TV review: Heros, Season One

As promised a long time ago, here’s a review of Season One of the fantastic US TV series [Heroes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_%28TV_series%29).

I’m going to do this in two parts. First, I’m going to make some general (non-spoiler) comments. Then, off the main page, I’m going to make some more specific (spoiler) comments about some of the

parts of the series, and some wild speculation about the future.

Overall, this is superb television. It shows the signs of a strong creator with a clear idea of what he’s trying to do. The creator, Tim Kring, clearly had a pretty good idea of which way he was going with the story. Like *Babylon 5* and *Twin Peaks* the strength of the ongoing plot makes the show almost addictively compelling.

I was once a pretty big fan of comic books, and still enjoy the genre form (although not much of the actual comics these days). I’ve always loved the origin story in particular, the tale of how the heroes came to be. That’s what Season One of *Heroes* was all about. And I think the parts where it was weakest where the ones where it deviated from that story.

The other thing I’ve really enjoyed about the show is the production values. It’s the first show that I’ve watched that’s really made me appreciate the extra detail that High Definition can add. A couple of scenes in particular really blew me away.

That’s it for the general comments, now on to the spoilers (which cover to the end of Season One)…

I thought Sylar was a great villain. His psychology was well portrayed, he was interesting to watch, and he had an interesting power. But he’s the kind of character that’s a little bit too dangerous to have around the show. Noah Bennet was also great as the shadowy figure, but it’s a bit of a loss that far too many details of his organisation have been revealed.

None of the good guys really stood out by comparison. Peter Petrelli was actually kinda annoying, and I’ll be disappointed to see his (inevitable) return. Hiro was a lot of fun, but didn’t really develop far enough from his initial character. And the less said about Mohinder and his interminable narration the better.

The ending was a bit anticlimactic. The build up was fantastic, but the final confrontation in Kirby Plaza was a let down. I had really hoped they would have the courage to go with the ‘blow up New York a little bit’ option and keep the option of the future seen in the episode *Five Years Gone* still coming true. And the teaser for Season Two with Hiro in medieval Japan did not exactly excite me.

All in all, this is about the best single season of television since the first season of *Veroica Mars* (which I was woefully late to).


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