Here is No Why

Another Night With TV

September 26, 2006 1:01 AM

o, tonight marked the premiere of Heroes, one of the shows I've been looking forward to. I missed the first few minutes, but I saw most of the episode, and it was pretty good. Here's a rundown of what happened (spoiler warning):
Several people are discovering that they have super-human abilities. There's a cheerleader who's invulnerable - she sticks her hand in the garbage disposal and it grows right back. There's a kid in Tokyo who believes he can stop time and reasons that he can therefore teleport. There's a kid in New York City who believes that he can fly. His brother is an asshole politician. There's a single mom who gets messages from her reflections in mirrors - I actually don't get her power at all. There's a heroin-addicted artist who blacks out and paints pictures that predict the future.

The first episode centered on each of the people realizing they have these abilities. Also, there's the son of an Indian geneticist who was working on something really important and then got killed. The son moved to NYC to find out what his dad was working on, and now drives a taxi. About half-way through the episode, a man gets into the taxi and starts talking to the taxi driver about his father. The passenger clearly knows what's going on; the taxi driver runs away. Later, we find out that the passenger is the invulnerable girl's adoptive father (or at least it's implied that the girl is adopted - she asks her mother who her real parents are).

The guy who thinks he can fly, who happens to be a nurse, is friends with a woman who is dating the artist. She calls the nurse and they go to the artist's apartment, where they find out that he's OD'd on heroin. He says something like "I have to stop it" and the camera pulls back to show a huge painting of NYC with an atomic bomb going off in the middle. The nurse also finds a painting that shows him flying (complete with wings). So he goes to a building and climbs to the top. He calls his brother the politician, who goes to the bottom of the building. Then the nurse guy jumps, but before we find out whether he can actually fly, his brother flies up and grabs him. Strange.

Oh, and the Japanese guy, who's name is Hiro, manages to teleport to NYC.

Kind of interesting. I think it'll be cool to see where this show goes.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip did not disappoint, either. It was a good episode, with Matt and Danny struggling to figure out what to do with their first show. Expectations are running high, and Amanda Peet raises the bar even higher and tells them to "clear it." Classic Sorkin.

(End spoilers).

I promise that I won't just post about TV on Monday nights. That's entirely too Althousian and lame. It's just that nothing more interesting is going on right now.

2 Comments

Vice said:

I was pretty impressed with Studio 60 again. I love the characters, and its well-written. I'm just having trouble thinking about how this show would continue for several years. Like with West Wing, you've got certain political events you know will happen down the road. I'm curious as to how Sorkin & co will keep this story alive past the initial "rescue a dying show and return it to prominence" concept.

September 26, 2006 12:28 PM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Studio 60 was good. I agree about the characters and the writing.

But you're right - it'll be interesting to see where the show goes from here. On Sports Night, which was about a struggling sports show, the show was constantly in danger of being cancelled and whatnot. That doesn't seem to be the case here, since they've got the president of the network on their side. Still, whoever the fuck the guy from Wings is seems like he's going to be a huge problem, and I predict that Amanda Peet will lose her job at some point, thus removing Matt and Danny's safety net.

Still, I don't think that the primary dramatical motivation is going to be the threat of cancellation, since it seems like, at this point, they're pretty committed to making the show better. That being said, though, it seems likely to me that there are going to be tons of external threats (I think they'll probably get some backlash for Crazy Christians). And, of course, there are plenty of chances for a lot of internal conflicts (what with all the relationship stuff).

I think it'll be more like The West Wing: you knew that Josiah Bartlett was always going to be president (except for the election episodes, but still). The drama came from seeing what sorts of threats there were to the prosperity of the nation, its people, etc. It'll be the same thing on Studio 60, I think, just with the prosperity of the show and its people.

Man, that probably made no sense at all.

September 26, 2006 3:04 PM