Heroes episode 1

Heroes is an American tv series, I think they're on about episode 12, I recently watched the first episode. Before I say anything else, a warning, this is going to have spoilers.

It seems pretty good. Perhaps a little cheesy, and the acting isn't great, but it's only the first episode, so it might get better. As far as I know, it's doing pretty well, people like it. It's basically X-Men the live action tv series, set in the "real world".

Being a super hero comic book fan, it's difficult to watch this without over analysing it. To many, I'm sure the idea of making a super hero series set in a realistic world is original, but I think it's getting to be quite an old fad now. I've seen it before in films and many comics for ages now. It kind of started with Watchmen I guess.

Heroes is following that popular 40 to 50 minute formula. I think since shows like 24 and Lost, new shows have had to have larger production values to fare well against giants like these. My mate Paul pointed out that 24 was one of the first tv shows he watched that feels like it's a movie. This is true of Lost as well, I think. Those shows have raised the bar.

Heroes is trying to reach that bar. I mean I don't know, perhaps it's already reached that bar on the latest episodes that I haven't seen, I 'll have to wait and see. I found the pacing of the first episode to be a bit slow. That may have been because I'd been told a lot about it already. But even if I hadn't, I think I would have got a little sick of the "origins" build ups of the characters, simply because I've seen or read it many times before.

Wolverine is in this program. But he's a stupid, blond, teenage cheerleader. She's like Wolverine in the movies, she regenerates extremely fast. She may actually be superior to him, because I think she also doesn't feel pain. I'm betting the creators consciously decided to make a character who has Wolverine's powers, but is the total opposite kind of person. I've become quite the girl myself recently, because when I see her getting ripped to shreds, I feel kinda squeamish. There's a bit where she pushes her ribs back into her chest, and there's a bit where she puts her hand into a waste disposal unit. She does it to pull out her ring and when she takes her hand back out, it's totally mangled! It's really quite disturbing.

The most interesting characters are the Japanese geek who can travel through time. And the artist who can paint future events, but only if he's high on class A drugs. I'm not sure how it works, but I think the guy from Japan can also teleport.

I've heard some great things about Heroes, so I'm going to stick with it for now. Also at the end of the first episode, there's this crazy looking twist that really caught me off guard. The show may be trying to copy Lost in that respect, and also there are bits where the characters unknowingly cross over each other's paths. But hey, it's what's popular right now, I'm sure they'll find their own feet.