matthearn.com

So: Heroes. HW and I are about halfway through the DVDs of season one, usually knocking out 2 or 3 episodes a night while cleaning, or working on our lappies, or whatnot. So far, here are my thoughts:

• I am on the freaking edge of my seat. Seriously, it’s all we can do to get to bed by 11pm, and invariably when there’s any doubt, we watch another episode. We’re starting to reach the point, though, where keeping track of all the various plotlines is taking its toll on our sanity; about 10 episodes in, they introduced yet another new character, and Sarah paused the DVD, looked at me, and said, “Oh hells no.”
• The show is deceptively gruesome. Early on we watched a few episodes with Charles in the room (not that he pays attention; the only things he likes on TV are “The New Yankee Workshop” (he likes to say “Morm!” when Norm Abram appears) and “Days Of Our Lives”), but after a few episodes I realized that the despite the fact that there’s very little actual violence in a given episode, there’s a heck of a lot of shots of the results of violence. For example, in an early episode (mild SPOILER ALERT), Niki rips a couple of mafia goons to shreds, quite literally. You don’t get to see it happen, but you do get a couple of glimpses of corpses with significant limbs in alternate locations. Later on, some people get their heads sawn open; you don’t see it happen, you just see the results. Pretty gritty stuff. IT’S AWESOME.
• HW extols the acting of Ali Larter, who plays (another SPOILER ALERT) a chick with multiple personality disorder, but I don’t think it’s that hard. There’s no real subtlety between the two characters; one is timid and nice, and the other is insane and likes to tear people limb from limb. It’s interesting to see her switch back and forth in the span of a few seconds, but I think any actor outside of Keanu Reeves could probably do that. None of the acting is really that exceptional, although that’s mostly because the characters just aren’t that deep. They all have funny abilities and are conflicted about them. The best of the lot is probably Adrian Pasdar, playing politician Nathan Petrelli, because he’s the only one with more than 2 layers. (I don’t count Ali Larter here because she’s basically playing two separate characters who happen to look identical.) Nathan has his politician mask, his win-at-all-costs shark persona, his mild confusion and conflict about his abilities, and underneath all that, there’s a foreboding menace that’s hard to describe because we’ve only gotten to see glimpses of it yet.

  Hayden Panettiere is a little disappointing, mostly because her half-hearted attempts at a Texas accent falls WAAAAY short. On the other hand, she’s so hot that I have to put on loose pants to watch the show. So I can’t be truly objective about her acting. And don’t remind me that she was probably only 16 when season 1 was taped; I already have to counteract my shame and guilt with massive amounts of high quality English gin. Although I don’t feel so bad, now that she’s dating Milo Ventimiglia, who is 8 months older than I.

• The inside jokes and shoutouts to other films and TV shows, usually involving Hiro Nakamura, are SLAYING me. When he tries to travel backwards in time a few minutes, and accidentally goes backwards approximately 6 months, he says “Great Scott!”, an obvious reference to “Back To The Future.” Later, we noted that his father was played by George Takei (aka Mr. Sulu), who rolls up in a limo with the license plate “NCC1701.” It’s also worth noting that Hiro is the most amusing character in a prime-time drama since Thomas Magnum. And Hiro’s cuter. All the nerdgirls I know crave his hott parts.

Right now our DVR is choked with episodes from Season 2; hopefully we can wrap up Season 1 in the next week or so and start to get caught up. If only to see what happens when Hayden Panettiere’s character hits her slutty college years.