Okay, readers, I’m starting something new this week. I got the idea from another site (I’m waiting to link to it, until I have the guy’s permission.), and the fact that I can’t afford actual comics. So I thought I’d review the next best thing: Heroes.
For those uninitiated folks who have no idea what I’m talking about, Heroes is a show on NBC about “ordinary people with extraordinary abilities.” (I’m pretty sure that’s a quote…if not, it’s a paraphrase.) It really is a live action comic and achieves, I think, what most comic book-based movies do not. I was going to do an episode summary, but when my original post got up to five pages, and still had a lot of episode left, I figured I’d skip that part. For an EXCELLENT summary, go HERE. Even better, I’d recommend actually watching it HERE.
Instead, I’m just going to get into some of the clichés they use. And, boy, are there a lot of them in Heroes.
First thing this episode goes into is the whole “Scientist experimenting on themselves/injecting the experimental, untested serum into themselves.” This has been a staple of literature, not only comics, since The Invisible Man and Jekyl & Hyde. Sticking to comics, however, there’s a whole pantheon of characters that have done similar things. Hank Pym, for instance, took the “Pym particles,” both to shrink and then to grow, becoming two separate heroes, Ant-Man and Giant-Man.
There’s also Henry McCoy, who is obviously who they’re trying to mold Mohinder after, to a certain extent. A scientist, who injects a completely untested serum into himself, who then undergoes a frightening, unforeseen physical transformation, as well? Yeah…
THIS has a good list of comic book scientists…most of whom have experimented on themselves.
Next big cliché that Heroes uses…a LOT…is the dystopian future, which must be avoided at all costs. Typically, this starts with someone from that time getting the brilliant idea that, if I just go back and change this one little thing, this will all be different and better. Obviously, they never heard of the butterfly effect.
Frankly, yeah, dystopian futures work well. But not when they’re used for every story line. In my opinion, there needs to be more immediate concerns…for instance the 9 (By my count.) remaining Level 5 prisoners. One of Heroes' failings is, for me, how slow it can be sometimes. I think that a more action packed season would be good. Of course, they could be saving it for the second half of the season. Here’s hoping.
Some episode specifics:
I loved the scene with Nathan and Tracy after the bridge scene.
Tracy: So you can fly?
Nathan: Yup.
This show has lots of little moments like that, especially this season.
The Costa Verde fight scene had me literally dropping my jaw. That was a very hard scene to watch.
I also like the very last scene, with Hiro & Ando at the graveyard. Repercussions are not something that Hiro often thinks about, it seems.
That’s it for this week’s episode. Next week’s looks to be pretty good, with meeting Papa Petrelli and all. Of course, knowing Heroes, it’ll be in the last 15 seconds of the show.
Chris
