Heroes Season 1

I'm still not having much luck with the books, but I've been watching heroes lately and Season 1 was pretty good.

It starts out with a scientist, Mohinder Suresh, who is trying to continue his father's research into a theory that there could be people out there with superhuman powers like regeneration, telekinesis, etc. The season also gives us insights into these people's lives as they discover their powers. And, of course, being human they don't all necessarily use their new found powers for good. Some are greedy, some are confused, and one is downright evil.

I'm not a huge fan of superhero comics or shows/movies. I mean I did used to watch Ninja Turtles when I was very, very young and I occasionally watched an episode or two of batman or something if siblings or cousins were watching them... but I outgrew this kind of thing very quickly and tended to stay away from it. I still found myself watching and enjoying the first season of Heroes. The main reason for this is, I think, the variety of characters presented and the realistic/human way their lives are portrayed.

The characters may have superpowers, but that doesn't stop them from having their own flaws and being confused, or lost, or woefully wrong at times. The show also does a good job of varying their abilities and developing/revealing them slowly. Some of my favorite characters include Hiro Nakamura, Peter Petrelli, and sometimes Matt Parkman, Isaac Mendez and Claire. The villain Sylar was also very well written. He starts out very mysterious and we only know him through his crimes, but about halfway through the season his character is revealed and fully developed.

I did think the season dragged a little before it reached the predicted and much anticipated ending. This would have been fine if the ending delivered, but it fell flat. My main issue with it is that where the rest of the season took its time with characterization and dragged agonizingly slowly in getting the characters together in the finale suddenly everyone is thrown together a little haphazardly and we suddenly get new characters revealing their powers. Also, by the time that ending scene came along there were some characters that I had really begun to hate. At the top of this list is Niki/Jessica and her ever-shifting motivations and pointless story-line. I also began to dislike Matt and Claire and Mr Bennett, who I much preferred as a villain.

Overall, it was a good season and there is certainly some good characterization and story-line. Just don't expect too much from the ending.

Character Sketches: (SPOILERS)

Hiro was easily my favorite character of the bunch. His skill, the trouble he had with using it and the way they had him learn to use his powers was great. I admit, I did feel it was going a little sideways when his father turned out to be involved in everything, but I eventually accepted this. Hiro is great because he's so optimistic and so motivated. That's not to say he's a two dimensional cheery character - they do a great job of giving him conflict and putting him through hard situations, but his personality is just awesome.

Peter Petrelli was my other favorite character. I wanted to smack him upside the head several times for his annoying over-reliance on his idiot brother, and to be honest I wasn't impressed when his brother came through at the end. Peter, however, remained one of the best characters. He was just the right combination of kindhearted, confused, determined, and capable. I hope they continue to do his character justice in future. I also really liked the Australian guy that mentors him for a couple of episodes.

Isaac was one of my favorite characters, but I began to hate him when he got caught by the company. He was far too trusting. He was also far too pessimistic and inactive. I mean, you can draw the future, DO something about it! It was also obvious that they were going to kill him off so I guess I wasn't interested in investing so much into a character who was so obviously doomed and not going to do anything about it.

The whole Niki-DL-Micah storyline was very irritating. First of all, I still fail to see how Niki's ghost/split personality is a "power" and what possible use it can have other than making her deranged and miserable. This plotline also failed to go anywhere. The kid was interesting for the first few seconds, but it took way too long for his power to be revealed and then it was suddenly portrayed as being of key importance to the bad guys. Not impressed. Overall, I don't think this show did a decent job of characterizing any of the females or the black people or the kids. The Haitian was cool, but we never got to see his motivations or have him come through because he got killed off when he began to get interesting.

Matt Parkman's story-line was another one that failed to go where it could have. If he can hear people's thoughts he should have figured out, way earlier, which side he needed to be on and what he was going to try to do.

Ted was another cool character that they killed off and misused. First of all, the whole nuclear thing was ridiculous because all these characters kept coming into contact with all this radiation without any perceived side-effects. Most of them should be dead or slowly dying by the time the finale rolls along... just like his wife died of cancer (which was a great character intro for him!) I can suspend disbelief when it comes to powers and a lot of the crazy things that happened on this show, but this was one thing that was ridiculous and inconsistent.

I also dislike the way many of the characters without superpowers were dropped or suddenly given powers. Simone was a little irritating, but I don't think they should have killed her off. They also didn't make great use of her death when it came to Isaac and Peter's reactions. I also liked Zack (Claire's friend) and was disappointed when he disappeared. Suresh's neighbor, Eden or whatever her name is, and Linderman and the Petrellis' mother, and the waitress that Hiro fell in love with, and the little girl, and Simone's dad... they were all characters that I think should have stayed normal. It's one thing to have a variety of different characters with powers, but the entire cast shouldn't have powers or be "involved".

This brings me to the...

World-Building Rating: 

The superpowers were well done and I liked the premise of the exploding man and the way they showed glimpses of the future and what it would be like if the exploding man did go off. I think they fell through when it came to the whole company/organization and the Linderman connection. Too many people were connected to this company and I'm still not sure what the aims of this company are. If they had developed this company half as well as they developed the characters I would have given this show a good world-building rating. However, as it stands it doesn't rate an awesome or even, to be awesome, a great. I'll rate it at Decent, with a note that it had the potential to be Great or even Awesome.