DistractionsOnce again, the NBC promo department exaggerated things on this one a bit. That whole "one shocking revelation after another" was a bit of an oversell.
That said, this was still the most solid episode of
Heroes this calendar year. Interestingly, it was the one that, so far, has focused on the smallest group of characters. We only follow the storyline of a few and I think
Heroes is better for it. Or maybe it's just most of the storylines they chose to follow here were actually interesting.
Well, except the Niki gets out of jail free plotline. I think my biggest issue with this is we never got to see how and why Jessica took over. With Nikki now trapped (I almost said "boxed"..how
Battlestar Galatica of me), what will Jessica do? And will DL and Micah know the difference? Seems they have in the past. I still feel as though we missed something here and maybe the storyline will fill in some pieces in the next few episodes.
Meanwhile, onto the storylines I did like. Claire's finding her birth mom was decently done, though nothing huge here--at least until the big reveal of who Claire's biological father is. I figured it was either Nathan or HRG, so I wasn't taken too much by surprise here. It does put a new spin on why Nathan wanted Peter to stay aware from Claire...or does it? How much about Claire does Nathan really know?
The two plotlines I did like were Hiro's and Peter's. And a lot of the credit goes to the guest stars in each storyline.
Both George Takai and Christopher Eccleston were perfect counterpoints to Hiro and Peter. With Hiro's father, we see the stern, serious businessman who is bound by tradition, something Hiro clearly is not. But in the scenes between the two and Hiro's sister, we can see where Hiro gets his determination. Takai's character's glaring and his anger at Hiro all worked, though I found his sudden change of heart toward the sister a bit too easy. Or maybe it was wishing Takai would stick around an episode or two longer becuase you could tell he was having fun with the role. And then we get a shout-out to the show that made Takai famous--check out the license plate on his car. It's NCC 1701. That was pretty cool.
Meanwhile, Peter is finally learning how to harnass his abilities. And we find out a lot more about his power. Once exposed to another person's powers, he can emulate it. He doesn't have to be in proximity to them in order to activate the powers. But instead of cutting himself off from his family and friends as Claud suggests, Peter has to channel the feelings he had for the person and the moment when the powers were used. Even as expected as it was that Claud pushed Peter off the roof, I still liked it. And Eccleston continues to display an intensity in the role of Claud that I like. His Obi-Wan to Peter's Luke is still very evident here. And I loved Claud stealing the woman's purse, giving it to Peter and then moving out of range.
And I have to admit I even liked Sylvar breaks into the Bennet family house and chats with mom. Those scenes were chilling and surprisingly more effective than I thought they would be. It should be interesting to see where things go with Sylar back on the loose, though I do wonder why they captured him, merely to have him escape again a few episodes later. (Oh wait...this is a comic book for TV. Never mind!).
So is the show back on track? It appears to be, for now.
Though I have no idea what's coming next since I skipped the preview. Though I'm sure NBC will run it during
The Office this week and ruin everything for me yet again.
Labels: heroes, tv shows
posted by Michael Hickerson at 2/07/2007 12:38:00 PM |
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