NBC’s hit show, Heroes, features an almost unknown cast of actors. Only a few will recognize Adrian Pasdar, who plays the broodingly dark and ambitious Nathan Petrelli, as the brilliant actor who a similarly dark, intense, and killingly ambitious sociopath on the, tragically, short-lived Fox series, Profit. Perhaps even less will recognize Clea Duval, whose talent can best be seen in HBO’s short-lived series, Carnival, but will probably be recognized more for her small role as a pathological liar in the 1990’s flick, Girl Interrupted. Other stars like Hayden Panettiere and Masi Oka whose popularity has blown to biblical proportion due to the success of the show, were, virtually, unknowns prior.
There is definitely something to be said for a show that, unlike many cult classics that came before, such as Fox’s The X-Files, which took years to build an audience, let alone a groupie following, manages to land on the ground running full speed right out of the box; and, a season later, has lost none of its momentum.
If you are like me, you may be asking yourself, what is so great about this show? Well, to be fair, I will admit to having a bias when it comes to comic books, graphic novels, sci-fi, and all things supernatural; however, in the case of Heroes, the bias did not serve as a contributing factor in giving this show a good rating. To put it succinctly, I am not a fan.
The show, while beautifully filmed (I’m referring to special effects as well as the beautiful downtown, LA set), completely and utterly lacks substance. The dialogue is flimsy, vague and insubstantial. The characters, in theory, are very intriguing, but there is a decidedly blatant lack of character development to make them real, more than just penned caricatures. Supposedly, this is because of the ‘mystery’ and guesswork of the plot, but I suspect poor penmanship is to blame, rather than intentional evasiveness.
In comparison to the hit show, Lost, which features a similar theme with regards to mysterious happenings and seemingly random, convenient occurrence that ultimately unite a group of strangers, all similarly fighting for survival, brought together by unseen forces. Both shows dabble with the idea of predestination. Is man really in charge of his fate, or do all of our lives really intertwine in some way that was preordained?
Unlike Lost, however, Heroes doesn’t rely on subtlety or wait for the viewer to use his intellect and think or raise the questions, they’d rather just tell you, repeatedly. I don’t know, perhaps I am alone in this, but I am against being told, not only what to think, but how to think it. Thanks to the patronizingly, teeth grating, voice over narration provided by Royal Shakespearean actor, Sendhil Ramamurthy, who also plays the character, Mohinder Suresh, we are never, ever in suspense of where the show wants to take us, what we are supposed to be focusing on, what we are supposed to be concerned with, or what will happen next.
In fact, as if patronizing its viewers by spoon feeding us isn’t enough, Heroes will show us an event, which thanks to the plodding pace of the show will take forty minutes to be fully revealed, and then spend the last five minutes using unnecessary narration to recap what just happened, in case we fell asleep and missed it I guess. This kind of formula for making sure the viewers ‘get it’ is insulting in the way it assumes its viewers are of low intelligence. Okay, maybe it doesn’t have to compete with the intellectual maze of it’s rival, Lost, but there is no reason Heroes needs to be so comically (pun intended) contemptuous.
The show’s saving grace is it’s superb cast. Wonderfully diverse, extraordinary talented, these actors are what put the show on the map, and keep the show thriving and growing strong. The writing is weak, the plot (Save the cheerleader, save the world) is about as flimsy as a Victoria secrets thong and about as strong as a spider’s web caught in the winds of a hurricane, so let’s move on to examine the characters shall we.
Season one brought us a wide range of ages, from our youngest hero, Micah Sanders, who has the uncanny ability to tap into and control electronically gadgets, to Claire, the seemingly indestructible teenage cheerleader who was in need of ‘saving’ during the majority of the first half of the season. We have the renegade super mutant, Sylar, whose gift is that he can absorb the powers of other mutants. Of course, the catch is, he must kill them first, by gruesomely removing their brains. Just what he does with the brain is glossed over. I mean, does he eat them, what?
We have a host of other ‘extraordinary’ mutants, and acting talents, but the primary reason I even bother to turn on the television and tune in is because of Zachary Quinto’s hypnotic portrayal of the, wholly frightening, psychopathic super villain. Quinto actually manages to, in one episode, rouse a sense of empathy when he goes back home. It’s so evident that, despite being driven by bloodlust to mutilate and kill all the mutants (which for some reason we don’t know about he is driven to do), he really loves his momma!
Other notable performances are by Jack Coleman as the mysterious and, initially, sinister Mr. Bennet, Claire’s ‘father,’ as well as Ali Larter, who plays a mutant with two personalities, one named, Nikki, and one called, Jessica. Apparently, Nikki is the primary personality, sweet, loving mother of Micah, and wife of DL Sanders (a mutant with the ability to phase, ala Marvel’s Kitty Pride, aka Shadowcat). Jessica, however, is the dormant, Mrs. Hyde persona that emerges when things get gritty and a lot of butt kicking and killing are needed.
I must say, the first time mutilated bodies appeared, littered about her garage floor, I realized the show wasn’t just for the kiddies and was intrigued enough to tune in for another episode. Of course, there has been little in the way of character development or story progression. We can expect Jessica to appear to save the day or vie for dominance of the host body. We can expect her to show up every time little lamb Nikki looks into a reflective surface. Yada, yada, yada. Redundancy at it’s finest.
All in all, if you are tired of wracking your brain, trying to figure your way out of the labyrinth’s maze that is ABC’s Lost, then tune in to NBC Monday at 9:00pm EST for it’s lighter counterpart. If you can stop gnashing your teeth, you will be treated to some light, thought-free action.
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