open your eyes

By now you’ve most likely heard or read the complaints regarding Heroes this season. I had to avoid them because until this past weekend, I had not watched a single episode this season. But a mini-marathon fixed that and got me caught up through episode six and then I looked around the web to find other opinions before writing my own. No doubt I should have written mine first and then read Entertainment Weekly to prevent them from influencing me. Turns out EW thinks just like me, but writes a whole lot better and you can read their in season review here.

An excerpt:

Which is a good phrase to describe Heroes itself. With its larger mythology shunted to the side (no, a mysterious recurring symbol doth not a uniting backstory make), Heroes feels less like Heroes than a horrid combination of T.J. Hooker and Charlie’s Angels: Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) commits holdups in Ireland; another extraneous new hero, New Orleanian Monica (The Nine’s Dana Davis) is roundhouse-kicking robbers; serial-killing Sylar (Zachary Quinto) has gone fugitive with the weeping twins. What happened to…saving the planet? Like the endangered Earth that’s oft alluded to, Heroes is degrading at a remarkable pace: The dialogue has gone from comic-book cool to Dick-and-Jane obvious, the stylistic angles have turned flat, entire scenes are devoted to Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and Parkman (Greg Grunberg) bickering around their shared apartment like maiden aunts. It’s a sad day for superheroes when you find yourself actually rooting for the end of the world. C-

A few of my thoughts:
- Peter is a terrible character. For the writers to create a character thats more or less Superman was incredibly shortsighted. Getting him in any sort of trouble requires bending the rules of logic and more cliche’s than I care to watch. I mean, if Peter wants the box with his life story in it, he can get it. He doesn’t have to hold up a bank to get it. If the writers (when they get back from their vacation) know whats good for them, they’ll depower him and then we can all return to stories with fewer holes.

- Wonderless Twins? Yuk! I cannot for the life of me think of a pair of new characters that could have been any worse!

- They can barely show us all the returning regulars so why do we need so many new characters?

- Too many recycled powers. Please be more imaginative. Crying black goo doesn’t count as imaginative. Thats just stupid.

- Too many scenes and mini stories feel like repeats of last season. In many ways it does feel like the characters were reset to their starting positions in season 1.

- The creators of Heroes have no idea how to make premieres and finales. I still haven’t seen a Heroes premiere or finale that felt big, action packed, with a big payoff or a big setup.

- And lastly, Heroes has no big grand plot. It just feels like a bunch of separate stories with no connection. (Edit: Just watched episode 7 and they are starting to pull things together. Peculiar that it took 7 weeks for a plot to form.)

What a depressingly sucky new tv season. None of the new shows on my watch list have become something I have to watch and some of them are sinking down into unwatchable territory. I’ve been trying Chuck, Journeyman, Reaper, Bionic Woman, and Kid Nation and usually at this point in the season at least one would be cancelled, and I would have given up on at least one but this time none of them have risen above the rest, making it hard to figure out which one to cut.

Chuck is awful. Thats what I thought after episode one. After episode two it become Chuck sucks. Then Chuck is a tiny bit amusing after seeing ep 3. Too bad I’ve only had time for three episodes or Chuck might have been chucked by now.

Journeyman has something going on that might become interesting but the producers seem intent on keeping it buried until the viewers quit on it. Right now I’d say it has very little purpose. Our hero just bounces around through time and saves someone each week but it all feels meaningless. There’s very little to tie the season together into a greater story.

Reaper - Reaper is great! Wonderful casting, perfect pilot, and solid episodes thereafter. Ray Wise is awesome as the Devil and Tyler Labine is the perfect wisecracking slacker buddy. Only problem is this is not the type of tv show I like to watch. Comedy/Devil/Underworld combos are just not my thing but its still the best new show I’ve seen this season.

Bionic Woman - Ugh. UGH! This was my most anticipated show and so far (4 eps?) I think its a huge letdown. Michelle Ryan is miscast in the titular role and she has weak dialogue to work with making the show hard to watch. Oh, did I mention that most of the action scenes (already too few) are so fake looking? The bionic woman with the crazies is a lot more interesting. If they hired me to fix the show I’d bring in new writers, team up Jamie and Sarah, kill Jaime, and then Sarah would become the main character who is more good than she is now but still has the crazies sometimes. I’d watch that.

Kid Nation - Not much to say about this. Its Survivor with kids and I don’t like Survivor so its pretty clear that I’m not liking this one much. But the preview for the next episode I haven’t seen is about elections and that looks amusing so Kid Nation continues on my DVR.

I hope the networks start cancelling some of these shows because I can’t figure out what to do with them.