Dissenting viewpoint

So, I spent approximately twelve hours finishing the first season of Heroes yesterday.

I remember I tried watching the first episode of Heroes while the run was going on, but I didn't make it through the first half. I was bored. The buzz continued, people loved it, and I let it pass over me.

But last week I was in my local indie video store looking for something episodic to fill some time, and I rented the first disc. And this time it worked for me, so much so that I spent half my weekend finishing the damn thing.

And I get up this morning and find two lovely entries in shadefell's journal about her also finally getting to watch the series. The irony here does not escape me.

First, to address Shade's comments. She's not wrong. I tuned out the over-narration because it was unnecessary. The evolution thing isn't anything more than a MacGuffin. The female characters are given the stick pretty frequently, especially in the first part of the season.

And yet I still liked it. I'll try and give a cogent explanation of this (which is something I haven't seen a lot of from the fans) after I get some work done.

Further Heroic cogitations

Part the First: Chekov's Law
After I finished the first series of Heroes last night, I lay in my bed and plotted out things that I knew would have to happen later on in the series. I am 85% sure that most of my predictions will come to pass, because the series is an unswerving believer in Chekhov's Law. As a writer I find myself loving and hating this aspect of the show. On the one hand, it's shapely and efficient-- nothing is wasted in the stories, every little moment is a piece of a larger puzzle that comes back later. You get a lot of "Aha! I KNEW it!" moments in Heroes. On the other hand, the surprises are limited. There are a few good ones, and I definitely found myself going "WHAT?!?" at least twice. But there are a lot of things that feel like they should be surprises and aren't.

On the whole, I think this means I like watching Heroes in the same way I like watching a Rube Goldberg contraption. It's elegant, intricate, and skillfully done.

Part the Second: Comic Book-ishness
Like the last one, this is both a strength and a curse. I love comic books. I understand why people love the work of Kirby and Claremont. I remember what Busiek said about the possibilities inherent in a world where anyone can represent anything. And I like archetypes if they're not also cliches.

Heroes is for the most part visually understated-- but the set-up is pure comic book. Every time I think about Hiro's cross-time jumps I start thinking of the X-Men and giggling. All situations in Heroes are resolved in big, dramatic ways. All characters have a flaw which they will have to confront and overcome after it endangers everything they care about. Everyone has secrets which get revealed-- and not just little ones, but big, life-altering ones. The fight sequences feel like they should have "BAM!" and "POW!" balloons. And so I love it, because it's big and ridiculous. Like the creator said in one of the documentaries, he wanted to have characters who could conceivably fix some of the big problems in the world-- so they needed to be big themselves.

The downside is that--as in certain kinds of comic books--the writers rely on the situations to get across the emotions. For example, a character finds out that their spouse is having an affair. At which point we have a scene which, while well-done, feels like the obligatory "I found out you cheated and I'm hurt" sequence. We understand and feel for the characters because of the event, not because of the way the actors play the scene, if you take my meaning. The exchange of keys becomes an emotional shorthand for a relationship which could really use some exposition-- we get long shots of the keys and not much of the actors' faces. A character wants to avenge his dead wife, but we never got to know the wife. It's aggravating because you can only use a plot to develop a character up to a point; but there's not much room left after the plot's over for the characters to stretch. They come off as fate-driven automata responding to events, which is just boring and unlikable.

Honestly, though, I don't think I was enjoying it because of the character development. It's a comic-- the scenes where characters try and decide to do something are overly expository and usually boring, but the scenes where the characters finally get off their asses and DO something are usually pretty good. I watch for the plot, not the characters. The scenes where something genuine and human creep in to the show are mostly bonuses.

Possibly more later, but I figure this is a good start.