On Heroes and Hiro
All right, all right. After months of people looking at me incredulously because I’m a comic-book fan and hadn’t seen the TV show “Heroes,” I finally watched the first two episodes last night. So far, I’m not hooked.
Don’t get me wrong: there was the occasional frisson when something from my little corner of the universe got referenced in the big, bad mass media. Knowing who Spider-Man is hasn’t counted since about 1967 when his title was selling 345,000 copies a month and the character had his own cartoon show. On the other hand, Hiro’s only form of ID being his membership card in the Merry Marvel Marching Society does.
But, while I enjoyed watching the cheerleader grind her own hand in the garbage disposal, I don’t care about her mother who raises show dogs or her search for her biological parents or her upset at the gloryhogging of her rival blonde. Similarly, I can’t get too worked up about the guy whose brother is a heartless politician (yeah, there’s a unique problem). The episodes felt very padded. At least “Lost” didn’t start out feeling padded; for that to happen we had to wait for the backstory romance of characters like Rose and Bernard who don’t matter.
With any luck, that future nuclear blast will come quickly. On the other hand, “The Road” has already been there and been better.
January 3rd, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I saw the “extended” pilot epissode at the Comic Con in July and liked some of it but there was no hook for to keep watching the show. I have caught parts of the later episodes and it looks like there has been some improvement in the show, but still no hook.
Paul