Heroes

I missed Heroes the first time around. And the second. The first time around it was baseball season and the Tigers were headed to the postseason. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. Every game was riveting. Magi told me that the show was great and I would watch it sporadically, and Heroes isn't the kind of show with which you can do that. Like Lost, the show is so serialized that if you miss even one episode, you're...well, lost.

Since the show just came out on DVD and the Tigers seem to be sliding further into second place and falling behind in the wild card race, I'm gearing up for season two by watching season one. Ordinarily, a show like this would be right up my alley. It has superpowered human beings and good storytelling. I am finding it to be everything everyone told me it was.

Typical superhero shows have the costumes and secret identities and all the conventions of the genre, but Smallville changed that. I wish Smallville was half as good as this show, but at least it served to establish that not all superheroes have to wear tights. Heroes reminds me of the Wild Cards series of novels edited by George R. R. Martin which I'll write more about later. In those books, the heroes are very real people with real flaws and personalities.

In Heroes, the characters feel real. They have kids, wives, husbands, relationships. They don't all come from New York. They're all over the map. I like that. I think my least favorite character so far is Nathan Petrelli, the flying man who is running for Congress. He is the most self-serving, manipulative jerk on television and he doesn't even care that he can fly! Now that's self-involved.

I don't want to start overanalyzing the motives of all the characters. I'm only up to the "Six Months Ago" episode and I'd probably be wrong about everyone. Except for Nathan, that is. I'm pretty sure he's a schmuck.

To be continued...