Heroes

By | September 25, 2006
5 Comments

I caught the premiere episode of Heroes this evening. Basically, it’s a TV version of the X-Men. They just don’t use the word “mutant.” They talk about the “next stage in human development.” It’s pretty much a blatant rip-off, somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Japanese guy who believes he has the power to teleport and move through time — he’s named Hiro; get it? — actually uses a reference to X-Men comics to explain his powers.

He’s my favorite charcater so far. If one is going to become a superhero, why not be wildly enthusiastic about it? Why not think it’s a blast? Enough with all these brooding, tormented heroes already. The guy who wants to fly is kind of interesting, too, because of the dynamics of the relationship with his brother. He’s kind and devotes his life to others; his brother is an egomaniac running for office. What a twist that the unassuming and gentle brother should be gifted with superhuman powers. But then there’s a nice twist on that which I won’t spoil here.

I also like the fact that the indestructible high school student is a cheerleader. This, too, goes against type. Teenage superheroes are supposed to be outcasts, not popular kids. I got a kick out of her assuring the nerd she had shooting video footage of her super-powers that she would, indeed, talk to him in front of other kids at school the next day.

The rest of the characters, I’m not so sure about — the drug-addled artist who can see the future, the Las Vegas stripper with the genius kid who is tormented by an evil doppleganger in the mirror (who apparently isn’t just in the mirror), the Indian professor who is continuing his father’s research into these strange phenomona. I’m not sure where these characters fit into a superhero story, although the Indian guy could potentially serve a kind of Dr. Xavier function.

Also there are some evil (government?) folks stalking our heroes, there’s an eclipse that seems to be triggering their powers somehow, and there are premonitions of the end of the world — which I anticipate we will be just on the verge of at season’s end, should the show run that long.

All in all, it’s fairly entertaining and has (as I pointed out) a few surprises. I’m interested to see what powers the guy who played Weiss on Alias will have. He has a good record from that series of being the cheerful guy who helps to offset the darker, more brooding characters.

One question I would have about this kind of show. Why not try to make it plausible? Just a little? The creators are making the story up from scratch; they don’t have to be true to a beloved comic book from years gone by. Sorry, x-Men fans, but there is no way that genetics could produce these kinds of powers. We could never evolve into beings like Night Crawler or Storm. Nanotechnology is the ticket. Rather than have them be mutants (in the traditional sense), why not have the heroes be infected by a nanovirus? Granted, it isn’t that much more plausible, but still. Plus, I really don’t see how an eclipse can cause anything to happen that isn’t strictly psychological. So scratch that. But you can keep the end of the world scenario — it’s what will happen if the bad AI / nanobeings get their way.

So, you know, if some mid-season retooling becomes necessary, and somebody from NBC is reading this…

  • http://beyondwordsworth.com Kathy

    I agree, Phil. Script-writers need to consult with Speculists–hey, maybe you should do a Youtube promo!

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    Hiro was definitely my favorite too. Of course he’s a lovable geek that takes joy in his geekiness. It’s not surprising that we should like him.

    I’m not sure where these characters fit into a superhero story

    Me neither. It will be fun to see it play out.

    They sure rolled this show out to much fanfare – limited commercial interruptions and everything. I also noticed that in addition to NBC, it’s also rolling out the USA network and the SciFi channel. Even if NBC drops it, it already has other stations that could continue playing it.

    As for the somewhat believeable superhero story, M. Night Shamalan did that with Unbreakable to mixed reviews.

    Unlike many of the critics, I liked Unbreakable and would love to see it turned into a series. And beyond hiring good actors and writers, it wouldn’t be all that expensive. The special effects were very minimal.

    Hero looks like it will fall into the new category of myth building Television. Each episode stands on its on but should also advance a larger story. “Lost” is a great example of this.

  • AndrewS

    I’m not sure where these characters fit into a superhero story

    One of my favorite “Super-hero” universes was the Wild Cards shared universe. In those books it was the people with the less spectacular powers who were usually the most entertaining characters.

    The premise behind the powers, by the way, was that an alien race was fighting within itself and had developed a virus (I think) that could give their people amazing powers, unfortunately it also killed most of the subjects, and horribly deformed most of the rest and gave only weak/useless powers to most of the rest. So they decided to test it on someone else, i.e. us.

  • Karl Hallowell

    One of the things that is interesting about most attempts at a superhero universe is that the alternate universe tends to be the same as us. I guess in part that’s because it’s hard to sypathize with something completely different.

    An interesting take that was somewhat different was “Watchmen”. In it, most superheroes were either people with relatively modest superpowers or people with a lot of special equipment. But there were a few with some particularly awesome powers. For example, the really powerful ones might be able to alter the global balance of power. The result was that society was much the same, but there were things like widespread electric cars and the use of dirgibles which distinguished it. Also, various events sometimes happened differently due to the presence of superheroes. The Second World War came later, the US won the Vietnam War, etc.

    Superheros had some impact, but not enough to warp the world beyond recognition.

  • Phil Bowermaster

    Kathy –

    Not a bad idea. Of course, I have superhero universe of my own that I haven’t done much with. Don’t forget that before there was The Speculist, there was the Ace of Justice!

    Stephen –

    Unbreakable is my favorite Shyamalan film. What I think he is best at is inducing feelings of dread — which he does masterfully in that film.

    SPOILER WARNING

    And Samuel L. Jackson should have won an oscar for what he pulled off — a believeable supervillian for whom we have some measure of sympathy even though he’s a complete psycopath.

    I think a series would ruin the story, though. I mean,what would happen? Would he start wearing a costume? Would he take on some strange name? Would everybody know who he was, or would he have a secret identity as a security guard? Actually, those are pretty interesting questions — maybe a series would work after all!

    END SPOILER

    Andrew –

    As I was watching Heroes, I was actually thinking how cool it would be if somebody would make a TV series out of Wild Cards. Something that they have in Wild Cards that they don’t have in either X-Men or Heroes (so far) is the concept of Jokers — people for whom the whole mutation thing is an unmitigated bad deal. Even the bad-guy X-Men are just Aces who have turned to evil. My favorite character from Wild Cards is Croyd — now there’s somebody who has very little to do in a superhero universe, or any other kind, for that matter.

    Karl –

    I haven’t read Watchmen, but one of the interesting things about the Wild Cards series is how the political landscape remains virtually unchanged by the fact that a devastating virus has killed off millions of people and turned a few lucky survivors into superheroes. The history of the US from WW2 to the late 80′s / early 90′s is almost the same.