Heroes. OK.
All week at work, people have been coming up to me asking, “SO! Didja see Heroes this week? Didja, didja, didja!?” See, my work is what I would consider a network-television-executive’s wetdream, as we have text-book “water-cooler talk.” Its seems that the ultimate goal in this day and age of serialized super-dramas is the hope that people will talk about your show the next day. Ratings? Well, that’s important too, but really what everyone seems to be after is buzz, which conveniently enough, can lead to ratings. Heroes, for all of its missteps, definitely has buzz. It also, unfortunately for NBC, seems to be the only new show people are watching. Either way, I had extremely high hopes for this week’s episode, especially given the fact that two weeks ago I swore I was done with the show altogether. My thoughts are available in convenience “word form” after the jump…
My problem with Heroes over previous weeks has been the complete lack of focus and ability to use the alotted time to tell an actual story instead of simply collecting random vignettes of characters we don’t really like or care to meet. This week things were different. Character connections were finally made and an actual story seemed to have been told. And of course there was that ending! A fan-boy explosion of sci-fi goofiness all over the screen. I’ll admit it, it was a damn cool cliffhanger.
Here are the problems: I don’t like about half of the cast/characters. I don’t like the acting. I don’t like their interactions, and I especially don’t like the dialogue. The dialogue is so bad. Its funny to me that television writers are actually divided into two camps: those who write well, and those who have good ideas. Heroes is an ideas show. The ideas are great, and with any luck the long-term story will be something for the history books. The writers just don’t compile good groupings of words. Lost, the hallmark, has both the ideas and the words. That’s why it will always be a superior series.
This is what I’m going to do: I’m going to watch Heroes. I’m going to stick with it despite my dislike for certain aspects. I’ll bite, okay? Though I am also going to fast-forward through anything that bores me. Heroes has to prove itself to me. It has to convince me that the remote control should actually be put down while I’m watching it– that 45-minutes of my time isn’t too much to ask. This may cause some confusion as the plot unfolds, but dammit, I don’t care.
Heroes isn’t a good show, but its good enough.
October 24th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
Rick…
How doth I disagree with thee!
Heroes, I have said time and again to my AIM TV mate Liz, is the best new show on television. Heroes deserves a close watching. The dialogue isn’t great, but Heroes is a comic book dramatized- and it speaks that way.
The creators clearly know where the show is going. They have an idea. For the first major story, at least, they have an end point. This is something I’m not so convinced of with Lost any longer. Lost is losing me, and losing details, and losing hope that the conclusion will be satisfying.
But, because Heroes is a comic book- it will be satisfying. At some point, our Heroes will win. And how can you hate a show with Hiro of the Heroes! He is to die for!
Finally, I’m having trouble believing that you aren’t biting on Heroes moreso. Didn’t you like Unbreakable? Am I mistaken in attributing a “like” of this movie to you? That, too, was a comic book- only it sucked. This televised comic book is good!
Alas, my friend, your taste confuses me- but thanks for writing about it. I do enjoy this blog you’ve got.
Best,
Lindsay
Dept. of Vit. Rev.
October 25th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Lindsay,
Well. I agree. Kind of.
First. You of all people should know (like I know) that Friday Night Lights is the best new show of the season (we know its the best because people hate watching it, and historically what people hate watching is typically more interesting than what people ‘like’ watching). But that’s for a whole other comments thread.
Second. Yes. I liked Unbreakable. And with more and more time that passes, I’m beginning to believe that it was M. Night’s finest achievement (though I’m not fully prepared to back this statement up).
As for Heroes, here’s the problem: television is a medium for storytelling, not so much a medium for ideas. Ideas are better suited to movies (though one could argue that The Wire is the greatest television drama of all time because it somehow manages to be about both). To paraphrase my friend Brock, a perfect television show would be one that could theorhetically have an infinite number of episodes. It would have characters that are interesting enough to literally last forever. The destination should never really matter on television to the extent that it matters in film. Sure we want payoffs, but we don’t necessarily want resolution, because we want there to be a next week (unless the show is god-awful, in which case we just want to forget).
Perhaps what is more interesting is that we’ve entered an unprecedented era of television in which people tune in to EVERY episode of a show and think solely about seasons and series. Really, the idea that a show (any show) would have an actual ending point is something of a new phenomenon. There have always been series finale episodes, but those were typically conceived after most of the audience had dropped off and the show was being send out to pasture.
Heroes is frustrating because it doesn’t understand the differences between media. It’s NOT a comic book, its a television show. George Lucas was trying to recreate the serials of his youth in Star Wars, and a case could be made that the dialogue was a pitch-perfect homage to that era. But that didn’t make it any less power-drill-to-the-brain unbearable at times. If you want to experience a comic book, then read a comic book. Personally, if I’m going to invest an hour into a drama each week, I’m going to be way more concerned with the episode-to-episode arcs than with the end game.
All this being said, I will admit that I found this week’s episode mostly enjoyable and only fast-forwarded twice (through anything the Professor’s Son with the fake accent would say, and through some of the ‘what does this have to do with anything’ dialogue between the cop and his wife).
Then again, maybe I’m just bitter than Heroes is going to be on for the next five years and that Friday Night Lights might not make it to 2007…
xoxo,
Rick
October 25th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Rick…
Don’t hate me, but I don’t watch Friday Night Lights. I want it to succeed- it’s on my team- but… I haven’t fit it in.
Alas.
I am, however, surprised that you think of Heroes as such an “ideas” arc and not a story arc. Didn’t Superman run as a cartoon and TV series for some time?
I think the fact that it is a comic book, and the fact that many comic books have gone on for what feels like eons in print, means that once they get their hero shit together and save the world, there will be all sorts of storytelling about OTHER hero shit and world saving!
You add to this the X-Men mutant quality and WHOA! It’s some good old-fashioned sci-fi comic book fun!
If you promise to watch it my way just once, then I promise I’ll watch Friday Night Lights in lieu of that show with Joey Lawrence and Jerry Springer.
Do you take guest blogs? Because I have a lot to say about “To Catch a Predator.”
Best,
Lindsay
Dept. of Vit. Rev.