"Heroes" (2006/II)TV series 2006-????

Creator:

Tim Kring

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Save the Cheerleader. Save the World.

Plot:

They thought they were like everyone else... until they woke with incredible abilities.

Plot Keywords:

New York City | Brotherly Love | Depression | Cheerleader | Villain

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Another 15 wins & 44 nominations

Cast

Hayden Panettiere	...	Claire Bennet (35 episodes, 2006-2008)
Jack Coleman	...	Noah Bennet (35 episodes, 2006-2008)
Sendhil Ramamurthy	...	Mohinder Suresh (35 episodes, 2006-2008)
Masi Oka	...	Hiro Nakamura (34 episodes, 2006-2008)
James Kyson Lee	...	Ando Masahashi (34 episodes, 2006-2008)
Milo Ventimiglia	...	Peter Petrelli (32 episodes, 2006-2008)
Greg Grunberg	...	Matt Parkman (30 episodes, 2006-2008)
Ali Larter	...	Niki Sanders / ... (30 episodes, 2006-2008)
Adrian Pasdar	...	Nathan Petrelli (30 episodes, 2006-2008)
Noah Gray-Cabey	...	Micah Sanders (27 episodes, 2006-2008)
Ashley Crow	...	Sandra Bennet (23 episodes, 2006-2008)
Cristine Rose	...	Angela Petrelli (22 episodes, 2006-2008)
Zachary Quinto	...	Sylar (22 episodes, 2006-2008)
Jimmy Jean-Louis	...	The Haitian (20 episodes, 2006-2008)
Leonard Roberts	...	D.L. Hawkins (17 episodes, 2006-2007)
Santiago Cabrera	...	Isaac Mendez (16 episodes, 2006-2007)
Adair Tishler	...	Molly Walker (15 episodes, 2006-2007)

Also Known As:

Heroes: Villains (USA) (promotional title)

Runtime:

45 min | 60 min (including commercials)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Finland:K-13 (Season 1 DVD rating) (2008) | Singapore:NC-16 (season 1) | Singapore:NC-16 CORRECT: (season 1) REPLACE WITH: (season 1) (season 2) | Australia:M | Australia:MA (Season 1 DVD rating) | Hungary:16 (some episodes) | South Korea:15 | Australia:MA (some episodes) | USA:TV-14 | New Zealand:R13 (Season 1 DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

NBC Universal Television

Trivia:

The license plate on Kaito Nakamura's car is NCC-1701. George Takei, who plays Kaito, was Mr. Sulu in the original incarnation of "Star Trek" (1966) and NCC-1701 is the registry number of the USS Enterprise.

Quotes:

Hiro Nakamura: That's fighting dirty.
Takezo Kensei: That's fighting smart sir. Don't get me wrong I give him a fair wage... if he lives.

Movie Connections:

Spin off "Heroes: Going Postal" (2008)

Painfully slow, with below average, inconsistent writing.

Heroes is, quite simply, an awful series. Its too little butter spread over too much bread, the actual plot mercilessly bogged down by irrelevant tangents and endless recaps. You would think with so little progression they could hold what remains together, but the series itself is plagued with plot holes like smoldering craters.

Its a show about people with super powers, but even on that level it fails to be internally consistent. The first and foremost problem presents itself when one of the characters is given the ability to manipulate time. This alone generates endless scenes where the solution can easily be resolved by simply going back in time and removing the first seasons threat: covered by a ridiculous "he hasn't mastered his powers" veil that is seldom justified.

Making matters worse is the character that absorbs every other characters abilities by proxy: but never makes use of time manipulation or many of the other powers he picks up.

Even if you can shut down the part of your brain that finds all this intellectually offensive, this is not a good series by any stretch of the imagination. There are too many characters, with arching plots that are simply irrelevant to the main story. Progression of the actual story follows an abysmal precedent set by shows like Lost and Prison Break where every step forward is met by two steps backward.

You can enjoy looking forward to 4 minutes of every episode watching whats already happened, the director actually having the audacity to replay scenes from the episode before it just in case you were hit by a bus and were struck by a nasty case of amnesia. The events are so convoluted that the show manages to completely reset itself multiple times just to keep the hours filled. The end of each episode is a cliffhanger so you absolutely must hang in there until the next one, the shows own merits aren't enough to keep you interested.

Putting all that aside, the absolute worst offense made by Heroes is that the writers are clueless. Amatuerism never rears its ugly head more than it does in the finale: when everything is left completely open out of fear of actually doing something that can't be reversed. The entire first season is a giant waste of energy, nothing of consequence over occurs.

Heroes represents everything wrong with modern drama. Its slow, poorly written, indecisive, and thrives on cliffhangers. The overall narrative would be interesting if the number of episodes was halved, the fat was trimmed and everything was rewritten to make sense, but that would would require some talent and direction.

Shows like these appeal to a certain audience, and are perhaps the hardest tests of patience ever conceived. Imagine reading a novel where every second page is identical, the start of every other page explains the last and the entire book repeats itself ad nauseam.

Thats Heroes.