Heroes, Week Twelve

OMYGOSHWASTHATNOTTHECOOLESTSHOWEVER?ICAN'TBELIEVETHATCLAIRE'SDADISREALLY -

*ahem*

Yes, it was quite entertaining. Please excuse me while I go clean the geek drool off my face.

Not To Worry!

If you're coming here for your weekly Heroes ramblings & are simply beside yourself with grief over the fact that your usual Wednesday fix isn't here, fret not, Loyal Reader! I was sick yesterday, so the weekly meeting of the Tuesday Morning Heroes Club was postponed & then today, my employer actually wanted me to work on schtuff.

I know! I could hardly believe it myself!

Anyway, I'll have what will no doubt be another long, meandering &, ultimately, pointless post about a TV show up & ready for your perusal shortly.

I know! I can't wait either!

In the meantime, why don't you tell me what you're going to do with the two & a half hours you'd normally be spending reading my blatherings, hmm?

Heroes, Week Six

Spoilers, spoilers, blah, blah, blah...

Highlights

Last week's episode showed the heroes all starting to come together. This week, they seemed to be drifting apart again.

Hiro & Peter finally talk (with Ando acting as translator). Peter informs him that FN Hiro came to him with the message "Save the Cheerleader, save the world," which seems to have the same affect on Hiro that it did on Peter: a confused look. The Dynamic Duo decide to head to New York, but are sidetracked when the guy that they'd screwed over at the casino comes looking for them again (what, beating the snot out of two foreigners wasn't enough for the guy?). The high rollers eventually end up toast & Hiro & Ando escape through the bathroom window.

Peter & Isaac are trying to put together Isaac's paintings to figure out what they're saying. These are put together like the panels in a comic book, with the first, &, of course, most important piece, missing. Isaac can't remember what it was (see what drug use does to you, kiddies?), but does know that Simone had taken it with a bunch of other paintings to sell. So, off goes Peter to try to locate the missing piece.

Mohinder makes to skeedaddle, telling Eden that, basically, he thinks Peter's wheel is spinning but his hamster's dead & that Isaac is, well...a junkie & he has doubts about his precog abilities. Eden tries to get Mo to stay, apparently by trying to suck his tonsils out of his throat. Mo takes his leave as Eden tells him that he'll be back. Later, we find out that Eden's working with CD. She's given orders to bring in Isaac, showing up at his studio later in the episode.

Claire gears up to meet her 'bio-parents' & tries to get some idea as to whether they're supers as well. The whole thing is awkward for all involved, especially when Claire's mom gets territorial. The parents leave, but not before having a conversation with CD that reveals - gasp! - that they're not really Claire's biological parents. If my theory about CD being a red herring & not really being a bad guy pans out, this here is a prime example of how heavy handed the writers can be sometimes. One of my chief complaints about the show from the get go has been the way that the audience is clobbered over the head with the "Get it? GET IT? GET IT?!?" type of 'subtle' writing.

Writers of Heroes? My head's starting to hurt from being pummeled every week. Please stop it.

The Niki-arc continues with her reunion with DL, which dominates a good portion of the show. Since Niki's not one of my favorite characters, this proved to try my attention span. And, yet again, the writers brought out the Baseball Bat o' Subtlety to beat me over the head with. DL keeps telling Niki that he's going to figure out who it was that set him up & who killed his crew & all that. It comes as absolutely no surprise that it's Evil Niki who's behind it all. I mean, all they needed was a music 'sting' & the scene would've been complete. DL finally puts everything together when he finds Good Niki with a suitcase full of stolen money. DL phases into Niki's abdomen, gives her spleen a squeeze & bolts with the money & Micah. We end this week's episode, pulling away from Niki's apparently lifeless body laying on the floor & some gobbledy-gook about evolution.

How touching...

Gripes? I got 'em

My main gripe this week is, as I'd mentioned above, with the writers (looking back at my previous reviews, this seems to be a running gripe). I know that myself & the thousands of other comic geeks out there have a good idea of where things are going in each episode, so we have a bit of an unfair advantage. But, c'mon, some of the points that we're kicked in our collective nads with every week are a bit much. Peoples Evidence Exhibit 1: Claire's fake biological parents. The guy playing her 'father' all but put his finger to the side of his nose & slyly winked at CD to indicate that he's in on the deception. Peoples Evidence Exhibit 2: Every time DL talked about "the person" that set him up & stole his stolen money, he'd look right at Good Niki. And I don't mean that he looked at her like people having a normal conversation look at each other. I'm talking about the kind where he practically leans in close to her, stares at her intently & says "When I find the person, Niki, who set me up, Niki, & let me rot in prison, Niki, etc."

C'mon guys, give the audience a little credit.

Problems?

Well, other than this universe's crummy Las Vegas police department (Niki & DL are sitting out on the back patio having breakfast; the officer standing watch outside the night before thought her heard talking in the house - from his cruiser! Yet, the next morning, Niki & DL are having breakfast on the back patio & the police don't hear anything? And what about the commotion when Evil Niki & DL rearranged the furniture in her bedroom? Maybe the cop on the overnight watch has super hearing or something.), there weren't many problems this episode.

I guess if I want to pick some nits, I could say, according to all I've ever learned in comic books & just basic logic, that DL reaching into Evil Niki & doing whatever it was he did to her insides just wouldn't work.

Just humor the comic geek & work with me here, OK? I'm about to go all psuedo-science uber-geek on y'all.

DL's power is the ability to phase through material, basically separating his molecules enough so that they pass in between the molecules of another object. That's the good part. The bad part is that if you solidify while in another object, it'll cause massive shock to your body, killing you. Now, as we saw in the scene where DL comes out of the wall & grabs Niki, it is possible for him to phase parts of his body while other parts remain solid, which I agree with.

The part that doesn't work is later, when DL reaches into Evil Niki. Phasing into her wouldn't cause a problem. In fact, since he can evidentally phase his clothes along with him, he could probably phase another person if he's in contact with them. But it looks like he phases into Evil Niki & strangles her from the inside. This just would not work. I mean, have you ever seen just how compact everything is in a typical human torso? If DL solidified inside of Evil Niki, he would have become one with her intestinal tract, causing, if not a death dealing shock to DL's system (not to mention Evil Niki's guts), then at least enough of a shock to 'short' him out for awhile. This is why teleporters like Nightcrawler of The X-Men are reluctant to 'port into places that they don't have a line-of-sight with or somewhere that they've never seen before.

Teleport or Phase + Wall = Ouch!

New Theories?

Now on to my favorite part of these reviews!

And, wouldn't you know it, I'm having a dickens of a time thinking of any new ones.

I'm sticking with the theory that CD isn't bad, but rather is Claire's protector.

Miguelito's still sticking with his incredible shrinking MM theory.

I'm also sticking with my theory that Good Niki will struggle with Evil Niki, culminating in her eventual heroic, sacrificial death. Fueling this is the end of this week's episode. I'm thinking that Evil Niki's going to have more control over Good Niki for a bit, due to all of the drama going on around her. Good/Evil Niki's been compared to Bruce Banner/the Incredible Hulk. Now, we all know that we don't want to make Dr. Banner angry, because we wouldn't like him when he's angry. Evil Niki seems to manifest herself in much the same way: Good Niki gets stressed out or something traumatic happens & out pops Evil Niki to reap vengeance on those who would dare to screw with her. Now that DL's absconded with Micah, she's going to be in mega-torqued, out-for-blood mode.

Nice knowing you, DL. Hope you have your funeral plans in order.

Next up, the (not so) surprising revelation that Eden's working with CD. Yeah, we didn't see this coming. Anyway, in keeping with the whole CD-is-Claire's-protector theory, I'm guessing that Eden's not a bad guy...er, girl, despite what the writers want us to think. I'm also betting that she's not going to be the one to kill Isaac.

What? Kill Isaac?

Yep. Look at the date. Remember back early on when Hiro found Isaac's brainless body in his loft? Remember when this was all supposed to happen?

That's right - about five weeks into the future. Since Election Day is this next Tuesday, & Hiro saw a newspaper headline proclaiming that Nathan won the election, New York City's about to go BOOM!

Think back again to the episode where Eden startled Mohinder by coming into his dad's apartment unexpectedly. He pulled a gun on her, right? A gun that looks to be the exact same one that Hiro picked up in Isaac's studio.

So, here's my thought: Eden, working for the good guys (& not having an incredible shrinking MM in her pocket for back up), has been sent to bring in Isaac. She pulls the gun that Mohinder left behind on him to 'persuade' him to come along. But, before that goes any further, Sylar ambushes them & Eden uses (or tries to use) the gun &, in the timeline that was established before the outbreak of super powered humans started, Eden escapes & Sylar has Isaac brains with a nice bernaise sauce for lunch. Of course, now that Hiro knows what's going to happen, the course of time can be altered so as to upset Sylar's lunch date.

This next one sounds a bit far fetched, but, hey - we're dealing with a show about people who can fly & read minds; give me a break! Anyway, after the whole Claire-meets-the-BioParents scene, Claire's mom talks about how they tried to find her biological parents when she was an infant, because she had something a serious cough going on, but never could locate them. My theory is that there never were any parents. Yes, I'm thinking that Claire was 'made', not 'born'. CD obviously knows this, as he's involved with whatever it is that's going on. She was placed with him to monitor her growth & progress. The cough that her mother refers to could have been some glitch in the whole test-tube/cloning bit.

It's possible that the other supers were also 'created'. This would explain CD's comment about Matt having come along farther than they expected when Matt read his mind. It would also possibly explain how CD knows about Isaac, Niki, Peter & Nathan.

And finally, this is a theory (well, more of a prediction, actually) that's still in the seedling stage: Hiro's going to finally get tired of Ando rationalizing all of the compromises that he gets Hiro to make. Hiro wants to be honorable & do the right thing. I get the feeling, for awhile, at least, that the two of them may split. And they won't make up as quick & easy as they did after Ando went looking for Niki.

I've noticed, in looking back through these reviews, that I sound like I'm a little hard on the show. That couldn't be further from the truth, though. So, I'm going to add one more section to this beast, something I'll call:

Kudos or something stupid like that

Overall, this episode was a little...well...boring, I guess would be a good choice of words, although it doesn't quite feel strong enough. Niki's just not one of my favorite characters (someone told me something to the effect of you know the character's boring when no matter how many skanky outfits or states of undress you put the person in, they still can't hold your attention. Too true). The parts that had to do with her (which constituted most of the episode) dragged on like a soap opera. It was a boring storyline for a boring character.

I know what you're thinking: "This is what he considers a kudo?"

Well, you didn't let me finish.

The best part of this &, so far, every episode, has had to do with Hiro. He's the only character on here that you really care for. Well, Claire, too, but mainly because she's the central focus of this whole thing. Hiro, to me, represents the kid in us. Or, more to the point, the kid in all of us comic geeks. C'mon, all you geeks out there, be honest - when you were younger & read comic books, you dreamed of what it would be like to fly or swing from webs or to have super strength & whatnot. We all wondered what we'd do if we were suddenly granted these abilities (shoot, I tried to design a wall crawling rig using electromagnets - yes, I'm a geek). And I'll bet you a shiny new penny that, for those of us leaning more toward the Light Side of the Force, we wanted to be the hero & save the world.

That's Hiro.

He's idealistic, thinking that he's been given this ability for a reason (which he has) & that he's destined to be a hero. Having fed his imagination with comics, he wants to be like Superman, to do good & to help others. He wants Ando to be his sidekick. Whether he says so or not, he wants a cool costume (the look on his face when Ando told him that FN Hiro had a sword was priceless). The look of sadness on his face after the massacre at the poker party is the look of someone growing & realizing that he can't save everyone, no matter how much he wants to. It's a truth that every superhero, from Superman to Mighty Mouse, has to realize at some point. It means that, inspite of being able to teleport & bend time & space, he's human.

I'll give the writers a hearty pat on the back for some mighty fine writing where Hiro is concerned.

Now, if they just do something about Niki...

Heroes, Week Five

Obligatory spoiler alert *** Obligatory spoiler alert *** Obligatory spoiler alert

Highlights

I actually took notes while watching this episode, instead of relying on my memory to write this. I found this to be a big mistake, as A) I’m a horrible note taker & B) I suck at following the crappy notes that I do take. So, this week’s Highlights section will be less of a blow-by-blow, like last week, & more of a general overview. Let me know in the comments section which format you prefer, Loyal Readers – short & sweet or long & ridiculously detailed.

With this episode, the heroes are all starting to meet up: Future Ninja Hiro relays his vague (of course) message to Peter on the subway (“Save the Cheerleader, save the world.” No names. No telling Peter where to find her. Some messenger you are. Thanks for clearing things up, FN Hiro); Hiro sees Nathan come in for a landing (in his pajamas!) after Nathan escapes from CD & MM; Nathan & Good Niki discuss their interlude from last week & the blackmail attempt on Nathan; Isaac & Peter collaborate to try to put together the paintings; Peter then finishes one of Isaac’s precog paintings, this one showing a menacing shadow figure looming over Claire’s body, laying in a pool of blood sans the top of her head; & Ando, whose powers seem to be super horndogginess & the ability to track down Internet strippers, shows up on Niki’s doorstep.

Oh yeah, & we have a bit of a family reunion as DL finally makes an appearance at Niki’s.

Yes, everything seems to be coming together.

We also get to see some of the characters stretching out with their new abilities starting with Nathan learning that he can fly at supersonic speeds. Peter finds that he’s able to mimic Isaac’s precog painter ability without the use of mind altering drugs. And Matt the PsiCop’s mind reading talent seems to be a bit hard for him to control, as his head nearly explodes when he becomes overwhelmed by the thoughts of everyone in a local Qwik-E-Mart where he went to get some ice cream for his wife after some sweet lovin’. (Maybe it was just the oxytocin & he was really tired)

And the show wouldn’t be complete without leaving us all hanging as Peter talks to Present Day (PD) Hiro for the first time, telling him that he has a message for him.

Again with the vagueness!

Gripes? I got 'em

Let’s start with something that I touched on last week: the whole ‘seeing or being from the future & leaving cryptic messages’ routine. I realize that the drama & tension have to be ratcheted up every now & then, but once, just once, I’d like to see someone come from the future (I’m looking at you, FN Hiro) & actually tell someone something of worth. “Save the Cheerleader, save the world?” What kind of crap is that? What cheerleader? Where? How about a school, at least?

Somebody throw me a frickin’ bone, here! (I love that line!)

I also get that telling too much about the future could cause big problems with the whole time/space continuum & rend the Universe in half, but, c’mon…at least give Peter something to go on! Yeesh!

Next, I’ve been noticing that as the show goes on (but more so in this episode), there are a lot of coincidences going on. Case in point: Hiro & Ando are unceremoniously dumped outside of a diner in the literal middle of nowhere. This just happens to be the same diner in the literal middle of nowhere that Nathan decides to land at just moments later. Hmph…what are the odds?

I guess accepting the coincidences are just part of the suspension of disbelief needed to be able to swallow a story about people spontaneously bustin’ out with super powers. And really, I guess that, given the story that the writers are trying to tell, there has to be a certain amount of coincidence.

OK, I’ll let it slide. This time.

This last moan is directed at whoever put together the previews montage at the end of the show: please be careful with what you show in the previews. Yes, all of us who have been following the show closely, probably at the cost of our mental health & coolness quotients, know that DL can phase. A lot of people figured it out from the get-go. But, since you didn’t show him using this ability in this episode, it may have kinda ruined the surprise for those viewers who spent their formative years going out on dates & to football games rather than staying at home on a Saturday night, cataloging their comic book collection in a Trapper Keeper, in great detail, by series, volume, date, cross-over, condition, cost & estimated value.

Not that I knew anyone like that.

Nope.

Nosirebob!

My catalog was kept in a blue denim notebook. So there.

Problems?

This one’s less a problem & more of a head scratcher.

It involves the point in the show when Claire is wheeled into the hospital ER & later when CD is there by her side. During our Tuesday morning Heroes roundtable, Miguelito & I noticed that Claire’s ‘accident’ happened at, say, 10p local time. But, CD was shown a little bit later in Vegas, manhandling Nathan – in broad daylight.

So, we set about trying to figure out if this was a simple case of a Plan 9-esque day-night-day editing error or…something else. Here’s the timeline that we constructed:

Claire leaves the school with QB no later than 930p (football practice, so I’ve been told, usually wouldn’t last beyond 9p). They tool around town a bit, and then Claire introduces QB to his car’s dashboard. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this occurs at about 10p (the streets were empty; I don’t know how big Odessa, TX is*, but I’m guessing that it quiets down after sunset). Now, someone more than likely saw or heard the accident, so let’s be generous & say that the accident is reported at about 1005p. It’d take about five minutes for the medics to get there & probably another ten to twenty minutes to extract them from the car. So, we’re at about 1025-1030p. A trip to the ER would probably be about five to fifteen minutes, maybe, depending on the distance & traffic. Now we’re up to about 1045p or so. In that time, the police could have found Claire’s ID & contacted her mother, who could’ve been to the ER before the ambulance. So, let’s just say that Claire’s mom calls CD somewhere around 11p.

Now, when we catch up with CD & hear his phone ring, he’s at the airstrip with Nathan, at a time that’s obviously after sunrise. If the phone call is from his wife, then, geez! She’s been trying to reach him all night long. Then, he’s all the sudden there at Claire’s bedside.

(I’ve just figured out what CD’s power is – the ability to book flights on short notice! Keen!)

Another question brought up, related to the time displacement problem this show has, is just how long was Good/Evil Niki left sleeping in Nathan’s bed before his lackey came in & booted her out? Nathan was abducted, flew away to BFE for breakfast, came back to the hotel (I believe it's the same one, The Montecito from NBC’s ‘Las Vegas’ [as pointed out by the ever vigilant ETS] that Hiro & Ando were ejected from) & then ran into Good Niki. I guess this is feasible, if Good Niki chose to hang around the hotel for a few hours after she got up. Maybe she was looking around for Nathan. Maybe the hotel had a great all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet & she was trying to get her $8.95 worth (she is eating for two, in a manner of speaking). Who knows?

Again, the writers seem to be taking advantage of the audience’s willingness to let some things slide. However, even the most ardent fan will eventually say “Oh, come on!” & give up on the show when forced to fill in so many holes in the plot. Are you listening Lost?

New Theories?

This one involves CD.

So far, he’s been portrayed as, if not completely eee-vil, then at least sketchy & underhanded. We know what he’s capable of &, as was evidenced by his having MM scrub QB’s brainbox clean, what lengths he’ll go to in order to reach his goals.

My theory, though, is that he’s the ‘red herring’ of the show (a red herring being a character or object that is used to mislead the audience into thinking that they are the villain of the story, when, in actuality, they aren’t). I’m thinking that he’s not out to harm Claire, though, or, even the other Supers. Think about it: although he’s played as eee-vil & like he’s a gub’ment spOOk type, have we actually seen him do anything against the Supers to warrant that? The most he apparently did to Matt was to wipe out the memory of his abduction. He hesitated to shoot Nathan when he bolted. He’s not done anything to Claire & is awfully protective of her (I still think that he & his wife didn’t choose to adopt Claire; more that she was placed with him & his family by whatever agency he works for). I dunno…I’m thinking that he may be the key to bringing the Supers together.

Another thing: I missed it, but Miguelito noticed that the hilt on FN Hiro’s katana had the helix insignia emblazoned on it. And we all know that MM has the insignia on his necklace. Why would FN Hiro, who we are assuming to be a good guy, & MM have the same symbol on them? My thought is that the symbol is the heroes’ insignia &, that CD, having MM working with him, is really working for the good side.

Another theory that’s been brought to the table, & this goes back to CD getting around the country really quick, is that he’s not one person, but more like an Agent Smith from The Matrix, only without the mad kung-fu skilz. I know that Texas, Nevada & California aren’t all that far apart, but the guy’s really rackin’ up the frequent flyer miles with all the traveling he does. And if he’s gone so much, how would he be able to keep an eye on Claire? That could be remedied if he’s a clone.

It wouldn’t explain, though, how MM is always with him. Unless Miguelito’s theory that CD’s power is the ability to shrink MM & carry him in his pocket is correct.

Hey, it could happen!

*I looked up the stats on Odessa, TX. At a population of 93,546 as of July 2005, it’s bigger than I thought.

Yes, I put waaaay too much effort into that & am now paying for it with a headache & the scorn & ridicule of normal people everywhere. The love & adoration of the legions of geeks watching the show & reading this (OK, the three of you who might read this if I ask nicely) will make it all worthwhile, though.

Thanks guys!

Heroes, Week Four

Spoilers ahoy!

Highlights

The episode as a whole was fairly well done. The opening with Matt the PsiCop (possibly my least favorite character on the show) in the clutches of Claire's dad (CD) & the Mystery Man (MM) was OK (although, it was a lazy way to connect Matt with Claire). The general consensus amongst some people I've talked to & the forums is that MM is not Sylar, but maybe D.L., Niki's husband & Micah's father. I'd read in one forum that it's thought that D.L. is also a Super with the power to phase (walk through walls for all you non-geek [read: normal] people) & that's how he escaped from prison. I'm thinking, though, that if this is indeed D.L., then maybe his power isn't phasing, but something more along the lines of power siphoning, with a little bit of being able to shield himself (& people within a certain proximity to him) from mind reading thrown in there for good measure & that he didn't escape from prison, but the eee-vil organization that CD works for got him out to work for them.

(My cubemate, Miguelito, apparently found some evidence against MM being D.L. While searching through the forums, he found posts stating that D.L. is supposed to show up in the 6th episode. Also, he looked for pix of the actor playing D.L., Leonard Roberts, & concluded that he looks nothing like MM. Good going Miguelito; way to crush the theory!)

There's the indication that whoever CD works for has been watching Matt &, maybe, the others. Is it possible that Claire wasn't chosen to be adopted by CD, but rather was assigned to him in order to monitor her & possibly ferret out her biological family? Hmm...

Speaking of Claire, she seems to have bounced back nicely from her little accident & date with the coroner. (For more on that, see the gripes section) (Oh yeah, I gots me a bone to pick!)

We got to see a bit more of Niki's alter ego in action, lending more credence to the similarities between her & Bruce Banner/the Incredible Hulk. I haven't figured out yet if Good Niki has any control over when Evil Niki shows up. I'm thinking that, like the Hulk, Evil Niki manifests herself when Good Niki is stressed out or in danger, although, not because she's trying to protect Good Niki, but rather out of self-preservation. Think about it: Evil Niki's in a bit of a bind if Good Niki kicks the oxygen habit. I'm still thinking that Good Niki will end up being overpowered by Evil Niki, possibly joining up with the bad guys in some way, & then will redeem herself with a sacrificial, heroic death.

My favorite part of the show of course involved my favorite Super, Hiro (Super. Hiro. Super Hiro! Ha! I'm so clever!) & Ando in Vegas. After Ando figures out that they can cheat the casino & other players (& convinces Hiro to go along with it), they rake in money left & right, ending with them being thrown out of the casino. Shortly after that, they run into one of the high rollers that they cheated (by stealing his cards). Ando, trying to bluff their way out of the situation, I guess, tells the guy & his entourage that Hiro has great powers & not to mess with them. The end result is Hiro, not understanding what Ando just said, getting his clock punched & the two of them being carried off.

Peter finally finds Mohinder (inadvertently, as he was actually looking for Mohinder's father) & confirms what the geeks had suspected - he's a mimic. This was hinted at early in the series by the fact that Peter couldn't fly when he jumped off the building until he was close enough to Nathan & (as was pointed out to me by Miguelito) when he was in the hospital, on morphine, he began drawing a picture of him walking on air after having been around Isaac, the Junkie Precog, that later came to pass. Score one for the geeks!

Meanwhile, over at Isaac's, he tries to convince his ex that he's painting the future, has seen the destruction of New York & has to do something to stop it. To be a hero. Later, he shoots up & starts seeing future events, this one involving Claire being chased by a big shadow. Now, what gets me with Isaac & precogs in comics & fantasy in general, is that they always manage to see what's going on just before 'something' happens. They never seem to be able to see who's doing it. Lousy precogs...

We later see Claire, back at school, confronting the quarterback who, it turns out, has a bit of a history of not understanding the word 'No'. Claire meets up with him in the same place that Isaac had painted earlier. I guess we were supposed the think that this was his vision coming true, but this proves to not be the case. Claire turns on her come hither charms & we next find her driving the QB's car at ludicrous speed, confronting him about the other night. He, being the slime bucket that he is, tries to blame it on her. She responds to his inability to accept responsibility for his actions by driving his car into a wall at Warp 10.

The end? Well, Future Ninja Hiro looked rockin' & had quite the firm grasp of the English language.

And I was completely baffled.

A fine, confusing ending, in typical Heroes fashion.

Gripes? I got 'em

OK, let's get the gripes out of the way.

First up, Claire. When we last saw her, she was splayed open on an examination table with a branch still poking out of her head. The branch was removed & she came to almost immediately. This week, we see the beginning of the autopsy & are given a (rather feeble) reason for the procedure: it seems that after her school's star quarterback got a little grabby & she accidentally impaled her head on a stick, he stripped her down & left her body in a nearby creek. She was found & taken to the morgue as a Jane Doe (which is why nobody - family-wise, at least - noticed she was missing), where the coroner determined that her death was by drowning & the stick in her head was a secondary injury, explaining, I guess, why it wasn't removed initially & why the autopsy was necessary. The stick is pulled out & the wound heals.

Now, as I said earlier, on last week's episode, Claire came to immediately after the stickectomy. This week, it takes her just long enough to allow the medical examiner to leave the room & not see Claire come back to the land of the living.

How convenient.

To me, that's just sloppy scripting &/or pacing. I can buy that Claire's body had to start repairing itself &, given the damage that she'd sustained, it'd take a little longer than, say, mending a broken finger. But with the way that the previous episode ended...well, it was horribly inconsistent. I mean, last week the examiner pulled the stick out & left like she'd pulled the pin on a grenade & was running for cover! This time, she had time to pull the stick out, look it over, make a note about it, wipe her hands off & then go tend to a telephone call. I've got two words for the makers of Heroes - Continuity Director.

Next up...um...well, I guess that's it for the gripes. Wow, short & sweet this week.

Problems?

I've really only one to add to my previously expressed list: things are becoming a wee bit predictable.

I brought this up to T after Monday's episode, saying that either A) the writers are lazy, B) the storyline's just waaay too predictable or C) I (& the rest of the geeks out there figuring out what's been going on) have read waaay too many comic books over time. Her response?

"It's just you. Not all of us have read a thousand comic books."

Thanks, Babe...

New Theories?

Yes, I do have a new one, thanks for asking.

This one involves Isaac. OK, we know he's a junkie. We know he gets these 'visions' when he's high & then he paints them or puts them into comic book form. What if the whole reality that's going on around him, with all of these people gaining fantastic powers, doesn't really exist? More to the point, what if that reality is all his making? What if this all turns out to be one of his 'trips'? Yes, just like St. Elsewhere. Or Newhart.

Boy, won't he be surprised when he wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette?

Or what if reality isn't one of his drug induced hallucinations, but he is actually creating all of the strange things going on in the world with his magic Paintbrush o' Omnipotence?

Or maybe I'm looking too hard into this.

That might be it...

Heroes

OK, I've watched the new show Heroes for three weeks now. And I've got some questions, gripes & theories. (For those of you who haven't watched the episodes I'm going to reference - or the show at all - spoilers follow. Ye've been warned, matey!)

First - in the second episode, Matt the psychic cop finds the little girl because he can hear her thoughts. Using this new found ability, he locates her hiding in a closet under the stairs. He's then arrested WITHOUT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE!

Let's go over what the scene in the house: the mother was pinned to the handrail on the staircase like a butterfly in a bug exhibit. The father had his brain removed via the top of his head & was frozen solid. The FBI agent who arrested Matt even said herself that it'd take like three people to lift the mother up onto the handrail & impale her with about five knives. The cop was, I assume, with his partner all day &, I'm pretty sure, lacks the ability to FREEZE SOMEONE SOLID! I'd hate to be anywhere near someone getting so much as a speeding ticket in this universe - I'd probably be charged with the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping.

Next up, the scenes involving my personal favorite, Hiro the Japanese time/space bender. If I understand correctly, he has a comic book that shows everything that's going to happen (in that issue, at least) to him. Yet, everything that happens is always some big surprise to him. I dunno, if I had an inkling that I was holding a graphic novel about the upcoming events in my life, I think I'd read the whole thing. Even the adds for GRIT & Captain 'O' (kids, ask your parents). He keeps referring to it as he goes along. Is he unable to read ahead? Is it written as things happen? Is he just not that bright?

Take, f'rinstance, the event that he uses to convince his friend that he's not completely crazy. He looks in the comic & finds that they're supposed to save a little girl from being hit by a truck. it turns out that they inadvertently cause her to be put in danger by flagging the truck, which causes it to careen toward the girl. Now, granted, Hiro ends up stopping time & moving the girl out of the way, but I had to wonder, if he'd looked at the comic & saw that the girl was in danger, couldn't he have seen what caused it as well?

The in-show advertisement for the new Nissan Versa at the end of their piece was a little annoying, as well.

The part that had my little B-movie lovin' heart all a'pitterpatter involved Niki the stripper with the homicidal mirror self. In last week's episode, a cherry 50's type land yacht is left outside her house, with the title in her name (do you have any idea how long it takes to get the pink slip for your car? I'm supposed to believe that her murderous mirror image convinced the DMV to hurry the process along?) & the dead bodies of the two goons sent to collect some loan money from her. She's given a map (is there anything that Mirror Niki can't do?), drives off into the night to the Nevada desert & finds a shovel. She finds more bodies buried out there, apparently connected to her escaped convict husband. This I can accept.

What made me roll my eyes was the fact that not once, driving out there with the top down, making noise while digging & pulling the bodies out of the trunk of her car (not to mention the smell that those rotting corpses must've been cranking out) did her son, in the back seat, wake up. Judging by the fact that, by the time she finished, the sun was directly overhead, he's not only a very heavy sleeper, but also a very long sleeper. He conveniently wakes up just as she finishes.

Later, she's driving along some lonely desert highway when she's pulled over by a Nevada State Trooper. Turns out, he actually works for the loan shark who's after her. Now, how in the Sam Hill did they find her? First off, she's not driving her little Gremlin that she had in the first episode. Second, SHE'S IN THE MIDDLE OF FREAKIN' NOWHERE!!! How in the world did the goon/cop find her? Suspects get through police dragnets all the time & this guy, who I'm assuming may not even be a cop, finds her. Do you have any idea how much desert there is surrounding Las Vegas? Better yet, do the writers?

Finally, at the end of last night's episode (if you've Tivo'd or taped this to watch later, you'll probably want to skip down a paragraph or two). Super Cheerleader Claire's cranium is poked by a large stick, effectively shutting her down. As I had pretty much figured (c'mon, they're not going to off one of the main characters yet), once the stick was removed, she came back to life - only to find that she'd been autopsied.

(hangs head in disbelief)

Alright, I understand this was done to ratchet up the suspense &, more than likely, to show off the extent of her Wolverine-esque powers, but...Wha...? They autopsied her? She had a friggin' branch sticking out the back of her head - I'd say that cause of death was pretty frickin' obvious!

Then, there's the fact that she comes to about two seconds after the branch was removed (which, you'd think they would've removed earlier in the examination process). Did the coroner pull the stick out & then run out of the room? Shouldn't they have noticed her waking up mere seconds after the branchectomy?

This does, however, fit nicely into one of my theories. When you've watched enough bad movies, you learn a thing or two - there's weather in space; a surprising number of alien races look just like us; & the pituitary gland is the source of a lot of human mutations. Yes, the pituitary gland. The 'Master Gland'. Hit it with transmissions from space & raise the dead. Eat one & gain the powers of its previous owner. Yep, you read that right.

My theory, based on Claire's resurrection & Sylar's predilection for brains, is that everyone's powers are connected to their pituitary. Claire's was temporarily cut off from the rest of her body & when it was reconnected, voila!, everything was back to normal. Well, except for that whole autopsy thing. And Sylar seems to be opening people's heads like cans of tuna & making off with their grey matter.

C'mon, people - it all adds up!

Anyway, contrary to what the above rantings may imply, I'm actually digging this show.It's moving along at a nice clip, keeping me interested without giving too much away (hellooo, creators of Lost? Are you paying attention here?). Apart from the completely boneheaded things that I've written about here, it's a good show that's kept me coming back for the past three weeks, even though I'd much rather be playing Civ IV (ask T - that really does say something).

Here's to hoping they don't run out of steam too quickly, though.