TVSquad

I really wanted to like this show, I really did. I kept having to pause it and walk away, start it over, and just really wanted to like it. I know they are trying to establish all of the charcters and everything, but none of them are very interesting. It had it's moments, but I will only probably give this show a few more episodes before I stop watching it.

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I didn't even make it halfway through. Too bad.

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Kieth,
I totally agree with you here. I'm the TV critic for Utah State University's school paper. I watched the pilot episode a few weeks ago, and was not impressed at all.

The show lacks originality. The only thing it has going for it is it's production values. But, I mean flying, healing, teleporting...At least The 4400 thought of some new super powers people could have.

Aaron.

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This opinion seems to represent the overall feeling I've read from TVS, regarding Heroes, since the Fall 2006 previews started becoming available earlier this summer (ie. nobody here (that I'm aware of) had Heroes in their spiffy personal "top 5" lists.) And if I wasn't a long time reader here (well... if 6 months or so counts as "long time"), I'd almost consider the overall TVS opinion towards Heroes as elitist.

So in that respect I don't hate you but I do think perhaps: you're at best in the minority on your view of this show. And, at worst, you're losing touch with what a mainstream audience considers appealing TV now-a-days. Those are just my opinions of course; this theory could completely fall apart if Heroes loses 30%+ of it's audience for week 2...

Anyway, I haven't seen the pilot for Heroes yet so I'm trying to remain objective. But I can tell you that co-workers, blogs and other entertainment sites are abuzz with good things to say about Heroes today. So instead of looking 2 or 3 episodes in the future and predicting failure, maybe you should look at what people are reacting to in episode 1 and figure out why, against your better judgement, it appears to be successful.

Again, this is just my opinions... I'm fully prepared for you to hate me for them. :)

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I think I liked it more than you, but now I'm worried because I wasn't blown away by the first episode either. I was hoping it would get much better, so the fact that the second and third eps didn't make a big difference to you scares me.

I think the first ep was too much. There were too many people that I didn't know or care about. And before I had a chance to care we moved on to another.

Perhaps it will get better later in the season, as you say. I remember having similar thoughts about the amount of characters when LOST first started. But at least they were all together on an island. (Wouldn't buy that they're discovery of powers is enough of a tie.)

If they came up with a really cool reason why all of these people were suddenly discovering their powers at the same time all over the world, that could be the tie that binds.

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I wonder whether we have become followers enough that we are fully prepared to "love" a show based solely on the buzz surrounding it. If a TV Diva on EOnline! says the show is great, and you like her, do you then feel compelled to love it as well? I have to assume that accounts for some of the over the top reviews of some of these new programs. I can remember the hype for Skin a few years ago, and it lived up for about a month, and fell like a lead balloon.

Heroes seems like it will easily fall into the X-Men/Fantastic Four movie trap - spend too much time with powers, and you lose a strong or compelling story. Something about the discovery process when it comes to heroes (in the overall, not only the show, sense) seems to excite writers more than actually writing FOR the characters with the powers. Buffy, for instance, had powers and a strong storyline because the powers were not the focus.

I hope the powers become merely an adjective to the characters as they further develop. Time will tell!

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It was ok.... the Japanese guy is my hero. His name is Hiro too, that's just awesome.
I don't see how it can be considered so much better than Studio 60 though.

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I do not hate you, but I am in favor of this show as of seeing the pilot and getting what I got from the show, only leaves me to question why, you would dislike it... First off you came into the show ready to see people fly and save the world, if thats your idea of quality story then go see X-Men 3. But for people who like to read in between the lines the pilot made clear exactly how the show was going to unfold. The crazy artist character for example. He clearly has the ability to paint the future (I won't say see the future because he has never been conscience to experiance these preminisions) and he shows New York blowing up by some travisty. So now we know that New York is the main setting. A good show usually has 1-2 comic reliefs and the relief is Hiro if you wanted a sitcom Seinfield reruns at around 5:30 pm cst on fox everday. Now we need establishment of characters, there Mohinder the Genetics researcher who knows where all the "special" people are located thanks to his fathers research; This character will be key to linking all of the other characters, and I have a feeling him and Hiro will be the first to establish the super group so to speak. Now you have the Nurse his brother who share some sort of link with one another and the brother, Nathan can obviously fly (which by the way the reason it looked cheesy is because the director shot that in what seemed to be hd film and the colors were oddly outlining the characters but you saw no wires and you are just negitivly reacting to something you had no knowledge of). Then we have the other characters who seem a little of loop, thus giving us a desire to see more, again a good trait a tv drama/action should have. To wrap this up because I am short on time. IF you really wanted to like this show, you wouldn't approach it with your self-proclaimed "nitpicky" attitude, you would give it the benifit of the doubt. but what you really want to do is show everyone that you are superior because this show is "lost" in its premise. Which if you actually took the time to sponge in the entirety of the show you would relize that the writers and staff behind this show know exactly what and where they going for, in regards to this show.

Alex

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I saw the pilot and was not impressed - I think you hit the nail on the head that it lacks a sense of humor about itself, that with all the crazy stuff going on, there's no real *joy* in any of their abilities. Granted, they all seem to be going through a personal crisis other than their abilities, but where's the "WOW! I can really do this!" factor? Only Hiro has it and everybody else is just so staid and humorless and suffering. And frankly, that's rapidly boring to me. And this is a show that I was so *very* excited to hear about when it was first announced - but it's not living up to what I hoped.

On the other hand, I do know some people who really loved it, so we might be the minority. And it might get better.

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Keith, you call that nitpicking? Let me tell you about nitpicking. Last night after the show had aired in the east, but before I saw it out west, I was talking to a friend in Alabama. She mentioned something about a character named Hiro, and my immediate response was "I hate that they named him Hiro."

To me, that is a sacred name in the sci-fi realm, and there is only one Hiro. He's the main character in Mr. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. I realize I am in the tiny minority on this one, but it bugged me enough that it actually colored my perception of the show.

And if I am getting all nitpicky, I'll point out that having the same guy do the same style promos that they did for Surface last year wasn't a good idea.

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Heroes is shallow. Comparing the show to a comic book movie is actually quite fitting, because as a fan of actual comic books all I can say is that it lacks depth, the characters are weak/generic/uninteresting, and if the pacing of the first episode is any indication, the plot for this first season is going to turn out be uneven, campy, and melodramatic. But the super-powers are cool, and isn't that all anyone cares about anyways?
If you liked the derivative drivel that is Heroes one ioata, you owe it to yourself to check out a comic book by Robert Kirkman called Invincible. It's a comic from Image Comics. Imagine all the potential a show with the budget of Heroes could possibly do. Now imagine there wasn't a network filter demanding that the writers of this show dumb everything down for the general viewing public.
Why can't they make a good show for adults with super people?

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Hiro is a fairly popular name in Japan. Letting something like that bother you is a bit ridiculous. It's just a name.

Hype reels people in all the time. The thing with hype is that it's a lot of noise from a small amount of people (see also "Snakes on a Plane").

I liked the pilot, actually. I was apprehensive going into it, because I generally don't like shows without a sense of humor. The scenes with Hiro were hilarious, though.
Besides which, if you're painting Armageddon or having a psycho mirror image of yourself going around killing people, it's unlikely that you're going to be laughing about it.

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The show was fantastic!!! absolutely loved it. the best i've seen of the new shows!!! it's going to have a fantastic run. there is so much potential for this..shame everybody has to intellectualize everything they see, listen to, or read...just enjoy the show or change the channel...all this BLAH BLAH BLAH...is verbal seasickness...i've never seen so much "nitpicking in my life"...it's pathetic actually...i guess that's me nitpicking about all you so called "critics"...go watch some paint dry and write a review of how exciting you foind it...

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No hate mail here, Keith. I was really looking forward to it, but it left me feeling pretty blah, and seemed to go on forever. There didn't seem to be any real momentum to the story. I'll stick with it, but I'm dispirited by learning that you've seen *3* episodes and still aren't leaping up and down.

Oh, well. Frees up some of my Monday night.

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The premise is great, some aspects are really good such as the whole cover-up conspiracy about the genetecists work, i think that has great potential, cause its very Lost like. It appeals to the more intelligent, curious viewer, cause we all want to believe that there are more to us than what we see. I mean, if we only use about 20% of our brain, whats the other 80% for???

However, the superhero aspect of the show FAILS miserably, the characters are un-interesting, badly acted, badly written, ESPECIALLY the flying politician, JEEEEEEEEEZ that was LAME.
These superheroes are 1 dimensional, unlike spiderman, superman, and the batman on batman begins.

If the show is to succeed, fire most of the actors, and re-write, re-write, re-write, cause the average TV viewer is a lot smarter and demands better!

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Just goes to show you critics are up their ass.

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Actually stigmata I think that the average viewer will only tune in just to see the "cool" powers. The show has pretty much been marketed as these people that suddenly get powers and have to save the world. However, the viewer that watches the show with a critical eye will find that the powers are gimmicky and if you get rid of them, you end up with underdeveloped and weak characters. I had trouble keeping up with all the characters and caring who they were. With more people discovering their powers this week theres going to be way too many characters.

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I liked it well enough... but it's not (yet) this season's new "Lost". It wants to be, but it's not there yet. I'll give it about five or six episodes before I decide if the show's problems were just a result of this being the pilot episode.

My main gripe with the show was that it took too long to get going, and I wasn't interested in all the exposition shovelled onto the screen. I don't care about the brother's mother. I don't care about the cheerleader's family. There was too much crap TELLING us why we needed to care about these characters.

While comparing "Heroes" to "Lost" is about as tired as can be right now, I do have to make one prime contrast between the two (and between "Lost" and vitually every other Lost-wannabe that's come out in the past two years)-- "Lost" started with a massive BANG. twenty seconds after the show started, we were in the midst of a chaotic plane crash scene. No explanation of who anyone was, no explanation of what happened or how it happened or where they were (besides it being an island). We met these characters for the first time in the midst of one of the most incredible crises they likely had ever experienced. We learned their character through their reactions to this event.

Once that settled down, THEN we started to get some personality and character development, which was (and still is, two seasons later) colored and guided by what they did those first few moments of the show.

For many of the characters, we didn't get any sort of history or origin or signficant background until many episodes into the show, sometimes months into the show.

And it was OKAY. We didn't need that kind of hand-holding when meeting these new characters. "Heroes" didn't trust us enough to jump more firmly right into the show.

What I would have done had I produced the show, is that I would have started the show farther down the timeline, perhaps on the cusp of some massive battle with whoever the primary villain of this season turns out to be. Have all our Heroes gathering, hurriedly discussing their plan of attack and the dangers involved. I might even show one or two of them already fallen, with no clear indication if they are injured or dead. I'd have a few characters we haven't even met yet. Then right as they are about to leap into the battle, I'd go to black and then fade up this text on the screen:

"Nine Months Earlier"

And then I'd do the show pretty much like they already have it.

To me, this way, you IMMEDIATELY set the stakes the show is shooting for, and gives a sense of where this journey is going to take us, the viewers.

Yes, the kinda sorta set that up with the text prologue at the beginning declaring this 'volume one', and the armageddon painting, but it was a bit anti-climactic and didn't set in the SCOPE and stakes of the show.

"Lost" had the great crash opening, and then at the end of the episode, a great line by Charlie that set the tone for all the remaining episodes through the current ones.. "Where ARE we..?"

Heroes needs to more firmly establish the stakes involved, which would ramp up the "epic" quality the show is going for.

Right now, it's just a bunch of whiny people who have figured out they can do piddly things with some powers.

All that said, I'm very much looking forward to the next episodes.

And all that said, I really liked both Mohinder and Hiro. The pilot should have focused on those two only and then slowly added in all the others.

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