Heroes Pilot Review (Re-review really)

This is a condensed review of NBC's Heroes pilot (Genesis) that aired tonight. My original review (which I adopt) can be found here: Original Heroes Review of Genesis (pilot). I recommend watching a few episodes and see how the storyline develops; it encores tomorrow night and I'm sure it's still showing online (probably on NBC's equivalent of CBS's innertube). I haven't used NBC's online media, so I can't make a recommendation on it one way or the other. This show has gotten enough free advertising out of me as it is. Bottom line: worth watching; hopefully it gets better to justify further watching.

As far as what I saw and wrote my initial review on, and what I saw for the most part tonight, the shows were largely the same. I don't recall the brother falling in the end, but I may have stopped paying attention; the preview for next week shows he must not have been too far off the ground, so good for him. Why he dropped his cell phone instead of his shoe is beyond me since they play up the fact he isn't that well off. I am glad the artist overdosed instead of whatever he did in the older version (I seem to recall someone asking for a tourniquet, but I could be remembering wrong and that's okay because that was sort of an odd twist anyway).

Rebuttal comments: Okay, the cheerleader's outfit did burn, you got me. But now I question the extent of her abilities. Is she supposed to be some sort of instant regeneration mutant? Skin scrapes tends to leave scars, and mangled fingers tend to heal differently, so I will now refer her powers not like those of Wolverine but more like an amphibian type mutant since these qualities remind me of their regenerative abilities (e.g., worms or frogs (although my memory of 7th grade biology is long faded away).

The teleporter's storyline still strikes me as odd because it appears that he just ups and develops it out of nowhere, but I'll assume for the sake of argument that he had been trying to perfect it for some time and it finally came together the day of the solar eclipse.

I still think the stripper's power reminds me of a split personality as I previously described.

The agent (or the cheerleader's dad), based on next week's preview, appears to be as sinister as I suspected. The cheerleader may be adopted, but that wasn't quite confirmed, although I can agree that that could be the case. The comic book, 9th Wonders (also NBC's official fan page for the site), appears to connect all of the heroes together, which suggests there must be some other sort of prophet hero if the stoner artist isn't also the comic book artist. Maybe it's Brad Meltzer seeking some quality promotion out of this tv show for his latest endeavor.

I did hear the comments about "knowing our family's past" (the flying brothers) and "your father isn't in a position to help us" (stripper to son), but I'm going to lean on both comments not being as important to the overall storyline, although tv and movies tend to be more sneaky in that respect, so I am probably wrong.

I also noticed the teleporter's obsession with "using his powers for good" and developing them and choose not to acknowledge further the obviousness of this statement. Come on, Heroes writers! Let's have some real dialog and get off this reluctant/brooding hero kick that Spiderman and Batman started. At least Smallville had a young "Flash" who used his powers for good as well as how you would expect a teenager to use them. I still can't give credit for teleporting him into the girl's bathroom, but I guess that's a fair PG alternative given the way they are developing his character, and it's probably not a good idea to encourage deviance on tv anymore than it already is. No complaints with this character, although I make this statement somewhat grudgingly, and am curious how they try to round out his place among the "heroes."

The professor appears that he will be continuing his father's work, so I guess that will be the ongoing plot to bring them together, all the time working against the counter-agency working to keep them apart. It does appear that the painting in the end, depicting what appears to be some sort of nuclear detonation in the city will be the plot that drives them all together. This whole storyline reminds me of something out of Alias or perhaps The Breakfast Club, but not quite.

Will I watch next week? Of course; other than MNF, my schedule certainly allows for tv on monday nights. Does it still need to do something profound to impress me? Most definitely. But, as I have alluded to in previous posts regarding this particular show, I am intrigued by the idea of a shared human consciousness and perhaps this show will hint that the concept is not all that far fetched. Of course, setting aside the science fiction of the show, the idea of an inherent human bond isn't too new.

Tags: heroes, nbc, review