Monday, February 19, 2007

Heroes


I've been watching closely the newish show Heroes. This despite the fact that the plot is thin, the dialogue laughable, and the coincidences unbelievable. Some of the characters are genuinely interesting: Namely Hiro and Syler.

I was okay with the whispered "Save the cheerleader, save the world" line that was all over the mini finale.

But this week's promo continues the whispering tagline with "Somebody flies; somebody dies." This is a bad trend for a show that's just barely keeping my attention. What's next? "Somebody sneezes; somebody eats Cheez Whiz!" "Save Hiro; eat a burrito!"

Even Lost is...well, losing it. The first season was the most compelling TV I've ever seen. But the show has lost its way. They're not convincing me they can write characters. Once they move beyond the interesting surface of characters, they get much less interesting.

Think about mysterious, mystic Locke early on in the show. Now he's...what exactly? Brooding, petulant, and rarely seen.

The only reason Eko will forever remain a compelling character is that they killed him off before they could screw him up.

I'm afraid that this show will end the way X-Files did: Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Update: Oh no! Heroes killed off Simone! A barely encountered, surface-level character who wasn't interesting enough to care about! How will I sleep at night?