Heroes - April 30th

Now that's more like it! That's the kind of show we've been waiting for since this whole thing premiered!

Heroes finally came into its own tonight, and not a moment too soon. With only three episodes left until the end of the season, the highest-rated new show of the fall season finally let loose and gave with a story that was absolutely phenomenal.

Not only was it packed full of surprises in a show which has, up to now, maybe not been exactly predictable, but largely failed to deliver until the very end - when it would drop a cliffhanger just in time to bring you back the following week - it also gave with the action, showed the heroes actually being heroes and doing heroic-type things, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the sets. Tonight's episode was the best by far.

[SPOILERS]

Finally, it's getting good! Don't get me wrong, most of my favorite entertainment - movies, books, comics, you name it - starts slow and builds, only to draw upon everything that came before, making you stop and go, "OH! I KNEW that was important! I KNEW that was going to come up!"

But let's be honest: there's slow-builds and there's slow-builds; Heroes didn't really start making much sense and coming together for something like 17-18 episodes. I know I wasn't the only one who noticed this, and I've been saying all along that they'd best get a move-on before the "most-watched new show on TV" becomes the biggest television fiasco of the decade. Well, they came through tonight, even if they had to leap five years ahead to do it.

The next three episodes are going to be something like flashbacks within a flashback (which was actually a "future"-back). They want you to go vote on how you think Sylar can be stopped - or if he can be stopped - but I'm working with a dial-up connection on a Win98 computer, so that's... that's not going to happen.

I do think Sylar can be stopped and even though they hinted at what's coming up, I had a few theories of how it could be done without anyone new coming into the picture. I won't say it outright, but think:

Peter in close proximity to Sylar. The rest goes without saying.

Along those same lines, I have an idea that the new hero is going to be something along the same lines as Peter. Remember Artie and Leech of the Morlocks? They ran through Uncanny X-Men and then X-Factor back in the '80s. Leech could siphon folks' powers and Artie canceled them out. I'm thinking that's where this whole thing is leading (with the new character they hinted at tonight).

Still, even though I like the whole Sylar plotline and all that, the single Big, Bad Evil Guy is a little too pat. I'm hoping they draw this story to a close and forge ahead with some more traditional comic book storylines, such as some genetic freaks who decide to rob banks and so on. Not that I necessarily want it to become a traditional comic book with the heroes as a sort of Justice League of the next generation or anything, but how far can the whole Sylar/Armageddon thing go?

And before you balk, you have to admit: the whole One Bad Guy and the group that saves the world bit is about as traditional comic book as you can get.

Smallville manages to stay within the genre very well week after week without becoming trite. Granted, some of the episodes are easier to swallow than others and it has its share of weak, serialized "one-offs," but it's still maintained a high degree of quality without straying too far outside the established limits of the genre.

Of course, that's one of the reasons Heroes is so popular: it's kind of bending the genre, making it more palatable to the general TV-viewing audience. But, I have good reason to think that it also has to do with the fact that we comic book geeks of the 1980s are now the comic book geeks of the 2000s... we're just in our 30's now instead of gradeschool.