knowing he'll probably be unstoppable & continue to murder his way through humanity, or do you b) give him an injection of something like saline, or even better some sort of poison - which he wouldn't have known you were doing as he had no medical knowledge??? Again, let me think....

Too many moments like this made it silly and unbelievable, which is a shame....