Heroes – Season 1

Archived review – My thoughts halfway through the first season:

The most promising new show has been this tale of ordinary people "across the globe" (although it's not long before they've all converged in America) that develop extraordinary powers. Taking influences from the serial storytelling of Lost to the 'connected-by-coincidences' aspect of Magnolia but fortunately dropping the camp and spandex that comes with most multiple superhero stories, the show impressed in the first few episodes simply by some of the most amazing and jawdropping cliffhanger endings ever. It stumbled on for a while longer and has only recently shown a lot more promise. A lot of this is to do with the characters finally meeting up and helping each other out. It's uncertain how long it will take for these guys to become a fully formed super team, but it's certainly interesting to see how they are assembling. I'll definitely keep watching for the time being.

And what I made of the second half:

One of my favourite new shows this year, Heroes has been a breakthrough hit (I'd say it was surprising for a fantasy-based show to be this successful, but it happened for Lost and this is slightly more accessible), a serialised drama about the lives of 'real' people across the world (i.e. in America) who gain superpowers. The no-camp-or-spandex policy works well, and it's only in the second half of the season that characters start to meet up and form alliances, making comic book geeks wet their pants in excitement. There are some flaws though. Being such a huge ensemble show, there are so many characters and storylines to keep track of that there is almost always no natural flow to an episode - it comes across as a 'sketch drama', where scenes seem disconnected and there's no guarantee that you'll get a successful resolution in the same episode. This really is a show that requires your full commitment. One of the most satisfying episodes so far was 'Company Man', which focused only on one particular location/storyline (coincidentally, it also featured illuminating flashbacks so it felt very Lost-like) and made for a spectacular hour. Hopefully the show will attempt more episodes of this format next year. Overall, Heroes has been one of the most exciting and fast-paced shows around. Unlike Lost, it answers questions. However, some of the acting is a little wooden and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed by the lacklustre finale which ended with a whimper rather than the promised 'boom'. There's talk of the show going down the Veronica Mars route and going with smaller episode arcs rather than a whole 22-episode run. This would probably be a good idea, and the lack of restrictions on such a fantasy-based show means it's unlikely to run out of steam just yet.