11.02.07 5:00 AM CDT
• TV & DVDs
• Robert DeSalvo
We’re several episodes into the convoluted second season of Heroes and all this editor has to say is, What the hell happened to one of last year’s best new shows? Viewership keeps dropping off I think partly because the focus has shifted away from the core group of heroes we were all interested in to accommodate a new pack of people with freaky talents. You can imagine the agent’s call: “Hey, I got this hot new actress. I want to get her face out there on a hit show. Can you throw her on Heroes for a few episodes? Yeah, make her shoot electricity out of her fingers or something. People will eat it up. Perf.” Every time a new actor shows up, you sigh and say, “I wonder what this one-trick pony can do.” This year we’ve got the gal from Honduras who cries black oil and psychically kills, a New Orleans burger-joint worker who can mimic any skill she watches on TV, and the aforementioned electricity chick, to name but a few. Meanwhile our favorite characters from last year have taken a backseat to help some of these new actors secure their SAG cards: Hiro is lost in ancient Japan, Peter Petrelli has amnesia, Sylar has been neutered of his powers, and the cheerleader hooks up with a boyfriend who, natch, can fly.
Attention NBC: if everyone who walks on-screen has an extraordinary skill on a show that supposedly highlights extraordinary people, doesn’t that make everyone kind of, well, ordinary? It’s like being smugly satisfied with your Beemer or Benz in Los Angeles: how can something be a status symbol if everyone has one? We were with you when these heroes saved the cheerleader and saved the world, but their biggest challenge is yet to come—saving this show from a shuffling second-unit cast and sorry side stories.
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Comments on this entry:
I too am dishearted with the carnie sideshow Heroes has become, and am one of the 3 million some viewers the show has lost. Let the PR mill churn--I won't be there to watch it.