Heroes

I have now watched the first season, excuse me, volume of Heroes. This X-Men ripoff that has been the "new LOST" did not catch me at first and with good reason, unlike LOST. Let me start off with what I don't like about it. For some reason I can't help but to think of these things first.

Heroes does not treat me as if I am smart. There is no real mystery, though it acts like there is. That is to say that each episode, excuse me, chapter only makes me ask questions about the next episode. The only reason I was ever encouraged to think ahead to the end of the season was by the future seers' drawings. Even then, I only had to wait until the characters ended up there for them to make any sense.

I am also constantly mad at it for being an X-Men ripoff. While it is self aware of this, the show does not seem to want to be more than its source material. We all enjoy a dystopian future, but don't do it if you will have fans around the world going, "This is just like Days of Future Past!"

Maybe I am too hard on the show. I do compare it to LOST, but only because so many claimed that it had the same scope. This is just not true. Avoid comparing these two shows.

There is a reason why I watched all of the first season and am catching up on the 2nd. It is just interesting enough. I enjoy the characters, particularly Hiro and Parkman. They keep the show unique. There is a soft spot in my heart for character driven shows, and this is such a show.

Heroes wants to be a comic. This is why there is "bad" acting. They are just talking the way comic book characters do. The over-emphasis on seemingly unimportant words, the odd pauses, and the awkward movements are all just what happens when you force a comic into live action. This would fail if not for the camera shots that make me feel like it is a comic too. So often it seems like there is an over-the-shoulder shot that had the person the camera is behind blurred in a very 'drawn' way. There are some awkward camera angles, but once again it is just because that is how a comic would have shown it.

I enjoy this show very much. I may complain about it being too X-Menish, but I can't help but to see where Hiro is going to travel next week.