I was wondering how to approach this show. On the one hand, I have a bad (read: painful) history with shows centered around superhero concepts. I think I might be one of those people that is constantly getting involved in physically abusive relationships. Only, I’m getting my ass kicked by petulant teenagers and Emo nurses.
Heroes Episode 1.01 “Genesis”.
Written by Tim Kring
Directed by Dave Semel
Starring:
Air Date:
The first problem I encountered was structural. The series flips between little moments between main cast members and shows us that they’re mostly whiny douches with superpowers. Jess from Gilmore Girls is a hospice nurse who’s hot for his patient’s daughter. Also, he thinks he can fly. Professor Indian Cab Driver doesn’t really appear to have powers, except the power to interconnect with these people as he’s driving around NYC. He’s looking to prove his late father’s theories about superhuman potential. The problem here, of course, is the use of the Ten Percent Myth. That line about how people only use ten percent of their brain’s capabilities. This is an age old concept pulled out of the asses of Sci-Fi writers and tossed into the gaping maws of impressionable viewers. It’s always been horseshit, but no one stops using it. Stargate SG-1 has used it. The 4400 has used it. It’s everywhere.
Anyway, next we get Tiny Tits Wolverine. She’s a high school cheerleader that I think might be suicidal. Her mother breeds dogs, but seems pretty together in my estimation. She’s apparently adopted. Her power is indestructibility. She can regenerate from nearly any injury, and has been injuring herself for a while now. Is this supposed to be about teen mutilation? At least she’s not a Goth. That might have been a little too much. After her we’ve got Japanese Otaku Time Traveler. I’m not sure that he can actually travel through time, but he can affect clocks and teleport if that means anything. He made the wonderfully on-time trains in
Porn MILF and Genius Boy are a bit more interesting. Maybe. I’m not sure. It really depends on where they’re going with it. Porn MILF peddles her body online to make rent and pay back the loan she took out from the Mob to get her genius son into a nice preppy school. She’s hot, and all, but I guess that’s not enough to actually keep the money coming in. Her checks to the school have bounced and the mob wants their money back. I have to assume she has super strength or something, because she literally tears a man in half off camera. The clincher here is that she appears to have a mirror double. Or she’s schizoid. Her reflection doesn’t move with her and it appears to take over under times of stress. Hulk? I don’t know. Could be good.
And lastly we come to a minor trio. Jess from Gilmore Girls, Profit the Unscrupulous Lawyer/Politician, and Isaac the Heroin Oracle. Jess dreams about flying when he’s nodding off with his patients. Profit is behind in the polls and doesn’t need Jess (his younger brother) causing him trouble there. Isaac paints the future, but only when he’s high on heroin. Adrian Pasdar is one of my favorite actors, and I’m glad to see him getting work. I’m a little put off by his character being a douche bag, but he plays them so well. Jess, sorry Peter, is a bit bland and uninteresting. A little too goody-goody for me right now. He’s seriously attracted to hot daughter of one of his patients, but she’s only got eyes for the oracle guy. She drags Peter to Isaac’s apartment when he’s OD’d and Peter sees the guy’s paintings. I believe the paintings were actually done by Tim Sale. If you read comics you know who he is, and if you don’t, you probably won’t care.
In the end, there’s a big disaster coming and these people need to come together to stop it. It’s not the best opening to a series, but I’m at least mildly interested in finding out what’s next. It’s like a rather good bowl of oatmeal that has only a few dead flies in it. Do I make another bowl or find out exactly how many dead flies I can put up with? We’ll both find out soon enough, I think.
I read a comment from someone online about the special effects being poor. The only thing I can say to that is, “What special effects?” They really didn’t have any. For the most part, we don’t see much in terms of powers. The regenerating girl and a little bit of poorly choreographed flying are the only examples of visual effects I can even think of right now. Everything else was mostly minor tricks with electronics and reflections. I’m sad to say Smallville has done this thing a little better.
The guy who wrote this episode wrote for Misfits of Science back in the 80s. There’s another NBC show that didn’t last very long and featured people with powers. History repeating itself or useless trivia? Both? We’ll see. We’ll see.
Steven Dougherty needs to learn to shut the fuck up or NBC will give him something to really cry about.
