No, No, Heroes is Terrible
That’s not an original photo. I found it somewhere on the Internet. Anyway, my brother wrote something for his blog about the television show “Heroes,” and I thought that it was fantastic, so I asked him if I could post it on here, since we’ve been discussing the show’s merit for some time now. I hope his is the final word, since it’s such a damn fine word, but I guess that’s not up to me. Regardless, I defer to him. Let’s call him Adoom:
I know, it should’ve read “Heroes are terrible,” but I’m talking about the show, man. It’s Flaw City! Everything about the first few episodes of Heroes is broken, annoying, and flawed. I had previously pegged the show as a victim of overtesting a few local focus group losers, and over-marketing, but it’s worse than that. Its real albatross is its awful, awful execution.
Not that I’m saying there’s not a salvageable premise for the show. As I had previously mentioned, and as my brother the Hardcore Dynamo (err, Doom DeLuise) spelled out in his own brilliantly hashed-out blog entry, it is derivative, torpid claptrap. Now that I’ve got a better grasp of what’s occurred in the first few episodes, I’m going to spell out some more serious problems.
- Problems
The first, real problem is wretched casting. The people they’ve chosen are fundamentally not likeable. Do you like them? If you do, you’re wrong. I know a lot of people like Hiro, but I don’t. Why? He’s a lazy actor. He is completely inept at masking his native English speaking – he definitely never sounds like a Japanese person trying to pronounce English phrases. Being a bilingual Japanese speaker, he knows what this sounds like as you know how to understand a Latin dude speaking English at a drive-thru. It’s a nit-picky example, but it’s illustrative. The show is lazy. They feature a site for the porno bitch (lasvegasnikki.com) and they fail to immediately register the domain and adapt it to their online marketing strategy. Contrast this with “Lost’s” deft handling of the Dharma crap online.
Speaking of “Lost,” they’ve lifted the entire “numbers” device with their little genetic symbol thing. It pops up everywhere, and it’s obviously designed to make people say “did you see the symbol?” on message boards. So derivative; such a cynically defunct built-in non-excitement factor. “OMG DID U SEE TEH SYMBOL ON THE HOOKARS BAKC!?! OMG!”
The biggest problem, as I’ve identified it, is people are doing/saying horribly irrational things in order to advance the story. Examples:
1. In order to find the key to Silar’s apartment, Maninmahahrman must THROW A LAPTOP ON THE GROUND IN RAGE. Are you serious?
2. Brother Crazy (Adaptor mutant) kid discovers Prof. Suresh by SEARCHING HIS LIBRARY FOR BOOKS ON HUMAN FLIGHT THE DAY AFTER HE FLEW. I don’t happen to think you’d find a section on human flight built into the Dewey Decimal System, but then I’m stupid.
3. FBI Bitch goes from believing Mr. What Women Want Cop is completely nuts to OFFERING HIM A JOB WITH THE FBI, INTERROGATING HIGHLY SENSITIVE SUSPECTS AND VICTIMS.
4. Hiro doesn’t act like a Japanese person at all. The things he’s attempting to do (being outgoing to strangers, stealing, perpetrating casino heists) are just genetically not possible. I know Japanese viewers will reject the show’s plausability on these grounds.
5. Everything the cheerleader does. Everything. You know, I’m going to break out a new paragraph for this.
The writing involving the cheerleader is simply some of the poorest, laziest writing I ever could’ve imagined. In order for her story to advance, she had these following things happen to her (accidentally) in the course of 2 or 3 days:
-Burned beyond recognition in railroad fire trauma
-Hand mangled beyond repair in gruesome garbage disposal accident
-Neck broken by errant football player in high school practice, who apparently packs the disabling force of a small runaway automobile
-Impaled (by the head) by a dead stick during an attempted rape episode by the star quarterback (who, by the way, RAPED HER AFTER SHE WAS ALREADY STONE DEAD AND THEN DUMPED HER NUDE BODY IN THE RIVER AND CAME TO SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, AND FORCEFULLY FLIRTED WITH A DIFFERENT GIRL AFTER WITNESSING THE REEMERGENCE OF THE DEAD CHEERLEADER WHOSE DEAD BODY HE RAPED LESS THAN 6 HOURS BEFORE).
I really can’t take anymore. It’s terrible. Absolutely, positively terrible. I’m also trying to figure out everyone else’s powers. The Indian son of Suresh guy – what is his power? Is his special power being able to accidentally find things? Also, what is Ali Larter’s power? Morphing into an alternate personality of a murderous super nympho slut? I don’t buy it. She’s a protagonist? A protagonist female who is involved in online porn and oafish Las Vegas mafia theft schemes who also lays down with black men? I don’t think Middle America’s going to get behind a character like her.
OH! I forgot another episode which illustrates how ABYSMAL the writing is – involving the cheerleader. Piece together this timeline:
12:30 AM – Highschoolers hangout on a school night at a bonfire where they burn an effigy of their rival school’s mascot
12:45 AM – Star quarterback (moonlighting as serial rapist, of course) attempts rape of star cheerleader
1:00 AM – Star quarterback concludes necro-rape of naked, bleeding cheerleader’s still-warm carcass; dumps her in river
1:00 AM – ??? – Body is found, no media report is made, no police effort is made to identify the victim, no record of the death whatsoever is made and investigated
6:00 AM – Star cheerleader (already in AUTOPSY? WITHOUT HAVING BEEN IDENTIFIED OR HAVING ATTEMPTED TO NOTIFY THE FAMLIY?) wakes up and sneaks out of the city coroner’s office and makes her way home on foot
8:00 AM – Star cheerleader says “hi” to her creepy villain Dad after forgettig to wash the river filth off her feet
10:30 AM – After first period, star cheerleader gives a “What up?” to star quarterback who raped her dead puss less than half a day ago
Does anyone see problems with this?? Does TV writing get worse, or more lazy than this?
Shoot. What am I missing? What else haven’t I complained about? Oh yeah, the main villain Silar – he has all of the power of the other mutants: flight, mindreading, regeneration, psychic physical manipulation – why wouldn’t he erase anyone investigating him, and erase anyone who intruded at his former apartment? I guess I’m wondering what he’s holding off for. He was standing across from the FBI Bitch Hot on His Trail and a bonafide mutie cop, and he just ran away instead of devouring their brains. Implausible. In the real world, he would stalk and murder anyone investigating him, and instantly torch any evidence they collected on him.
The writing is terrible. The music is awful New Age chanty bullcrap with incomprehensible female moan-lyrics like a 9/11 Documentary. I know a bunch of crazy stuff is about to happen with the characters, and it’ll get all wild and danger-y and stuff, but it’s built on a foundation of monkey crap. It’s stupid. Lazy. Lazy and stupid, and insipid. Forget it. Forget the fanboys who unquestioningly lap it up. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
“The first, real problem is wretched casting. The people they’ve chosen are fundamentally not likeable. Do you like them? If you do, you’re wrong. I know a lot of people like Hiro, but I don’t. Why? He’s a lazy actor. He is completely inept at masking his native English speaking – he definitely never sounds like a Japanese person trying to pronounce English phrases. Being a bilingual Japanese speaker, he knows what this sounds like as you know how to understand a Latin dude speaking English at a drive-thru. It’s a nit-picky example, but it’s illustrative.”
He fooled me. And Hiro knows enough English to have a conversation with that Petrelli guy, so he’s not just sounding it out.
“The show is lazy. They feature a site for the porno bitch (lasvegasnikki.com) and they fail to immediately register the domain and adapt it to their online marketing strategy. Contrast this with “Lost’s†deft handling of the Dharma crap online.”
Okay, so one of your complaints about the show is it fails to rip-off Lost a sufficient amount?
“Speaking of “Lost,†they’ve lifted the entire “numbers†device with their little genetic symbol thing. It pops up everywhere, and it’s obviously designed to make people say “did you see the symbol?†on message boards. So derivative; such a cynically defunct built-in non-excitement factor. “OMG DID U SEE TEH SYMBOL ON THE HOOKARS BAKC!?! OMG!—
Hmm…I didn’t even notice that.
“The biggest problem, as I’ve identified it, is people are doing/saying horribly irrational things in order to advance the story. Examples:
1. In order to find the key to Silar’s apartment, Maninmahahrman must THROW A LAPTOP ON THE GROUND IN RAGE. Are you serious?”
Well, it’s more like he was mad so he threw down his laptop and he happened to find the key. It wasn’t an attempt to find the key. You said yourself it was a fit of rage.
“2. Brother Crazy (Adaptor mutant) kid discovers Prof. Suresh by SEARCHING HIS LIBRARY FOR BOOKS ON HUMAN FLIGHT THE DAY AFTER HE FLEW. I don’t happen to think you’d find a section on human flight built into the Dewey Decimal System, but then I’m stupid.”
I’ve searched for and checked out books on how superpowers would work in real life. Yes, I am a nerd.
“3. FBI Bitch goes from believing Mr. What Women Want Cop is completely nuts to OFFERING HIM A JOB WITH THE FBI, INTERROGATING HIGHLY SENSITIVE SUSPECTS AND VICTIMS.”
I’ll give you that one. I even mentioned that in my post.
“4. Hiro doesn’t act like a Japanese person at all. The things he’s attempting to do (being outgoing to strangers, stealing, perpetrating casino heists) are just genetically not possible. I know Japanese viewers will reject the show’s plausability on these grounds.”
“Genetically not possible?†Is that actually an argument?
“5. Everything the cheerleader does. Everything. You know, I’m going to break out a new paragraph for this.
The writing involving the cheerleader is simply some of the poorest, laziest writing I ever could’ve imagined. In order for her story to advance, she had these following things happen to her (accidentally) in the course of 2 or 3 days:
-Burned beyond recognition in railroad fire trauma”
Not true, she was barely on fire
“-Hand mangled beyond repair in gruesome garbage disposal accident
-Neck broken by errant football player in high school practice, who apparently packs the disabling force of a small runaway automobile”
I’m sure people have died playing football. A complete 180 might be implausible, but certainly someone in know pads getting their neck broken being tackled by a football player much bigger than them is plausible.
“-Impaled (by the head) by a dead stick during an attempted rape episode by the star quarterback (who, by the way, RAPED HER AFTER SHE WAS ALREADY STONE DEAD AND THEN DUMPED HER NUDE BODY IN THE RIVER AND CAME TO SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, AND FORCEFULLY FLIRTED WITH A DIFFERENT GIRL AFTER WITNESSING THE REEMERGENCE OF THE DEAD CHEERLEADER WHOSE DEAD BODY HE RAPED LESS THAN 6 HOURS BEFORE).”
Umm…when was it even implied that the guy raped her post mortem?
“I really can’t take anymore. It’s terrible. Absolutely, positively terrible. I’m also trying to figure out everyone else’s powers. The Indian son of Suresh guy – what is his power? Is his special power being able to accidentally find things?”
He doesn’t have a power. He’s trying to find the people with powers. Are you even paying attention?
“Also, what is Ali Larter’s power? Morphing into an alternate personality of a murderous super nympho slut?”
An alternate, more powerful personality manifesting under times of duress? That’s never happened in comics before. Now don’t make me angry…you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.
“I don’t buy it. She’s a protagonist? A protagonist female who is involved in online porn and oafish Las Vegas mafia theft schemes who also lays down with black men? I don’t think Middle America’s going to get behind a character like her.”
Because Desperate Housewives and soap operas don’t feature horny women getting in trouble?
“OH! I forgot another episode which illustrates how ABYSMAL the writing is – involving the cheerleader. Piece together this timeline:
12:30 AM – Highschoolers hangout on a school night at a bonfire where they burn an effigy of their rival school’s mascot
12:45 AM – Star quarterback (moonlighting as serial rapist, of course) attempts rape of star cheerleader
1:00 AM – Star quarterback concludes necro-rape of naked, bleeding cheerleader’s still-warm carcass; dumps her in river
1:00 AM – ??? – Body is found, no media report is made, no police effort is made to identify the victim, no record of the death whatsoever is made and investigated
6:00 AM – Star cheerleader (already in AUTOPSY? WITHOUT HAVING BEEN IDENTIFIED OR HAVING ATTEMPTED TO NOTIFY THE FAMLIY?) wakes up and sneaks out of the city coroner’s office and makes her way home on foot
8:00 AM – Star cheerleader says “hi†to her creepy villain Dad after forgettig to wash the river filth off her feet
10:30 AM – After first period, star cheerleader gives a “What up?†to star quarterback who raped her dead puss less than half a day ago
Does anyone see problems with this?? Does TV writing get worse, or more lazy than this?”
Okay, there are some very valid points there. But I repeat there wasn’t even an implication of “necro-rapeâ€, and Claire is by no means the star cheerleader.
“Shoot. What am I missing? What else haven’t I complained about? Oh yeah, the main villain Silar – he has all of the power of the other mutants: flight, mindreading, regeneration, psychic physical manipulation – why wouldn’t he erase anyone investigating him, and erase anyone who intruded at his former apartment? I guess I’m wondering what he’s holding off for. He was standing across from the FBI Bitch Hot on His Trail and a bonafide mutie cop, and he just ran away instead of devouring their brains. Implausible. In the real world, he would stalk and murder anyone investigating him, and instantly torch any evidence they collected on him.”
You’re assuming that he’s all powerful. Truth is, we don’t know the extent of his powers. Maybe he’s completely vulnerable when using his mind-erasing powers. So doing that in a police station’s probably not a great idea. Maybe it’s not something he can do at the drop of a hat. Maybe he has to prepare, or it takes a while. It’s not fair to nitpick the show based on your assumptions, which could easily be false.
“The writing is terrible. The music is awful New Age chanty bullcrap with incomprehensible female moan-lyrics like a 9/11 Documentary. I know a bunch of crazy stuff is about to happen with the characters, and it’ll get all wild and danger-y and stuff, but it’s built on a foundation of monkey crap. It’s stupid. Lazy. Lazy and stupid, and insipid. Forget it. Forget the fanboys who unquestioningly lap it up. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
It’s fun. So sue me. I like a show that’s fun.
I’m realizing that this nitpicking about Heroes is the exact same nitpicking I do about Star Trek, so I’m not going to fault anyone for it. Except I still like to watch Star Trek despite my nitpicking. And it’s not even like the Petrellis have had a drunken mudfight or Mohinder has animated Jewish mice for parents. Why can’t you just let us have our fun and stay out of it if you don’t like it?
I’m letting you have your fun. I’m just hoping everyone acknowledges that they’re getting their kicks to pure trash. It’s manupulative: without any kind of a spine, it still has those “ooh, I got chills” moments, like when Adaptor Petrelli started painting the future. Or when he answered Hiro’s call. It’s FULL of fun moments (fuck you, QB, I’m going to fucking erase you). I’m only contending that it’s stupid, (I think I said, “Flaw City) flawed, and insipid. I’m still probably going to watch it, because that’s who I am.
Necro-rape was implied (sorry, I hadn’t seen ep 5 yet since I posted this Sunday) when Claire had QB in the car and he basically admitted to raping her. He left her nude! C’mon, he at least took the cheerleader outfit home and Clarked off to it! In any case: If he necro-raped her, it’s fucking nuts. If her response to attempted rape (attempted MURDER) was that disportionate, it’s fucking nuts. People have to behave like people if you’re writing a show about normal people getting strange abilities.
You asked “are you even paying attention?” Yes, of course I am. I am all in for this trash. I’m just full of cheeky questions and natural responses, whether my responses are evoked by real problems, or questions the writers are asking me to entertain, or not.
I also would like you to chart the probability of someone chucking a valuable laptop chock-full of highly sensitive info onto the floor, just because they’re mad. I didn’t say he was trying to find the key, I’m just saying it was a braaaainless writing device. Heroes is stuffed with these, for those of us who like to complain about stupid TV.
The point of listing the cheerleader’s many unfortunate bemanglements (not a word) was, again, attacking the laziness of the writing staff. No one is that unlucky, I’m just sorry. Dying on a stick? 1 in a million. Having your face Exorcist-ized by a normal human moving at weak speed? 1 in a million. Tearing your hand into fishsticks by accidental garbage disposal exposure? 1 in a… ahhh fuck it.
So:
The spirit of the show (aside from the numerous derivations of other highly popular media), as fashioned by the producers/creators, which occasionally exposes itself in moments of chilling — pre-dating the writing of the episode — brilliance: compelling. Definitely worth seeing.
The exectution of the show, in terms of sloppy/lazy writing, marketing devices, beyond-stupid plot devices, casting, exponential numbers of flaws, THE MUSIC, and whatever else I’m forgetting: awful. Second-rate. Like I said, an albatross. This isn’t lasting stuff, it’s like paper.
I watched it last night. Yep, still ridiculous fun. Until there’s a better show with superheroes, I’ll take it.