dandelionteeth (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dandelionteeth) wrote,@ 2006-09-18 11:55:00 |
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Television preview
I have just celebrated my day off by watching a preview of the new TV show "Heroes" that I downloaded from the net. It was a legal download. No, really. I got a little promotional card and everything. Okay, you know what? Nevermind.
The show looks like it is going to be really good. Now, I'm not saying that the writers can't still screw things up royally, but the pilot was excellent. Here are some of the things I liked.
The premise: Ordinary people suddenly discovering/realizing they have super-powers. As of the first episode there is NO explanation for this--the characters who are affected are as bewildered as the people who interact with them. They are met with varying levels of receptivity from incredulity to total and unwavering belief. For the moment, this is all still on a very personal level. No news releases or global discussions. No mysterious man in a wheelchair is collecting all of these people up. Of (what appears to be) the eleven regular cast-members, only three have even met each other at this point. This is a very refreshing way to be introduced to the idea of superheroes.
The global attempt: This is television, and in television we have to work within the confines of budget, not to mention safety. So even though this story's premise is that this should be a global event, we shouldn't expect to see any part of this story taking place in--say--Botswana, Iran, or Brazil. However, the writers have still given a nice nod to multinational characters. We see a few scenes in India and MANY scenes in Japan. And for extra fun? The shots in Japan have characters actually speaking in Japanese! (Is that allowed on television?) Apparently someone in the television world has gotten the memo that Americans are actually interested in seeing things more exotic than a McDonald's commercial.
The multi-ethnicity: Of the eleven regulars, five are white and the rest aren't. There are at least two canonical bi-racial pairings, in that we have a black woman dating a latino man, and a white woman with a bi-racial son. The ethnicities of the non-white characters appear to be as follows, African-American, Latino-American, Indian, and Japanese. Not a bad mix. I'm feeling positive about it. And another thing, these characters are all from different socio-economic groups, from white-trash to extremely middle class to inherited wealth.
The characters: So far, all of these characters are sympathetic, even if you don't really like them. They all have qualities which are admirable and which are kind of pathetic. For me, I find the things that make characters unlikeable more interesting than the things that make them likeable, so I hope the writers keep up with this. So far we have a nurse, an artist, a business woman, a politician, an academic, a call-girl, a prodigy, a highschool student, and a geek. At some point we're going to get a policeman. I don't know what niche the last character will fill, but it should be interesting to find out.
The plotting: We have a LOT of tension in the plot-lines from a number of different angles. There are several unanswered questions (far and beyond the underlying "what's going on?" question) that should take a while to resolve. So far at least four of the major characters live in NYC, so that is probably where this story is going to be told, but it will be interesting to see how the outlying characters get drawn to the big apple.
Here are some things I didn't like:
Supposedly, these people are supposed to be leading ordinary lives, but the only person whose life seemed fairly ordinary was the Japanese character. Everyone else had something distinctly outside the ordinary in their lives. None of these things are inconceivable, but they are still extraordinary, and I feel like it's kind of unfair to be billing these people as average folks leading average lives.
There is a noticeable lack of humor in the writing, so far. One of the characters was humorous, but the rest are all kind of angsty. This isn't a bad thing, per se, but it would be nice if the other characters were able to recognize the absurdity of their situations. Okay, maybe I just miss Joss Whedon. I want some witty banter with my geekness. I want to laugh while I cry.
It's only the pilot and we already have two dead fathers, one absent father, and one father who just may turn out to be evil. I really hope the head writer isn't trying to work out some personal issues on-screen. I also hope that having a dead/absent father isn't going to become some kind of emotional short-hand and/or continuing plot-device that comes up in preference to something original and thoughtful.
But all in all, I thought it was a great show, and I'm dying to see how the cliff-hanger ending (literally!) gets resolved in the next episode. So if you are a geek, if you love super-heroes, or if you just want to see some extended scenes of spoken Japanese, I recommend tuning in for Heroes on Monday, September 25, on NBC.
I have just celebrated my day off by watching a preview of the new TV show "Heroes" that I downloaded from the net. It was a legal download. No, really. I got a little promotional card and everything. Okay, you know what? Nevermind.
The show looks like it is going to be really good. Now, I'm not saying that the writers can't still screw things up royally, but the pilot was excellent. Here are some of the things I liked.
The premise: Ordinary people suddenly discovering/realizing they have super-powers. As of the first episode there is NO explanation for this--the characters who are affected are as bewildered as the people who interact with them. They are met with varying levels of receptivity from incredulity to total and unwavering belief. For the moment, this is all still on a very personal level. No news releases or global discussions. No mysterious man in a wheelchair is collecting all of these people up. Of (what appears to be) the eleven regular cast-members, only three have even met each other at this point. This is a very refreshing way to be introduced to the idea of superheroes.
The global attempt: This is television, and in television we have to work within the confines of budget, not to mention safety. So even though this story's premise is that this should be a global event, we shouldn't expect to see any part of this story taking place in--say--Botswana, Iran, or Brazil. However, the writers have still given a nice nod to multinational characters. We see a few scenes in India and MANY scenes in Japan. And for extra fun? The shots in Japan have characters actually speaking in Japanese! (Is that allowed on television?) Apparently someone in the television world has gotten the memo that Americans are actually interested in seeing things more exotic than a McDonald's commercial.
The multi-ethnicity: Of the eleven regulars, five are white and the rest aren't. There are at least two canonical bi-racial pairings, in that we have a black woman dating a latino man, and a white woman with a bi-racial son. The ethnicities of the non-white characters appear to be as follows, African-American, Latino-American, Indian, and Japanese. Not a bad mix. I'm feeling positive about it. And another thing, these characters are all from different socio-economic groups, from white-trash to extremely middle class to inherited wealth.
The characters: So far, all of these characters are sympathetic, even if you don't really like them. They all have qualities which are admirable and which are kind of pathetic. For me, I find the things that make characters unlikeable more interesting than the things that make them likeable, so I hope the writers keep up with this. So far we have a nurse, an artist, a business woman, a politician, an academic, a call-girl, a prodigy, a highschool student, and a geek. At some point we're going to get a policeman. I don't know what niche the last character will fill, but it should be interesting to find out.
The plotting: We have a LOT of tension in the plot-lines from a number of different angles. There are several unanswered questions (far and beyond the underlying "what's going on?" question) that should take a while to resolve. So far at least four of the major characters live in NYC, so that is probably where this story is going to be told, but it will be interesting to see how the outlying characters get drawn to the big apple.
Here are some things I didn't like:
Supposedly, these people are supposed to be leading ordinary lives, but the only person whose life seemed fairly ordinary was the Japanese character. Everyone else had something distinctly outside the ordinary in their lives. None of these things are inconceivable, but they are still extraordinary, and I feel like it's kind of unfair to be billing these people as average folks leading average lives.
There is a noticeable lack of humor in the writing, so far. One of the characters was humorous, but the rest are all kind of angsty. This isn't a bad thing, per se, but it would be nice if the other characters were able to recognize the absurdity of their situations. Okay, maybe I just miss Joss Whedon. I want some witty banter with my geekness. I want to laugh while I cry.
It's only the pilot and we already have two dead fathers, one absent father, and one father who just may turn out to be evil. I really hope the head writer isn't trying to work out some personal issues on-screen. I also hope that having a dead/absent father isn't going to become some kind of emotional short-hand and/or continuing plot-device that comes up in preference to something original and thoughtful.
But all in all, I thought it was a great show, and I'm dying to see how the cliff-hanger ending (literally!) gets resolved in the next episode. So if you are a geek, if you love super-heroes, or if you just want to see some extended scenes of spoken Japanese, I recommend tuning in for Heroes on Monday, September 25, on NBC.
