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ENTERTAINMENT
November 28, 2006
Who They Are And How They Came To Be
I've complained about Heroes a lot over the last ten weeks but I'll change my tune if every episode from here on in is like this week's. I thought "Six Months Ago" was real good. The secret origin of the Man They Call Sylar was well done. I liked how he resembles Clark Kent more than a little and the fact that he is/was a watchmaker, a cool homage to the origin of Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen. I liked the story of how ne'er-do-well Eden fell under the sway of Horned Rimmed Glasses, whom I think should be the centerpiece of the show. I liked the secret origin of how Nathan's wife ended up in a wheelchair.
Locke: My story didn't go down quite like that.
What a shame Mohinder's dad is dead as I think he's much more compelling than Mohinder himself. I liked the untold secret origin of how Claire became a cheerleader. And I liked the Hiro's tragic inability to save the cute redhead waitress no matter how much time traveling he did. Good stuff all around.
Certainly a big about-face from how I felt last week:
November 22, 2006
Rob: Have you seen Heroes?
John: I just saw it last night.
John: Unsatisfactory, I thought.
Rob: I was sad that Claire lost all her friends. She should think about solving mysteries around her high school.
John: Only her rival died.
John: She's the queen bee again.
John: I liked Jessica Sanders going all Sarah Connor in T2 on her husband.
John: I think Mohinder is supposed to be Uatu the Watcher. He's got the tremendously boring aspect of being a Watcher down.
Rob: Was it supposed to be a twist that Peter was going to mimic Claire's powers and be fine? Because it seemed pretty clear that was going to happen.
John: Why didn't he mimic Sylar's powers and start hurling furniture at him?
John: It was only a shock to Peter and Claire, not to the viewers, that he'd heal. The audience is way ahead of the characters in most circumstances, which denotes great writing .
Rob: I'm just glad the world has been saved. I was worried.
John: How exactly was the world saved?
John: I'm not even sure Homecoming was saved.
Rob: Step one, save the cheerleader, step two, ?, step three, save the world.
John: I was thinking about what I would do to make Heroes more enjoyable (for me). The writing and acting could be improved, better directing too, but if I had to fix just one thing straightaway, it would be that the narrative is stretched too thin between all these characters. On Lost, there's a hierarchy. Jack is the leader. Kate, Sawyer, Locke, and Sayid balance him out but he's the top dog and we more or less follow his story primarily. Same with The 4400, Tom and Diana are the focal point. Heroes lacks that. I'd make Claire's Dad the main guy and Claire his hot little unbreakable samurai.
John: Claire's dad is pretty interesting.
Rob: But he's "the face of evil."
John: Is he? The narrator thinks it's Sylar now.
Rob: Oh, maybe I got that wrong. It's hard to tell.
John: I think the narrator did change his mind this week about the face of evil.
Rob: Well, there's room for two.
Rob: I love Nathan Petrelli. He's awfully skeptical for a guy who can fly.
John: Flying is for pussies, like his bro.
John: He's got an election to win.
Rob: His brother getting arrested for killing a cheerleader can't be helping.
John: I loved his method for saving the cheerleader: Go inside high school, look at trophy case, talk to cheerleader, go outside, look at clock, go back inside.
Rob: To be fair, I can't imagine what I'd do in his situation.
John: I would have been too distracted by talking to the cheerleader.
Finally, did you know there's already a Heroes Wiki ? I didn't. |
